Pattern Sequence A pitch deck: Helu.io’s $9.8m deck

You already know what’s an enormous ache the place the =sum()don’t shine? Monetary reporting, planning and evaluation. I typically go on and on (and on and on) about startups not getting their financials and working plans proper of their startup pitch decks, so … not gonna lie, I picked Austrian startup Helu.io, which accomplished a €9.8 million round in July, within the hope that an organization that focuses solely on FP&A (that’s “monetary planning and evaluation,” for many who aren’t as much as their eyeballs in monetary lingo) can present the remainder of us the way it needs to be executed.

We’re searching for extra distinctive pitch decks to tear down, so if you wish to submit your personal, here’s how you can do that. 

Slides on this deck

When Helu submitted its deck, it did so with a notice that income and unit financial info was eliminated.

Additionally value noting (as a result of I’ll be trustworthy, I needed to Google it, and I’m all about saving you a Google search or two) what “DACH” stands for, as a result of it seems within the slides under. D is Deutschland — that one is straightforward. A is for Österreich (Austria) and CH is for … Switzerland. DACH is a considerably generally used time period for the cluster of nations in Europe which have German as its Sprachraum — in different phrases, the place German is predominantly spoken.

1. Cowl slide
2. “Helu is for CFOs what Personio is for HR” — market alternative slide
3. “The CFO’s ache is Excel” — drawback slide
4. “Goodbye Excel sheets” — resolution slide
5. “Our method is exclusive and completely different” — product slide
6. “Automated monetary reporting: real-time in a single step” — worth proposition slide
7. “Collaborative evaluation” – worth proposition slide
8. “Addressing a 100bn B2B SaaS market globally” — TAM slide
9. “Multi-billion market in DACH alone” — SAM slide
10.   “Specifics of DACH market” — SOM slide
11.   “Distinctive place in DACH” — moat/aggressive benefit slide
12.   “Helu automating knowledge aggregation” — product slide
13.   “Helu’s typical buyer” — buyer profile slide
14.   “Prime notch worldwide workforce” — workforce slide
15.   “Backed by sturdy buyers and advisors” — buyers and advisors slide
16.   Closing slide

Three issues to like

General, Helu’s slide deck comes throughout as just a little unusual seen by means of Silicon Valley eyes. Having an English-language slide deck specializing in German-speaking international locations, with out actually saying something about an English-language enlargement plan, is oddly unsettling. There are additionally some notable issues lacking from this slide deck — however I’m getting forward of myself. Let’s check out the issues that work nice, initially.

Strong worth proposition

For founders working in an area that may be a little inside baseball, it may be actually tempting to over-explain what a product does. The reality is that the buyers don’t actually care what your product does. Not likely. What they care about is that the shoppers are glad sufficient to maintain coming again and to get that a part of the story throughout, you want to clarify what the client will get out of it. You try this by sharing the advantages, or the worth proposition. The Helu workforce does that properly over the course of two slides:

[Slide 6] Half 1 of the worth proposition. Picture Credit: Helu

On Slide 6, the workforce exhibits a pair of screenshots of its product, chopping it finely between explaining options and advantages. In the event that they had been making an attempt to promote this product to me, as somebody who runs their very own enterprise, I’d prefer to see it extra profit pushed, however they aren’t — they’re “promoting” shares within the firm to institutional buyers, who are typically very clear on how monetary reporting works.

[Slide 7] Half 2 of the worth proposition. Picture Credit: Helu

The second a part of the worth prop argument is extra of the identical, but it surely helps spotlight the strengths of the software program bundle. Most significantly, I can completely see how that is essential for working issues; you want to drill down into, simulate and analyze varied eventualities. This bundle has you lined. Excel can do that, after all, however good luck resetting the mannequin to pre-scenario states.

Now, these slides aren’t full slam dunks; I’d have cherished extra consistency. In Slide 7, the bullets on the left have capital letters and those on the remainder begin in lowercase. The slides flip-flop between utilizing “&” and “and” to tie issues collectively. However total, they do the trick.

Present me the cash. And take my cash.

[Slide 12] Take my cash; I’ve needed this product since I began my very first firm. Picture Credit: Helu

I’m an Excel/Google Sheets nerd, and I believe many buyers are, usually. Ingesting knowledge and preserving it updated is excruciatingly exhausting, and the ugly little secret is that loads of us are working with snapshots of information. These snapshots could or could not get up to date. Working totally on anecdotal knowledge? I believe more often than not the snapshots don’t get up to date. That implies that you’re making big, strategic monetary choices primarily based on outdated info. It doesn’t take an MBA to comprehend that that ain’t one of the best ways to run a enterprise. This slide received me very excited certainly, and the info geek in me really needed to see what this seems to be like in actual life. It’s uncommon {that a} slide deck each makes me conscious of an entire new product class and makes me need to play with monetary modeling.

I believe this slide is masterful; it exhibits the facility of Helu’s instruments in a manner that helps a possible investor perceive why that is so necessary. I wouldn’t be in any respect stunned if the buyers requested a number of of their startups to check out Helu’s instruments for his or her monetary modeling and reporting; they fall within the middle of the bullseye for the product, and if it really works in addition to it seems to be prefer it may, it’s an apparent win. The slide itself is unassuming and easy, but when I squint my ears, I can hear a founder ship a voice-over with an instance or two exhibiting how highly effective this may be.

Wonderful moat

[Slide 10] When you get a foothold within the DACH market, you’re golden. Picture Credit: Helu

OK, so this slide is likely one of the greatest and one of many worst on this deck. We’re speaking concerning the prime three issues I cherished, so on this part, we’ll discuss that, however, spoiler alert: This slide is making a comeback within the “three issues that could possibly be improved” part under. If you happen to’ve learn a few my pitch deck teardowns up to now, right here’s an opportunity to do an train: What’s unsuitable with this slide? Sure, it has too many phrases on it, however that’s not the issue — see in case you can determine it out!

What I do love about this slide is that it paints an image of how, as soon as Helu will get a stable foothold on this market, will probably be primarily unbeatable; and I believe $10 million and a stable product will assist it on this. It’s not going to get competitors from abroad anytime quickly, on account of getting “essentially the most advanced accounting and tax system on the planet.” I’m certain somebody from the Inner Income Service reads that and can begin to really feel just a little aggressive, however I purchase that it’s seemingly a relatively distinctive panorama of guidelines and laws.

With a further twist: The German Mittelstand is a robust pressure to be reckoned with. These are 1000’s of small however effectively run companies which can be exhausting to think about in some other nation; within the U.S., small firms are inclined to get rolled into greater ones. As the corporate factors out, 99.5% of all firms and 97.5% of all exporters fall into the SME class. That’s a panorama most worldwide SaaS companies don’t actually know what to do with; native and cultural information and constructing instruments that work very properly for this particular subset of firms imply that Helu may find yourself with a formidable moat. The corporate doesn’t come straight out and say that it is a “winner take all” market, however I believe that’s what they’re getting at.

In the remainder of this teardown, we’ll check out three issues Helu may have improved or executed in another way, together with its full pitch deck!