
Most "move to San Francisco" advice is useless. It tells you the city is special and then waves vaguely at "networking." This is the opposite of that. Below is the specific map: where to live, which communities actually function as on-ramps, which events are worth your time versus your money, and the unwritten rules nobody posts because they assume you already know them.

A quick reality check on why this still matters. A [Course Report analysis](https://www.coursereport.com/reports/techxodus) of 222 million LinkedIn profiles found 22.5% of San Francisco's workforce is in tech, the highest concentration in the country. Density is the entire product. The reason a coffee in SF is worth more than a coffee anywhere else is that the next table over is a founder, an early engineer at a company you admire, or an angel with a checkbook and a free afternoon.

## Where to actually be

Geography is strategy here. Two clusters matter most for early founders.

**Hayes Valley, now nicknamed "Cerebral Valley,"** is the center of gravity for AI. The [SF Standard documented](https://sfstandard.com/2023/01/13/what-is-cerebral-valley-san-franciscos-nerdiest-new-neighborhood/) how a few square blocks of Victorians became the densest concentration of AI founders on earth. If you are building in AI, being able to walk to dinners here is a genuine advantage.

**SoMa** is the classic startup core: close to most accelerators, the big conferences at Moscone, and a short hop to the Caltrain if you need the Peninsula. South Park Commons sits at 380 Brannan, right in the middle of it.

The Peninsula tradeoff is real. Living in SF proper puts you in the event flow every night. Living closer to Palo Alto puts you near a lot of the venture money. For a first-time founder without a network, the city wins, because serendipity per square mile is higher.

## The communities that are real on-ramps

Events get you faces. Communities get you relationships. These are the ones that consistently turn outsiders into founders with co-founders, customers, and checks.

**[South Park Commons](https://www.southparkcommons.com/)** is the standout for the pre-idea stage, what they call "-1 to 0." Over 1,000 technologists have come through, and the alumni list is absurd: Cognition (the lab behind Devin), Baseten, and Pilot all trace back here. Two on-ramps exist. The Member Residency is a six-month program for people who may not even know they want to start a company yet (about 30% do research or non-startup work). The Founder Fellowship is for people ready to commit, and it has put serious money behind that conviction. Applications are rolling and they aim to respond within one to three weeks.

**[Founders Inc](https://www.f.inc/)** runs a 42,000 square foot campus for hacker-founders, complete with a hardware lab and media studio. It skews builder-heavy and hands-on, which is exactly what you want if you ship code or solder things.

**[Z Fellows](https://www.zfellows.com/)** gives you $10,000 with effectively no strings and, more importantly, a tight alumni network and a week of intense mentorship. The money is a rounding error. The network is the point.

**On Deck and Inception Studio** are built around the specific pain of finding a co-founder. Inception runs paid co-founder matching and a demo day. If you are talented but alone, these exist precisely for you.

**Hacker houses** are the residential version of all this. [Genesis House](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/15/ai-cerebral-valley-hacker-house/), a 21-bedroom collective in a bright-blue Hayes Valley Victorian, has run since 2021 and is the archetype. Co-living with other builders compresses months of networking into weeks, for better and occasionally for worse.


## The events worth your time (and the ones worth your money)

There are two completely different kinds of events, and confusing them is the most common rookie mistake.

**Free or cheap, weekly, high-signal.** This is where founders actually meet. AI demo nights, the [Cerebral Valley](https://cerebralvalley.ai/events) event series, small dinners, and the hundreds of side-events you will find on [lu.ma](https://lu.ma/) and Partiful. You do not pay for these. You show up, you demo, you talk.

**Tentpole conferences, expensive, variable signal.** The big ones anchor the calendar:

- **SF Tech Week** (run by a16z, [tech-week.com](https://www.tech-week.com/)) is the best deal in the city because it is decentralized: hundreds of independently hosted side-events, many of them free, clustered into one week. The official conference is almost beside the point.
- **Deep Tech Week SF** runs June 22 to 26, 2026, with dozens of events across the week.
- **SaaStr** (May 12 to 14, 2026, in the Bay Area) is the go-to for B2B SaaS, with 10,000+ attendees, an AI summit, and tactical sessions.
- **TechCrunch Disrupt** (late October, Moscone West) and **Dreamforce** (mid-October) are the giant legacy conferences. Useful for some, overwhelming for most early founders.

Here is the unspoken truth: for a founder with little money and no network, the paid conferences are usually the worst value. The week *around* a big conference, full of free side-events and dinners, is where the actual relationships form. Go to the parties, skip the badge.

To find what is on, live in [lu.ma](https://lu.ma/), the [Cerebral Valley events page](https://cerebralvalley.ai/events), and a couple of newsletters like StrictlyVC. Set aside one evening a week, minimum.

## The unwritten rules

This is the part that separates people who "go to events" from people who build a network.

**Give before you ask.** The fastest way to a warm relationship is to be useful first. Offer specific product feedback. Make an introduction. Share a customer lead. Founders remember the person who helped before they wanted anything.

**Host, do not just attend.** The single highest-leverage move is to run your own small dinner of eight people. As the host you meet everyone, you control the guest list, and you become a node instead of a face in a crowd. It costs a reservation and a few DMs.

**Coffee beats conferences for depth.** Big events are for first contact. Real relationships are built one on one. A useful tactic that works surprisingly often: message a founder whose product you genuinely use, offer concrete feedback, and ask for 20 minutes. Most will say yes.

**Be embarrassingly specific in your asks.** "Do you know anyone in fintech?" gets nothing. "I am looking for an intro to a design partner who runs payments ops at a Series A fintech" gets results, because you have done the thinking for them.

**Follow up within 24 hours, and X is the social graph.** San Francisco runs on X (formerly Twitter). An active, useful presence there is how you stay on people's radar between coffees. Send the follow-up note the same day, while they still remember your face.

## The money reality nobody wants to say out loud

San Francisco is one of the most expensive places on earth to be early and broke. Before you move, do the runway math honestly. If relocating burns six months of personal runway in rent, that is six months you are not building. Many founders split the difference: a hacker house to cut costs, or an intense few months in the city to build the network, then a retreat somewhere cheaper to build the product. There is no shame in optimizing for cash. Burning out on rent is not a strategy. We wrote more about that mindset on our [editorial page](/editorial/).

## Your first 30 days: a starter plan

If you landed tomorrow, here is the sequence that works.

**Week 1: Set up your antenna.** Make a lu.ma account, follow the Cerebral Valley events page, subscribe to two newsletters, and rebuild your X presence so it is clear what you are building. Commit to three events this week.

**Week 2: Show up and shut up.** Attend those events. Ask people what they are working on. Do not pitch. Collect names, send same-day follow-ups, and book three coffees for week three.

**Week 3: Give value.** In every coffee, find one specific way to help. An intro, feedback, a lead. Apply to one community (South Park Commons, Founders Inc, or Z Fellows depending on your stage).

**Week 4: Become a node.** Host a small dinner of eight people you have met. Mix folks who do not know each other. Congratulations, you are now part of the scene instead of an observer of it.

Breaking into San Francisco is not about luck or pedigree. It is about density, generosity, and showing up consistently for longer than most people are willing to. The city rewards the persistent. Hold tight and keep showing up.

*New, independent, and not affiliated with any prior owner of this domain. Want the founder-sales and pricing playbooks next? Start with our [about page](/about/).*


How to Break Into the SF Startup Scene in 2026: Events, Communities, and the Unwritten Rules


A waitlist is not a success metric. It is a pile of intentions. The graveyard of failed launches is full of founders who collected thousands of emails, went silent for two months, hit send on a "We're live" blast, and converted almost nobody.

The proof is everywhere. One founder posted on [Indie Hackers](https://www.indiehackers.com/post/300-waitlist-signups-launched-march-12-and-only-3-paying-users-where-is-our-gtm-failing-808aec814d) that 300+ waitlist signups turned into exactly 3 paying users. That is not a list problem. That is a nurture problem.

## Two numbers that change everything

**Speed of conversion decays fast.** Founders report roughly 50% conversion when the wait between signup and access is one to two days, dropping to around 30% when the wait stretches to 45 days. Shorten the gap or keep the list warm. Ideally both.

**Money up front filters for buyers.** A deposit-based waitlist (even a small refundable $5) commonly converts at 15 to 30%, because the deposit already removed everyone who was merely curious. [a16z's speedrun team](https://speedrun.substack.com/p/the-growth-meta-how-to-build-a-waitlist) makes the same point: a waitlist generates qualified demand, not raw signups.

## The 6-email sequence

Copy each block, swap the brackets, and schedule it. Keep them short and human.

### Email 1, Welcome (send instantly)

```text
Subject: You're in. Here's what happens next.

Hi [name],

You're on the list for [product]. Here's what to expect:
- Access opens on [date]
- One short, useful email about every [cadence]

To start, here's [one immediately useful thing: a checklist,
a benchmark, a teardown] so this is worth your inbox today.

[Founder name]
```

Why it works: it delivers value immediately so the relationship does not start with an IOU. The job of Email 1 is to make opening Email 2 a reflex.

### Email 2, The founder story (day 2 to 3)

```text
Subject: Why I'm building this

Hi [name],

Short version: [the specific problem that made you angry
enough to start]. I kept watching [audience] deal with
[pain], so I'm building [product] to fix exactly that.

More soon. Reply and tell me your version of [pain],
I read everything.

[Founder name]
```

Why it works: people back people before they back products. This is the email that turns a signup into a fan.

### Email 3, Proof it works (day 5 to 7)

```text
Subject: What early users are already doing with it

Hi [name],

A quick proof point: [beta user] used [product] to
[specific result, with a number].

No beta yet? Swap in the cost of the status quo:
"Teams still doing this by hand lose [X hours / $Y] a month."

Access opens [date].
```

Why it works: social proof at this stage beats any feature list. Even one small number does the job.

### Email 4, Teach something useful (day 10 to 14)

```text
Subject: How to [solve a slice of the problem] in 10 minutes

Hi [name],

You don't need us to start fixing [problem]. Here's a
10-minute version you can do today:
1. [step]
2. [step]
3. [step]

When you want this automatic, that's what [product] is for.
```

Why it works: this is the ConvertKit move. You earn the right to sell by being useful first.

### Email 5, The pre-launch offer (48 hours before access)

```text
Subject: Founding-member pricing opens Thursday (first 48 hours)

Hi [name],

As an early supporter you get founding-member pricing:
[price] locked in for [term], versus [standard price] later.

It opens [date/time] and runs 48 hours. I'll send the link
the moment it's live.
```

Why it works: honest scarcity that rewards your earliest believers with something concrete.

### Email 6, Launch (launch day)

```text
Subject: We're live. Founding pricing ends Saturday at midnight.

Hi [name],

[product] is live: [link]

Founding-member pricing ([price]) ends Saturday at midnight.
One link, one offer, one deadline.

[Founder name]
```

Why it works: short, single call to action, hard deadline. Send a "last call" a few hours before it closes; a real share of conversions land in that final window.

## Two upgrades the pros use

**The personal-email ask.** Alex Hillman of Stacking the Bricks asked people to email him personally for a pre-sale link instead of clicking a button. A quarter to 40% of interested people did, and now he had a one-to-one thread with every serious buyer. Friction, used deliberately, qualifies.

**The white-glove onboarding.** Superhuman made every early user do a short application and a 30-minute onboarding call. It does not scale, and that is the point: at launch you buy learning and loyalty, not efficiency.

## What to measure

Watch the step-by-step funnel, not the vanity total:

- **Open rate:** aim for 40%+. If it is low, the problem is your subject line or sender trust.
- **Click to the offer:** a meaningful share of opens. If it is low, the offer is weak or the value is unclear.
- **Paid conversion:** 15%+ (higher for deposit lists). If it is low, the leak is your pricing or onboarding.

A waitlist done right is one of the highest-leverage assets a pre-launch company has. The difference between 3 paying users and 300 is six emails and the discipline to send them.

*Next: pricing that private beta without leaving money on the table. New here? Start with [breaking into the SF startup scene](/posts/breaking-into-sf-startup-scene-2026/).*


The Waitlist-to-Revenue Email Sequence: The Exact 6 Emails (With Copy)


I once watched an investor flip through a 28-slide deck in under ninety seconds. He did not read it top to bottom. He jumped to the traction slide, scanned it, jumped to the team slide, scanned that, glanced at the ask, and closed the file. Three slides out of twenty-eight. The founder had spent a week on a "company values" slide nobody opened.

That is the uncomfortable truth about what to include in a pitch deck. The reader is not going to read all of it. They are going to skip to the slides that answer their real questions, which means your job is to make sure those slides exist, are obvious, and are strong. Here are the eleven slides that matter, what each must do, and the mistakes that sink them.

## The 11 slides, and the job of each

A pitch deck is not a document, it is a sequence of answers to the questions an investor is already asking. Strip it to the eleven that carry weight.

```
PITCH DECK OUTLINE — THE 11 SLIDES THAT MATTER

1.  TITLE        Name + one-line description + contact.
2.  PROBLEM      One specific, painful problem. Name who has it.
3.  SOLUTION     What you built. Show the product, not adjectives.
4.  TRACTION     Your best proof. One clear chart. (Move up if strong.)
5.  MARKET       Bottom-up size. Why it's growing now.
6.  PRODUCT      How it works in 3 steps or 3 screens.
7.  BUSINESS     How you make money. Pricing. Unit economics.
8.  WHY NOW      The shift that makes this possible today.
9.  COMPETITION  Honest landscape + your real edge.
10. TEAM         Why you specifically win this.
11. THE ASK      How much, what it buys, which milestone it hits.

(Appendix: cohorts, financials, extra screens — not counted.)
```

### 1. Title

Your one-line description is the most important sentence in the deck. Make it concrete enough that a stranger could repeat it. "Expense cards for nonprofits" works. "Reimagining financial infrastructure" does not.

### 2. Problem

State one problem, sharply. Name the person who feels it and what they do today instead. Founders weaken this slide by listing three problems to look ambitious. It reads as unfocused.

### 3. Solution

Answer the problem directly and show the product. A real screenshot of a real screen beats any description. This is also where a one-sentence "we do X so that Y" line earns its keep.

### 4. Traction

This is the slide investors skip to first, so treat it that way. One clear chart of the metric that proves demand, growing over time. Resist the urge to show fifteen numbers. Pick the one that matters and make it unmissable.

> Investors do not read decks linearly. They jump to traction, then team, then the ask. If those three slides are not strong on their own, the other eight will not save you.

No traction yet? Honest at pre-seed. Substitute the strongest leading indicator you have, such as design partners, a waitlist with real intent, or signed letters of intent, and lean harder on team and "why now."

### 5. Market

Size it from the bottom up: number of real customers times what they would actually pay. The classic mistake is the top-down "1% of a 50 billion dollar market" claim, which signals you have not done the work. [HBR](https://hbr.org/) has dependable guidance on sizing markets credibly.

### 6. Product

Show how it works in three steps or three screens. The test: can someone who has never seen it understand the core loop in twenty seconds? If not, simplify the slide, not the explanation in your head.

### 7. Business model

How you make money, your pricing, and unit economics if you have them. If you are pre-revenue and still deciding what to charge, our guide on [how to price a private beta](/posts/how-to-price-a-private-beta/) will help you land a defensible number.

### 8. Why now

Every big company answers "why couldn't this exist five years ago." A tech shift, a regulatory change, a behavior change. If you cannot answer it, investors wonder why incumbents have not already done this.

### 9. Competition

Never claim you have no competitors. The status quo is a competitor, and saying otherwise signals naivety. Map the real landscape honestly and state your edge in one sentence.

### 10. Team

Connect each founder's background to why it matters for this exact problem. "Why you" is a real question, not a formality. Relevant scars beat impressive but unrelated resumes.

### 11. The ask

Be concrete. How much you are raising, what it buys, and which milestone it gets you to. "Raising 1.5M to reach 50K monthly recurring revenue and a Series A" tells a story. "Raising a round" does not.

## What investors actually skip to

Not all eleven slides carry equal weight in the first pass. Here is the rough hierarchy.

- **Traction** , First-pass attention: High; Why: Fastest read on whether it works
- **Team** , First-pass attention: High; Why: Can these people pull it off
- **The ask** , First-pass attention: High; Why: Is the round a fit for the fund
- **Problem / Solution** , First-pass attention: Medium; Why: Context for the above
- **Market / Why now** , First-pass attention: Medium; Why: Upside and timing
- **Product / Model / Competition** , First-pass attention: Lower first pass; Why: Read closely in diligence


This does not mean the lower-attention slides do not matter. They matter intensely once a partner is interested. But on the first scan, the top three decide whether there is a second scan at all.

## The mistakes that quietly kill decks

A few patterns show up again and again.

- **Too long.** If the body runs past fifteen slides, you are testing patience. Push detail to the appendix.
- **Burying traction.** Your best chart on slide nine is a wasted asset. Move it up.
- **No "why now."** Without it, your idea looks like something anyone could have built already.
- **Vague ask.** "Raising to grow" tells an investor nothing about fit or milestones.
- **Walls of text.** If a slide needs a paragraph, it needs an edit. The [Guy Kawasaki 30-point font rule](https://guykawasaki.com/the-only-10-slides-you-need-in-your-pitch/) exists precisely to stop this.

For more on the craft, [First Round Review](https://review.firstround.com/) and the [Y Combinator library](https://www.ycombinator.com/library) both have operator-grade writing on fundraising narrative that pairs well with this outline.

## Where to go from here

If you want the same eleven slides framed as a fill-in-the-blanks structure, our [slide-by-slide pitch deck template](/posts/pitch-deck-template/) lays it out cleanly. To see how this maps onto the famous frameworks, the [pitch deck examples](/posts/pitch-deck-examples/) walkthrough compares the YC, Sequoia, and Kawasaki structures side by side and tells you when to use each.

## Next step

Knowing what to include is half the battle. The other half is seeing it done well and editing from a real starting point. The [Pitch Deck Library](/pitch-deck-templates/) has editable decks built around these exact eleven slides, annotated so you can see the job each one is doing. Open the one closest to your stage and make it yours.


What to Include in a Pitch Deck: The 11 Slides That Matter


The most expensive mistake in early pricing is not charging too much. It is charging too little, for too long, to the wrong people, and then being unable to climb out of the hole you dug.

This is the beta pricing trap, and [pricing specialists have a name for it](https://softwarepricing.com/blog/software-pricing-strategies-beta-test-tips/): you set an artificially low beta price, customers anchor to it, and when you try to charge real money at general availability, they treat it as a betrayal. Avoid the trap up front and the GA raise becomes a non-event.

## Rule 1: charge during beta, on purpose

Free beta users tell you what is broken. Paying beta users tell you what is valuable. Those are different and you want the second one. Charging in beta, even a reduced rate, does three things: it filters for real buyers, it validates that the problem is worth money, and it sets a price anchor near where you actually want to land.

Pick beta customers who are willing to pay a premium to get a capability early, not bargain hunters who are only there because it is cheap. The customers you recruit on price will leave on price.

## Rule 2: frame the discount as temporary from day one

The single most important sentence in your beta pricing is the one that says it is temporary. Never let "beta price" become "the price." Say it plainly, in writing, at signup:

> "Beta pricing is $X/month and is locked for your first 12 months as a thank-you for being early. Standard pricing is $Y."

Now the real price is established as the reference point, the low price is a gift with a clear expiry, and the eventual increase is something they already agreed to. You are not raising the price. You are ending a discount you told them about.


## Rule 3: grandfather your earliest believers

When GA arrives, do not yank the rug. Grandfather your beta cohort at their rate for a defined window (6 to 12 months is common), then migrate them up. Loyalty earns a runway, not a lifetime subsidy. The founders who track this well, like the analysis behind [443 SaaS pricing pages](https://www.growthunhinged.com/p/state-of-saas-pricing-changes-2024), find that clear, value-linked increases rarely cause the churn founders fear.

## Rule 4: earn the increase with visible value

You get to raise prices with confidence when you can point at what changed. Ship visibly between beta and GA. New capabilities, better reliability, real outcomes. When a customer pushes back, you answer with the list of everything that is better than the day they signed up. As [SaaStr documented during the 2025 price surge](https://www.saastr.com/the-great-price-surge-of-2025-a-comprehensive-breakdown-of-pricing-increases-and-the-issues-they-have-created-for-all-of-us/), the increases that stuck were the ones tied to obvious added value. The ones that caused revolts were arbitrary.

## The GA migration email (steal this)

Send it 30 days before the change, not on the day of.

> Subject: Your pricing changes on [date] (here's exactly how)
>
> Hi [name]. When you joined the beta, we locked you in at [$X] and told you standard pricing would be [$Y]. That day is coming: on [date], your plan moves to [$Z], which is still [discount]% below our public rate as a thank-you for being early.
>
> Since you joined, we shipped [3 concrete things]. If anything here does not sit right, just reply. We would rather talk than surprise you.

No spin, no burying it, a clear date, a reminder of the original deal, and a list of value delivered. That email is the difference between a quiet migration and a wave of cancellations.

Price is not an afterthought you bolt on at launch. It is a promise you make in beta and keep at GA. Make the right promise early and the raise takes care of itself.

*Related: [the waitlist-to-revenue sequence](/posts/waitlist-to-revenue-email-sequence/) and [what we stand for](/editorial/).*


How to Price a Private Beta (and Raise It at GA Without a Revolt)


The first time I sat in on a partner meeting, I expected debate about the product. Instead the partners spent ten minutes arguing about the order of the slides. One wanted traction first. Another said the problem had to come first or nothing made sense. They were both right, and that argument is the entire reason "pitch deck examples" is one of the most searched founder phrases on the internet. Everyone is trying to reverse-engineer the structure that worked for someone else.

The good news: there are only a handful of proven structures, and the famous ones are public. The trick is knowing which one fits your company right now. Below are the three outlines that show up most often in funded decks, what each is good at, and when to reach for it. I am going to keep the numbers out of this on purpose. Specific funding figures get stale and misquoted, and the structure is what transfers anyway.

## The three structures worth knowing

There is no single "correct" deck. There are templates that have survived thousands of pitches because they front-load the right information for a particular kind of company. Three are worth internalizing.

### 1. The Y Combinator outline

YC's house style is ruthlessly plain. No theme, no animation, big text, one idea per slide. The order pushes you to prove demand fast: what you do, the problem, the insight, the product, then traction as early as it can credibly appear. The whole philosophy is documented across the [Y Combinator library](https://www.ycombinator.com/library), and it reflects how YC partners actually evaluate, which is quickly and on evidence.

Use it when you have traction, even early traction, and want it to do the talking. It is also the safest default for first-time founders because it is almost impossible to over-design.

### 2. The Sequoia structure

Sequoia's framework is narrative. It walks from a clear company purpose through the problem, the "why now," the market, the product, and the business model as a connected story. You can read the firm's thinking on company building and storytelling on the [Sequoia site](https://www.sequoiacap.com/). The structure rewards founders who can frame a genuine market shift, because "why now" carries real weight in this outline.

Reach for it when your edge is timing or insight rather than raw metrics, or when you are raising a larger round where the partnership needs a thesis, not just a chart.

### 3. Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 rule

Kawasaki's contribution is constraint. His [10 slides every pitch needs](https://guykawasaki.com/the-only-10-slides-you-need-in-your-pitch/) come with a famous rule: ten slides, twenty minutes, thirty-point font minimum. The font rule sounds petty until you realize it physically prevents you from cramming, which is the number one deck sin.

Use it as a discipline pass over whatever structure you chose. If your content does not survive a thirty-point font, it was never going to survive a partner's attention either.

## How they line up

The structures overlap more than they differ. Here is the same set of beats mapped across all three so you can see where they agree.

```
DECK STRUCTURE COMPARISON

Beat            | YC style        | Sequoia style    | Kawasaki 10
----------------|-----------------|------------------|----------------
Opener          | What you do     | Company purpose  | Title / problem
Problem         | Problem         | Problem          | Problem
Insight/Why now | The insight     | Why now          | (folded in)
Solution        | Product         | Solution         | Value prop
Market          | Market          | Market size      | Underlying magic
Traction        | Traction (early)| Traction         | Business model
Model           | Business model  | Business model   | Go-to-market
Competition     | Competition     | Competition      | Competition
Team            | Team            | Team             | Team
The ask         | The ask         | The ask          | Projections + ask

Common thread: problem -> why now -> solution -> proof -> people -> ask.
Difference: WHERE proof (traction) sits and HOW MUCH story wraps it.
```

The pattern underneath all three is the same: problem, why now, solution, proof, people, ask. What changes is emphasis. YC pulls proof forward. Sequoia wraps everything in story. Kawasaki caps the length so nothing sprawls.

## Choosing the right one

A quick way to decide.

- **Real usage or revenue growth** , Lean toward: YC outline; Because: It puts proof up front
- **A market shift or timing insight** , Lean toward: Sequoia structure; Because: "Why now" gets room to breathe
- **A tendency to overstuff slides** , Lean toward: Kawasaki 10/20/30; Because: The constraints force focus
- **A first raise, no template instinct** , Lean toward: YC outline; Because: Hardest to get wrong


> The structures are not rivals. Pick the one that flatters your strongest asset, then run a Kawasaki pass to cut whatever does not earn its slide.

## Reading examples without copying them

Studying real decks is the fastest way to internalize this, but there is a trap: people copy the surface, the colors and the phrasing, and miss the logic. When you look at an example deck, ask why each slide is where it is, not what it says. [First Round Review](https://review.firstround.com/) has good operator-written breakdowns of fundraising narrative, and [Visible](https://visible.vc/) publishes practical material on what investors actually look for slide to slide. Read those alongside the examples and the structure starts to feel obvious instead of mysterious.

One more honest note, since it is the most common mistake I see in example-hunting: founders pick the deck of a company they admire without checking whether that company's situation matched theirs. A deck that worked for a metrics-heavy growth-stage company is the wrong model for a pre-seed team with a thesis and a prototype. Match the structure to your stage, not your aspirations.

## Where to go next

Once you have picked a structure, the work shifts to filling it well. Our [slide-by-slide pitch deck template](/posts/pitch-deck-template/) breaks down the single job of each slide, and [what to include in a pitch deck](/posts/what-to-include-in-a-pitch-deck/) covers the eleven slides that matter plus the mistakes that quietly kill decks. If you are pre-revenue and the model slide is giving you trouble, our piece on [how to price a private beta](/posts/how-to-price-a-private-beta/) will help you put a real number on it.

## Next step

Reading about structures only gets you so far. The fastest progress comes from opening a real deck in the structure you chose and editing it into your own. The [Pitch Deck Library](/pitch-deck-templates/) has editable versions of the YC, Sequoia, and Kawasaki outlines side by side, annotated so you can see why each slide sits where it does. Pick the one that fits your raise and start there.


Pitch Deck Examples and Outlines That Raised Money


Most Product Hunt advice is about winning the day. Badge, ranking, upvotes. None of that pays rent. One founder summed up the reality: a big spike in visits, and about [5% of those visitors converted to paid](https://www.producthunt.com/p/general/what-s-your-real-conversion-outcome-from-a-product-hunt-launch). A "#1 Product of the Day" with no conversion system is a trophy, not a business.

Here is how to treat a launch as a revenue event instead of a popularity contest.

## The mindset shift: a spike, not a channel

Product Hunt is a visibility spike, not a steady acquisition channel. It only matters if your product is ready to *capture intent* the moment attention arrives. That means the bottleneck is rarely the launch. It is what happens in the 90 seconds after someone clicks through.

The hard rule from people who have done it well: your onboarding has to deliver value in under two minutes. If a curious developer or operator cannot get to a genuine "oh, nice" moment fast, the spike washes over you and leaves nothing behind.


## Before launch: build the relationships

The launches that convert start weeks early. Build real relationships with active makers and founders before launch day, the people who will actually use the product and leave a substantive comment, not just an upvote. As one maker who got [two apps featured noted on Indie Hackers](https://www.indiehackers.com/post/i-launched-2-apps-on-product-hunt-and-both-were-featured-heres-what-i-learned-0b24c76a3a), the launch is downstream of the network you build beforehand.

Treat the Product Hunt page itself like a product: the gallery images, the first comment, and the description deserve as much care as a feature. Most founders rush them. The ones who win do not.

## Launch day: capture, do not just collect

Three things to wire up before you post:

1. **A launch-day offer that rewards now.** A founding-member discount with a 72-hour clock turns "I'll check it later" into "I'll grab it today." Later never comes.
2. **An email capture for the not-ready-yet.** Most visitors will not buy on day one. A lightweight "get the launch notes" or trial capture means the spike feeds a list instead of evaporating.
3. **A sub-two-minute path to value.** Strip onboarding to the single action that creates the aha. Everything else can wait.

## The 30-day plan (where the money actually is)

The number one reason launches fail to convert is that founders stop the day after. Winners run a structured 30-day plan:

- **Days 1-3:** reply to every comment and DM. Book calls with anyone who shows buying intent.
- **Week 1:** email everyone who signed up but did not buy, with a specific use case, not a nag.
- **Week 2:** publish the launch retrospective (traffic, what worked, what you shipped). It earns a second wave of attention and trust.
- **Weeks 3-4:** turn the best launch-day conversations into case studies, and use them in your next outbound. The launch becomes fuel, not a finish line.

Ranking is vanity. Conversion is revenue. A modest launch with a tight capture system and a real 30-day follow-through will beat a #1 finish with none, every single time.

*Related: [the waitlist-to-revenue sequence](/posts/waitlist-to-revenue-email-sequence/) and [breaking into the SF startup scene](/posts/breaking-into-sf-startup-scene-2026/).*


How to Convert a Product Hunt Launch Into Paying Customers (Not Upvotes)


A founder I know rebuilt her seed deck eleven times before her first partner meeting. Eleven. By version seven she had a beautiful color palette, three animated transitions, and a slide titled "The Vision" that said nothing. The partner who eventually wrote the check told her later that he made up his mind on slide three, the one with the chart showing weekly active users doubling every month. Everything else was noise he tolerated.

That is the thing nobody tells you about a pitch deck template. The template is not where the work is. The template just keeps you from forgetting the slides that matter and from over-investing in the ones that do not. Below is the structure that actually shows up in funded seed and Series A decks, slide by slide, with the one job each slide has to do.

## Why a template at all

Investors read a lot of decks. A partner at a mid-size fund might see thirty in a week. That means they have a mental model for where information lives, and when your deck matches that model they can move fast. When it does not, they spend their attention hunting instead of evaluating, and attention is the only thing you are really competing for.

A good template does three things. It puts the proof early. It keeps each slide to a single idea. And it gives the reader a clean path from "what is this" to "why now" to "why you" without backtracking. If you want to see how the best decks sequence those beats, the [Y Combinator library](https://www.ycombinator.com/library) and [Sequoia's writing on company building](https://www.sequoiacap.com/) are both worth an afternoon.

## The slide-by-slide template

Here is the full outline. Copy it, fill it, cut anything that is not pulling weight.

```
PITCH DECK TEMPLATE (10-12 slides)

1.  TITLE
    Company name, one-line description, your contact.
    The one-liner should pass the "text it to a friend" test.

2.  PROBLEM
    The specific pain, who has it, what they do today.
    One problem. Not three.

3.  SOLUTION
    What you built and why it kills the problem.
    Show the product. A screenshot beats a paragraph.

4.  TRACTION  (move up if it's strong)
    Growth, revenue, usage, retention. One clear chart.
    This is the slide that wins or loses the room.

5.  MARKET
    How big, and why it's growing now.
    Bottom-up math, not a "1% of a huge number" claim.

6.  PRODUCT
    How it works in 3 steps or 3 screens.
    Make a non-user understand it in 20 seconds.

7.  BUSINESS MODEL
    How you make money. Pricing. Unit economics if you have them.

8.  WHY NOW
    The shift (tech, regulation, behavior) that makes this possible today.

9.  COMPETITION
    Honest landscape. Your real edge, not "we have no competitors."

10. TEAM
    Who you are and why you specifically win this.

11. THE ASK
    How much, what it buys, what milestone it gets you to.

12. APPENDIX (optional)
    Cohort data, detailed financials, extra screenshots.
```

### Slides 1 to 3: earn the next thirty seconds

The title slide is not a formality. The one-line description is the most-reread sentence in your whole deck, so write it like a headline, not a mission statement. "Payroll for restaurants" beats "empowering the future of work."

The problem slide should make the reader nod before they have finished reading. Name a specific person and a specific pain. The solution slide answers it directly, and it should show the product. A real screenshot of a real screen does more than any adjective.

### Slide 4: traction, and where to put it

If you have traction, this is your strongest card, so consider playing it early, right after the solution. A single chart with a clear up-and-to-the-right line beats a table of fifteen metrics. Pick the one number that proves people want this and let it breathe.

> If your weekly growth chart is the best thing in your deck, do not bury it on slide nine. Investors decide fast, and they decide on evidence, not eloquence.

No traction yet? That is fine at pre-seed. Lean harder on the team and the "why now" slides, and show whatever leading indicator you have, like a waitlist, design partners, or letters of intent.

### Slides 5 to 9: the case

Market sizing trips people up. Do the bottom-up math: number of customers times what they would pay, not a top-down "the market is 50 billion." [HBR](https://hbr.org/) has solid material on sizing markets honestly if you want to sanity-check your method.

The competition slide is where founders lie most often, and investors know it. Never say you have no competitors. The status quo is a competitor. Show the real landscape and state your edge plainly.

### Slides 10 to 11: team and the ask

The team slide answers "why you." Tie each founder's background to why it matters for this exact problem. The ask slide should be concrete: how much you are raising, what it buys, and which milestone it gets you to. "Raising 2M to reach 100K in monthly recurring revenue and a Series A" tells a story. "Raising to grow" does not.

## What to cut

Most decks are too long, not too short. Here is a quick triage.

- **Vision** , Keep if: It reframes the market; Cut or merge if: It is a generic mission statement
- **Roadmap** , Keep if: It maps to the ask; Cut or merge if: It is a feature wishlist
- **Press logos** , Keep if: A top-tier outlet covered you; Cut or merge if: They are minor mentions
- **Advisors** , Keep if: They are operationally involved; Cut or merge if: They lent a logo once
- **Detailed financials** , Keep if: Series A or later; Cut or merge if: Pre-seed with no revenue


## The format details that quietly matter

Send a PDF unless asked otherwise. It renders the same everywhere and cannot break in transit. If you email the deck cold, tools like [DocSend](https://www.docsend.com/) let you see which slides got read and which got skipped, which is useful signal for the next version. And keep the file under fifteen slides in the main body. Everything else lives in the appendix.

For more on the individual slides and the mistakes that sink them, read our companion piece on [what to include in a pitch deck](/posts/what-to-include-in-a-pitch-deck/), and if you want to see how this template compares to the classic frameworks, the [pitch deck examples](/posts/pitch-deck-examples/) walkthrough lays them side by side. Once your deck is raising money, the next conversation is usually pricing, so our guide to [the first pricing page that converts](/posts/the-first-pricing-page-that-converts/) picks up where this leaves off.

## Next step

A template gets you a skeleton. Filling it well is the hard part, and the fastest way to do that is to study real decks that match your stage. Head to the [Pitch Deck Library](/pitch-deck-templates/) for editable versions of this exact outline plus annotated examples you can model. Pick the one closest to your raise, copy it, and start cutting.


The Pitch Deck Template Founders Actually Use (Slide by Slide)


Surveys lie. Interviews drift. The only research that reliably tells you what to build is a customer who has put money and time on the table to build it with you. That is a design partner, and it is the highest-leverage move a pre-product-market-fit B2B company can make.

A design partner is not a beta tester, not a free pilot, and not a friendly user who pats you on the head. As [Bessemer puts it](https://www.bvp.com/atlas/design-partners-the-pre-launch-edge-most-ai-founders-ignore), they are a small set of hand-picked customers who get a contractual seat at the design table in exchange for influence over the roadmap and preferential early pricing.

## Why paid beats free

The instinct is to make it frictionless: "just try it, no commitment." That instinct is wrong. The startup Sierra ran its [design partner program the hard way](https://review.firstround.com/sierra-design-partnership/), asking partners to pay, commit real time, and co-build. The payoff: they converted 100% of those design partners into paying customers. Skin in the game on both sides is the entire point. A partner who pays shows up to the weekly call. A partner who got it free ghosts you by week three.


## How to structure it

Keep it to three to five partners. More than that and you cannot service the cadence. Each one should be a real company in your ICP, ideally recognizable, run by someone who already trusts you enough to take a 45-minute call with no obvious payoff. [Unusual Ventures' field guide](https://www.unusual.vc/field-guide/build-a-sales-motion-with-design-partners-for-a-b2b-product/) frames the agreement as something closer to an enterprise sales contract than a pilot. Put it in writing.

A clean design partner offer includes:

- **A real (discounted) price.** Not free. A meaningful early rate they would not get later.
- **A roadmap seat.** Their feedback on wireframes, mockups, and demos on a fixed cadence (every one to two weeks).
- **A time commitment from them.** A standing weekly or biweekly call. This is the deal, not a favor.
- **A clear term and conversion path.** "Design partner for 90 days, then you convert to a standard annual contract at [rate]."
- **Mutual confidentiality** and, if you want, a logo/quote right for launch.

[Common Paper](https://commonpaper.com/blog/design-partner/) publishes a standard design partner agreement you can start from instead of inventing legal language.

## The conversation that lands them

Do not pitch a product. Pitch the partnership. "I am building [specific thing] for teams like yours. I want three companies to help shape it, get it early at a founder rate, and lock in influence over what we build. In exchange I need a weekly 30 minutes and honest feedback. Are you in?" You are offering them control and an edge, not asking for a favor.

## What it gives you

Each design partner is worth more than a focus group of fifty. You get weekly, specific signal from someone whose budget eventually pays for the product. You get your first case studies, your first logos, and your first references, all before GA. And because they helped build it, the renewal conversation is half-won before you ever have it.

The founders who win the early game do not guess and ship. They recruit three real buyers, charge them, and build the thing together. Then they do it again.

*Related: [pricing a private beta](/posts/how-to-price-a-private-beta/) and [founder-led outbound to find these partners](/posts/founder-led-outbound-first-50/).*


The Design Partner Model: Get 3 Companies to Co-Build and Pay Before You Have a Product


Before you hire a single salesperson, you have to be one. Founder-led outbound is not beneath you. It is the only way to learn your buyer in their own words, and it works precisely because you are the founder. When a CEO sends a cold email, [reply rates climb](https://mailshake.com/blog/founder-led-outbound/): the title signals you actually care, and prospects share things they would never tell a rep reading a script.

Here is the system for your first 50.

## Build a list of 50, not 5,000

Outbound at this stage is a scalpel, not a shotgun. Build a list of 50 to 100 prospects with LinkedIn Sales Navigator, filtered by role, company size, and industry. Then cross-reference with a real trigger: recent funding, a job posting, a product change, anything that signals the exact pain you solve. Spend five to ten minutes per prospect and note one specific detail you can reference. That research is the whole game.

## Write a postcard, not a novel

The most quoted line in cold email is worth repeating: [the message that booked 50 meetings was five lines](https://justinmckelvey.com/blog/founder-led-sales); the one that booked zero was three paragraphs. Lead with an insight about *their* world, not your product.

A template that works:

> Subject: [specific thing about their company]
>
> Hi [name], saw [specific trigger: you just opened 3 SDR roles / launched in EU / shipped X].
>
> Teams hitting that usually run into [specific pain]. We help [type of company] [specific outcome], for example [one concrete proof point].
>
> Worth a 15-minute look? Happy to send a 2-minute Loom first if that's easier.
>
> [Founder name], founder of [company]

Five lines. One insight, one outcome, one ask. No feature dump. No "hope this finds you well."

## The cadence: 4 touches over two weeks

One email is a coin flip you will lose. [80% of sales need 5+ follow-ups](https://twsales.com/founder-led-sales-cold-email/), and most founders quit after two. Run three to four touches over 10 to 14 days:

1. **Day 1, Insight email** (above).
2. **Day 4, The Loom.** "Made you a 2-minute walkthrough on [their specific use case]." Show, do not tell.
3. **Day 8, A different angle.** New proof point or a relevant customer story. Not "just bumping this."
4. **Day 13, The breakup.** "Should I close the loop on this? Totally fine if the timing is off." Breakup emails get surprising reply rates.

It is better to contact 10 accounts 10 times than 100 accounts once.


## The numbers to expect

Aim for a 50%+ open rate (below 40% means a subject line or deliverability problem), and an 8 to 15% reply rate. Expect four to eight weeks from first outreach to first paying customer, with the first two weeks being the hardest while you tune the message. That is normal. The early grind is where you learn the exact words your buyer uses, which becomes every piece of copy you write later.

The first 50 customers are not a job you delegate. They are the research project that teaches you your own business. Do it yourself, then systematize what worked. When you are ready to scale the parts that are working, [software that runs founder-led go-to-market](https://fullpilot.com) can take over the repeatable touches so you stay on the conversations that still need you.

*Related: [the design partner model](/posts/the-design-partner-model/) and [the demo-to-close follow-up](/posts/waitlist-to-revenue-email-sequence/).*


Founder-Led Outbound: How to Land Your First 50 Customers (the Exact Emails)


Usage-based pricing is great until the buyer takes it to finance. Then a deal that felt closed stalls for a month, because procurement cannot approve a number they cannot predict. The product team loves "pay for what you use." The CFO hears "sign a blank check." Both are right, and the gap between them is where deals go to die.

Here is how to keep the value alignment of usage pricing without spooking the people who actually sign.

## Name the real objection: predictability

Enterprise budgets are set months in advance, and fixed contracts make approvals simple. Pure usage pricing breaks that, because [buyers cannot estimate usage accurately enough to commit a budget](https://openviewpartners.com/blog/predictable-revenue-forecasting-usage-based-pricing/). The objection is never "this is too expensive." It is "I cannot predict this, so I cannot approve it." Solve for predictability and the deal moves.

## The answer is almost always hybrid

The model that gets approved is a base plus a variable. The buyer pays a committed subscription for guaranteed access or a block of usage, plus a metered charge that scales with value beyond that. As [Bessemer's pricing playbook](https://www.bvp.com/atlas/the-ai-pricing-and-monetization-playbook) notes, most enterprise software is converging on exactly this: a predictable floor tied to the value metric that matters, with upside that grows as the customer gets more value.

This gives finance a number to budget against and gives you the expansion that pure seats never deliver.


## Five things that get usage deals through procurement

1. **A committed minimum.** A floor the buyer agrees to spend. Predictable for them, a revenue commitment for you.
2. **Credit bundles.** Sell usage in pre-paid blocks. Now it is a fixed purchase order, not an open meter. Procurement loves a PO.
3. **Spend caps and alerts.** Let the buyer set a ceiling and get alerted at thresholds (50%, 80%, 100%). Nothing kills trust like a surprise overage. Expect to be asked for this.
4. **A usage simulation.** Before they sign, show projected cost across low, expected, and high scenarios using their real numbers. Finance will ask for this on any large deployment, so bring it unprompted.
5. **Tiered rates that reward scale.** Lower unit prices at higher volume. The buyer sees that growth is rewarded, not punished.

## How to sell it

Frame it for two audiences in one breath. To the user: "you only pay for the value you get." To finance: "you commit a predictable base, you set a cap, and here is exactly what your bill looks like at three usage levels." When you walk in with the simulation and the cap already built, you have answered the objection before it is raised, and you have made yourself [easier to buy than to explain internally](https://www.salesforce.com/sales/revenue-lifecycle-management/usage-based-billing/), which is the real bar.

Usage pricing wins when it aligns cost to value. It closes when finance can sleep at night. Build the floor and the cap, and you get both.

*Related: [pricing a private beta](/posts/how-to-price-a-private-beta/) and [the waitlist-to-revenue sequence](/posts/waitlist-to-revenue-email-sequence/).*


Usage-Based Pricing Your Buyer's Finance Team Will Actually Approve


Most founders pick a billing cadence by vibes. Monthly feels friendlier, so they default to it, and then they wonder why they are always one bad month from a cash crisis. The billing decision is not a UX choice. It is a financing decision, and for an early company it can be the difference between making it to the next milestone and not.

## The number that matters: runway

Annual billing means you collect twelve months of cash on day one instead of dripping it in over a year. [The runway impact is real](https://medium.com/@zibly.ai/the-annual-vs-monthly-saas-billing-dilemma-optimizing-cash-flow-churn-and-conversion-in-2025-d1480b1179e0): companies leaning on annual contracts commonly operate with 30 to 50% more working capital than monthly-billed peers, which can extend effective runway by two to three months. For a bootstrapped or pre-Series-A company, two to three months is sometimes the entire game.

There is a clean way to think about it: prepaid annual contracts create *negative working capital*. Your customers finance your growth, at zero interest, in advance. That is the cheapest money you will ever raise.


## The worked example

Say you close 10 customers at $200/month.

- **Monthly:** you collect $2,000 in month one. By month twelve you have collected $24,000, assuming nobody churned (they did).
- **Annual:** you collect $24,000 in month one. All of it. Today.

Same revenue on paper. Completely different company. The annual version can hire, run ads, or simply survive a slow quarter. The monthly version is praying.

And it compounds on churn. [Annual contracts churn at roughly half the rate of monthly](https://www.twocents.software/blog/annual-vs-monthly-billing-the-hidden-trade-offs/), partly through "committed inertia": once someone has prepaid for a year, they actually onboard, adopt features, and stick. Monthly customers leave the month they get distracted.

## The catch, and how to handle it

Annual maximizes cash and retention but can *lower initial conversion*, because a year up front is a bigger ask. Monthly maximizes conversion but creates the cash and churn problems above. You do not have to pick one. You engineer the choice:

1. **Offer both, default to annual.** Show annual as the pre-selected option with monthly available. Defaults are powerful.
2. **Price the nudge honestly.** "Two months free on annual" (about a 17% discount) is the standard for a reason: it is a real incentive that still protects margin.
3. **Anchor on the annual number, bill the monthly equivalent visually.** "$200/mo, billed annually" reads cheaper than "$2,400/year" while still collecting the year.
4. **Let monthly exist as the on-ramp, then convert.** Some buyers need to start monthly. Fine. Then send the "switch to annual and get two months free" offer at day 30 once they are hooked.

If runway is tight, lean hard on annual. The discount you give up is cheaper than the financing round you avoid. Cash in the bank is not a vanity metric. It is oxygen.

*Related: [pricing a private beta](/posts/how-to-price-a-private-beta/) and [the first pricing page that maximizes revenue](/posts/the-first-pricing-page-that-converts/).*


Annual vs Monthly at Launch: The Cash-Flow Math Nobody Shows You


The demo went great. They nodded, they asked about pricing, they said "let me loop in a couple of people." Then silence. Three weeks later you are sending "just bumping this to the top of your inbox" and quietly grieving a deal you thought you had.

The demo does not close the deal. The follow-up does. Here is the system that turns a good demo into a signature.

## Send the recap within an hour

While it is fresh, send a short recap that does the buyer's internal selling for them. They have to convince people who were not in the room. Make that easy.

> Subject: Recap + next steps for [their company]
>
> Great talking, [name]. Quick recap of what we covered:
> - Your goal: [their stated goal, in their words]
> - The problem today: [the pain they described]
> - What we showed: [the 2 things that made them lean in]
> - Rough impact: [the number or outcome they care about]
>
> Suggested next step: [specific action] by [date]. I have also attached a one-pager you can forward internally. What did I miss?

That email is not a thank-you note. It is ammunition for the champion you just recruited.


## Build a mutual action plan

The single biggest predictor of a B2B deal closing is a written, shared list of the steps to get there, with dates and owners. Co-create it on the call or in the recap:

1. Internal review with [stakeholder] by [date]
2. Security or legal questions sent to us by [date]
3. Pricing and terms agreed by [date]
4. Start date target: [date]

A mutual action plan turns a vague "we'll get back to you" into a tracked process. When it stalls, you have a specific thing to nudge instead of a generic bump.

## Multi-thread before you need to

Single-threaded deals die when your one contact gets busy, reorganized, or overruled. Politely widen the circle early: "Who else should be part of this so we do not slow you down later?" The [YC sales playbooks](https://www.ycombinator.com/library) hammer this for a reason: champions leave, committees decide.

## The cadence after silence

If it goes quiet, do not send "just checking in." Add value each touch:

- **Day 3:** the recap follow-up, if you have not already.
- **Day 7:** a relevant proof point. "A team like yours just did [result]."
- **Day 12:** a direct, kind question. "Is this still a priority this quarter, or should I follow up next quarter?" Permission to say no gets you a real answer.
- **Day 18:** the breakup. "I will stop here so I am not cluttering your inbox. Door is open."

Giving the buyer an easy out consistently un-sticks more deals than another cheerful bump ever will. The deal is not lost when they go quiet. It is lost when you stop following up like a professional.

*Related: [founder-led outbound](/posts/founder-led-outbound-first-50/) and [the design partner model](/posts/the-design-partner-model/).*


The Demo-to-Close Follow-Up Sequence (Where Most Founder Deals Die)


Your pricing page is the highest-leverage page on your site, and most founders treat it like an afterthought: list some features, pick some round numbers, ship it. That page is leaving money on the table every single day. The good news is that the psychology of what converts is well understood, and you can apply all of it on day one.

## Use exactly three tiers

Two tiers look incomplete. Five tiers cause analysis paralysis. Three is the sweet spot, and it is not just folklore: [three-tier pages convert at roughly 1.4 times the rate of two-tier pages](https://www.digitalapplied.com/blog/subscription-pricing-page-psychology-decision-framework-2026). Three options give the buyer a frame (low, standard, premium) without overwhelming them.

## Anchor high, then guide to the middle

The first price a buyer sees becomes the reference point for every other price. [Price anchoring](https://payproglobal.com/how-to/use-price-anchoring/) means a high anchor makes the next number feel reasonable. Show the premium tier prominently so it sets the ceiling, and the mid-tier suddenly reads as the sensible choice for most people. That mid-tier is usually where you want the majority to land.

## The decoy that lifts premium sales

Here is the trick most founders never use. Add a tier that is deliberately a worse deal: priced close to your premium plan but with noticeably less value. You are not trying to sell it. You are making your target plan look obviously smart by comparison. [Duke University research found](https://www.getmonetizely.com/articles/the-anchoring-effect-in-saas-pricing-using-high-prices-to-drive-sales) that adding a deliberately inferior option can lift premium-tier sales by 35 to 50%. The decoy is a silent salesperson.


## The conversion checklist

- **Three tiers**, named for outcomes, not sizes ("Grow", not "Tier 2").
- **A "Most popular" badge** with visual emphasis on the tier you want to sell.
- **Headline, three plans, and CTA above the fold.** Do not make people scroll to see the options.
- **Anchor with the high number**, and show "billed annually" framing to make the monthly-equivalent read cheaper.
- **Reduce CTA friction:** "Start free trial", plus reassurance like "Cancel anytime" or a refund window.
- **One clear value metric per tier**, so the upgrade reason is obvious.
- **An enterprise "Talk to us"** to capture the big fish without publishing a number that scares the small ones.

A pricing page is not a feature inventory. It is the most important conversion surface you own. Design it like the revenue depends on it, because it does.

*Related: [annual vs monthly billing math](/posts/annual-vs-monthly-at-launch/) and [pricing a private beta](/posts/how-to-price-a-private-beta/).*


The First Pricing Page That Actually Maximizes Revenue


Founders write their messaging from the inside out: here is what we built, here are its features, here is why we think it is clever. Buyers do not care. They care about a job they are trying to get done. The fastest way to write copy that converts is to stop guessing and steal the exact words your best customers use. Ten good interviews will do it.

## Talk to two groups, not one

Interview your happiest customers, and interview people who looked and did not buy. The first group tells you what is working. The second tells you where the message breaks. Most founders only talk to fans and end up with copy that converts the people who were going to convert anyway.

## The interview questions that surface gold

Skip "what features do you want." Ask about the job and the struggle:

1. "Walk me through the day you decided to look for something like this. What happened?"
2. "What were you using before, and what made it not enough?" (This surfaces your real competitive alternatives.)
3. "What almost stopped you from buying?" (Objections, in their words.)
4. "What did you expect it to do, and what surprised you?"
5. "If you could not use us anymore, what would you lose?" (This is your value proposition, written by the customer.)

Record everything. The goal is verbatim language. The phrase a customer repeats three times is worth more than any tagline you will brainstorm.


## Synthesize with a real framework

Raw quotes are not positioning. Run them through [April Dunford's positioning method](https://userlist.com/blog/positioning-overhaul/), which is built on a few pillars worth memorizing:

- **Competitive alternatives:** what would they use if you did not exist (often a spreadsheet, not a competitor).
- **Differentiators:** what you have that the alternatives do not.
- **Value:** what those differentiators let the customer *do* or *feel*.
- **Best-fit customer:** who cares about that value the most.
- **Market category:** the context that makes your value obvious.

Get positioning straight first. [Writing messaging before positioning is the classic mistake](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-secrets-of-compelling-messaging-and-effective-product-positioning/), and it is why so much startup copy sounds clever and converts nobody.

## From positioning to a converting message

Now write the homepage hero as a job done, not a feature: "[Best-fit customer] use [product] to [valued outcome] without [the pain of the alternative]." Pull the supporting lines straight from your interview transcripts. When a visitor reads their own words back to them, they feel understood, and feeling understood is what converts.

Ten interviews, the customer's exact language, and a real positioning framework will beat a year of clever copywriting. Go listen.

*Related: [the design partner model](/posts/the-design-partner-model/) for recruiting interviewees, and [founder-led outbound](/posts/founder-led-outbound-first-50/).*


Showing posts fromfounder playbooks

How to Break Into the SF Startup Scene in 2026: Events, Communities, and the Unwritten Rules

The Design Partner Model: Get 3 Companies to Co-Build and Pay Before You Have a Product