Seed pitch deck checklist: twelve items mapped to the rubric

What investors read at seed

Y Combinator's 2018 seed deck guide describes what a seed deck has to show: a clear story, the founders, evidence of demand and where the company will be a year later.

DocSend 2020 research covered pre-seed decks, so this guide does not apply its review-time figures to seed decks. The page and words-per-slide limits stay as checks of the getfund rubric v1, which apply at every stage.

By seed an investor can ask for numbers, so traction and the business model carry most of the points in the getfund rubric v1.

Rubric weights at seed

In the getfund rubric v1, seed puts the most points on traction and evidence quality (18), business model (13), problem clarity (10), out of 80 judged points.

The twelve-item checklist

Each item belongs to one rubric dimension. Check the list against your deck slide by slide and fix the items you cannot tick.

1. Tie the problem to the segment where you already have customers.Rubric: Problem clarity
2. Show the product in use by customers, not only built.Rubric: Solution and product evidence
3. Name your differentiator against what customers use today and give the evidence.Rubric: Solution and product evidence
4. Size the target segment bottom-up, as customers times price, with sources.Rubric: Market and why now
5. Back the why-now with data that a reader can check.Rubric: Market and why now
6. State the price, who pays and at least one unit-economics figure: gross margin, acquisition cost, payback or revenue per customer.Rubric: Business model
7. Describe the sales or distribution motion that produced your first customers.Rubric: Business model
8. Show one defined metric at two or more dates, so the reader sees a trend.Rubric: Traction and evidence quality
9. Name customers or partners that pay or run pilots, with their permission.Rubric: Traction and evidence quality
10. Show founder-market fit: years in the domain or an earlier startup.Rubric: Team
11. Tie the use of funds to the milestones the next round will check.Rubric: Ask and use of funds
12. Label every chart with units and dates, and keep each slide to one idea.Rubric: Design and readability

Common failures

• Traction shown as sign-ups only, with no dates or definition.
• A price with no unit economics behind it.
• A share of a large market, such as one percent of an industry, in place of a sized segment.
• Projections placed next to measured results with no label.

Frequently asked questions

What changes between pre-seed and seed?

The weights. In the getfund rubric v1 seed moves points from team and problem to traction and business model, so dated evidence counts for more.

Which unit-economics figure should I show first?

The one you can measure today, usually gross margin or revenue per customer. Add acquisition cost and payback when you have real data, and mark each figure measured or projected.

Do the DocSend 2020 figures apply to a seed deck?

Not as stated: the DocSend 2020 research covered pre-seed decks. Use the getfund rubric v1 checks for page count and words per slide, and read the figures as a reference point only.

Sources

• Y Combinator, 2018 seed deck guide
• DocSend, 2020 pre-seed pitch deck research (not applied to seed figures)
• getfund rubric v1, published on the pitch deck scorer page

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