Founders often guess at what a VC deck should contain, and guess wrong. Sequoia Capital publishes its answer openly: a guide called "Writing a Business Plan" that lists the ten sections it expects, in order. It is the same guide the firm points founders to when telling the story of Airbnb's pitch - Brian, Joe and Nate had an air mattress and a vision, Sequoia writes, but no clear idea how to approach VCs or craft a deck.
The ten sections
One, company purpose: define your company in a single declarative sentence. Sequoia warns this is harder than it looks, because it is easy to list features instead of communicating your mission. Two, problem: describe the customer's pain, how it is addressed today, and the shortcomings of current solutions. Three, solution: your eureka moment - why your value proposition is unique, compelling, and durable. Four, why now: the best companies almost always have a clear answer, because if the timing were obvious earlier, someone would have built it.
Five, market potential: identify your customer and your market, remembering that some of the best companies invent their own. Six, competition and alternatives: name direct and indirect competitors and show a plan to win. Seven, business model: how you intend to thrive. Eight, team: the story of the founders and key members. Nine, financials: include them if you have any. Ten, vision: if all goes well, what will you have built in five years?
The slides are not the point
The striking part of Sequoia's Airbnb story is the firm's own conclusion: it was not really the slides they liked, but the ideas, the clarity of the thinking, and the scope of the ambition. The ten sections are a scaffold for demonstrating those three things, not a design brief. A beautiful deck wrapped around muddy thinking fails the sections that matter - a fuzzy purpose sentence, no why-now, a competition slide that pretends competitors don't exist.
Order is part of the argument
The sequence is deliberate. Purpose and problem earn the listener's attention; solution and why-now convert attention into belief; market, competition and business model show the prize is worth winning; team, financials and vision close on credibility. Founders who open with the product demo invert that logic, asking for belief before establishing why anyone should care. If a section is weak, moving it later does not hide it - fix the answer, not the order.
Using it without becoming generic
The risk of a published template is a deck that reads like everyone else's. The fix is to treat each section as a question you must answer unusually well, not a slide you must fill. If your why-now is a genuine insight - a regulation that changed, a cost curve that crossed, a behavior that tipped - it will not look generic, because no one else has it. Sequoia also notes it loves to partner early, when an idea is newly formed; the structure works at napkin stage as well as at Series A.
Start with the one-sentence purpose. If you cannot say it plainly, the other nine sections will not save you.
Further reading: Writing a Business Plan - Sequoia Capital