The mistake in your deck that makes VCs work too hard
There’s a specific slide that kills more deals than a bad financial model. It’s the one where you explain how your product works — and the explanation requires the customer to do something they are not already doing.
Download an app. Learn a new interface. Change a workflow. Adopt a new habit.
Every one of those adds friction. And friction is risk. When a VC sees friction in a deck, they stop thinking only about the product. They start thinking about CAC, churn, onboarding time, and how long it takes a user to get to value.
The decks that move fastest through a partner meeting usually show something simpler: the product fits inside a behavior that already exists. The user does not have to change. They just get a better version of what they were already doing.
That is the difference between:
“We built a new platform.”
and
“We built something that works inside the tools customers already use every day.”
The first needs a go-to-market strategy. The second already has one built in.
This week, look again at your product slide. Does the customer need to learn something new to use you? If the answer is yes, your deck needs to answer the question the VC is already asking silently: why would they bother?
THE BOTTOM LINE
The best products don't ask users to change. They meet users where they already are. Your deck needs to show that, clearly, on one slide.
→ This week: Book a free 15-minute deck diagnostic and I'll find the friction your deck is hiding.
THE ROUND I'D HAVE BACKED
nFuse — $2M Seed | Bulgaria WhatsApp-based ordering for small retailers in emerging markets
Two ex-Coca-Cola operators watched B2B eCommerce portals fail in fragmented trade for years. 15% adoption. 18-month implementations. Millions of small retailers ignoring the platforms entirely.
They didn't build a better portal. They built on top of WhatsApp.
A retailer photographs an empty shelf. The image becomes a confirmed order. No app to download. No interface to learn. No behavior change required.
That's why the numbers are absurd for the category — 70% retailer adoption versus the industry's 15%, and per-order processing costs 20x lower than traditional digital channels.
The deck probably didn't lead with the technology. It led with one number: 15% adoption is the best the industry has ever done. Then showed what happens when you stop fighting the user's behavior and start building on top of it.
The founders' combined 30 years at Coca-Cola meant they'd seen this failure from the inside. They weren't guessing at the problem. They'd lived in it.
That's how you raise $2M with a thesis most investors would dismiss as too simple.
-Vicki / DeckToVC
