Critics vs chefs: Why you shouldn’t ask investors how to improve your pitch deck
Amelia's Newsletter #1
Sometimes when I’m sharing pitch deck feedback with new founders, they’ll say, “Investors told me I should change these three things.” And when I was making my first pitch deck, I too started by asking potential investors for feedback.
At the time, I figured investors were the best people I could ask — after all, hadn’t they evaluated thousands of pitches? So I’d show my deck to them, they’d say things like, “You should add an explanation of how you are going to do things differently from X company that didn’t succeed,” I’d go work on it and bring it back.
This was a mistake.
I kept getting “no’s”, and thought it meant that I wasn’t a good founder and that my startup wasn’t a good idea.
Luckily, I eventually showed my deck to two founders I met, both of whom had previously raised venture capital. They gave me the advice I actually needed to hear, like:
“No, don’t add an explanation of how you’re different from X company. You should never even get that question. The fact that you’re being compared to X company is a symptom of your failure to communicate that you’re in Y industry, not X industry. Work on making this clearer.”
“Increase your font size. Many investors will skim your deck on their phones, so your deck must be legible even when tiny.”
“You’re worrying about the wrong things entirely. Getting a warm introduction will be more impactful than edits to your deck.”
99% of the useful feedback on my pitch deck ended up coming from them.
Critics vs chefs
The lesson I learned is there’s a difference between the people who know how to judge the work, and the people who know how to do the work — they are not the same.
Let’s say I’m a chef, and my goal is to earn a Michelin star. This is a tough goal, so as a plucky aspiring chef, I set out to learn how to get there. I cook up my best dish and present it to some expert food critics. Here’s how the conversation goes:
Me: “Is this dish Michelin level?”
Critics: “No, it’s not.”
Me: “Okay, so what should I do to make it Michelin level?”
Critics: “You should add more shrimp. I gave a Michelin star to this other chef, and they have a similar dish I loved, and it has tons of shrimp.”
But “add more shrimp” isn’t the best takeaway. Maybe that other chef is a seafood specialist. Maybe the reason the critic loved their dish was actually because the plating was unique. Maybe I need to rethink the dish entirely. My mistake is that I’m asking the wrong people how to make my dish better — because they’re critics, not chefs. They aren’t trained to cook, they’re trained to evaluate.
Instead, the person I should be asking is another chef. But not just any chef. I need to train under a chef who’s already earned a Michelin star, because they have figured out how to do the thing I am trying to do. Then I can regularly check in with the critics and ask, “Okay here’s my dish now. Is it getting closer to Michelin level?” The critics can help tell me, “This time your dish is closer / further / okay now you’re there.”
I was asking investors how to make my pitch deck better. But investors are critics, not chefs. They’re good at judging pitches and they can tell you if your pitch is market-ready. Making a great pitch deck is not their job. What I needed was to go find the Michelin star chefs - the founders who had done it before.
Critics vs Chefs
Critic: Knows what world-class work in that field looks like. They can tell the difference between good and great work, even if they haven’t done it themselves.
Chef: An expert who has created world-class work themselves.
Parting thoughts
To get the best feedback on how to improve your pitch deck, don’t ask investors. Ask founders who have successfully raised capital.
Critics judge, chefs create. Know who is who when asking for advice.
Notes:
[1] My friend Ellen Chisa has a great take on this: "The critic is usually relying on cues from their perceptual knowledge. They can rarely pinpoint an exact thing in a deck that made the decision a ‘no,’ but they do want to be helpful so they find something to comment on.”
[2] I find this is a useful framework for learning any new skill. For best results, I find I need both a critic and a chef on deck. If I have a critic to grade me but no chef to learn from, I can’t improve efficiently. If I have an expert chef to work with but no critic, I can’t tell if I’m improving quickly enough to hit my goal - I risk ending up a pretty good chef with no Michelin star.
[3] Sometimes, you stumble across someone who is both an excellent critic and chef. In the case of the pitch deck, this could be an angel investor who is also a successful serial venture-backed founder. These people are absolute gold, as the feedback loop is exceptionally fast. If you find one, grab them and don’t let go.
[4] I also find this can be a handy shorthand for giving feedback, not just asking for it. It is useful to identify which role I am able, or not able, to play for someone else. E.g. I may explain, “I can be a good critic here, but not a good chef,” meaning, “I know enough to tell you that this is not good enough, but I’m not the best person to ask how to make it better. You’ll need to go find someone else for that.”
Thanks to Keir Mierle, Joe Mahavuthivanij, Leonard Lee, and Ellen Chisa for reading early drafts of this post.