Intro Use Case Telling Your Story in 10/12 Slides Story Arc Fundraising Fundamentals Supporting Slides

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Trajectory – Pitching
Dave Parker
www.dkparker.com
@DaveParkerSEA

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Agenda
¤ Intro
¤ Use Case
¤ Telling Your Story in 10/12 Slides
¤ Story Arc
¤ Fundraising Fundamentals
¤ Supporting Slides

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About Dave
¤ 5X founder, Board Member, former SVP Programs at UP
Global (Startup Weekend + Startup America)
¤ Startup Next creator
¤ Startup Week
¤ Author – “Trajectory: Startup – Ideation to Product Market
Fit”
¤ 10 transactions – 8 sell side, 2 buy side
¤ VC/Investor

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Use Case

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Two decks
Contrived
¤ Limited time
¤ Video/Stage
¤ Required content
¤ Structured pitch
Conversation
¤ Conference room
¤ Set time – 60 Minutes?
¤ Group

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Begin with the end in mind
¤ What question do you want them to ask when they are
done?
¤ How to get a check into your deal?
¤ What do you do again?
¤ Obvious questions by lack absence
¤ Price
¤ Traction
¤ Competition

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10 or 12 Slides?

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Two Use Cases - Two Decks
Slides for Stage
¤ 10 Slides
¤ It’s a contrived event
¤ Check boxes for hitting
required elements
¤ Supporting Slides
Slides for Conf Room
¤ 12 Slides
¤ It’s about the dialog and
understanding the investor
questions
¤ Supporting Slides

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10/12 Slides for Your Pitch
1. Title, Value Proposition,
Contact Info
2. Presentation Overview*
3. Problem
4. Solution
5. Market Size
6. Competitive Analysis*
7. Traction/Timing – why you,
why now?
8. Product Roadmap/Demo
How You Make Money/Key
Metrics
9. Go-To-Market
10. Secret Sauce/Moat/IP*
11. Team
12. Clear Ask/What do you
need from Flat6
*for conf room pitch. Supporting
Slides – Architecture, etc.
Blog Post

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Title Slide
¤ Logo
¤ Tagline
¤ Contact info
¤ Might be duplicated on final slide
¤ Add slide numbers – for them to references, if you’re not
screen sharing
¤ Opportunity to position and talk traction

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Presentation Overview
¤ Agree on what you will discuss
¤ Ask if there is anything else they want to cover
¤ Start reading the room – who are the decision maker and
influencers
¤ Give permission to ask questions as you go – this is a
conversation
¤ The deck serves to guide the conversation

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Problem
¤ Look for the confirmation and agreement on the
problem
¤ If it’s obvious – move on quickly
¤ If it takes some explanation – lead with “what you might
not know…”
¤ Don’t ask for confirmation – human nature will get
agreement but not understanding

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Solution
¤ Lead with product (not platform or mature state)
¤ Build the case for basecamp (launch)
¤ Show the peak of the mountain (scale)

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Market
¤ A good market slide has taken hours to build and 30
seconds to explain!
¤ Don’t over do it
¤ Look for confirmation on the TAM and quickly move to
the go-to-market or Launch Market size
¤ Given features, audience, language, etc

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Competitive Analysis
¤ Overview version – details in supporting slides
¤ Format
¤ Four Quadrant
¤ You’re top right
¤ Not too contrived of an axis
¤ Check boxes
¤ You are first column
¤ Know how much capital they have raised

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Traction – Timing
¤ If you have traction
¤ Revenue
¤ Customers
¤ Unit Economics metris
¤ Why you, why now?
¤ What are the meta market factors in your favor

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Product Roadmap – Demo
¤ Show the product
¤ Screen shots
¤ Vs video or live demo
¤ Show the compelling features
¤ Don’t show basics
¤ Registration
¤ Check out

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Go-to-Market (GTM)
¤ What’s your marketing and sales plan
¤ What data do you have now
¤ What have you tested
¤ Do you have distribution
¤ Lead with data if you have data - unit economics matter,
earlier the better

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Secret Sauce – IP/Moat
¤ Show you are thinking about defense - you don’t have to
have the answers
¤ Speed – knowledge of the customer
¤ What makes your position defensible?
¤ The team
¤ The tech
¤ The GTM

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Team
¤ Lead with co-founders
¤ Key employees
¤ Planned hires in the narrative but not on the slide
¤ Advisors – meh – might matter but don’t mean a lot

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Clear Ask
¤ What do you need – in addition to capital
¤ Advice
¤ Access to their network
¤ Referrals to customers
¤ Help in hiring
¤ You have an agenda – tell them what it is – actionable
¤ Gather questions

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Supporting Slide

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Supporting Slides
¤ Financial detail – drilling down on the “hocky stick”
¤ Intellectual Property
¤ Competitive Analysis detail
¤ If you’re out of time on a contrived deck, push obvious
questions to supporting slides

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Supporting Slides – Cont.
¤ Know the order of the slides

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Story Arc

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Story Arc
¤ Customer’s life before and after your product
¤ One customer use case – the most compelling
¤ Not three or four – makes it sound like you don’t know
¤ Use transition

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Fundraising Fundamentals

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Fundraising 101
● Stage appropriate capital = what’s the right
money at the right time?
○ Early – Angels, early-stage VCs,
○ Later – Large venture funds
● Control shifts – Board roles, deal terms
● Dilution: every round of funding you will sell 25-
35% of new shares
● Bad boards = bad enterprise value

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Raising for What?
¤ 18 months of runway
¤ Not too short
¤ To hit milestones
¤ Product
¤ Customers
¤ “Use of proceeds”

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Angels
● Invest in you and your passion
● Like the market or idea
● Have made money in the sector before
● Something to talk about at a cocktail party!
● Deal type
○ Convertible note with a cap
○ Pro-rata participation (keep my % going
forward)
○ Highest risk – least educated (F&F) should
be best deal

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Early Stage = Risk Capital
● Know your numbers, if you don’t have your numbers
know your hypothesis (have a position)
● Seed stage VC’s are investing other people's money
○ Charter and Thesis
○ Stage, vertical market, size, geography
○ 10% (+/-) stakes plus syndicates
● VC perspective - Elusive deals need to be found
○ Revenue but Pre-product market fit
● ”Return the Fund” deals that can produce >10X

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Later Stage = Growth Capital
● Post product market fit
● $10K in marketing spend = Internal rate of return (IRR) of
how many days?
● MBA’s calculate returns – cash on cash
● Strategics aren’t valuation sensitive, but will be slow
● Bigger checks – 20% stakes

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First Impressions Matter
● Targets – build a list of targets, look for LinkedIn
and/or email introductions
● They have invested in your market/stage in the
past
● They have Board experience for your stage
● They can help with strategic introductions
○ Investors
○ Customers

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Fundraising Process
● Asking for advice vs cash
○ Who do you know that would like out type
of deal
○ What other things would you like to see us
complete before we talk again
● Deals that get closed are pulled by the
investor, not pushed by you
● Find your lead investors – keep the others
warm

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Not

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Pitching
Fake Grimlock

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Final Do’s and Don’ts
Do
● Keep your eye on the ball
– don’t miss your numbers
● Manage the process
● Qualify your investor
● Create optionality
● If there’s an ELEPHANT
room, call it out
Don’ts
● Get < 6 Month of capital
● Hide the ball on any bad
news
● Be too transparent
● Let the investor miss a
deadline – escrow
example

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dave@dkparker.com
www.dkparker.com
@DaveParkerSEA

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