AdviceJanuary 15, 2026
The 90-second rule: what investors actually see in your deck
Most investors spend less than 90 seconds on your deck. Here's what they actually see—and what they skip.
Mari Luukkainen
Founder
Most investors spend less than 90 seconds on your deck. Here's what they actually see—and what they skip.
Mari Luukkainen
Founder
Most investors spend less than 90 seconds on your deck before deciding if they want a call. Here's what they actually see, and what they skip.
I've talked to dozens of investors about how they evaluate decks. The pattern is consistent:
That's it. If you haven't captured attention by then, they're on to the next email.
This is the most important sentence in your deck. It appears on your title slide, in the email preview, and in the investor's mental model of what you do.
Good one-liners are:
Bad one-liners are:
Investors scan for:
They skip:
This is where early-stage decks often lose investors. At pre-seed, you probably don't have revenue. That's fine. But you need something:
The worst thing you can do: have a traction slide that says "Launching soon."
Unless you have exceptional UI or viral UX, investors skip these. They're evaluating the business, not the interface. Save the demo for the call.
Pre-seed projections are fiction. Everyone knows it. A hockey-stick chart with $50M revenue in year 5 doesn't impress anyone. Show unit economics if you have them. Otherwise, skip it.
A slide with 15 competitors and 20 feature checkmarks is a red flag. It suggests you're competing on features, not insight. One clear positioning statement beats a cluttered matrix.
Every deck template includes this slide. Most founders fill it with generic macro trends ("AI is growing," "Remote work is here to stay"). Investors have seen these trends a thousand times. Unless your "why now" is specific and defensible, it hurts more than it helps.
If an investor only saw 3 slides, which would they be?
For most pre-seed companies:
For seed and beyond:
Design your deck so these slides stand alone. Everything else is supporting material.
The goal of your deck isn't to close the deal. It's to get a call. Every slide should make the investor want to learn more, not feel like they've learned everything.
Practical adjustments:
You have 90 seconds. Use them to create curiosity, not to explain everything.
Send your deck to someone who doesn't know your company. Time them. Ask them to stop after 90 seconds and tell you:
If they can't answer all three, your deck isn't ready.
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