If your deck looks like it was built by an agency, you’re probably not pre-seed anymore. That’s a seed raise or a company I don’t want to invest in.

Great signals

• Materials
  • Rough pitch deck (bonus if made with gamma or black text on a white page, extra bonus if using 4:3 format)
  • No deck at all -- maybe just a one-pager or evidence of documented notes
• Content/context
  • Sharing specific stats on who you’ve spoken with and what you’ve learned
  • A game plan for the money + a ballpark of what you’re raising
  • A demo! Regardless of how rough, and I do not care if it breaks live
  • Sharing context / thoughts on the fund in a non-cringey way
• Talk track
  • Casual + tell me how you are arriving at the idea and what feedback you gathered along the way
  • Ability to dive into details, but keeping everyone in the room in the loop

Poor signals

• Overly polished, agency-quality pitch deck
• Slick talk track / practiced stage presence; it can be impressive, but it’s premature for pre-seed
• Presenting a pre-seed company like a finished product — it signals naivete about the stage you’re at

The crux of my thoughts

• At pre-seed, investors want to see potential, not polish. The best founders show they’re in motion -- curious, scrappy, willing to iterate. The polish will matter later, but if you look “too finished” too early, it can actually work against you.