I get a lot<\/span> of pitch deck submissions for this Pitch Deck Teardown series from people who are raising friend and family rounds, and I mostly pass on them. Often, these decks aren\u2019t very good, but it\u2019s important to remember that they don\u2019t have to be.<\/p>\n For a small round (say $200,000 or below), 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\u2019s not about the product (there typically isn\u2019t one), and it\u2019s not about the solution (the company is still iterating).<\/p>\n Such investors are usually betting on two things:<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the truth: When considering very early stage companies, if you can\u2019t say \u201cYes\u201d to both of those questions with 100% certainty, you shouldn\u2019t invest. If the market isn\u2019t big enough, don\u2019t invest. If the founders are smart, friendly and amazing, but they don\u2019t have something special that gives them a head start, don\u2019t invest.<\/p>\n It was against that backdrop that I received the pitch deck for Palau Project. Its founder, Jerome Cloetens, is a professional kite surfer (!) with an economics degree and an MBA, and he\u2019s taking on climate change.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a closer look at how all those pieces come together in a pitch deck.<\/p>\n We\u2019re looking for more unique pitch decks to tear down, so if you want to submit your own, here\u2019s how you can do that.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n This pre-seed deck has 22 slides, but it could probably have been 10 slides or so. That said, it looks good, and although it jumps from topic to topic a little, I can see how the presentation would take shape. Cloetens notes that the slide deck has been slightly updated since the fundraise, and he mentioned it\u2019s \u201cnot precisely as Pitched; some of the design and small content changes (Such as our traction metrics) have been updated.\u201d<\/p>\n As I mentioned in the intro, this is a pre-seed deck. As per slide #20, the founders were trying to raise $500,000, and they closed on about $125,000. That isn\u2019t entirely uncommon at early stages. Slightly later on, your plan needs to match the funds, which needs to match the milestones you\u2019re trying to hit.<\/p>\n At this stage, \u201cI just need some money to prove what we are trying to do\u201d will work, and if the angel investors think it makes sense, you\u2019ll raise money.<\/p>\n [Slide 5] Palau Project\u2019s product is super simple, but the power will be in the data. Image credit:<\/strong> Palau Project.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n\t\t\tMake your product demos this simple if you can \u2014 it\u2019s easy to understand, visual and impactful.\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n I mentioned earlier that all that matters is the market size and team, and I\u2019ll get to that in just a moment. For now, I was really impressed at how simple the idea is, and how easy it is to imagine this in use. Scan a barcode, get information about a product and get nudged towards products that have less impact on the climate.<\/p>\n As an investor, I would immediately have three questions:<\/p>\n You can learn two things from this slide: Make your product demos this simple if you can \u2014 it\u2019s easy to understand, visual and impactful. The second step is to tie it to your value propositions: What\u2019s in it for the consumer? What\u2019s in it for the product manufacturers? What\u2019s in it for your company (i.e. how does this help you gain or retain customers, and how does it help you generate value)?<\/p>\n [Slide 13] A product this early with traction is beautiful. Image credit:<\/strong> Palau Project.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When a company is raising its first round, it\u2019s unlikely that it has a product at all, never mind a product with actual traction. If you do happen to have such a product, scream about it from the rooftops. Having 30 downloads per day is impressive, and 10,000 scans shows that the app is working and getting some user engagement. Engagement time is cool, too \u2014 there are a lot of early indicators showing up here that the founders may be on to something. Going from 0 to 700 weekly active users in a new market (Portugal) is impressive, too.<\/p>\n Again, the slide raises questions for me:<\/p>\n What you can learn from this slide as a startup is to think about the story you are telling with your metrics, because you could be telling the wrong story, or it could raise more questions than it answers.<\/p>\n Pretend to be a VC for a moment, and ask yourself: If a company told me these numbers, what caused the numbers to happen, and what do they tell me about where the company is going?<\/p>\n [Slide 3] It\u2019s hard to be a consumer who cares. Image credit:<\/strong> Palau Project.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The graphic on the left really rams home a point: corporations blatantly using greenwashing to pretend that they are sustainable, tree-hugging hippies is real (and Coca-Cola, in particular, wraps itself into some curious green pretzels trying to prove how much it cares about the environment), and as consumers, you can\u2019t trust large corporations to truthfully represent what they are doing.<\/p>\n So what is a poor consumer to do? Palau Project\u2019s take on this is a masterful set-up to a pitch and a wonderful way of opening the door to a story.<\/p>\n This slide is a great example of a good opener that can help drive the conversation forward. Having a clear value proposition or painting a picture for your raison d\u2019etre<\/em> is a great way to engage your listeners.<\/p>\n Remember when I said \u201cteam\u201d and \u201cmarket\u201d are the two most important parts of a pre-seed slide deck? You\u2019ll notice the absence of either in this \u201cthings I loved\u201d section. There\u2019s a reason for that, so let\u2019s take a closer look at what could be improved in Palau Project\u2019s pitch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I get a lot of pitch deck submissions for this Pitch Deck Teardown series from people who are raising friend and family rounds, and I mostly pass on them. Often, these decks aren\u2019t very good, but it\u2019s important to remember that they don\u2019t have to be. For a small round (say $200,000 or below), most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1234197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1234195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrity-gossip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1234195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1234195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1234195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1234195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Slides in this deck<\/h2>\n
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Three things to love<\/h2>\n
Simple product, testable now<\/h3>\n
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Traction!<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/gp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/PalauProjectPre-seedPitchDeckTechCrunchPitchDeckTeardown-Slide-13.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n
Elegant value proposition<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n