pitch deck Archives - Startup Economist

The Startup Framework: A Better Pitch through Storytelling

Sunday, 29 March 2026 by Paul O'Brien

You learned something in elementary school that ruined your ability to communicate as a founder: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. That’s the order they taught you, and it’s wrong. Not wrong in the sense that those aren’t the right questions (they are, and they’re the First Principle questions that matter), but wrong in

Published in Startups

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Your Startup Has a Story Problem

Wednesday, 25 March 2026 by Paul O'Brien

Congratulations! You have a pitch deck. So does every other founder about to fail. Provocation aside, let’s take that thought seriously, that roughly 90% of startups die, and the overwhelming majority of those dead ventures had a pitch deck, went through an accelerator, followed a template, and still couldn’t get anyone to care. CB Insights

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Published in Startups

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Fixing Startups’ TAM/SAM/SOM: Why Your Market Slide Sucks

Wednesday, 08 October 2025 by Paul O'Brien

Every pitch deck has it. Every investor rolls their eyes at it. It’s that pastel-colored inverted pyramid labeled TAM, SAM, SOM, stuffed with fake numbers you copied from a McKinsey PDF you didn’t read. If your “market slide” claims your startup is chasing a $300 billion opportunity, congratulations, you just told investors you don’t know

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Published in Insights / Research, Startups

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Why Incubators Make You Practice the Pitch: Founder First Impressions Send the Loudest Message

Tuesday, 16 September 2025 by Paul O'Brien

With the fall season of cohorts starting, I’m reminded that most founders will be asking of advisors why there is so much emphasis on practicing the elevator pitch. In every cohort I’ve mentored, a founder invariably raises their hand and asks why so much time is spent on the 60 seconds, with a look in

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Published in Insights / Research, Startups

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The GTM Slide is Broken: Here’s How to Fix It

Wednesday, 23 July 2025 by Paul O'Brien

The Go To Market Slide (GTM), is the most misunderstood, misused, and mangled slide in the entire startup pitch deck. It’s like the appendix of a pitch; everyone includes it, nobody knows exactly why, and when it bursts, the whole body of your presentation goes septic. Every founder knows they need one. Almost no one

go to market marketing pitch deck pitching slides

Published in Insights / Research, Startups

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A Startup Pitch is NOT a Sales Pitch!

Monday, 24 October 2022 by Paul O'Brien

More than half the pitches I heard this past week went like this, and I want to share this to stress how significantly you should understand how this is NOT a good pitch if you need investors: 1. This is our solution2. This is how it works and all our great features3. We’ve sold it

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Published in Raising Capital

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A Competition Slide that Closes Capital

Wednesday, 25 November 2020 by Paul O'Brien

I was asked recently if Facebook and Google are competitors, and the question being asked, struck me with as much alarm as hearing a startup founder say they don’t have competitors. What most frequently gives an investor pause is a slide in a pitch deck that communicates that you’re not paying attention to your market and

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Published in Raising Capital

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