Investors Should Never Read a Deck From Beginning to End

Four judges. Four chairs.

Backs turned against the stage. And facing the audience, suspended in anticipation of who’ll walk out on stage.

A lone individual slowly walks out and as she does, the melody starts.

1… 2… 3… in a bellowing, deep yet clear vocal, “OHHHHHHHHHHH~”

Boom. Boom! Boom!! Boom!!!

All four chairs turn. And the crowd goes wild.

As a kid, The Voice was one of those guilty pleasures I had. The centerpiece in a Venn diagram of music, showmanship, and raw talent. Each contestant was judged on nothing more than the raw horsepower their vocals carried. Quite literally, sometimes. For the judges, the call-to-action was quite simple. You had to cast your vote before the song ended. In other words, you must show you wanted to bring a contestant on your team, trusting instinct and years of experience before you saw what they looked like or how they presented themselves. And that… that was awesome!

A decade and a half later, now sitting in the world of private market investments, I find the same parallels in startup and GP pitch decks.

I’m specifically referring to decks you send investors before you have a chance to talk to them. Whether it’s via the cold outreach, a submission on their website, or attached in a warm intro.

A teaser deck is not meant to be finished.

‘Cause if they do, you’ve lost them before you had a chance to talk to them. There is no glory in an investor flipping through every page. There is no glory in finally seeing the call-to-action at the very end of the deck. Usually an email or a how much you’re raising.

While it’s in the title, let me re-underscore. Investors should never read a deck from beginning to end. Each slide should, in theory, give the investor the activation energy to book a call or meeting with you. The sooner in the slide deck you can convince someone to book a meeting, the better. The longer you take to convince an investor, be it VC or LP, the less likely they’ll take that first meeting. The purpose of a viewing deck is to get to the first meeting, not the investment decision. There is nothing a deck can single-handedly do to convince an investor to invest. If the brief can, the fiduciary is not doing their job.

Instead, what a deck should have, in my humble opinion… as early as possible:

1. Your fund’s greatest highlight — It could be your 10X DPI across 8 years of investing. Could be the fact that you literally built the modern large language model infrastructure. Or that you took your last company public. Or that every. single. CISO. In the Fortune 50 list is an LP. It must deliver the wow factor. The surprise. Something people don’t expect. The primary reason an LP has to talk to you.
2. Your biggest elephant in the room — In a world where 75% of funds say they’re top quartile, you need to stop being the salesperson, and start being the honest businessperson. There are, undeniably, risks of getting in business with you. To think otherwise is stupid. The question here with a capital Q, is are you self-aware enough to know your biggest flaw? Or can you not recognize your own blind side? Admittedly, this second one is a selfish desire to see more funds with this. Because 99.9% of funds don’t share this. And LPs are tired of overly-promotional decks.

Of course, there are other reasons an LP will take the first meeting.

1. The person introducing you is a person the LP deeply trusts.
2. Your outreach is highly personalized. I’d like to stress the word highly.
3. The LP typically doesn’t receive that much deal flow.
4. The LP is in learning mode / revamping the portfolio. Likely, but not always, a new CIO.
5. You’re Taylor Swift.
6. You’re lucky.

Obviously, never count on the last.

Photo by Forja2 Mx on Unsplash

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The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.