Founder guide

Writing the one-pager

8 min read·Pre-seed → Seed·Updated April 2026

The one-pager is the document an investor reads before deciding whether to read your deck. 280 words, one screen, one purpose: get the meeting.

What the one-pager does

It's not a teaser. It's not a press release. It's a forwarding device. When an angel reads your one-pager, the test is: can they forward it to a partner-friend with a one-line endorsement and have that friend understand the deal in 90 seconds? If yes, you've written a good one. If no, rewrite.

The five-section anatomy

1. The headline (15 words)

Company name, what you do in one sentence, and one specific number. Stellar Labs is building real-time FX rails for cross-border SMB payroll. Live with 14 design partners. Not “We're disrupting payments” — that's filler.

2. The problem (40 words)

Who has the problem, what it costs them, and why it persists. Quantify: “42% of SMBs that hire across borders cite payroll FX cost as their #1 finance pain — typical bleed is 2.4% on cross-border, 3-day settlement”. Don't generalise; pick one specific customer archetype.

3. The solution (50 words)

What you do, why it works, and the one-line proof point. Avoid jargon. Avoid the words “platform” and “ecosystem” — they're synonyms for “we don't know yet”. The proof point is a number: ARR, pilot count, retention, signed letters of intent.

4. Traction (40 words)

The single most under-written section. Three numbers, three months. $4.2M ARR pipeline · 3.1× MoM revenue growth · 94% logo retention. If you have nothing yet, write what you've validated qualitatively (signed pilots, design-partner logos, NPS) — but be honest.

5. The ask (35 words)

How much, what stage, what it gets you, who you've already got. Raising $1.4M seed at $14M post · led conversations with 6 micro-VCs · committed: $350K from Better Capital + 4 angels · need: thesis-aligned lead.

The 280 rule. Every word must earn its place. Cut “the”, “actually”, “really” first. Cut every adjective you can. If a sentence works as a fragment, make it one. The discipline is the document.

A worked example

STELLAR LABS · One-pager · v3 Real-time FX rails for cross-border SMB payroll. Live, 14 design partners, $4.2M ARR pipeline. PROBLEM SMBs paying teams across 40+ corridors lose 2.4% on FX and wait 24–72h for settlement. The 42-corridor SE-Asia / MENA / IN belt is most painful: $1.8B in friction annually across 600K SMBs. SOLUTION Pre-funded liquidity pool + stablecoin-rail settlement. 30-second corridor delivery at 0.3% all-in. Custodied LPs per corridor. Live in IN→UAE→PH; expanding to 12 more in 2026. TRACTION - $4.2M ARR pipeline (signed LOIs) - 14 design partners, 3 paying ($82K MRR) - 96% pilot conversion to paid - Founders: ex-Razorpay infra · ex-Wise treasury ASK $1.4M seed at $14M post. Use of funds: 4 corridors (engineering), 2 enterprise PMs, India + SG entity setup. Already committed: $350K (Better Capital + 4 angels). Looking for thesis-aligned lead. Contact: priya@stellar.io · LinkedIn / deck on request

Common failure modes

Vision instead of evidence. “We're building the future of payments” is not a one-pager. “We've signed 14 design partners and processed $12M last month” is.
Adjective inflation. “Game-changing”, “revolutionary”, “next-generation” — every one of these adds zero information. Cut.
Hidden ask. If your one-pager doesn't tell me how much you want, what stage, and who you've got — investors assume you're a mess.
Overlong founder bios. One sentence each, max. The deck has space for the rest.