The Slatepress Blog

Notes from the
deck shop.

Teardowns, frameworks, and honest reads on seed fundraising — written for founders who treat the deck as part of the pitch, not a formality.

Why the $15,000 pitch deck is already dead.

The pricing that deck agencies have relied on for a decade stopped making sense in the last eighteen months. A short read on what actually justifies a check in 2026 — and what founders should no longer pay for.

Read the thesis →

The 7-second test: what investors actually see on slide one.

Investors do not read pitch decks — they scan them. The first screen either earns the next seven minutes or it doesn't. Four mistakes that blow the first scan, and a test you can run on your own deck in five minutes.

Read the notes →

How to vet a pitch deck design agency: three tests, three teardowns.

Most of the agencies ranking on page one of Google for "pitch deck design service" look identical from the outside. Three quick tests separate the real ones from the template mills — and we run them on three of the top results.

Read the teardown →

More essays, teardowns, and seed-deck case studies posting regularly. If there's a topic you'd like us to take apart, write us at hello@slatepress.co.