Skip to content

Free tool

Pitch Deck Diagnostic

This diagnostic asks ten questions about your own deck, across narrative, problem, market, traction, and the ask, so you can see where the story may need more clarity. Nothing is uploaded and no deck is read: you answer from your own reading, and it all stays in your browser.

What you get

  • Where the story reads clearly and where it does not
  • The revision gaps worth closing first
  • A short list to run before the deck goes out

No deck upload needed

Nothing is uploaded, read, or stored. You answer ten questions from your own reading of your deck, and everything stays in this browser tab. Do not paste confidential deck, legal, customer, or financial material into this page or any other tool here.

Before you start

Ten questions, three choices each, about three minutes. Answer for how the deck reads today rather than how you intend it to read. This is a structured founder self-check, not an outside review, and this self-check highlights where the story may need more clarity.

Diagnostic progress: 0 of 10 answered

  1. Question 1 (not answered)
  2. Question 2 (not answered)
  3. Question 3 (not answered)
  4. Question 4 (not answered)
  5. Question 5 (not answered)
  6. Question 6 (not answered)
  7. Question 7 (not answered)
  8. Question 8 (not answered)
  9. Question 9 (not answered)
  10. Question 10 (not answered)

Narrative

Whether someone can say back what the company does, and whether the deck reads in a sensible order.

Question 1 of 10: Can the company be described clearly in one sentence, including who it serves and what it changes?

One sentence a reader could repeat back accurately after a single read.

Question 2 of 10: Does the deck move logically from problem to solution to evidence to ask?

Each slide sets up the next, so the deck reads as one argument rather than a stack of parts.

Problem

Whether the customer and the problem are specific, and whether today's alternative is described.

Question 3 of 10: Is the target customer and problem specific rather than broad or abstract?

A named kind of customer with a named problem, rather than a category or a trend.

Question 4 of 10: Does the deck explain what customers do today and why the current alternative is insufficient?

What people use or do right now, and the point where it stops working for them.

Market

Whether the first segment you go after is defined, and whether you can name a route into it.

Question 5 of 10: Is the initial market wedge or beachhead clearly defined?

The first segment you intend to serve well, rather than the whole addressable market.

Question 6 of 10: Is the market discussion connected to a credible path into that initial segment?

How you actually reach that first segment, through a channel you can name.

Traction

Whether the evidence is defined and dated, and whether the deck says what changed and why it matters.

Question 7 of 10: Are the main metrics defined, dated, and tied to a specific period?

Each number carries a definition, the date it was measured, and the period it covers.

Question 8 of 10: Does the deck explain what changed and why the evidence matters?

What moved, over what period, and why that movement matters for the business.

Fundraising ask

Whether the amount or objective is stated plainly, and whether the money connects to a milestone.

Question 9 of 10: Does the deck state the amount or financing objective clearly?

The amount you are raising, or the objective the financing is meant to meet.

Question 10 of 10: Does the use of funds connect to a specific next milestone and operating plan?

Where the money goes, and the milestone the company reaches by spending it.

10 left to answer.

From the publication

Read The Raise Memo

A note for founders raising capital—what investors notice, how conviction gets built, and what to do next.

From the Memo

Related reading

Browse every topic

Take it with you

Related templates

Pitch deck

Pitch deck outline

The slide order investors expect, with what each slide has to establish before the next one lands.

Copyable template

Pitch deck

Teaser email and one-pager

The short version that goes out before the deck, built around the ask rather than the story.

Copyable template

Browse every template

Keep going

Related tools