If you're an early-stage founder polishing your pitch deck for one of Australia and New Zealand’s most prominent venture firms, you might want to delete that market size slide. According to the investment team at Blackbird, the classic TAM, SAM, SOM breakdown is a waste of space.

In a candid breakdown of what they look for in a seed-stage pitch, Partner Rick Baker and Investment Principal Max Meyer outlined a preference for mission clarity and tangible customer traction over often-inflated metrics.

With these investors, the message is clear: Stop trying to fit a formula and start demonstrating why you’re building your life’s work.

A few weeks ago, I attended a Blackbird Giants pitch evening, which Overnight Success supported, where 10 early-stage, courageous founders pitched in front of Rick Baker and Max Meyer, seeking feedback on their pitches.

For many founders, the market size slide is a staple, designed to show investors the massive opportunity ahead. But Meyer is deeply sceptical. "We've never seen small TAM, SAM, SOM numbers on a market size slide," he stated. "In isolation, this slide doesn't add value."

Instead, Meyer argues that the scale of the opportunity should be proven through the problem itself. He advises founders to focus on showing that their product solves a "big, hair on fire problem for a large number of customers." He notes this approach also validates startups creating entirely new categories, "like Uber or DoorDash where there was no market, but there was a problem."

Another common misstep, according to the firm, is a premature focus on getting acquired. While a potential exit is on every investor's mind, explicitly detailing a plan to sell early on signals a lack of ambition.

"We want to invest in founders because they are doing their life’s work, not selling to a large multinational in a few years," explained Baker. He cautioned that for a seed-stage pitch, "a strategy to sell quickly can look like you don’t really think this can be a big business in the long term!"

First, a laser-focused mission. Baker emphasised the need for a narrative that inspires. "Most of all, we want to see a crisply articulated mission," he said. "A mission in vivid colour and high definition is a magnet for great talent, and will become the organising principle for everything you do."

Second, hard evidence of "customer love." Meyer believes this is non-negotiable, even at the earliest stages. 

While acknowledging that "the purest form of love is revenue," he points to other critical indicators of product-market fit. "It might be the number of users, or customer engagement," he suggested, citing an example from one of Blackbird’s most famous portfolio companies. "Canva religiously tracked % of designs that were downloaded in the early days to demonstrate product value." 

He was unequivocal: "Traction should always be shown through numbers using charts or graphics!"

Finally, Blackbird is betting on teams that possess a unique, hard-won advantage and a vision that borders on audacious.

"A team with an earned secret about the world," is how Meyer describes the ideal founding team. "If you’ve managed to convince amazing people to join your startup, and you’ve got a unique insight that will give your company an unfair advantage, we want to know!"

This pairs with the scale of the founder’s vision. While it may seem paradoxical, Meyer believes that aiming for the stratosphere is a prerequisite for a startup to secure funding from Blackbird. 

"Counterintuitively, the more ambitious a founder is, the more likely they are to succeed," he stated. "At Blackbird, we exist to work with founders working on wild ideas where there is a huge opportunity to build a large business. The bolder the vision, the more excited we become."

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