At TechCrunch Disrupt, three investors took the stage to dissect what makes — and breaks — a pitch deck. Jyoti Bansal, a founder turned investor; Medha Agarwal of Defy; and Jennifer Neundorfer of January Ventures shared with the audience their candid views on what works in a pitch deck – and what doesn’t.
Their biggest pet peeve? Buzzword overload.
The more a founder says AI on the pitch, Agarwal said, the less AI the company is likely to use. “The people who are doing things that are really innovative, they want to talk about it and it’s built in, but it’s not the core of their pitch,” she told the audience.
Bansal, who built and sold several companies before becoming an investor, distilled investor expectations into three core questions. First, he asks if there is a large enough market to address. Does the founder’s idea have the potential to become a huge company? And is the problem he or she is solving actually worth solving?
The second thing investors want to know is why this the founder is the one who will build the company. “There has to be something unique about you,” Bansal told the audience, adding that this included having special members on the founding team or having special skills. “Why would you win? If the problem is interesting, there will be 20 other companies trying to solve it, so why would you win and what’s your opportunity?”
The third thing investors want to see, Bansal said, is some validation. “Traction with customers,” he said. “Validation could be initial customer feedback, revenue, anything, but some form of validation.”
Those three questions, Bansal noted, all lead to the ultimate litmus test: Could this become a billion-dollar business?
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The panel also addressed how AI startups can differentiate themselves as the space becomes saturated. Bansal emphasized the importance of domain expertise and a clear competitive strategy. Neundorfer said the companies that catch her attention are those that enable new behaviors rather than simply improving an existing process incrementally.
Agarwal offered more tactical advice to the founders, saying they should explain how AI technology enables their product; formulate clear go-to-market strategies; and demonstrate how their business will be more efficient than incumbents.
It’s also very important to be honest about what competitors are out there, she added. Some of you have “lost some credibility with me because you didn’t have it on your slide,” she told the founders in the audience.
Finally, investors shared advice for navigating the rapidly evolving landscape. Agarwal encouraged the founders to stay on top of industry developments. Neundorfer recommended staying connected to founder networks to share tools and insights.
Bansal’s advice was simpler: “Focus on building your product.”