Think about the last time you actually got an investor interested. Was there a screen? Usually not. It was a corridor after a talk, a drink after a demo day, the first two minutes of a meeting before anyone had opened a laptop. The pitch that works in those moments is the one that gets you the meeting where the slides come out. So that is the one to build first.
The avocado story
CES 2023, Las Vegas, a brewery off the Strip, a pitch competition in a room too loud to hear. Founder after founder fights the noise and loses. Then a man climbs on stage and shouts: "Who likes avocados? Everybody scream: AVOCADO!" The room screams it back. Louder. He drops the mic and walks off. The next day his booth is mobbed. He was selling an avocado tester. One shot, one minute, no slides, and the only pitch anyone in that room remembered.
That is the whole site, by the way. It is why we are called what we are called.
What slides were doing for you
Be honest about it. The slides were holding the structure so you did not have to. They were giving the room something to look at so you were not being looked at. They were a place to put the numbers so you did not have to know them. Take the slides away and each of those jobs comes back to you. That is uncomfortable for a day and better forever.
Structure you can carry
Without slides the structure has to live in your head, and it has to be simple enough to survive adrenaline. One word. A first line that makes them lean in. What you do, why now, why you. The ask. Five things, in order, and you can give them standing on a picnic table, which is in fact one of the exercises.
The body is the slide
When there is no screen the room looks at you, all of you, the whole time. Where you stand, where your hands go, whether you move on purpose or because you are nervous, whether you look at one person or at the exit sign. Every bit of it is read before a word lands. This is craft, the same craft an actor uses, and it is learnable: we teach it in a module and practice it on the spot.
The test
Here is how you know the pitch is ready: you can give it to a stranger, standing, in a noisy room, with no notes, and they can tell a third person what you do and what you want. If they can, the deck will be easy to build and nobody will need it until the second meeting. If they cannot, no deck will fix it.