Going the VC way

Whether you're pitching an investor, a partner, or a big customer, you need one deck you can deliver in three minutes. Six slides, in this order, and nothing else:

1. 1What: the product in one sentence a stranger understands
2. 2Why: the insight or story only your team has
3. 3Market size: who buys this, and how many of them exist
4. 4Growth rate: the line going up, whatever your best line is
5. 5Team: why these people win this market
6. 6Ask: exactly what you want from the person watching

Strip away the meeting theater and every VC evaluates the same five boxes. Have a one-line answer ready for each:

1. 1Team: why is this team the best fit for this startup idea?
2. 2Problem: what problem are you solving, and why is your solution better?
3. 3Market: how big can this get, and why is now the right time to enter or disrupt?
4. 4Traction: what validates that your product is needed and worth getting behind?
5. 5Terms: how attractive is the deal's pricing, control and economics?

Traction is the slide you can't wordsmith. It's also the one everything else in this playbook exists to produce.

Co-founder breakups kill more funded startups than competition does, and investors underwrite the team above everything. Y Combinator compiled the ten questions behind most breakups; each of you answers independently, then you compare:

1. 1Why do you want to do this startup? What are your personal goals, financial and non-financial?
2. 2What will our roles and titles be? Who will be CEO?
3. 3How will we split up equity? (Resolve this one early.)
4. 4Where will the company be based, and do we work in person or remote?
5. 5What idea will we work on, and are you willing to change it if it doesn't work?
6. 6What needs to happen for each of us to go full-time?
7. 7What is your personal financial situation? How long can you work for free, and will either of us put money in?
8. 8What will our typical working schedule be, and for how long?
9. 9If we build a team, what matters to you about how we hire and run it?
10. 10What do we do when we can't agree on an important decision, or want to stop working together?

10 Questions to Discuss with a Potential Co-founderYC's full questionnaire, with the get-to-know-you round and the onboarding checklist.

Before committing: do a trial project together and swap reference calls. After committing: a weekly 1-1 about how working together is going, not about the work itself.