The pre-seed deck (Millionrounds)

1. Cover: [Company]: [what you do] for [whom]
   e.g. "Acme: fills the appointments clinics lose to no-shows"
   - The name and one line a stranger could repeat
   - The round and the date
   Leave off: A tagline that sounds like a brand and explains nothing.
2. Problem: [Who] lose [what] every [period]
   e.g. "Clinics lose 18% of appointments to no-shows"
   - Who has the problem, in one line
   - What it costs them, in money or time, with a number
   - How they cope today
   Leave off: A problem only you have noticed, or one sized in adjectives.
3. Why now: [What changed] makes this possible now
   e.g. "Scheduling systems opened their APIs in 2024"
   - The change: technology, rules or behaviour
   - Why nobody could do this five years ago
   Leave off: "The market is growing" is not a why-now.
4. Solution: [Product] [does what] so [result]
   e.g. "Acme predicts no-shows and refills the slot two days ahead"
   - What you do about the problem, in one sentence
   - The result for the customer, as a number if you have one
   Leave off: A feature list. Features belong on the product slide.
5. Product: [How it works] in [n] steps
   e.g. "Connect, predict, refill: live in an afternoon"
   - One screenshot or the flow in three steps
   - What the customer does and what the product does
   Leave off: Every screen you have built.
6. Early signals: [n] [customers] already [did what]
   e.g. "12 clinics signed letters of intent; 3 are piloting"
   - Pilots, letters of intent, a waitlist, pre-orders
   - A customer's own words, with their name
   Leave off: Logos of companies you have only spoken to.
7. Market: [n] [customers] pay [amount]: a $[size] market
   e.g. "230,000 clinics at $4,200 a year: a $1B market in the US"
   - The market bottom up: customers you can reach times what each pays
   - Where you start and where it leads
   Leave off: A top-down TAM from an analyst report with no route to it.
8. Business model: [Price] per [unit], paid back in [time]
   e.g. "$350 a clinic a month, paid back in under two months"
   - Who pays, how much and how often
   - Margin, and payback on acquiring a customer if you know it
   Leave off: Five revenue streams. Show the one that matters.
9. Team: [Why this team] wins this market
   e.g. "Ran a 60-clinic group; built scheduling at scale"
   - The founders, and the one thing each has done that matters here
   - Key hires and advisers only if they change the odds
   Leave off: Logos of every employer and degree.
10. The ask: Raising [amount] to reach [milestone] in [months]
   e.g. "Raising $750k to reach 150 clinics and $1.2M ARR in 20 months"
   - The amount, and the runway it buys
   - The milestones it reaches, which set up the next round
   - Use of funds in three lines at most
   Leave off: An amount with no milestone, or "$1M to $3M".
11. Contact: [Name], [email], [website]
   e.g. "Maya Chen · maya@acme.example · acme.example"
   - A name, an email and the website
   - Nothing else: this is the slide left on screen
   Leave off: "Questions?" with no way to reach you.