An investor spends seconds on each slide, often on a phone in a cab or on a projector at a demo day. If a slide makes them work to understand it, they stop reading and start doubting. Good deck design is not decoration, it is a way of respecting that scarce attention. The discipline is simple to state and hard to hold: one typeface, one accent colour, one idea per slide, and numbers that read at a glance. Everything else is noise that competes with your argument.
One typeface, sized to be read
Pick a single, clean typeface and use it on every slide. A common, well-drawn font such as Inter, Lato, or your system default is enough. Resist the urge to mix a "heading font" with a "body font", and never use decorative or condensed display fonts for numbers. You can still create hierarchy with just one family by varying size and weight: a bold, large headline, a medium sub-line, and lighter supporting text.
Size matters more than founders expect. Venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, in his well-known 10/20/30 rule, argues that no font on a pitch slide should be smaller than 30 points. His logic is not typographic vanity: large type forces you to keep only the most important words on the slide, because there is no room for filler. If 30 points feels extreme, his rule of thumb is to take the age of the oldest person likely to be in the room and halve it for your font size.
Practical checks
- View your deck at 30 percent zoom. If you cannot read a slide, an investor at the back of a room cannot either.
- Keep to two or three weights of one font: regular, medium, and bold.
- Left-align body text. Centred paragraphs are harder to scan.
One accent colour
Choose a neutral base, usually near-black text on white or a very dark background with off-white text, and add exactly one accent colour. That accent has a job: it points the eye to the single thing that matters on the slide, such as the key metric, the headline claim, or the "ask". If everything is coloured, nothing stands out. Use grey for anything secondary so your accent stays rare and therefore powerful.
Make sure the accent has strong contrast against the background so it survives a dim projector and a colour-blind reader. Avoid thin light-grey text on white, which is common and unreadable in a real room.
One idea per slide
Sequoia Capital's widely used pitch template follows a strict principle: each slide should make one claim and support it with evidence. The best pitches are arguments, not slideshows. A useful test is that an investor should be able to explain the slide to a partner after seeing it for ten seconds. If a slide needs two ideas, split it into two slides.
This means writing a clear headline that states the takeaway, for example "Repeat orders grew 40 percent in two quarters", rather than a vague label like "Traction". The chart or bullet below simply proves the headline. Aim for a lean deck. Kawasaki suggests around ten slides for a first meeting, and a tight deck signals clear thinking.
Readable data over decoration
Charts persuade only when they are instantly legible. Prefer one simple chart per slide, label it directly, and remove clutter: no 3D effects, no heavy gridlines, no rainbow of series. Use your one accent colour to highlight the bar or line that carries the point, and grey out the rest.
- State units and currency clearly. If your numbers are in rupees, say lakh or crore, or INR, and be consistent. Do not mix INR and USD figures on the same chart without labels.
- Round for readability. "1.2 crore" reads faster than a figure with every digit shown.
- Give every axis a label and a title. A chart an investor has to decode is a chart they ignore.
Substance over polish
None of this requires a designer or an expensive tool. It requires restraint. Whether you are pitching to an angel network, at a demo day run by a DPIIT-recognised incubator, or to a SEBI-registered AIF, the same rules hold. A plain deck with one font, one accent, one idea per slide, and honest, readable numbers will beat a busy, over-designed one every time. Design discipline is really thinking discipline made visible.