pitch deck

Definition

A PowerPoint presentation optimized for skimming, typically 10-15 slides explaining why your startup will change the world and only needs $2M to do it. It's fiction dressed up as financial projections.

Example Usage

Our pitch deck has a great 'team' slide with photos of advisors who've never attended a meeting, and a 'traction' slide with a graph that starts at zero last month.

Origin

Borrowed from Hollywood pitch culture via management consulting

Fun Fact

The most-viewed pitch deck ever is Airbnb's, which misspells words and uses terrible design—proving that execution matters more than typography, much to every founder's relief.

Source: Venture capital fundraising and presentation standards

Related Terms

Intermediate

scaling

The corporate fantasy of growing a business exponentially while somehow maintaining quality, usually uttered right before everything falls apart. It's the process of increasing capacity to handle growth—or in startup speak, the thing you'll figure out later after raising millions in VC funding. In tech, it means making systems handle more users; in reality, it means discovering all the shortcuts you took when building the foundation.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

bootstrapped

Building a company with personal savings, credit cards, and stress ulcers instead of venture capital—either a badge of honor or an excuse for slow growth, depending on your exit results. It's entrepreneurship on hard mode.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

deal flow

The rate at which investment opportunities come across a VC's desk. Good deal flow means seeing quality startups before everyone else; bad deal flow means getting pitched by anyone with a Squarespace website and a dream.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

advisor

Someone who receives equity for occasionally responding to emails and allowing you to use their name on your website. The advisor-to-impact ratio is the lowest in all of business, yet every startup has seven of them.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

pivot or die

The startup mantra that romanticizes abandoning your original business plan when it becomes clear nobody wants what you're building. It's plan B through Z, pitched as strategic thinking rather than desperate flailing.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

ghost equity

Phantom stock or profit interests that mimic real equity without actually granting ownership, often used to incentivize employees without diluting founders. All the motivation, none of the control.

🚀 Startup / VC

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