By profession
Startup founder headshots
A founder's photo appears in a deck, a press article and a team page within the same month. It has to work in all three without looking borrowed.
Credible to investors, recognisable to users
A pitch deck portrait is read by people who meet hundreds of founders, and the visual cliché is well known: the arms-folded shot in front of a glass office. Avoiding the cliché is most of the work.
What reads well is smart but not corporate: a jacket over a plain shirt, or a well-fitted knit, with a plain background and a direct expression. The photo should look like the person who will walk into the meeting.
- Jacket over a plain shirt, or a fine knit.
- Plain background — no glass towers, no whiteboard diagrams.
- No arms folded, no leaning on a wall.
- Direct gaze, relaxed expression, chin level.
One photo, three contexts
The deck uses a small square, the site uses a large hero, and press uses whatever crop fits their layout. A tight composition with a clean background is the only version that survives all three.
Keep the expression consistent with your company's tone. A consumer brand can carry a warmer, more relaxed portrait; an enterprise or infrastructure company is better served by a composed one.
- Face large enough for a deck thumbnail and a press crop.
- Plain background so the crop can be square, circle or portrait.
- Match the expression to the brand, not to your mood that day.
- Keep it current — an outdated founder photo is noticed.
A team page that looks funded
Early team pages are usually assembled from phone photos in different light. That is a problem, because the team page is one of the first things a candidate, a journalist and a prospective investor looks at.
Applying one style to each person's own photos is the cheapest way to make a small team look like a company: consistent light, consistent background, consistent framing, no studio booking.
How it works
Three steps from a phone photo to a finished image
Upload your photos
Six to ten selfies with different angles and expressions.
Pick a style
Business, editorial, black and white, cinematic — or a profession set.
Download the set
A consistent batch of portraits, ready for your profile.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What should a startup founder wear in a headshot?
Smart but not corporate: a jacket over a plain shirt, or a well-fitted knit. The goal is to look like the person who will walk into the investor meeting, not like a stock image of a chief executive.
What photo works in a pitch deck?
A tight, well-lit head-and-shoulders shot on a plain background, with the face large enough to read at thumbnail size. Deck team slides are viewed small, so detail and busy backgrounds are wasted.
How do I avoid the clichéd founder photo?
Skip the folded arms, the glass office and the dramatic lighting. A plain background, a relaxed stance and a direct expression look more credible, precisely because they are not the standard pitch-deck image.
How does an early startup get matching team photos?
Pick one style and apply it to each person's own photos. That gives the team page the consistency of a studio session without the cost, which matters when the page is being read by candidates and investors.
Try it on your next photo
Free to download on the App Store. iPhone and iPad only.