The 3 Slides Entrepreneurs Need to Remove From Their Fundraising Pitch Decks Right Now

Most pitch decks have three useless slides that are making it harder to successfully raise capital

Aaron Dinin, PhD

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A pitch deck for a fundraising entrepreneur is like an air tank for a scuba diver. Sure, you could technically attempt your job without it, but the end result won’t go particularly well.

Since every fundraising entrepreneur needs a pitch deck, it means every fundraising entrepreneur has to figure out what belongs in a pitch deck, and the way they do it is almost certainly some combination of the following four things:

  1. Searching the Internet (Google/YouTube/Medium/etc.)
  2. Watching other people give their pitches at pitch competitions
  3. Getting trained in some sort of incubator/accelerator type of program
  4. Watching Shark Tank and/or Dragon’s Den

Let’s throw out the last one. If you learned how to give fundraising pitches by watching reality TV, I can’t help you. In fact, nobody can. You’re a lost cause, and you’re never going to raise meaningful capital.

For everyone else who learned to give fundraising pitches using whatever combination of the other methods, your…

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Aaron Dinin, PhD

I teach entrepreneurship at Duke. Software Engineer. PhD in English. I write about the mistakes entrepreneurs make since I’ve made plenty. More @ aarondinin.com