I get a lot of pitch deck submissions to this businesskinda.com Pitch Deck Teardown series from people raising friends and family rounds, and I usually pass them on. Often these decks aren’t very good, but it’s important to remember that they don’t have to be.
For a small round (say $200,000 or less), most well-connected entrepreneurs will be able to find a group of people who believe in them and are willing to invest in them. It’s not about the product (there’s usually none) and it’s not about the solution (the company is still iterating).
Such investors usually bet on two things:
- Is this market is big enough, and is the problem worth solving big or relevant enough to make this company a possibility of success?
- are the founders the right people to solve this problem? Do they have the connections, skills, or experience that gives them an unfair advantage?
Here’s the truth: If you’re considering companies at a very early stage and you can’t say ‘yes’ to both questions with 100% certainty, don’t invest. If the market isn’t big enough, don’t invest. If the founders are smart, kind, and awesome, but they don’t have something special to give them an edge, don’t invest.
Against that background I received the pitch deck for Palau project. The founder, Jerome Cloetens, is a professional kite surfer (!) with an economics degree and an MBA, and he’s tackling climate change.
Let’s take a closer look at how all those pieces come together in a pitch deck.
We’re looking for more unique pitch decks to break down, so if you’d like to submit your own pitch decks, here’s how.
Contents
Slides in this deck
This pre-seed deck has 22 slides, but it probably could have been 10 slides. That said, it looks good, and while it jumps a bit from topic to topic, I can see how the presentation would take shape. Cloetens notes that the slide deck has been updated somewhat since the fundraiser, saying it “isn’t pitched exactly like that; some of the design and minor content changes (like our traction stats) have been updated.”
- cover slip
- Problem impact slide
- problem slide
- Solution slide
- Product slide:
- Product slide:
- Product slide:
- challenge slide
- Value proposition slide
- Business model dia
- Market size slide
- market slide
- Traction slider
- Stats Slide
- Milestones slide
- team slide
- Founders dia
- Interstitial slide “Seed round”
- mission slide
- The question slide
- Milestones slide
- “Equity for thrifthers” closing slide
Three things to love
As I mentioned in the intro, this is a pre-seed deck. According to slide #20, the founders were trying to raise $500,000, and they closed at about $125,000. That’s not entirely uncommon at an early stage. A little later, your plan should match the funds, which should match the milestones you’re trying to achieve.
At this stage, “I just need some money to prove what we’re trying to do” will work, and if the angel investors think it makes sense, you raise money.
Simple product, now to test
Make your product demos as simple as you can – it’s easy to understand, visual and impressive.
I’ve said before that the only thing that matters is the market size and the team, and I’ll come back to that in a moment. For now, I was really impressed with how simple the idea is and how easy it is to imagine this up and running. Scan a barcode, get information about a product and get a push towards products that have less impact on the climate.
As an investor, I would immediately have three questions:
- How good is the database and how many products are recorded there?
- will people? actually use when walking around, shopping?
- This use case appears to be personal, but the business model refers to a commission. How would the manufacturers know that a user has changed their behavior as a result of using an app?
You can learn two things from this slide: Make your product demos as simple as you can – it’s easy to understand, visual and impressive. The second step is to link it to your value propositions: What’s in it for the consumer? What’s in it for the product manufacturers? What will it bring to your business (ie how will it help you win or retain customers, and how will it help you generate value)?
Traction!
When a company raises its first round, it’s unlikely to have a product, let alone a product with actual traction. If you have such a product, shout it from the rooftops. Having 30 downloads per day is impressive, and 10,000 scans show that the app is working and getting some user engagement. Engagement time is cool too – there are a lot of early indicators popping up here that the founders might be up to something. Going from 0 to 700 weekly active users in a new market (Portugal) is also impressive.
Again, the slide raises questions for me:
- Scans are great, but I want to know what percentage of those scans were successful (ie products in the database). If users scan 10,000 items and eventually get 600 hits, and 9,400 “We don’t know this product”, many users will immediately turn away.
- 25-30 new users per day is impressive, but let’s see a graph and the total number of signups.
- TikTok videos are cool, but that’s a vanity stat that means nothing unless it moves the needle on the business side. Did the video lead to downloads? More scans? More questions?
What you as a startup can learn from this slide is to think about the story you’re telling with your stats, because you could be telling the wrong story, or it could raise more questions than it answers.
Pretend you’re a VC and ask yourself: If a company told me these numbers, what caused the numbers and what do they tell me about where the company is going?
Elegant value proposition
The image on the left really hits a point: companies blatantly using greenwashing to pretend they’re sustainable, tree-hugging hippies really do (and Coca-Cola in particular is wrapping itself in some curious green pretzels trying to prove how much they care. the environment), and as consumers, you can’t rely on large companies to truthfully represent what they do.
So what should a poor consumer do? Palau Project’s take on this is a masterful pitch setup and a wonderful way to open the door to a story.
This slide is a great example of a good opener that can move the conversation forward. Have a clear value proposition or paint a picture for your raison d’être is a great way to engage your listeners.
Remember when I said that “team” and “market” are the two most important parts of a pre-seed slide deck? You’ll notice the absence of either in this “things I loved” section. There’s a reason for that, so let’s take a closer look at what could be improved in Palau Project’s pitch.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.