A mentor in Austin told me my pitch deck had too much text, so I cut it from 15 slides to 8.
He said, 'If you need more than a minute to explain a slide, it's broken.' I swapped all my paragraphs for simple icons and one big number per slide. Do you think a super simple deck is better, or does it risk looking like you didn't do the work?
Oh man, yes! I had a client meeting last year where I swapped my text-heavy slides for just a big photo and a single stat per slide. The whole room leaned in and actually remembered the numbers later. It felt like a magic trick.
Okay but the "one minute rule" feels like it's getting treated like gospel. I mean, some ideas just need a bit more setup, right? Cutting everything down to icons and one number might work for some people, but it can also make your whole thing seem kinda shallow. Maybe it's just me, but I've seen decks that were so simple they looked like the person didn't even try.