1. Sell the outcome, deliver it by hand
Your first offer is a deck review returned in 48 hours: a scored teardown slide by slide, the 5 biggest fixes, and a rewritten problem and ask slide. Run the deck through whatever version of your AI you have, then fix and add to the output yourself. The founder pays for a better deck, not for your software.
2. Pick one price and a cheaper first deal
Charge $49 for a single review and $129 for a review plus a second pass after they revise. Offer the first 10 customers a founding price of $29 in exchange for a 15-minute call about what helped. Do not offer free reviews. A $29 payment tells you more than 50 free ones.
3. Find founders who are raising this month
Search X for "raising our pre-seed", "feedback on my pitch deck" and "first time founder" sorted by latest. Check r/startups, r/Entrepreneur and r/SaaS for deck feedback posts, and the Indie Hackers forum. Also look at public demo day lists from university incubators and accelerator application deadlines, since founders polish decks right before them.
4. Send a short, specific DM
Reference their situation and name the price up front. Example: "Saw you're raising a pre-seed. I run an AI deck reviewer for first-time founders. For $29 I'll send back a slide-by-slide teardown and a rewritten ask slide within 48 hours. Want me to do yours?" Send 20 of these a day, each one personalized.
5. Give something real in public first
When someone posts their deck on Reddit or X asking for feedback, reply with 3 specific fixes in the thread. End with: "I do full reviews like this for $29 if you want the rest." People reading the thread see the quality and DM you.
6. Take payment before you start
Create a Stripe Payment Link or a Gumroad product in 10 minutes and send it with the yes. Say: "Great. Here is the link, send the deck after payment and you'll have it back by Thursday." Do not do the work first and invoice later.
7. Ask for the upsell and the referral on delivery
When you send the review, offer the $129 second pass: "Once you revise, send it back and I'll review the new version for $100 more." Then ask: "Know another founder raising soon? I'll give them the $29 price too." First-time founders sit in cohorts and group chats with other founders raising at the same time.
8. Repeat daily and track every ask
Keep a sheet with every person contacted, the message sent, the reply and whether they paid. Aim for 20 asks a day until you have 10 paying customers, then raise the price to $49. Hulby, an AI cofounder, runs this kind of daily outreach and follow-up for founders who want help keeping it going.
Mistakes to skip
- Giving the first reviews away for free and calling it validation.
- Waiting until the AI is fully automated before asking anyone to pay.
- Hiding the price until the founder asks for it.
- Targeting experienced founders who already have investors reviewing their decks.
Want this done for your AI pitch deck reviewer for first-time founders, every day?
Hulby finds the people asking for what you built, writes every reply and email, and keeps you on it until they pay. Free to start.
Find my first customersQuestions
Is it dishonest to do part of the review by hand?
No. You promised a review and you deliver a review. Do not claim it is fully automated if it is not.
What if nobody pays $29?
Check your message and your targeting before you cut the price. Make sure you are reaching founders raising soon and that the offer is clear.
Should I offer a money-back guarantee?
Yes. Offer a full refund if the review is not useful. Almost no one asks for one, and it removes the risk of saying yes.
When should I switch to a subscription?
Only once founders come back for repeat reviews without you asking. Until then, sell one review at a time.