At TechCrunch Disrupt, three investors took the stage to dissect what makes and breaks a pitch deck. Jyoti Bansal, a founder-turned-investor, Medha Agarwal of Defy, and Jennifer Neundorfer of January Ventures shared their candid views on what works and what does not. Their biggest pet peeve was buzzword overload.
Medha Agarwal noted that the more a founder says AI in a pitch, the less AI the company likely uses. She explained that the people who are doing truly innovative work will talk about it, and it is built in, but it is not the core of their pitch.
Jyoti Bansal, who built and sold multiple companies before becoming an investor, distilled investor expectations into three core questions. First, he asks whether there is a large enough market to tackle. Does the founder’s idea have the potential to become a huge company? And is the problem they are solving actually worth solving?
The second thing investors want to know is why this founder is the one who should be building the company. Bansal stated that there has to be something unique about the founder, such as special team members or special skills. He asks why they would win, noting that if a problem is interesting, many other companies will try to solve it.
The third thing investors want to see is some validation. Bansal said this could be traction with customers, initial feedback, revenue, or some kind of validation. These three questions all lead to the ultimate litmus test of whether the venture could become a billion-dollar company.
The panel also addressed how AI startups can differentiate themselves as the space becomes saturated. Bansal emphasized the importance of domain expertise and a clear competitive strategy. Neundorfer said the companies that catch her attention are those enabling new behaviors rather than simply improving an existing process incrementally.
Agarwal offered more tactical advice. She said founders should explain how AI technology enables their product, articulate clear go-to-market strategies, and demonstrate how their business will be more efficient than incumbents. She added that it is very important to be honest about competitors, noting that some founders lose credibility by not including them on their slide.
Finally, the investors shared advice for navigating the rapidly evolving landscape. Agarwal urged founders to stay on top of industry developments. Neundorfer recommended staying connected to founder networks to share tools and insights. Bansal’s advice was simpler: focus on building your product.