YourFirstRaise
First-time founders · pre-seed & seed

Stop burning investor names on a deck that isn’t ready.

Silence, polite passes, “keep us posted.” That reads like a company problem. Usually it is a story problem. We rewrite the story, rebuild the deck, pick investors who fund your stage, and send the emails with you. You bring the facts. We do the writing, the design and the sending.

Free. Score on screen in about 30 seconds, written teardown in your inbox within 2 business days.

Yoann Defay

Run by Yoann Defay. Raised pre-seed three times, then reviewed 50+ first raises from the other side of the table at EarlyVentures.

Deck teardown Sample

Needs work before you send it

Reads like a product tour. An investor finishes it without learning what they would be buying.

Story 45
Proof 38
Market 70
Team 62
Ask 45

Biggest single fix

Slide 3 lists features. Replace it with the one number that proves someone already wants this.

Sample of the teardown we send back. Yours grades every slide.

Who you are hiring

Ten years building. Three pre-seed rounds raised. Fifty first raises reviewed from the investor’s chair.

I left École Centrale at 22 to start my first company and have shipped 25+ products since, across fintech, media and AI. I raised my own pre-seed three times. Then I ran EarlyVentures, an early-stage launchpad, where I sat on the reviewing side of 50+ first raises and watched good companies lose to bad decks.

50+
first raises reviewed
pre-seed rounds raised
25+
products shipped
10 yrs
building companies

Case · F1Stakes

A shelved idea became an investor-ready deck in one week, then cleared three rounds of meetings and full diligence.

We wrote the story, built the deck, ran call rehearsals, and answered every diligence question the investors sent back. That is the bar: slides that survive the room, not slides that photograph well.

Free deck score

We read your deck the way a pre-seed investor reads it.

Upload the PDF and get a score on screen in about 30 seconds. Two business days later a written teardown lands in your inbox: every slide, five dimensions, and the single change that moves the most.

What we usually receive

The deck as it stands

52
Story 45
Proof 38
Market 70
Team 62
Ask 45

Ends with a polite “keep us posted.”

What we send back

The deck after we rebuild it

89
Story 92
Proof 85
Market 88
Team 90
Ask 90

Ends with “can you do Thursday?”

Story

Why this, why now, why you

Proof

Traction an investor can verify

Market

A number built bottom-up

Team

Why you win this specific thing

Ask

Amount, runway, milestones

How it works

Five stages, and we do the work in every one.

Start anywhere. Most founders start at the deck and work outwards.

Fit call

30 min, free

You walk us through what you are building and what investors have said. We tell you the next useful move, including "wait a quarter" when that is the answer.

Raise plan

First

We set the amount, the use of funds, the milestones it buys, and the objections you will hear. You leave with a target list built for your stage, sector and check size.

Deck

About a week

We write the narrative, build the slides and design them. You keep the working files, the source copy and the reasoning behind every slide.

Outreach

Ongoing

We write the emails, send them from a dedicated setup so your inbox stays clean, track the campaign and hand you the replies worth answering first.

The room

Through the raise

We rehearse the call, drill the questions that end meetings, draft your follow-ups and investor updates, and prepare the diligence pack before anyone asks for it.

Fit

We turn founders away. Here is the line.

Work with us if
First round, no raise behind you, pre-seed or seed
You can build the product but the pitch stalls in your throat
Your deck gets silence and nobody will tell you which slide loses them
You need a SAFE, a cap table and a valuation you can defend
You want the outreach run, not explained to you
× Skip us if
× Series B and beyond. We only do first rounds.
× You want a strategy document rather than someone doing the work
× You want the slides redesigned but the story left alone

Before you hire us

What founders ask first.

I have never raised and I am pre-seed. Is this for me?

That is the only founder we build for. First round, pre-seed or seed, no prior raise. We cover the amount, the story, the deck, the target list, the outreach, the calls, the follow-ups and diligence.

Which call is free and which one costs money?

The 30-minute fit call is free and there is nothing to buy at the end of it. The $150 Strategy Session is a separate 90-minute working session that ends with a written action plan, and the $150 comes off any package you take afterwards.

Will you guarantee a check, or at least a meeting?

No. Investors decide that, so anyone selling you certainty is selling something they do not own. We guarantee the work: a story that holds up, a list matched to your stage, tracked outreach, fast follow-up. If a campaign returns zero replies, we run the next 50 investors at no charge.

Cold outreach or warm intros?

Cold, and targeted. We build the list from your stage, sector and check size, write each email against the investor thesis, send from a dedicated outreach setup so your main inbox stays clean, and triage what comes back. We do not claim intros we do not have.

How much work lands back on me?

You supply the facts: product, traction, market, financials, plus feedback inside a day or two. We do the writing, the slide design, the list research, the sending and the reply triage. Hands-on, not homework.

What does the timeline look like?

Fit call takes 30 minutes. Deck teardown comes back in 2 business days. A focused deck moves in about a week when you answer quickly. Outreach starts once the story and deck can survive a forward.

Raising this quarter?

Find out which slide loses them, before the next investor opens it.

Upload the deck and we grade every slide. No deck yet, book the call and we start from your notes. Either way you get a diagnosis rather than a sales call.

Score my deck → Free
2-day teardown