Momentum pulled off what each entrepreneur desires of: Final yr, it closed a lead investor for its seed spherical — which our own Ron Miller covered at the time — with out even making a pitch deck. A minor investor in its earlier spherical had been preserving an in depth eye on the corporate, and when it talked about it was elevating a spherical, the investor swooped in and satisfied Momentum it was the correct alternative to steer the spherical.
As soon as a lead was secured, Momentum created a pitch deck to fill out the spherical. I spoke with the corporate’s CEO to be taught extra about the way it raised cash with out a deck, and he was gracious sufficient to allow us to share the deck that accomplished the remainder of the spherical.
Momentum is a B2B firm that creates gross sales course of automation instruments that make it simpler to collaborate over Slack, which is particularly useful for organizations with complicated gross sales processes with a number of stakeholders, decision-makers and handover factors.
For those who love these pitch deck teardowns and also you want to submit your own, here are the details for the way to try this!
Slides on this deck
Momentum’s seed deck incorporates 19 slides:
- 1 — Cowl slide
- 2-4 — Drawback slide in three elements
- 5-7 — Answer slide in three elements
- 8-10 — Product slide in three elements
- 11 — Market timing slide (“why now”)
- 12 — Traction slide
- 13 — Consumer validation slide
- 14 — Market dimension slide
- 15 — Staff and investor slide
- 16 — “The ask” slide
- 17 — Placeholder for demo
- 18 — “Mic drop” slide — buyer testimonial
- 19 — Thanks slide
Three issues to like
Momentum efficiently raised a $5 million spherical with a gorgeous and easy deck. It took the method of breaking apart a few of the key slides (the issue, answer and product slides) into 9 completely different slides. It actually works on this specific deck, and it helps maintain the movement of the pitch. It additionally makes the deck very easy to eat with out the advantage of the corporate’s founder including context to the story, which is unbelievable.
Nice “ask” slide
[Slide 16] Momentum consists of an “ask” slide — it’s probably the most generally missed slide in pitch decks. Picture Credit: Momentum
Each time I work with startups, I implore them to include an “ask” slide, and whereas not a whole slam dunk (extra about that in only a second), Momentum’s is without doubt one of the greatest I’ve seen so far. I really like the readability: We’re elevating $4 million. That can give us 18 months of runway, and we are going to do this stuff with the cash. It makes it actually clear for buyers to contextualize what the corporate is about to do.
Makes the pitch really feel present
Picture Credit: Momentum
One of many huge issues buyers will ask themselves is, “Why now?” — particularly within the context of an organization like Momentum. Salesforce has been round for a very long time, and there are a number of different gross sales instruments on the market. The questions that spring to thoughts are, “Why didn’t this occur 5 years in the past?” and “Why can’t this be executed 5 years from now?” Momentum’s deck solutions that query superbly, together with parts of the macroeconomic panorama (“the arrival of distributed work”) and a shift in how gross sales are executed. I significantly get pleasure from that the corporate doesn’t point out COVID-19 straight; don’t fear, the buyers will likely be excruciatingly conscious that the world has modified and that habits shifts are more likely to be everlasting.
The mic drop
Picture Credit: Momentum
In journalism, we frequently use one thing we name the martini glass type of writing: You assume that the reader will in some unspecified time in the future cease studying, so you place the essential information on the prime of the article. That’s why you typically discover the who, what, when, the place and the way early on, with the “why” taking on the majority of the evaluation of a chunk. “Wait,” I hear you cry, “that appears like a triangle, not a martini glass!” Right — the flat stem of the glass represents a punchline, a remaining parting volley that helps the reader pull all of the items collectively. Today, you’d name it the mic-drop second.
That’s what Momentum does so effectively on this deck — the primary few slides set the stage, and within the penultimate slide, the corporate provides a buyer testimonial. That may be a nice thought as a result of a number of founders will run out of steam somewhat bit towards the tip of the pitch. The very last thing you need to do is to launch into the investor Q&A session from a spot of “meh.” By bringing the dialog again to a buyer testimonial, it reinforces the influence the corporate has on its prospects. Traders know that that’s a uncommon and hard-to-achieve factor, so it actually units the tone for the dialog to return.
In the remainder of this teardown, we’ll check out three issues Momentum might have improved or executed in a different way, together with its full pitch deck!
Leave a Reply