Module 3 — Preparing the Raise · Lesson 3.1
The Narrative and the Deck
One sentence, ten sections, and evidence of how people actually read it
What you'll learn
- State the company in one sentence that a non-specialist understands
- Structure a deck around the sections investors expect and what each must prove
- Weight the team and the business the way investors report weighting them
- Use document analytics to find and fix the sections where readers stop
A deck is read before it is presented, often in a couple of minutes, often by someone deciding whether to forward it to a partner. It has one job at that moment: to make a busy reader want the meeting. Everything else — the full model, the customer references, the technical detail — belongs in the data room for later. The discipline is to say less, more clearly, in the order the reader's questions arrive.
Start with one sentence
Paul Graham's advice to Y Combinator founders presenting to investors begins with the same instruction in every revision since 2006: say what you are doing as soon as possible, preferably in the first sentence. Investors' first question is what the company does, and until they know, nothing else you say can be judged. He adds that a demo explains what you have made better than any description, and that founders should not try to seem more than they are.
Write the sentence before the deck. It should name the customer, the problem and what you do about it, in words a smart person outside your industry would follow. If the sentence needs a second sentence to make sense, the company is not yet clear to you — which is the thing investors will detect first.
The sections investors expect
Sequoia's long-standing guide to writing a business plan for its partners lists the sections that most decks still follow, and each has a job.
Company purpose: the one sentence. Problem: the customer's pain and why current options fail them. Solution: what you do, and why it is unique and durable. Why now: what changed that makes this possible or necessary today. Market potential: who the customer is and how large the market is. Competition and alternatives: direct and indirect rivals, and how you win. Business model: how you make money. Team: the founders and key people. Financials, where they exist. Vision: what you will have built in five years.
The order is not sacred, but the questions are. A reader who reaches the end without knowing why now, or who the competition is, will assume you have not thought about it. Each section should be one claim, supported by one piece of evidence — a number, a customer, a result — rather than a page of text.
Weight the team the way investors do
The 2016 survey of 885 venture capitalists by Gompers and co-authors is clear about what is being bought. The management team was named as an important factor by 95 percent of firms and as the most important factor by 47 percent. Business-related factors followed: business model at 83 percent, product at 74 percent, market at 68 percent. Investors also attributed more of their past successes and failures to the team than to the business.
Two practical consequences. The team section is not biography; it is the argument for why these people will win this market — the specific experience, access or insight that makes the plan credible. And the business sections are partly evidence about the team: a crisp market analysis and an honest competition slide show judgement, which is what the team section claims. For a placement agent presenting an issuer, the same weighting applies to the issuer's management, and to the desk: institutional investors are also judging whether the agent's mandates are worth their time.
Measure how the deck is read
Founders iterate decks on the opinions of whoever they last pitched. Better evidence is available. When a deck is shared through a tracked link, the reader's behaviour — who opened it, for how long, how far they got, which page they stopped on — is data, and it is far more honest than a polite reply.
Read that data with care. A fast read can mean disinterest or an experienced reader who saw what they needed; a long dwell on the financials can mean interest or confusion. The useful signal is the pattern across many readers: if most stop at the same section, that section is the problem. Fix it, re-share, and see whether the drop-off moves. The goal is not a deck that is read to the end by everyone. It is a deck that the right readers finish wanting a meeting.
One caution for regulated readers. A deck shared during a Rule 506(b) offering is still subject to the general-solicitation rules from Lesson 1.4; a tracked link is a private communication only if it is sent privately. And for broker-dealers, the deck is a communication with its own content and approval requirements — Lesson 5.3 returns to that.
Write it, share it tracked, and read the readers
- 1
Draft the one sentence and the outline with the agent
In /ai-agent, give it your company, customer and evidence, and ask for five candidate one-sentence descriptions and a ten-section outline. Pick the sentence a stranger understands; discard the rest.
- 2
Share the deck through a tracked link
If your workspace has XDocs connected (Settings → Integrations), the agent can create the document and a share link (xdocs_create_document, xdocs_create_link). DocSend views can also flow in, from DocSend's notification emails or a Zapier webhook.
- 3
Find the section that loses people
Ask the agent which part of the deck loses readers. xdocs_document_analytics reports, section by section, readers, time, how many stopped there and what share reached each section; docsend_list_visits lists who opened what and how much they read.
- 4
Link the document to the round's deal so views land on its timeline in /deals — an investor who read every page twice is a different follow-up from one who opened page one.
Is the deck doing its one job?
- Completion rate
- Share of readers who reach the final section of the deck.
- Healthy signal: A Kavanah suggestion, not a benchmark: watch the trend across versions rather than the level. A version that lifts completion among target investors is better.
- Biggest drop-off section
- The section where the largest share of readers stop.
- Healthy signal: It should move after each revision. If it never moves, the problem is the story, not the slide.
- Reads to meetings
- Meetings requested divided by investors who read the deck.
- Healthy signal: The number that matters. Completion without meetings means the deck is clear but not compelling.
Key takeaways
- ·Say what the company does in the first sentence; write that sentence before the deck.
- ·Cover the sections investors expect — purpose, problem, solution, why now, market, competition, model, team, financials, vision — one claim and one piece of evidence each.
- ·Investors weigh the team first; make the team section an argument, not a biography.
- ·Share decks through tracked links and fix the section where most readers stop.
The deck makes claims; the metrics prove them. The next lesson covers which numbers investors read, how they read them, and the presentation mistakes that cost credibility.
Sources
- 1.How to Present to Investors
Paul Graham · paulgraham.com (August 2006, revised April 2007 and September 2010) · 2010
Say what you are doing as soon as possible, preferably in the first sentence; a demo explains better than a description; don't try to seem more than you are.
- 2.Writing a Business Plan
Sequoia Capital · sequoiacap.com (page as dated October 2026) · 2026
The sections Sequoia asks founders to cover: company purpose, problem, solution, why now, market potential, competition, business model, team, financials, vision.
- 3.How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?
Paul Gompers, William Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan, Ilya A. Strebulaev · NBER Working Paper 22587 · 2016
Team named important by 95% and most important by 47%; business model 83%, product 74%, market 68%; success and failure attributed more to the team.