The best pitches have a hook. The very first sentence gets me leaning forward, not back.
They have an unrelenting storyline--and they don't let a boring team slide get in the way if your team isn't the most exciting part of what you're doing.
They mostly talk about where you're going, because the what you've done up until now in a seed pitch usually isn't that much.
The best pitches acknowledge the reason why we're here--for you to ask me for money and for me to make a bundle of it investing in you. If we don't talk about how that's going to happen, what's the point? Ask for an amount, tell me what you're going to do with it, and tell me how that leads to a big exit.
They don't come from templates. Every startup is different.
They don't have the word advisor in them--because that's just a code word for "Someone who didn't invest, but probably could have."
The best pitches follow the word problem with... you know... an actual problem, versus something that maybe could be better but otherwise has been working ok for quite a while now at a huge scale.
The best pitches are ambitious--they ask for enough and aim to do something big.
They're told, not read--it's your story and if you can't remember it, no one else will.