Fundraising: slides or a written memo

The question of "deck or memo" comes up for most tech startups preparing to raise capital. You don't need to choose one or the other, but you do need to understand that each format serves a different purpose within the same journey. You need both, just at the right moment.

Two formats, two tasks.

The deck is a filtering tool. Investors receive dozens, even hundreds, of decks every month. They don't read, they scan. A deck only needs to be compelling enough that they want to meet and read on, not to persuade fully. A deck is strongest in person, because the presenter controls the pace and can add context out loud.

The narrative memo is a tool for building trust. A memo (like Amazon's six-page format, or an investment memo, meaning a written investment summary) is a standalone document. It prioritizes depth of reasoning: market analysis, risks, why now, strategic logic. Investors read a memo alone, at their own pace, and this is when they truly weigh the decision.

The standard deck framework and common omissions

The 10-section Sequoia framework (company purpose, problem, solution, why now, market size, competition, product, business model, team, financials) is the skeleton investors are used to reading. However, if you stick rigidly to those 10 sections without adding anything, the deck often lacks three important pages: traction (evidence that the market is already interested), go-to-market, and a specific fundraising ask.

According to DocSend data, the first three pages act as the filter that decides whether an investor keeps reading. The team and financials pages are where they linger longest. If those two pages are thin, no matter how beautiful the deck is, it will struggle to get past the first round.

When to add a memo

Not every startup needs a memo from the very beginning. There are certain situations where a memo provides a clear advantage.

• A complex technical story: the product needs to explain how it works, why it is hard to copy, or a long-term advantage that a single page can't convey.
• Investors read asynchronously: some funds have internal processes that require written documents to present to their internal investment committee. A presentation deck is not suited to that channel.
• The founder wants to express strategic thinking: a memo allows for presenting market views, risk analysis, and reasons for choices, things that a deck does not have space for.
• Series A phase and beyond: investors at this stage typically expect a deeper level of thinking compared to seed or pre-seed.

Common mistakes

• Cramming too much into the deck: when every page holds three or four points, the deck becomes a presentation-style memo without the depth of a real memo. Investors can't scan it and move on.
• Only a beautiful deck lacking depth: when investors ask for more, there are no documents to send, and the story breaks.
• Thin team and financials pages: this is where investors linger longest, and leaving it empty or writing it generically wastes your most important opportunity.
• The first three pages aren't sharp enough: a faint cover, a problem that isn't clearly named, a vague solution, and the investor closes the deck before reaching the important parts.
• Sending a memo before any initial relationship exists: a memo demands a high reading commitment, and sending it to someone who doesn't know you is usually ineffective.

Investors rarely read closely and mostly scan. What you're paying for is not dragging and dropping slides, but deciding which message goes first and turning tangled numbers into a chart that can be read in three seconds.

Sinh Vũ, from practical experience in fundraising documentation

The viewpoint of Sinh Vũ

Sinh Vũ builds fundraising materials in a structure investors are used to reading: one message per page, with the story locked before any thought of form. For most tech startups in Vietnam, a deck in the familiar framework is the first priority. Once an investor is interested and the technical story needs more depth, then we build the memo layer.

Sinh Vũ does not write your financial figures and does not promise fundraising results after delivering the materials. What Sinh Vũ does is lock the story, arrange the messages in the right order, and build both layers when needed. The goal is to give your materials a chance to be read through to the last page.

This article is for reference. The scope, pricing, and specific commitments of Sinh Vũ are detailed in the proposal and signed contract.