According to TechCrunch, at the recent TechCrunch Disrupt event, three investors—Jyoti Bansal, Medha Agarwal of Defy, and Jennifer Neundorfer of January Ventures—shared candid advice on pitch decks. Their biggest collective pet peeve is buzzword overload, with Agarwal noting that excessive use of “AI” often signals a lack of real innovation. Bansal, a founder-turned-investor, distilled investor scrutiny down to three core questions: is the market huge, is the founder uniquely qualified to win, and is there any customer validation? The panel also discussed how AI startups can stand out in a crowded market, emphasizing domain expertise and enabling new user behaviors over incremental improvements.
Buzzword Bullshit
Here’s the thing: the investors are spot on about buzzwords. When every pitch is “AI-powered,” the term loses all meaning. Agarwal’s point is brutal but true—the real innovators don’t need to scream it from the rooftops because the technology is just a tool, not the entire premise. It’s a classic signal of a weak product: when you can’t describe what you do without leaning on jargon, you probably don’t do anything that unique. I think founders get scared that if they don’t mention AI, they’ll be seen as outdated. But the panel’s warning is clear: overusing it makes you look desperate, not cutting-edge.
The Three-Question Gauntlet
Bansal’s framework is brutally simple, and that’s what makes it so effective. Is the market big enough? Are you the right person? Do you have any proof? These seem obvious, right? But you’d be shocked how many decks dance around these fundamentals. The “why you” question is especially critical now. With so much capital and talent floating around, a good idea is just a starting pistol. If you don’t have a compelling unfair advantage—deep domain expertise, a killer team, proprietary insight—you’re just another runner in the race. And validation? It doesn’t have to be massive revenue. But you need *something*. A handful of passionate pilot users, a waitlist, *anything* that proves a human being actually wants what you’re selling.
Differentiating In The AI Gold Rush
The advice for AI startups is particularly sharp. Neundorfer’s take—focusing on companies that enable new behaviors—is the key to escaping the feature-war trap. Improving an existing process by 10% with an AI wrapper is a tough, low-margin business. Creating a whole new way for people or businesses to operate? That’s where real value gets built. Bansal’s push for domain expertise is also vital. You can’t just be a tech team with a slick language model API. You need to understand the specific, gritty problems of an industry inside and out. That’s how you build a defensible moat. Otherwise, you’re just a slightly better UI on top of the same foundational models everyone else has.
The Honesty Tax
Maybe the most underrated piece of advice is Agarwal’s call to be honest about competitors. Leaving them off your slide doesn’t make them disappear; it just makes you look naive or deceptive. Investors know the landscape. Acknowledging rivals shows you’ve done your homework and, more importantly, forces you to articulate your *real* differentiator. So, what’s the takeaway for founders? Basically, cut the fluff. Focus on a huge problem you’re uniquely equipped to solve, show you’ve made even a little progress, and be brutally honest about the battlefield. And as Bansal said, sometimes the best strategy is to just shut out the noise and focus on building your product. Everything else is just a presentation of that core work.
