Deck Rooster

Announcing Deck Rooster as a Resource Partner for Conquest '24🚀 Deck Rooster will provide Conquest ‘24's startup cohort with a knowledge session on pitch decks and 12 startups with one-on-one sessions in order to help review their individual pitch decks. They help growth-stage startups communicate their story effectively to venture capital investors. Their clients include startups funded by Goldman Sachs, Accel Partners, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia, IDG, Blume VC, Y Combinator and other top investors. #ConquestForStartups

Your Seed or Series A investor deck narrative will not be the same as your Series B or C investor deck narrative. Most founders implicitly get this. But how exactly do they differ? Why do they differ? And what do you include in each pitch deck? In our quick guide for founders, we help you understand what are the motivations & thinking of an investor at each stage and what should go into your pitch deck accordingly.

Emailing the same sales deck you use to pitch to prospects in-person? Doing this may be hurting you more than you think! Email-ed pitch decks are consumed in a very different environment than an in-person pitch, hence affecting the way your message lands. To win over a potential prospect, optimizing your deck according to the environment becomes crucial. So, what’s the right way to present these decks? (Read the post to know more)

𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐒 If you are a founder having conversations with investors and face one of the below issues (see list), you may need to rethink the narrative being used in your investor communication. 1. You are being compared to the wrong peers 2. Your product has grown over time to many pieces 3. You are being slotted into the incorrect industry segment 4. The potential size of your company is being under-estimated A properly constructed narrative can change how an investor views/understands your business, product, and vision. And this can have a sizeable implication on how your company is valued and your ability to raise funds. 𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐒 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐀𝐍 𝐄𝐗𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄: 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐅𝐘 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲 1.0 When Spotify launched in 2008, it aimed to give consumers legal non-pirated music anytime, anywhere - a big problem at that time. This is what Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify, wrote in a blog post “We broke the grip piracy had on our (music) industry and restored the growth of global music through paid on-demand streaming”. It raised money & grew on the back of this music industry-centric story 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲 2.0 Today, Spotify is a behemoth for streaming & discovery of music, podcasts, radio, audiobooks, audio news & stories. Spotify doesn’t pitch the story of music to investors anymore, but audio. They are audio-first, not music-first. They are vying for consumers’ overall ear-share, not just music-share. It’s a much larger opportunity they are chasing today. This is how Daniel Ek explains the new narrative in a 2019 blogpost... “With more than 200 million users around the globe, Spotify is already one of the world’s most-used apps, but we see an opportunity that will allow us to reach beyond music to engage users in entirely new ways. What I didn’t know when we launched to consumers in 2008 was that audio — not just music — would be the future of Spotify. Consumers spend roughly the same amount of time on video as they do on audio. Video is about a trillion-dollar market. And the music and radio industry is worth around a hundred billion dollars. I always come back to the same question: Are our eyes really worth 10 times more than our ears? I firmly believe this is not the case.” This is an excellent narrative shift that neatly ties in all their various offerings into a single logic. If investors continued viewing them as a music company that also did 10 other things, it could be seen as ‘doing too much’…..’not focusing on your core’, etc. But as an ‘audio’ company fighting for ear-share, all their offerings together organically make sense. The icing on the cake - even the future roadmap becomes clear to investors without Spotify even having to lay it out. This change in narrative doesn’t stop at just investor communication. It is an org-wide shift. Strategy, product, marketing, fundraising - all follow the narrative of ‘audio’, not ‘music.

𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐒 If you are a founder having conversations with investors and face one of the below issues (see list), you may need to rethink the narrative being used in your investor communication. 1. You are being compared to the wrong peers 2. Your product has grown over time to many pieces 3. You are being slotted into the incorrect industry segment 4. The potential size of your company is being under-estimated A properly constructed narrative can change how an investor views/understands your business, product, and vision. And this can have a sizeable implication on how your company is valued and your ability to raise funds. 𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐒 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐀𝐍 𝐄𝐗𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄: 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐅𝐘 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲 1.0 When Spotify launched in 2008, it aimed to give consumers legal non-pirated music anytime, anywhere - a big problem at that time. This is what Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify, wrote in a blog post “We broke the grip piracy had on our (music) industry and restored the growth of global music through paid on-demand streaming”. It raised money & grew on the back of this music industry-centric story 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲 2.0 Today, Spotify is a behemoth for streaming & discovery of music, podcasts, radio, audiobooks, audio news & stories. Spotify doesn’t pitch the story of music to investors anymore, but audio. They are audio-first, not music-first. They are vying for consumers’ overall ear-share, not just music-share. It’s a much larger opportunity they are chasing today. This is how Daniel Ek explains the new narrative in a 2019 blogpost... “With more than 200 million users around the globe, Spotify is already one of the world’s most-used apps, but we see an opportunity that will allow us to reach beyond music to engage users in entirely new ways. What I didn’t know when we launched to consumers in 2008 was that audio — not just music — would be the future of Spotify. Consumers spend roughly the same amount of time on video as they do on audio. Video is about a trillion-dollar market. And the music and radio industry is worth around a hundred billion dollars. I always come back to the same question: Are our eyes really worth 10 times more than our ears? I firmly believe this is not the case.” This is an excellent narrative shift that neatly ties in all their various offerings into a single logic. If investors continued viewing them as a music company that also did 10 other things, it could be seen as ‘doing too much’…..’not focusing on your core’, etc. But as an ‘audio’ company fighting for ear-share, all their offerings together organically make sense. The icing on the cake - even the future roadmap becomes clear to investors without Spotify even having to lay it out. This change in narrative doesn’t stop at just investor communication. It is an org-wide shift. Strategy, product, marketing, fundraising - all follow the narrative of ‘audio’, not ‘music.

Story ≠ Storytelling Story belongs to your business. Storytelling belongs to your pitch deck. Storytelling is the art of Telling the Story. #storytelling #pitchdeck

Emailing the same sales deck you use to pitch to prospects in-person? Doing this may be hurting you more than you think! Email-ed pitch decks are consumed in a very different environment than an in-person pitch, hence affecting the way your message lands. To win over a potential prospect, optimizing your deck according to the environment becomes crucial. So, what’s the right way to present these decks? (Read the post to know more)

In a pitch deck, be crisp and concise. If you can't, then be interesting and engaging. #startup #investordeck #communication

As a founder juggling an endless to-do list with a hundred tasks gives you very little time to think about internal presentations such as strategy decks or board meetings. But, these presentations are crucial because they involve communicating key information with your key stakeholders. For example…. 1. Convincing your board about a new offering in your board deck 2. Highlighting the wins and misses in your quarterly deck to your investors 3. Aligning your CXOs through your strategy deck Building these presentations in a short span can be tricky - there’s a constant risk of information overload or confusion due to incoherent messaging. So you risk not getting the most important information to your most important stakeholders at the right time. To solve this, you need a quick and easy way to structure your thoughts so the most relevant messages are surfaced! This is where a framework like 1-3-9 is super helpful. More in the document below.

As a founder juggling an endless to-do list with a hundred tasks gives you very little time to think about internal presentations such as strategy decks or board meetings. But, these presentations are crucial because they involve communicating key information with your key stakeholders. For example…. 1. Convincing your board about a new offering in your board deck 2. Highlighting the wins and misses in your quarterly deck to your investors 3. Aligning your CXOs through your strategy deck Building these presentations in a short span can be tricky - there’s a constant risk of information overload or confusion due to incoherent messaging. So you risk not getting the most important information to your most important stakeholders at the right time. To solve this, you need a quick and easy way to structure your thoughts so the most relevant messages are surfaced! This is where a framework like 1-3-9 is super helpful. More in the document below.