# Storytelling frameworks Vocabulary for naming a deck's spine, not a required step: borrow a framework if it describes what your titles already do. Every deck has to pass [the spine test](#the-spine-test) at the end of this file, whichever framework it uses; [pitch-structure.md](pitch-structure.md) is the container. All numbers below are placeholders to show the shape. ## Which name fits None is required. If your titles already do one of these, the name helps you talk about the spine: - A working demo carries the deck → **Before-After-Bridge** - A raise from VCs → the **6-part investor arc** - An obvious, visceral pain → **PAS** - A real user story → **Hero's journey** - A product that is technically hard to grasp → **Pixar** - A non-technical marketing audience → **AIDA** Mixing is fine: PAS for the first three slides, then the investor arc for the body. ## PAS: problem, agitate, solve Hackathons and early teams with a sharp problem insight but thin traction. | Beat | Example shape | |---|---| | Problem | "Agents on Solana can't pay each other without a human co-signer." | | Agitate | "So every agent action waits on a person. At [N] actions a day, that is [N] bottlenecks." | | Solve | "[Product]: agents settle with each other onchain, no human in the loop." | Slides 1–2 problem and agitation, 3–4 solution and why crypto, 5 the demo that proves it. ## 6-part investor arc A common shape for a raise. Investors fund inevitabilities, so you ride a shift rather than claim to create one. | Part | Content | |---|---| | The shift | A large change happening now ("agents are moving from reading to transacting") | | The obstacle | What stops the world adapting ("wallet infrastructure assumes a human signer") | | The tool | Your product as the way through | | The proof | Traction that validates the thesis, with sources | | The future | The world if you win | | The invitation | The ask, framed as joining | Expand "the proof" into traction, market and business model for a VC deck. ## Before-After-Bridge Product-led teams with a demo that shows a visible change. | Beat | Content | |---|---| | Before | A specific person doing the painful thing today: four DEX tabs, three approvals, eight minutes | | After | The same person with your product: one input, one signature | | Bridge | How the product gets them there | The gap between before and after is the value proposition. Measure it on your own product. ## Hero's journey: the user is the hero Consumer products with real user stories. The user is the hero; you are the guide. Ordinary world (a freelancer losing a cut of every cross-border invoice) → call to adventure (a client insists on paying in USDC) → the guide appears (your product) → trials (the demo: receive, convert, off-ramp) → transformation (what is measurably better) → return (the scale of people like them). ## Pixar Infrastructure and other products whose "how" is hard to explain. "Once upon a time… Every day… One day… Because of that… Because of that… Until finally…" — roughly one beat per slide. The "one day" beat is your why-now: name the specific change that shipped. ## AIDA Attention (one slide), interest (about five), desire (about three), action (one). Weaker tension than the others; better for launches and non-technical audiences than for a raise. ## The spine test Write only the slide titles, each a claim, and read them aloud in order. Sources read 2026-10-08. This section keeps what the test needs; the frameworks in their authors' words, seven real decks with their slide-by-slide arcs, and where the sources contradict each other are in [library-deck-arcs.md](library-deck-arcs.md). **"But" or "therefore" between every pair.** Where only "and then" fits, a cause is missing. - Trey Parker and Matt Stone on story beats: "What should happen between every beat that you've written down is either the word therefore or but" ([NYU class, video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGUNqq3jVLg), automatic captions). - Reid Hoffman on LinkedIn's Series B, putting the thesis in each title (he calls it "helpful (but not mandatory)"): "If an investor sequenced through the titles, they'd be able to get a sense of the flow of the argument" ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20260609212616/https://www.reidhoffman.org/linkedin-pitch-to-greylock/) of [reidhoffman.org](https://www.reidhoffman.org/linkedin-pitch-to-greylock/), live page unverified). - James Currier (NFX): slide titles "are the core structure of your story" ([23 rules](https://www.nfx.com/post/23-rules-storytelling-fundraising)). Aaron Harris (YC): "There has to be a continuous line from one thing to another" ([podcast](https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/aaron-harris-on-fundraising-and-meeting-with-investors)). **An explicit bridge from wedge to vision.** Either can come first; the crossing has to be said. - Harris, same podcast: founders who jump from today to "a $300 billion company" make "a huge mistake because the investor doesn't have reason to believe you can make that transition". - Coinbase's 2012 seed deck crosses from "A Hosted Bitcoin Wallet" (slide 7) to "A New Payment Network" (slide 11), with traction in between; Matterport's SPAC deck from "Take your building online" to "Tomorrow our data will…"; Aurora's uses trucking as the "tip of the spear". Slide numbers and sources for these and four more: [library-deck-arcs.md §2](library-deck-arcs.md#2-seven-real-decks-a-big-vision-a-small-entry). LinkedIn's Series B carried Greylock's thesis, as Hoffman tells it: "a great recruiting business with an option for more". - Each one says why it starts small: a first product, a first market, a first vertical. The SPAC decks are late-stage; the bridge transfers, the stage doesn't. **The close returns to the cover.** Coinbase's last slide repeats its first, "Your hosted bitcoin wallet". The alternative from Geoff Ralston (YC): "list explicitly the 3 or 4 vertebrae you would like them to retain" ([Demo Day guide](https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/guide-to-demo-day-pitches/)). **Tense follows the state of the proof.** Present tense for what works or is measured, future for the roadmap and the vision. Matterport's bridge does it in two titles: "Take your building online" now, "Tomorrow our data will…" next. Harris: "make it really big but believable. And progress is the best way to argue that what you're saying is believable." These decks don't share an order or a framework. They share titles that read as an argument, a stated bridge and a reason to start small.