30 seconds to impress

This is Second Opinion, a newsletter created by Hustle Fund, where we give tactical advice on how to create the perfect pitch deck.

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Today’s Edition

Alright, friends. As we talked about last time, we are going to start bringing on different guests to Second Opinion to dissect pitches. Today, we're diving into another pitch deck review, and we’ve got a special guest, Haley Bryant, who is Hustle Fund's newest partner.

✨ Today's episode: When brilliant founders bury the lead.

You've got 30 seconds (maybe)

When an investor has a thousand decks to review each month, they're not reading every word. In fact, Haley spends about less than a minute per deck. Elizabeth, just 30 seconds.

So if your deck doesn't immediately answer "what is this and why does it matter," you're toast.

In today's episode, Haley and Elizabeth dissect Canyon Rift, an AI-powered IDE for R developers. The founder (Yash) clearly knows his stuff. The problem is the deck spends 12 slides on technical architecture before ever explaining who the customer is or why this can't just be a plugin.

Here's the breakdown:

Want a second opinion on your deck?

If you want your deck reviewed and featured in Second Opinion, fill out this form.

Or drop a link to your deck in the video comments and the we’ll will reply there.

 PS: Trying to create the perfect pitch deck? This is for you.

PPS: Second Opinion is taking a break through the end of 2025, but we’ll be back in early January.

-Elizabeth