How Good is Your Investor/Analyst Presentation?

September 8, 2010

Rob Infantino, a senior consultant at the Enterprise Strategy Group sent me the template he recommends companies use to present their story to analysts.

This is a template for an approximately 12-15 slide presentation that can be delivered in 30 minutes. It focuses more on the highlights and allows the analyst/investor to ask detailed questions. This approach allows the company to touch on all the highlights before running out of time.

But before you dive into the presentation, make sure you have figured out your WHY and how you inspire… and can articulate it in a slide or two.

1. General intro of you as the speaker, including your role in the organization and a brief profile of the company (1 slide)
1. Who (the company, founders are, domain experience)
2. What (the company does in 10-12 words)
3. When (when founded, when First Customer Ship, when funded and by whom)
4. Where (markets customer you focus on)
2. Why (1 slide)
1. What was the catalyst in the market or founders’ experience to spawn the company?
2. Why do your customers get inspired by your solution?
3. Why are you passionate about what you do?
3. The problem that your solution addresses (1-2 slides)
1. What is the problem?
2. Why is it a HUGE problem?
3. Why can’t it be solved by existing solutions?
4. Where does it exist?
5. Who has it?
4. How does your solution address it (1-2 slides)
1. What is it in simple terms?
2. Identify the IP or secret sauce?
3. How is it delivered and consumed?
4. How does it address the aforementioned problem?
5. Benefits (1 Slide)
1. If end-users implement your solution, what are the realistic benefits that can/will be derived from the solution? (They have to be compelling enough for people to 1) buy it and/or 2) remove/change what they are currently doing)
2. Is there an ROI story that drives this point home?
6. Go-to-market and business model (1-2 slides)
1. Who are you targeting and why?
2. How do you reach them?
3. What is your distribution strategy?
7. Business model (1-2 slides)
1. High level financials.
2. High level economics of the business.
3. Pricing and average transaction size.
8. Differentiation (1 Slide)
1. Why do you win and why do you lose (an improvement over what is already in place and can be added to an environment) or revolutionary (requires more of a rip-and-replace deployment and radical re-thinking of how the problem can be addressed)?
2. What is your competitive positioning?
9. Market Traction (1 slide)
1. Key metrics that indicate your market penetration
2. How do you capture the rest of the market available to you?
10. Solution Road Map
1. What feature/functions are your customers demanding?
2. What are your plans to deliver them?
11. Goals
1. Where does the company want to be 3-years from now?
2. What are the enablers of these goals (product, market, financing, go-to-market strategy, partnerships, etc.)?
12. Summarizing the story
1. What are you looking for?

We at OpenView Venture Partners tend to favor really short presentations… and prefer having engaging conversations with founders who can tell a compelling story about what they do and how they will win in their market. Raising venture capital, like anything in this world, is all about inspiring your audience into action.

The Chief Executive Officer

Firas was previously a venture capitalist at Openview. He has returned to his operational roots and now works as The Chief Executive Officer of Everteam and is also the Founder of <a href="http://nsquaredadvisory.com/">nsquared advisory</a>. Previously, he helped launch a VC fund, start and grow a successful software company and also served time as an obscenely expensive consultant, where he helped multi-billion-dollar companies get their operations back on track.