As a company who’s team bootstrap – even we can tip our hats to the value covered in Mckeever “Mac” Conwell twitter thread – check it out👇

He emphasized the following points that increase your odds

-Intro
-Problem
-Solution
-Market Size
-Business Model
-Traction
-Pipeline
-3-5 Year Projections
-Go-to-Market Strategy
-Competition
-Team
-Ask
-Closing

Intro slide

Just a simple slide with the company name or logo, the CEO’s name, and some contact information

Related: If companies can leverage you like a commodity, why can’t you?

Problem Slide

Your chance to humanize the problem you are solving. I like a story using a real-world example to make the problem real and human and draw in the investors. remember the art of pitching is the art of storytelling.

Solution Slide

Where you talk about your product or solution and why it’s so great without diving too deep and going into too many features (a common mistake)

Market Slide

Where you talk about how big your market is. It is common to use this slide to show how big your market is and what is the initial segment of the market you will go for.

Business Model Slide

Where you talk about how you make money and talk about your unit economics. Please know your unit economics

Traction Slide

Your chance to brag. Talk about your growth over some period of time. focus on non-vanity metrics (metrics that affect the bottom line or user use). Remember anything over 0 is something worth talking about

Pipeline Slide

Where you talk about, if you are a B2B company, the list of potential customers you are in talks with and at different levels of conversations. This is also a chance for you to talk about your sales cycle

Projections Slide

3-5 year projections is one founders hate but it’s not really about the projections itself. It’s about how you are thinking about growing/scaling your company and what assumptions you are making to accomplish that scale.

Go-to-Market Slide

Talks about your customer acquisition strategies. If you know me, this is my favorite slide lol. talk about the different channels or ways you are planning to get customers.

Competition Slide

Where you get to showcase how well you know the competition in the market both direct and indirect, while only talking about how you’re better. Don’t tell me what your competition does, only what they don’t do

Team Slide

A chance to brag about your team and what you have done before and don’t pass over if you have ever worked on anything together. Keep in mind to add your advisors but they aren’t your team. (Special mention: we loved the mention of your advisors not being included – this is a superficial fluffing that anyone who’s been around for a while sees through easily, avoid this)

Ask Slide

Where you say how much you are raising and why

Closing Slide

Just like the into. Just have your logo or company name with your contact info and end with giving a summary of why your company is awesome and should get investment.

If you’ve ever taken a peek at VC twitter you’ll understand the humility and actual love for what he does, Mac is setting a new standard for how VC’s can provide actual value and not just the empty “let me know how I can be helpful” gesture they’re known for

Related: How Do You Win A Game That’s Rigged Against YOU? CREATE, Don’t Compete

While Mac says this isn’t a perfect deck (as every investor looks for different things) we will say that regardless of you’re team bootstrap or VC – it’s is information you will need to have handy

And several have already shared that exact sentiment

Here’s to escaping average 🤙