Pitch decks for early stage startups

I worked with Foundation Studio in 2024 to help several Techstars Atlanta startups improve their pitch decks. Sometimes this meant focusing on visual design to make their stories more engaging, other times it was a more strategic collaboration to help founders sharpen their narratives.

Before designing, I like to understand how founders think about their companies and what truly excites them. While reading materials helps, informal chats often reveal opportunities missed in formal decks. A founder might emphasize technical specs when their real innovation lies in transforming industry relationships, or share an anecdote that perfectly captures their passion for solving a problem. These candid moments help identify the most compelling elements to highlight in their pitch.

Making pain points more tangible

Wscripted needed help conveying how their AI-powered platform accelerates script review and discovery for entertainment companies. While their existing deck touched on key points, investors were saying the problem and solution weren't clear enough. Through conversations with founder Ellie Jamen, we identified that emails and attachments were a visceral pain point everyone in the industry could relate to. This led to reframing their story around modernizing an archaic workflow, using strong visual metaphors like a mountain of scattered script pages transforming into organized information.

Selected before/after slides

The original opening focused on basic industry statistics without conveying the visceral pain of the problem

Team and advisor information was presented in a way that made it difficult to quickly grasp key expertise

Split the original statistics-heavy slide to lead with this visceral visualization of overwhelming script submissions and notifications

Following the emotional hook, backed up the problem with specific industry metrics about review time and missed opportunities

Highlighted Wscripted's commitment to ethical AI development and data security with a clean circular visual

Used event photography to show the founder's active industry presence rather than relying solely on logos

Redesigned the growth trajectory with expanding circles to better show how their platform grows over time

Made Wscripted's advantage feel more obvious: how the platform replaces a patchwork of single-purpose tools with one industry-specific solution

Improved the team and advisor presentation with clearer hierarchy and more comfortable spacing

Structuring scattered points

Ranked came to me with a prototype that had recently been redesigned and a pitch deck containing valuable but scattered information. The founder was clear about the messaging he wanted, so my work focused on creating better visual structure, polish, and informational flow.

They wanted to include a pre-made infographic about the success of their Black Panther: Wakanda Forever social media campaign, which contained valuable information but was too dense for a deck slide. Since restyling it wasn't feasible within our timeline, I reworked the slide and graphic to harmonize better while pulling out the key points.

Working closely within the founder's vision, I gave the deck a bolder visual style inspired by new media platforms like Spotify, which aligned it better with the modern influencer marketing landscape. The redesign also created clearer connections between slides, making it easier to follow how Ranked's focus on "nano-influencers" addressed specific market opportunities.

Selected before/after slides

The original creator economy slide mixed statistics with interface mockups, making both harder to absorb

Problems were presented with a dense collage of images and text that buried key points

The Black Panther campaign data was presented in a busy, dropped-in infographic that made it difficult to grasp the scale of success

Reorganized market statistics into a cleaner three-part visual that lets each number land with more impact

Simplified the presentation of creator challenges, using an imposing "problem wall" to emphasize key pain points

Integrated the Black Panther campaign more naturally into the deck's visual style while extracting key metrics

Broke out product features into focused, individual slides—here showing just the campaign creation interface to make the entry point crystal clear

Condensed layers of market data using the deck's recurring radial motif for a sense of expanding market opportunity

Distinguishing a new kind of platform

This case study will be updated with slide images once Callo completes their current fundraising round.

Through a referral from Wscripted, I also gave Callo's pre-seed pitch deck an overhaul. This project particularly excited me because of its focus on creative taste—how directors, producers, and other above-the-line entertainment professionals could be matched based on their artistic sensibilities and professional goals rather than just industry connections.

People often mistakenly think of Callo's projects-oriented platform as "LinkedIn for film professionals" or other generalized productivity and networking tools. Their language also needed careful attention to avoid confusing "independent creators" with influencers or below-the-line crew roles. Our challenge was to make these distinctions clearer while showing how Callo could transform an industry that still relies heavily on word-of-mouth connections.

The redesign transformed their deck from standard tech startup slides into something that better reflected Callo's identity—a more artistically-attuned platform supporting indie productions. We created more breathing room between concepts, using atmospheric photography and moody gradients to give each idea space to resonate. Complex topics were broken into focused slides with sophisticated data visualizations that maintained clarity while handling dense information.

While the deck is currently under NDA during Callo's fundraising round, the slides are available to review upon request.

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