You should make your deck as simple as possible but no simpler. Really, you want it customized to whom you're pitching. If your audience wants to know a lot more about your financials, then one slide probably isn't enough. If he wants you to go deep about your solution, then one slide isn't enough.
If it's just you and your audience knows your background well, then you don't really need to waste time on a slide about yourself. It just comes off as self-preening. If it's an ambitious project with a lot of moving parts, then you will need multiple slides to get through your team.
Presenting to an audience is about knowing and serving your audience. A lot of people don't want to waste time on a deck, because all it really represents is time you blew on a deck.
You can clearly see how much time Guy blew on his 10 slides presentation from how gorgeously it's laid out- a lot. When you see that sort of thing, it means a lot of copy editing happened to get the text just the right length. In other words, the tail was wagging the dog.
What's noticeably missing is any meat. If 10 slides are what you need, show me actual correlation between length of deck and closed funding and how that centers around 10 slides, and isolate other factors to demonstrate causation. You won't find that in his pitch, because there is no correlation. It's mostly about who you are and/or a demonstration of progress.
I've closed more money with a demonstration of the product's progress than the right deck. It's more important to execute (you can stop here if you like) and then for extra credit, show your pitch to multiple potential backers at the same time in order to improve odds you'll have multiple options that can hurry each other along.
+1 to killer demos, my favorite tactic as well(), but obviously only where appropriate - there's lots of things you can't 'demo' and instead use an appropriate proxy, e.g. testimonials from famous people. Works best if the demo is actually aligned with product development and not a distraction for fundraising.
-1 to whining about glossy decks: for consumer products where design is key, the decks have to reflect your aesthetic.
re killer demos - after killer demos, I immediately get hammered by go-to-market questions, thus demanding a slide deck for visual thinkers... which in turn requires integration with the demo, so you end up with the usual formula:
1. audacious vision (~1-3 slides)
==> audience thinks, "no way, can't be done."
2. ...KILLER DEMO...
==> oh sht, they did it. My head just exploded.
3. team, go-to-market, competition, etc. (~5-7 slides)
==> these guys are serious and have thought it through.
You should make your deck as simple as possible but no simpler. Really, you want it customized to whom you're pitching. If your audience wants to know a lot more about your financials, then one slide probably isn't enough. If he wants you to go deep about your solution, then one slide isn't enough.
If it's just you and your audience knows your background well, then you don't really need to waste time on a slide about yourself. It just comes off as self-preening. If it's an ambitious project with a lot of moving parts, then you will need multiple slides to get through your team.
Presenting to an audience is about knowing and serving your audience. A lot of people don't want to waste time on a deck, because all it really represents is time you blew on a deck.
You can clearly see how much time Guy blew on his 10 slides presentation from how gorgeously it's laid out- a lot. When you see that sort of thing, it means a lot of copy editing happened to get the text just the right length. In other words, the tail was wagging the dog.
What's noticeably missing is any meat. If 10 slides are what you need, show me actual correlation between length of deck and closed funding and how that centers around 10 slides, and isolate other factors to demonstrate causation. You won't find that in his pitch, because there is no correlation. It's mostly about who you are and/or a demonstration of progress.
I've closed more money with a demonstration of the product's progress than the right deck. It's more important to execute (you can stop here if you like) and then for extra credit, show your pitch to multiple potential backers at the same time in order to improve odds you'll have multiple options that can hurry each other along.