Eight, as in PitchMate
Years spent building product at multiple VC-backed startups—watching teams craft decks, defend roadmaps, and raise millions—taught us a simple truth: the slides that win money are the ones rooted in solid product-validation work.
We saw the same gaps appear again and again (fuzzy TAM, hand-wavey moat, missing customer proof) and knew founders everywhere were wrestling with the same blind spots. PitchMate is our love-letter to those builders: a way to turn raw hustle into a clear, evidence-backed story without burning weeks on grindy research.
To design the framework we blended that hands-on product experience with the open playbooks of world-class funds. From YC’s methodology to Sequoia’s “Writing a Business Plan” memo, a16z’s pricing and GTM guides, First Round Review’s red-flag lists, and revenue efficiency benchmarks from Bessemer’s Cloud Index were distilled into eight investor-critical pillars.
Each pillar holds the exact proof points we know founders must surface and investors scan for first. We pressure-tested the rubric on celebrated decks like Airbnb and Uber plus fresh, in-progress decks from friends in today’s ecosystem, tuning scores until they mirrored real-world fundraising outcomes. The result is PitchMate’s 8 pillar scorecard: a transparent checklist that ties rigorous product validation to a deck investors can trust.
We’re launching in beta, and with your feedback we’ll keep sharpening every metric—because founders deserve a faster path from idea to funded.
Pillars
1. Burning pain
One-sentence pain, clear and jargon-free. Quantified cost/time/risk per incident. ≥ 3 verbatim user quotes proving urgency & frequency.
WEIGHT
No matter how good the idea, if the pain isn’t acute there’s no pull—so this pillar gets top weighting.
15%
2. Bullseye user
Precise ICP (job title, demo, firmographic). Addressable count with source. Known channel & indicative CAC.
WEIGHT
Knowing who hurts is vital, but once the pain is real, segment precision can be refined later—hence mid-tier weight.
10%
3. Market wave
Bottom-up TAM/SAM table with citations. “Why-now” catalyst (tech, regulation, behaviour). Market ≥ A$500 M or ≥ 20 % CAGR.
WEIGHT
Venture returns demand a large or fast-growing pie; investors anchor on this early, so it shares top weight.
15%
4. Defensive edge
Competitor matrix (≥ 3 rivals). Moat type (data, network, IP, switching cost). Evidence moat deepens over time.
WEIGHT
15%
Edge matters, but at seed it’s often nascent; strong but not top priority—thus 10 %.
5. 10x remedy
Demo/description shows 10× better outcome. Unique tech/data advantage explicit. Clear link from pain to relief.
WEIGHT
15%
Solution quality must match pain severity; investors look for obvious 10×—equal weight to Pain & Market.
6. Traction trail
Evidence: interviews, wait-list, pilots, LOIs, revenue. Or time-boxed experiment plan with KPIs.
WEIGHT
Proof de-risks execution; without it, other pillars are theory. High weight signals “show, don’t tell.”
10%
7. Money machine
Pricing & target gross margin. CAC → LTV/payback math. Path to ≥ 60 % GM or < 12-mo payback.
WEIGHT
10%
Early economics must be plausible, but detailed metrics evolve—so medium weight.
8. Founder flame
Competitor matrix (≥ 3 rivals). Moat type (data, network, IP, switching cost). Evidence moat deepens over time.
WEIGHT
15%
Problem-obsessed founders pivot faster; investors rate this, yet it’s subjective—kept at 10%.