Ask The Expert: Pitch Deck Mistakes That Cost Founders Deals — and How to Fix Them

Leah Williams (featured image above) is a communications strategist, specializing in helping startups and corporations position themselves for investment deals. Some of her previous clients include NASA, Alphabet/Google, Discovery Channel and Ann Taylor/LOFT. She recently launched a city strategy firm, where she is helping cities position themselves for investment and grow their local economies.

Williams has seen her fair share of pitch decks — and she knows one will separate the winners from the losers.

She took some time to share what founders are getting right, what they're getting wrong, and why your pitch deck might be selling you short.

Here’s a look at our Q&A:

Question: When you see strong decks, are there any common features they share?

Minimal text

Strong visuals / infographics

Something you should understand immediately, not have to study

Gets you excited about what they are building - no matter what it is - an exciting story that you see yourself in

Clearly explained traction that’s presented early on (a lot of founders think they don’t have any traction but they forget that they themselves can be the traction if they have a strong expertise in the area)

Question: At what point in a deck do you usually know whether it’s going to work or not?

Any deck / any idea can work if you know how to pitch it. That said, if the founder has no skin in the game and just wants to make money, but doesn’t have a vision or mission - that deck not only isn’t going to work, neither is the business. I was a theater major and my director used to say, “If you have a play with beautiful sets and gorgeous costumes, but the acting and directing are terrible - its like putting lipstick on a pig.”

Question: How many versions of a pitch deck do most companies need?

If you are a startup, you definitely need a short deck (10-12 slides modeled after Sequoia Capital’s standards) and a longer deck that you can use in meetings to expand on your business plan. Then you need an archive section with extra slides that you can interchange based on who you are pitching to.

Question: Where do founders tend to overcomplicate things in a deck?

Everyone struggles with this and it's always two things: trying to fit too much content on one slide and focusing too much on what you built rather than how you’re going to grow the company. I call this the fire hydrant problem. If a fire hydrant sprays in your face you’re going to run away screaming. If you want people to get excited about what you’re doing - you have to act more like a water fountain. Invite them to drink some fresh clean water without overwhelming them.

Question: There are many AI tools available that can build decks. Can you usually tell when a deck has been generated or heavily assisted by AI?

I don’t generally get clients who have attempted to design a deck with AI - but I have seen decks where the content was written by AI. It's always a dead giveaway when there are a lot of em-dashes.

I’m also not a fan of leaning on ChatGPT to write your deck as AI tends to write content that is too technical and isn’t language that people speak in. (Because it's written by a computer!) For me, if a founder can’t sell you on the idea from their deck, then how can they sell the idea to customers? People know when it's AI and when it's not.

If you do want some help writing your deck, I recommend writing the headings and big ideas yourself, then lean on AI to assist with generating statistics, market data, financial chart building and description text.

Question: Where does AI help most in the deck creation process—and where does it fall short?

For me - I lean on AI to condense text, proofread and provide research. It's a great source for that. But you also have to keep it in check if you let it give you data and it has no source. It will just make it up. So you have to make sure you’re not just turning off your brain and copy and pasting whatever it says. Robots will take over the world if we let them, haha.

Question: Do AI-generated decks risk making startups sound too similar or generic?

AI-generated anything is going to be generic. Because it's not created by a human. I’d rather see a crappy looking deck with a clear vision and mission than a pristine deck created by AI.

The big takeaway?