I took 40 meetings with investors over 3 months. I got 2 term sheets, closed 1, and walked away with $750K in pre-seed funding. I also learned more about my business in those 90 days than in the previous two years of building it.
The Deck That Worked
Stop trying to make your deck beautiful. Investors see 10 decks a day. What they want is clarity: What is this, who is it for, why now, why you, what's the traction?
Our final deck was 11 slides. The first slide was a 1-sentence description. That's it.
The Mistake That Almost Killed Our Round
We negotiated too hard on the first term sheet. The investor walked. We had nothing else in play. Two weeks of panic followed before we found the right fit at slightly worse terms.
Lesson: Keep your pipeline full until documents are signed.