Remove that ‘exit strategy’ slide from your pitch deck

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The exit strategy slide is a slide that should not be in a pitch deck. If you are running a very late-stage company that is about to IPO, you should only have an exit strategy slide on your slide deck. It shouldn't be a part of your pitch deck at all.

Aliquidation event, also known as an exit, is the big pot of gold at the end of a long and difficult journey. Everyone is paid the same way when there is an acquisition or a public listing. It makes sense that people are still making this mistake since some of the old pitch deck templates have an exit strategy slide on them.

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The second thing is that the best companies are bought and not sold. It's not likely that you know who will be interested in buying your company. The job of a founder is to build the best company possible.

It makes no sense to make decisions early on to help shape the company into something that someone might want to buy.