SlideMagic Blog

I have been in many of these types of presentations:

Some of the reasons why the overall conclusion of a presentation does not make sense, while the individual slides do:

• Maybe the people, the organisation, and its culture is not the right environment to make a plan happen. Who is going to do it?
• The probability curve: on average, normally speaking, the strategy makes sense. But what if things start deviating from the average. What is the potential downside and could it be catastrophic to the compony?
• The self-fulfilling prophecy. Yes, the deck has 50 slides, discussing 50 different aspects of the idea, but when you look at it, they all depend on ver few (maybe even one) assumption about the market outlook, a valuation of a company, etc. That assumption could be wrong.

Unlike for big companies, for tiny startups the opposite could be true. The slides might not all make sense, but the team is fantastic, the downside is not that big, and an angel investor is willing to bet on that one big assumption.

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When someone asks me for an introduction to my network with an idea that needs to be pitched, I noticed that I can be as effective in explaining the basics of an idea in a few lines in an email as an entire slide deck.

Why?

I really think about my “audience” (usually a friend or business relationship that has a lot of prior knowledge or interest in the thing I am pitching, otherwise I would not bother to make the introduction). Out go the buzzwords, the market stats, directly raising the points that are unusual, surprising, unexpected, to someone who has a decent understanding of this type of business.

Personal recommendations can be much more powerful in an informal email between friends. You cannot put “she was only the junior assistant on the team, but believe me, she single-handedly delivered that project” on a slide.

You can raise risks in an honest way that are not always detrimental to the pitch: “the whole thing hinges on whether they can get product costs down, but I think they have a good shot at it”.

Next time when you write a pitch deck, ask yourself the question, what would a friend who is doing you a favour have to write in the cover of the email? Read the resulting text, and maybe it inspires you to change your pitch deck as well.

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Some useful guidance by Jason Lemkin, a VC. Two items on the list stand out:

The initial decision is made within 20 minutes of the first face-to-face. Make it exciting, speak with data, and get to the point. The initial Yes, Maybe or No decision is made within 20 minutes. So save slides 20–200 for questions and back-up.

Making stuff up is death, or close to it. If you don’t know the answer, just say that, it’s fine. But make something up that the VC knows the answer is otherwise … that’s almost always a No right there.

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A VC friend got sent a pitch the other day that sounded like an exact copy of a company that underwent a spectacular and well-known crash a few months ago. The pitch completely ignored this white elephant and followed the standard presentation structure.

It is unlikely that this copy was indeed an exact replica of the famous failure, and it is unlikely that the pitching entrepreneur would think that seasoned investors did not know about that crash.

So in your pitch, you might as well take it straight on. The highly publicised failure did already part of the work for you, that, if you get this company to work, the market expectations are pretty big. Now on to the more difficult part, why that one failed and this one won’t.

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Overheard from a VC friend: an entrepreneur who was pitching suggesting that his colleague would for sure understand the opportunity, since he has an undergraduate degree in the subject at hand, A few mistakes:

1. You lost a few niceness points there
2. Your score for judgement as a salesman in sales pitches just was lowered
3. Yes, 4 years of undergraduate education in a certain subject has value, but so has 30 years of professional and investing experience.

Even if you think the VC you are pitching does not understand the subject at hand (and you could be totally right of course), hold the feedback for yourself. Instead, make it your problem to convince him.

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I asked a teacher in high school once how he actually grades exams. I think it was the history teacher, or a teacher of another subject that invites verbose and unstructured answers from students.

Students were trying to cram in as much material as possible in the answers (the shot of hail approach) to maximize the probability that they got something down on paper that could deliver them points. Students also tended to pepper their writing with buzzwords, or complicated language to show off their mastery of the subject.

The teacher on the other hand simply had a list of a handful of short bullet points and you got subpoints for whether it was included in your answer or not. No bonus points for elaborations, or verbal padding.

That teacher is a bit like a potential customer or investor evaluating your pitch.

In the 1980s, I remember plotting the results of science experiments in high school on millimeter paper. Logarithmic scales came in handy: they allow you to plot data series with big variabilities accurately, and/or they can show mathematical relationships beautifully (a completely straight line on a logarithmic scale for example).

Scientific charts are for pondering at your desktop, a different setting from a 20 minute all or nothing investment pitch. When you show a boring growth line and have to alert the audience that the tiny labels on your y axis are in fact on a logarithmic scale, you have lost some of your fire power. It looks less spectacular, and more importantly, it requires additional thought steps in the brains of your audience. The hockey stick simply works better.

If you are dealing with serious science, consider 2 charts right after each other, the first (populist) one showing the raw growth, then followed by a logarithmic one that takes the responsible scientific approach.

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Well said:

So a pitch deck:

1. Makes you in charge of the flow
2. Helps you show data
3. Is a check list
4. Lets you rehearse

“Earth shattering, stunning visuals that will convince the investor in the spot” does not feature in this list.

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I cannot find the original tweet anymore, but the gist of it was this: if you are pitching your company to investors and pretend it is later stage than it really is, don’t be surprised that the whole story will come crashing down if the VC starts discussing metrics that are appropriate for the stage you claim to be in.

It is better to be honest about the stage of your company, but then blow investors away with indicators that show that you are well on track to reach the next level soon, either with or without her.

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Why did the VC take your meeting after reading the pitch deck that you emailed?

1. She pretty much understood what you are trying to do from the slides you sent, and is now moving to the next stage of due diligence: figuring out you as a potential new colleague to work with in her portfolio.
2. She pretty much understood what you are trying to do from the slides you sent, already knows it does not fit her investment strategy, but takes the meeting anyway because of external pressure (someone who referred you for example)
3. She pretty much understood what you are trying to do from the slides you sent, already knows it does not fit her investment strategy, but gives in to a relentless pressure from you insisting that she is wrong and you have answers for all her questions and doubts.
4. She did not fully understand what you are trying to do from the slides you sent, and is really looking forward to sit down for an hour to clarity what’s in the deck.

Think about which of these scenarios you are in. Think about which of these scenarios are most likely to happen. Think about what your chances are in scenarios 2, 3, and 4.

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