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Fundraising kit, guide 2 of 6Your one-pager is the deck in 60 seconds.
An investor gives a one-pager one minute, often on a phone, often before deciding whether to open the deck. Nine blocks, the same facts as your deck, and every line earns its place.
- One side of one page
- Reads in 60 seconds
- Same facts as the deck
- Sent as a PDF
At a glance
Nine blocks, one page
In reading order: who you are, the problem, the solution, the market, why you win, the proof, the model, the team, the ask. Tap a block to jump to it.
Block by block
What each block must do
The question it answers, what goes in, what stays out, and a test to check it passes.
The top strip. Company name, what you do in one plain sentence, the stage and the round, and how to reach you. An investor should place you in five seconds without reading further.
Put in it
- Company name and logo
- One sentence: what you do, for whom, in words a stranger would use
- Stage and round: pre-seed, raising £500K
- Founder name, email, website, and the date
Leave out
- A slogan that fits any company
- A paragraph where a sentence would do
- Three logos and two taglines
Pass test: Cover the rest of the page. The header alone says what you do and what you want.
The pain in two or three lines, before any product appears. Name who has it, how often, and what it costs them today.
Put in it
- The core problem in one sentence
- Who has it, described so you could find them tomorrow
- What it costs them: time, money or risk, with a number
- How they cope today, and where that breaks
Leave out
- Introducing the product early
- A problem nobody pays to solve
- Ten problems in three lines. Pick one.
Pass test: The reader nods before they see a single screen.
The product in two lines and how it works in one more. Say what changes for the customer, then what makes it possible today: a new capability, a rule change, a shift in behaviour.
Put in it
- The solution in one sentence, mapped to the problem
- How it works, in three steps at most
- What becomes dramatically easier, cheaper, faster or better
- Why now, in one line, when timing is part of the story
Leave out
- A feature list
- The technology before the outcome
- A screenshot with no caption
Pass test: Each line of the solution answers a line of the problem.
One number an investor can check, built from the bottom up: customers times what they pay a year. Name the beachhead you start in and where you go next.
Put in it
- The bottom-up number: customers times price per year
- The beachhead: who you win first
- The expansion path: the next segment or market
- One trend that makes the market grow
Leave out
- One giant figure from an industry report
- 1% of a $50B market
- A market so broad it says nothing about your customer
Pass test: The reader can redo your maths from the page.
The alternatives a customer has today, including doing nothing, and the one or two things that make you different and hard to copy.
Put in it
- The two or three alternatives, named
- Your edge in one line: what you do that they cannot
- What makes it hard to copy: data, distribution, cost or regulation
- Where the market is heading, and why it favours your approach
Leave out
- We have no competitors
- A 2x2 with you alone in the corner
- Naming a rival you have never met in a deal
Pass test: The reader can say why a customer would switch to you.
Your strongest evidence, in numbers with dates. Before revenue, pilots, a waitlist, interviews and shipped product all count. This is the block investors read twice.
Put in it
- Three numbers, each with a date and a definition
- Growth month on month, when you have it
- Pilots, letters of intent, paying customers, partners
- What you shipped, and when
Leave out
- Vanity metrics: sign-ups with no usage
- Cumulative charts that hide flat growth
- Numbers without dates
Pass test: Every number has a date, a unit and a definition.
Example
£8K MRR in September, up from £3K in June. 40 paying teams. Pilot signed with a national retailer.
Layout rule: Your numbers are the strongest card you hold. Put Traction directly under the header, before the problem. Let the numbers earn the read.
Who pays, what they pay for, and how it repeats. Add how you reach them: the first channel, and what it costs to win a customer when you know.
Put in it
- Who pays, and what they pay for
- Pricing and the model: subscription, commission, transaction
- The first channel, and why it fits this customer
- Unit economics, only when they are real
Leave out
- Three revenue models at once
- Projections with no assumptions
- Hiding that pricing is still a hypothesis
Pass test: The reader can work out the revenue from one customer.
One line per founder: what they built or did that matters for this problem. Not a CV, and not the whole team.
Put in it
- Each founder: name, role, one relevant achievement
- The domain edge: what you know that others do not
- Who covers product, technology and sales
- Advisors, only when they are genuinely involved
Leave out
- Full CVs
- Logos with no link to the problem
- Advisors who took one call
Pass test: Each line answers: why this person, for this problem.
Layout rule: There is no product yet and the bet is on the founders. Put Team directly under the header. At the idea stage, investors back people first.
The amount, the runway it buys, and the milestones it reaches before the next round. Investors care more about the milestones than the number.
Put in it
- The amount you are raising, and the round
- Runway in months, usually 12 to 18
- The three milestones the money reaches
- What is already committed, when there is something
Leave out
- A range instead of a number
- A pie chart of percentages with no milestone
- An ask that stops short of the next fundable milestone
Pass test: The reader can see exactly what their money buys.
Example
Raising £600K pre-seed. 18 months of runway. Launch in two cities, 200 paying teams, £30K MRR.
Make it yours
When to change the page
The default order works for most raises. Three cases earn a change, and a few blocks are optional.
Traction leads
When: Your numbers are the strongest card you hold.
Change: Put Traction directly under the header, before the problem. Let the numbers earn the read.
Team leads
When: There is no product yet and the bet is on the founders.
Change: Put Team directly under the header. At the idea stage, investors back people first.
The email version
When: The one-pager rides inside a cold email, not as an attachment.
Change: Cut it to five blocks in the body: header, problem, solution, traction, ask. Attach the full page as a PDF.
Optional blocks
- Why now. Timing is the story and one line inside the solution is not enough.
- Product shot. One screen says more than a paragraph. Caption it.
- Advisors and investors. Names an investor would recognise are already committed.
- Milestones. You have dated milestones for the next 18 months.
- Press. A named outlet covered you, and the quote is short.
Build it with AI
Hand this framework to your AI
Drafting the one-pager with ChatGPT, Claude or any AI? Point it at this guide so it cuts your deck down instead of padding it out. The whole method is published as two files, built from the same data as this page.
Or paste this prompt into your AI, then paste your deck or your notes:
Act as a startup fundraising coach and follow the MrAdib one-pager framework at https://mradib.com/one-pager/llms.txt. Take my deck or my notes, then draft my one-pager block by block: a heading and at most three lines per block, the same facts as the deck, every number with its date. One side of one page, no adjectives doing the work of numbers, no invented figures.
Sources
Where this comes from
The one-pager follows the outline the investors who read the most of them recommend. Read them.
Questions founders ask
Do I need a one-pager if I have a deck?
Yes. The deck needs you in the room or ten minutes of attention. The one-pager needs one minute and a phone screen. Investors forward one-pagers; they rarely forward decks.
How many words fit on a one-pager?
About 300 to 400, with white space. One side of A4 or Letter, in type no smaller than 10 point. If it needs a second page, it is a deck.
Should it be designed or plain text?
Clean beats designed. Clear headings, one product shot at most, your logo, and plenty of space. A well-set text document wins over a busy poster.
When do I send it?
Before the first meeting, in the intro email, and after the meeting as the summary. Update the traction block every time you send it, with the date.
The fundraising kit
Six guides, one set of facts
The whole kit, in the order you build it. Every piece draws on the same facts, so none of them contradicts another.
One page, one minute.
The one-pager gets the deck opened and the meeting booked. Questions about yours? Say hello.