Seven pitch-deck mistakes we keep seeing from African startups
Great companies lose investor attention to avoidable storytelling problems. Here is what to fix before your next meeting.
Investor-readiness coaching is mostly editing. Founders know their business deeply, but a pitch deck has to do something different from a business plan: earn the next meeting. These are the seven patterns we see most often, and how to fix each.
1. Starting with the solution instead of the problem
Investors outside your market may not feel the pain you live with every day. Open with one concrete customer, one concrete problem and what it costs them, then introduce your product.
2. Market size built from the top down
“If we capture 1% of the continent” is not analysis. Build the number from the bottom up: how many customers you can realistically reach, at what price, in which first three cities.
3. Hiding the traction
Revenue, pilots, signed letters of intent and retention figures belong on the first third of the deck. If traction is early, show the learning rate instead: what you tested and what changed because of it.
4. Ignoring currency and macro risk
Foreign investors will ask about exchange-rate exposure. Answer before they ask: where costs and revenues sit, how pricing adjusts, and what your hedging or pass-through approach is.
5. A team slide with no story
List who has done what, not just titles. Highlight the person who has already solved a problem like this one.
6. An ask with no plan behind it
State the amount, the runway it buys, and the two or three milestones it unlocks. Vague asks signal vague plans.
7. One deck for every audience
A grant funder, a venture fund and a strategic corporate care about different things. Keep a core story and adjust the emphasis for each.
Your deck is not a document of record. It is an invitation to a second conversation.
If you fix only three things, fix the opening, the traction and the ask. Everything else can be handled in the meeting.
