Going through a small accelerator. Demo day is 11 days out. The pitch is 3 minutes plus 90 seconds of Q&A. The deck needs to do most of the talking because the time is so compressed.
Friends have given me opposite advice.
Founder A says use Gamma. Iterate fast. Build 4 versions over the 11 days, test each one with mentors, pick the best. The speed compounds when you can rebuild in an afternoon.
Founder B says hire a deck consultant. Demo day decks are too high-stakes to template. The investors in the room have seen 800 Gamma decks. Standing out matters more than iterating fast.
The economics.
Deck consultant quotes I've gotten range from $2,800 to $6,400 for 11 days of work. Lead time tight but doable.
Gamma is included in my existing Pro subscription. Marginal cost zero.
The honest stakes assessment.
A great demo day pitch could realistically lead to $400-800k in seed money for our particular trajectory. A bad pitch likely means we leave with no momentum, possibly no investor conversations.
Even the most expensive deck consultant ($6,400) is roughly 1% of the upside if the pitch lands. The math seems to favor the consultant.
What gives me pause.
The deck doesn't make the pitch. The pitch makes the pitch. A polished deck around a weak narrative still loses. A decent deck around a strong narrative wins.
Building 4 versions in Gamma forces me to clarify the narrative through iteration. A consultant builds one version that locks the narrative early.
The most successful demo day pitches I've seen had decks that were obviously not produced by consultants. They felt like the founder. Polished decks sometimes feel like the consultant.
For folks who have done demo day or similar high-stakes founder pitches recently - what did you use, and would you do it the same way again. Specifically interested in whether the deck quality mattered as much as the founder advice suggests, or whether the pitch itself drowned out the deck either way.
11 days is enough to do either path. I have to choose this week.