Nothing matches that. Which either means they didn't say it, or they invented a new way to round up.
And then there's the most common thing founders say
Nothing. The monthly update that stops arriving. When the update goes quiet, the numbers went quiet first — it is the one founder signal that needs no translation, and the one every investor has learned to read without being told.
Three rules that decode almost everything
You don't need forty-one translations if you internalize these. The rest is vocabulary.
Every number needs a denominator and a date
Forty percent growth from what, since when? A metric without a base and a period is an adjective wearing a number's clothes. Ask "from what" and "since when" and most of the stretch collapses on its own.
The passive voice is hiding someone
"Conversations are being had." "Interest has been strong." "Deals are in motion." When the sentence has no subject, it's because the subject is nobody in particular. Ask who — by name — and watch the sentence change.
Volunteered bad news is the best signal in the room
What a founder tells you about what's broken, unprompted, is worth more than the whole traction slide. Founders who count the bad news can be trusted on the good news. Everything else is vocabulary.
Or: skip the dialect entirely
Every phrase on this page exists because a deck is a sales document and fundraising rewards the polished version. PitchSpark scores every pitch on the same six things — team, problem, solution, market, traction, clarity — so investors read the number behind the adjective, and founders find out which of these sentences they're saying before an investor does. Free, in minutes.
Founders: Score & Roast my pitch Investors: see deals, pre-scored