The seven kinds of pitch feedback, and what to do with each

1. The AI pitch score

What it is. A 0–100 score for your pitch, a letter grade, and a separate 0–100 score for each of six dimensions: Problem Clarity, Solution Fit, Market Evidence, Business Model, Team Narrative and Communication.

Who gives it. PitchSpark's scoring model. It's free and you don't need an account. Upload a deck, drop in your website, or paste 100 to 5,000 characters of pitch text, then pick your sector. Without an account you get 5 scores a day; a free account raises that to as many as 30.

What it looks like.

• One composite score. The six dimensions count equally, so the composite is their plain average.
• A letter grade from A+ to F: A+ is 93–100, A 87–92, A− 83–86, B+ 77–82, B 73–76, B− 70–72, C+ 67–69, C 63–66, C− 60–62, D 50–59 and F 0–49.
• Six dimension bars, each with a one-line note. Each dimension is judged against five bands, from 0–20 (vague, no specifics) to 81–100 (specific, quantified and backed by evidence).
• What's working: up to three strengths.
• Where to improve: up to three specific improvements, shown once you're signed in with a free account.
• A percentile against founders in your sector scored in the last 90 days. If your sector doesn't have enough recent scores yet, the result says so instead of ranking you.

How to act on it. Find your lowest dimension and fix that first. A 35 in Problem Clarity next to a 78 in Team Narrative tells you which slide to rewrite. Make the one fix, score again, and check whether that bar moved. The score is a mirror on the deck, not a verdict on the company. The full rubric is in the pitch scoring guide.

2. The improvement email

What it is. A written follow-up on your score, so the fix list doesn't disappear when you close the tab.

Who gives it. PitchSpark, after you leave your email on the score result. It's optional; the result stays on the page either way.

What it looks like.

• Scores of 50 and above get one email with your results and a plan to lift your weakest categories.
• Scores below 50 are offered a free section-by-section breakdown of the pitch, with steps to fix each weak section.

You can also join a weekly pitch-improvement email. It's double opt-in: nothing arrives until you confirm by email. It carries a rotating "Pitch Clinic" lesson and, if PitchSpark has your last score, the gap between your score and the week's top scores. Once you create an account, that email stops, and you get the founder edition of the Weekly SparkLight instead: how your pitch performed, a tip, and a next best action.

How to act on it. Treat the email as a to-do list. Work through one weak category per revision, then score again. The weekly lesson is general advice, so use it when it matches a category your own score flagged.

3. The Virtual Roast: eight AI investor personas

What it is. An instant mock pitch meeting. Eight AI investor personas read your pitch, roast it in character, and each answers one question: would you take the meeting?

Who gives it. An AI panel with a host, the Roastmaster. Four personas are inspired by recognizable investor styles and appear only as initials; the other four are composite archetypes. PitchSpark claims no affiliation with or endorsement from real investors. There are two personas in each of four tones:

• Sarcastic: J.C. and The Pattern Matcher.
• Complimentary: R.H. and The First Believer.
• Useful: P.G. and The Demo-Day Coach.
• Brutal: B.G. and The Allocator.

What it looks like. The Roastmaster opens with two lines: one on your pitch's most glaring weakness, one handing over to the panel. Each persona gives up to three short messages quoting your own claims and numbers, a verdict (YES, MAYBE or NO) and a one-line closer. You get a tally and a ranked, three-item fix list of the changes the panel kept coming back to. Each fix names the score dimension it improves, for example "[market_evidence] Add the pilot's conversion numbers to the traction slide."

It's free on the Score & Roast page, where the standard roast returns your score and the roast together. You get five roast runs a day, signed in or not.

Nuke Me: the harsh, opt-in roast

What it is. The second roast style on the Score & Roast page, labelled "harsh + personal". The standard roast is the recommended one. It goes after your deck; Nuke Me goes after the deck and the decisions behind it: the market size you never researched, the shortcuts on the numbers, the order you made your calls in.

Who gives it. A separate Nuke panel of eight invented investor archetypes, identified only by initials and a role, none based on a real person, hosted by the Roastmaster.

• Opt-in every time. Before each run you tick "I asked for this. I am 18 or older."
• Harsher tone, same tally. The verdicts follow your score exactly as they do in the standard roast: roughly, 70+ earns mostly YES and MAYBE, 50–69 lands mixed, and below 50 leans MAYBE and NO. Every NO gives its reason, and every MAYBE names its conditions.
• A decision audit. Three to five decisions visible in your pitch, in the order you appear to have made them, each with why it was wrong and what a stronger call would have been.
• A five-item fix list instead of three. Each fix still names the score dimension it improves.
• Limits consent can't unlock. Protected traits, your name, threats, your appearance, health, family and personal finances are never in scope.
• Nothing kept. The roast is shown to you once and its text isn't stored. PitchSpark keeps only your consent record.
• Uses more of your daily limit. A Nuke Me run counts as two of your five daily runs.

How to act on it. Start with the fix list. It's ranked by impact, and each item points at the dimension your score will move on. Then look for agreement: when the sarcastic and the brutal personas land on the same weakness, it's real. If the same weak spot survives every rewrite, try Nuke Me: its decision audit names the upstream call behind it. Treat any tally as a quick check, not a forecast. These are AI personas, not investors who have seen your company.

4. The live Roast Room

What it is. A public critique of your pitch by real people, often staged as a head-to-head battle. Putting your own pitch up is a Pro feature; roasting other founders' pitches is free.

Who gives it. Investors, other founders and the wider crowd. An AI host, Karl "The Thrill" Brill, runs each battle. An AI moderator lets crude humor about the pitch through, but holds racist, sexist or violent comments back instead of posting them.

What it looks like. You opt in with "Roast Me" from your dashboard. Your pitch becomes visible to every investor and founder on the platform. People comment, votes push the sharpest comments to the top, and you can reply to every comment to defend your thinking.

PitchSpark pairs opted-in pitches into head-to-head battles in Monday and Wednesday slots at 9:00 AM Central. Karl opens each battle, the crowd votes for a winner, and Karl writes the verdict archived in the Hall of Flames.

When the roast ends, an AI summary of up to 25 of the top comments appears on your Founder Dashboard, in three parts:

• Verdict: the community's bottom line.
• Section feedback: what the crowd said about each section of the pitch they commented on.
• Prioritize: the actions to take first, weighted by how the community voted.

How to act on it. Read the summary first, then the top-voted comments. Votes are the filter, so one loud comment with no upvotes is noise. Reply to the comments you disagree with: if you can't defend a point in writing, you won't defend it in a meeting. In a battle, the vote tells you how your pitch did against another pitch, in front of the same crowd, on the same day. A standalone score can't tell you that.

5. The Investor Lens

What it is. The investor standards your score was measured against, shown with their sources.

Who gives it. PitchSpark reads VC blogs and Hacker News and pulls out what investors say they look for. When your pitch is scored, up to eight of the highest-weighted signals for your sector and stage go to the scoring model as the lens it scores through, so they shape your score.

What it looks like. The signals appear on your own pitch page, grouped by category (Market, Problem, Traction, Moat, Financials, Team and General), each with a supporting quote, the publication and a link to the source. If no relevant signals existed for your sector and stage when you were scored, the report says so. The signals are matched to your sector and stage, not to the content of your pitch.

How to act on it. Use it to tell two kinds of low score apart. If your weakest dimension lines up with a heavily weighted signal, read the source: your pitch may be missing something investors in your sector say they prioritize. If it doesn't line up, the problem is more likely the pitch itself.

6. Investor signals

What it is. What real investors do when they come across your live pitch. It matters most, and it's the hardest to read.

Who gives it. Investors browsing PitchSpark. On PitchSpark, investors make the first move.

What it looks like. Every founder sees the numbers, free: views, deck views, sparks (an investor liked your pitch) and contacts, and can reply to every investor who reaches out. What investors said is part of Pro:

• Section feedback. Investors tap thumbs up, thumbs down or "unclear" on each section as they read.
• Ratings. A 1–10 rating, plus what the investor liked best.
• What stood out. Answers to "What's the one thing that stood out? (good or bad)".
• Passes with reasons, and the investor's notes.

Pass reasons sort into five groups, which is the easiest way to read them:

• Fit: stage, sector, already seen something similar, too early for them, or a portfolio conflict.
• Business: traction, value proposition, market size, defensibility, crowded space or regulatory risk.
• Team: a gap in the team, or founder credibility.
• Terms: valuation or terms.
• Pitch: deck quality.

How to act on it. Sort passes into fit and everything else. A stage mismatch is about the investor's mandate, not your deck, so don't rewrite anything because of it. Business, team and pitch reasons point at a dimension of your AI score, so fix that section. Watch the funnel: plenty of views and no sparks usually means the hook isn't landing. A run of "unclear" taps on one section means rewrite it, not add detail. When a contact comes in, answer quickly.

7. The Founder Community

What it is. A members-only space inside PitchSpark where founders talk through fundraising, sales and hiring, and give each other written feedback on their pitches. It's free with a founder account.

Who gives it. Other founders.

What it looks like.

• Boards: Fundraising, Go-to-market, Pitch feedback, Hiring and Founder wellbeing. Members can suggest new ones for the team to approve.
• The pitch gallery. You post your pitch with a question attached; review three other pitches and yours opens for feedback. Every review answers "Is this pitch ready for investors?" with a Yes or No, answers your question, and names the one thing the reviewer would change.
• Peers write, never score. You see how many reviewers said yes; it is never shown as a score.
• Your choice of name. Post under your code name or your real name, your choice on every post.
• Points and levels. Reviews, posts, replies and Helpful votes earn points that move you up four levels: Match, where everyone starts; Flame, which lets you ask a second question on your pitch; Torch, which adds a Trusted reviewer mark, shows your feedback first, and puts your pitch at the top of "Needs feedback" for 72 hours when you first reach it; and Beacon, which puts your replies and reviews on top.

How to act on it. Ask a sharp question. "Is my pricing slide believable?" gets better feedback than "thoughts?" Read the Yes/No split across reviews before the comments; it's the quickest read on whether you're ready to go live. Then collect the "one thing I'd change" answers and look for repeats. And review other founders' pitches: it's how you level up, and it trains your eye for your own deck.

Which feedback should you trust most?

Roughly in order of how much weight to give it:

1. Investor signals. Contacts and pass reasons that aren't about fit. Real investors, real decisions.
2. Top-voted live roast comments and the battle verdict. Real people, filtered by votes.
3. Founder Community reviews. Founders who've been there, answering your own question.
4. The AI score, its dimension notes and the Investor Lens. Fast, consistent and specific, but they only see the pitch, not you.
5. The Virtual Roast panel. Good for finding weak spots before real people do. Not a forecast.

Together they shorten the loop from feedback to a better pitch: score, fix the lowest dimension, roast, fix what the panel keeps hitting, then post your pitch so real investors can answer.