Sessions · Advisor session
Pitch Deck Teardown LIVE: A Real VC Reviews a Real Founder's Deck
Monday, August 3, 2026 · 12–1 PM PDT
This session has ended.
About this session
Most pitch deck advice is generic. This isn't.
For one hour, you'll watch a seasoned VC open up a real founder's actual pitch deck - slide by slide - and react the way she would in a real partner meeting. No hypotheticals, no polished "after" version. Just an honest, live teardown of a deck that's out in the world right now.
The VC: Yoko Okano is the Founding Partner of First Row Partners, a women-led pre-seed firm in Seattle backing tech startups that empower individuals through technology. A former Google product leader and Stanford grad, she writes some of the first checks into companies and has seen countless decks from both sides of the table. She invests at the earliest, hardest stage to fund - where the story matters as much as the numbers.
What you'll get:
- A live, slide-by-slide review of a real seed-stage deck
- What a VC actually looks for - and what makes them lose interest
- The difference between a slide that "works" and one that raises questions
- Open Q&A: bring your own deck questions and pitch challenges
Whether you're actively fundraising, refining your story, or just want to understand how investors really read a deck, this is a rare look behind the curtain.
Hosting this session
Yoko Okano
Founding Partner, First Row Partners
Prior to founding First Row, Yoko was an active angel investor, earning taking leadership roles within groups like Grubstakes and Seattle Angel Conference.
Early in her career at Google, she worked on Google Books & News and launching ebooks on Google Play. She applied the learning from the immense operational scale of Google to her product-related roles at startups before embarking on the investing path full-time.
Yoko loves to dig into product-led growth and shortening an end user’s “time to delight.” She also has a deep passion for bringing more founders and funders into the ecosystem and balancing the power imbalance between the two sides of the table through education. She relishes discussions about fundraising strategy and narrative.
Yoko serves on the board Sustain Music, an organization that uses music as a way to connect - between genres, people and spaces.
Next step
Have a question behind the session?
Share what you’re working through. If your company qualifies, we’ll reply personally within 24 hours.
For companies that have raised at least $1M from venture firms.