Making the complex simple
First impressions count
I've been involved in, curated, created, and studied hundreds of investor decks, pitch decks and corporate presentations.
Assisted in raising over US$100 million for pre-Series A startups and scale-up businesses.
You only get one chance to make a great first impression
Appearances matter in investor presentations. Whether you are presenting one-on-one, one-to-several, or via Zoom, how your investor deck comes across from an aesthetic point of view can make or break a presentation.
People make snap judgments; and once a person’s mind is set, it can be difficult to reverse that first impression.
Making complex things simple is hard. Even more difficult when you are laden with all the insight and rationalisation that’s gone on for months or years in your head. I’ll give you an outsider perspective, with 20+ years of communication excellence and successful venture capital raises.
The anatomy of the best investor decks in the world
1. From complex to simple
Turn your detailed IM document or notes from past 5 years into a simple empowering story. Delivered in easy to understand terms to stay top of mind.
2. Realise the value
You'll grab attention when you highlight an unspoken shift in the world. Describe a subtle but impactful change in the lives of your target market and they'll be more likely to join you.
This inward look helps them recognise the problem and value themselves.
3. Narrative
Just like a great movie trailer, you need to grab their attention and keep delivering on that page after page.
Most effective is one great message on each slide, and a powerful headline that provides an easy way to re-tell to partners hours later.
“We know that investors aren’t betting on our product, they’re betting on our business model, and Steven did a great job of bringing that out in our deck. Simple, concise and far more powerful view of our business.”
— Christopher Bailey, CEO, Flexibond
The truth in black and white
Why they didn’t invest, and why they never called to tell you
Based on an article by
Liron Azrielant - Venture Capitalist
The weird reality of the venture business, is that VC’s only very seldom make the decision not to invest.
In 9 out of 10 companies, they merely decide not to move forward with their research. There’s never enough time to thoroughly analyse every startup they come across, but unfortunately, the first — and hardest — decision after first meeting a startup, is whether to go deep or stop the process before going deeper.
This means that in many cases, the real reason behind the ‘No’ is that they didn’t get excited enough about it from first impression, or they couldn’t think of good ways to pursue a more in-depth research.
So you see the value is creating a great investor deck. Get them excited. Get them to want to buy in and dedicate their time to your opportunity.
FAQs
Can you create this if we give you an IM document?
Yes we can. We can get to a better solution faster if we can meet in person or via Zoom/Facetime and have a question and answer session. Many projects seem simple to you as you’ve been thinking about it a lot, but to a new viewer they may be complicated. Better for us to find this out now, than when you’re presenting it to an investor.
We’re in a rush, how long does this take to do?
Depending on how ready your data is, the usual time to produce an investor ready presentation is 2-3 weeks.
Some investor decks can take up to 6 weeks as the level of technical detail and refinement can be quite substantial.
We’re distilling years of thinking into a 3 minute presentation so it’s not surprising.
Can you help us write the presentation?
Yes. We have written hundreds of investor decks and can put that insight to good use. We focus on writing short impactful headlines that can be easily retold on the phone, hours later. This is what usually happens anyway, so let’s take it into consideration now.
What format can we receive the investor deck in?
We can create the investor deck in Apple Keynote or for more complicated or detailed presentations we use Adobe InDesign to create the document. Both are supplied as PDF and we give you the design files and working assets if required.
Do you supply all the photography and graphics we need?
Yes we can create bespoke graphics for each project to ensure your business opportunity is as powerful and unique as it needs to be. To keep costs and time down we utilise stock library photography and our years of experience in selecting great images. Some projects, and timelines, allow for bespoke photography.
Can we get a video presentation?
Yes, we can have video versions of the presentation created. It usually takes about 2 weeks to produce so it’s best if we know in advance.
Video production includes basic animations, video editing, voice overs, voice actors and dynamic charts and tables. This is very useful when you are unable to present in person, or need a professional presenter.