How to Make the Traction Slide of Your Pitch Deck [A Detailed Guide]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- Jun 11, 2024
- 8 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Patrick said this while we were rebuilding his pitch deck which failed to persuade on multiple occasions.
“We had revenue, users, and month over month growth, but investors kept saying they could not feel the momentum.”
That frustration is exactly why he hired us.
After working on dozens of traction slides across early stage and growth stage pitch decks, we keep seeing the same problem. Founders show data without context and expect investors to do the interpretation work.
So, in this blog, we will break down how to make your traction slide actually do its job. Not by adding more charts or prettier graphs, but by turning raw numbers into a clear, believable growth narrative investors can instantly understand.
In case you didn't know, we specialize in only one thing: making presentations. We can help you by designing your slides and writing your content too.
Many Founders Think the Traction Slide is Just Another Checkbox in the Pitch Deck.
Something you add because investors expect it to be there. That assumption quietly kills good companies.
When your traction slide is weak, vague, or confusing, investors do not think, “This slide needs work.” They think, “This founder does not understand their own business.” And once that thought enters the room, it never really leaves.
Here is what actually happens when you get it wrong...
You lose credibility before you even reach the product slide.
Investors start questioning whether your growth is real or accidental. They wonder if the numbers are cherry picked. They assume the best months were highlighted and the bad ones conveniently ignored.
Even if none of that is true, perception does the damage for you.
Worse, a bad traction slide forces investors to work.
They have to decode graphs, interpret metrics, and guess what matters. Investors do not do homework during pitches. If they have to think too hard, they mentally move on.
The most expensive mistake is that you look early even when you are not.
We see founders with real revenue, retention, and repeat usage still being treated like an idea stage company. Not because the traction is weak, but because the slide fails to prove momentum.
When traction is unclear, you do not just lose interest. You lose leverage. Valuations drop. Timelines stretch. Follow ups turn into polite silence. Traction is supposed to reduce risk. If your slide increases doubt instead, it works against you.
So, How Should You Make the Traction Slide of Your Pitch Deck
Let us start with an uncomfortable truth. Your traction slide is not about proving growth. It is about proving momentum. Those two things look similar on the surface and completely different to an investor.
Growth is a number going up. Momentum is a story that cannot go backwards.
Most founders walk into pitches with charts that technically show progress and emotionally say nothing. A line goes up. A bar gets taller. Everyone nods. And yet, nothing sticks. That is because investors are not hunting for data. They are hunting for inevitability.
Your job with the traction slide is to make the next outcome feel obvious.
Here is how to do that.
First, decide what traction actually means for your business
Traction is contextual. A marketplace, a SaaS product, and a consumer app should not show the same signals. But founders copy what they have seen before instead of what makes sense.
Before you open Figma or PowerPoint, answer this question honestly: If an investor could only remember one thing from this slide, what should it be?
Not three things. Not five metrics. One.
Examples of strong primary traction signals:
Monthly recurring revenue growth if you are SaaS
Active supply and demand growth if you are a marketplace
Retention or repeat usage if you are consumer
Paid conversions if monetization is the risk
Everything else on the slide exists only to support that one signal. If a metric does not strengthen the core story, it does not belong there.
Most bad traction slides fail here. They try to show everything and end up showing nothing.
Second, show movement, not milestones
Investors care less about where you are and more about how fast you got there.
A single number like “$50k MRR” is meaningless without motion. Was that reached in 2 months or 2 years? Was it flat for a while and then spiked? Did it climb steadily or jump once and stall?
Always show progression over time.
Good examples:
Revenue over the last 6 to 12 months
Weekly active users over time
Cohorts improving month by month
Bad examples:
A snapshot number with no timeline
A logo wall pretending to be traction
Total users since launch with no growth rate
If your graph does not show time clearly, it is not a traction graph. It is a vanity screenshot.
Third, compress the timeline visually
This is subtle but powerful.
If your company has momentum, your graph should feel tight. Short time spans with steep curves. Clean labels. No wasted horizontal space.
Founders often stretch timelines to look established. This backfires. A long flat graph screams slow progress even if the end number looks decent.
If you grew fast, show it fast.
For example:
Show 6 months instead of 3 years
Show weekly data instead of quarterly
Zoom into the period where growth accelerated
You are not hiding history. You are highlighting velocity.
Fourth, make the takeaway impossible to miss
Investors should not have to explain your slide back to themselves.
Every traction slide should answer one silent investor question within three seconds. "Is this thing working?”
Use labels that speak in plain language, not analyst language.
Instead of: “MoM Growth"
Use: “Revenue has grown 18 percent month over month for 7 straight months”
Instead of: “Cohort Retention”
Use: “Users stay longer every month after onboarding changes”
Write conclusions directly on the slide. Founders think this is patronizing. Investors think it is helpful.
Remember, clarity is confidence.
Fifth, show cause, not just effect
Strong traction slides explain why growth is happening.
If revenue jumped, what changed?
If retention improved, what did you fix?
If usage spiked, what behavior shifted?
You do not need a full narrative. One line of context is enough.
Examples:
“Growth accelerated after switching to paid onboarding”
“Retention improved after removing manual setup”
“Usage increased after narrowing ICP”
This tells investors that growth is not accidental. It is engineered. And engineered growth can be repeated.
Sixth, remove vanity metrics aggressively
This part hurts, but it matters.
Vanity metrics make founders feel good and investors feel suspicious.
Common ones to cut:
Total downloads
Page views
Email signups without conversion
Press mentions
Social followers
Ask yourself this brutal question: If this metric dropped by 50 percent tomorrow, would the business actually be in trouble?
If the answer is no, it does not belong on your traction slide.
Real traction creates pain when it disappears.
Seventh, align traction with the stage you claim to be in
Nothing confuses investors faster than mixed signals.
If you say you are early, do not show enterprise style metrics. If you say you are scaling, do not show experiments.
Your traction slide should match your fundraising story.
Examples:
Pre-seed focuses on usage, engagement, and early revenue signals
Seed focuses on consistent growth and retention
Series A focuses on repeatable acquisition and monetization
Growth rounds focus on efficiency and scale
When traction and narrative mismatch, investors assume you are unsure where you stand.
Eighth, design for skimming, not reading
Your traction slide will be skimmed more than it is studied. Especially when it is forwarded internally.
Design rules that matter more than aesthetics:
One main chart per slide
Large labels and numbers
Minimal legends
Clear axes
High contrast
If someone looks at your slide for five seconds on a laptop in bad lighting and understands it, you did it right.
Ninth, anticipate skepticism before it appears
Every traction slide triggers silent doubts.
Is this sustainable?
Is this seasonal?
Is this inflated?
You do not need to defend everything. But you should proactively address the biggest concern.
Examples:
“Excludes one time enterprise deal”
“Growth sustained across three channels”
“Retention consistent across cohorts”
This signals honesty. Investors trust founders who surface weaknesses voluntarily more than those who hide them.
Tenth, practice explaining it out loud
A great traction slide still fails if the founder fumbles the explanation.
Your verbal explanation should do three things:
State the main takeaway
Explain why it matters
Connect it to the next stage of growth
Example structure: "This chart shows revenue growing steadily over the last eight months. The inflection happened after we focused on a single customer segment. This gives us confidence that scaling sales will compound growth.”
If you ramble, apologize, or over explain, the slide loses power. Confidence comes from clarity, not bravado.
Finally, remember what the traction slide is really selling
It is not numbers.
It is belief.
Belief that the market wants this.
Belief that you understand what is driving growth.
Belief that the future will look like a bigger version of the present.
When done right, the traction slide does not convince investors to invest. It removes their reasons not to. And that is the real job.
The Traction Slide Filters Serious Investors from Everyone Else
Your traction slide is not there to impress. It is there to do a quiet, ruthless job. Filter.
Investors are not searching for reasons to believe you.
They are searching for reasons not to. A messy traction slide gives them plenty of exits. A sharp one removes them.
This is where most founders lose hours of their life. They overshare. They defend. They explain numbers that should have explained themselves. Instead of moving the conversation forward, they spend the meeting justifying the past.
A focused traction slide carves out those hours.
It does the sorting before the call even happens. Investors who get it lean in. Investors who do not are unlikely to waste your time.
To make this work, show signals of commitment, not curiosity.
Paying customers beat signups.
Retention beats reach.
Repetition beats spikes.
Be honest about constraints. Focus tells investors you are intentional, not scattered. And resist the urge to hype. Calm, consistent progress builds more trust than dramatic curves.
The best traction slides do not create excitement. They create relief.
The Hidden Cost of Overexplaining Traction
When your traction slide is unclear, you start talking too much. You fill silence with context, excuses, and side stories that were never meant to exist. What should have been a confident pause turns into a defensive monologue.
Clear traction removes the need for persuasion. When the numbers explain themselves, you get to spend the meeting discussing the future instead of justifying the past. That shift alone changes how investors see you and how seriously they take the opportunity.
Where the Traction Slide Belongs in Your Pitch Deck
Traction should come earlier than most founders are comfortable with. If investors have to wait too long to see proof that this works, they start questioning everything that comes before it. A strong traction slide earns attention for the rest of the deck.
Place it right after you explain the problem slide and the solution slide, once investors understand what you do. At that moment, traction acts as validation. It says this is not just a good idea, it is already moving. When timed right, the traction slide shifts the room from curiosity to seriousness.
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