Investment deck review: hiveonline

Thanks to founder and CEO, Sofie Blaksted, for sharing the hiveonline pitch deck with us for another deck review. These videos are intended to provide a glimpse at how many investors read decks for the first time. The key takeaways are generally the same - think about telling a story that builds excitement and intrigue, as opposed to drowning investors in detail.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the average investor will only spend a few seconds on your deck. They don't care about your business like you do, so they have little incentive to give you time. Instead, they're often flicking through to make sure they're not about to miss the next big thing. Your deck should explain, very quickly, how well you're doing, why, how big your business is going to get, and how the investor's money is almost certain to get you there.

Right deck, right time

Interestingly, one of the impact investors currently in due diligence has told Sofie they think it's a great deck, and I don't disagree!

The secret is in providing the right amount of detail at the right time. A deck is usually used as a door opener - not for due diligence. Of course, once you've got an investor talking, they're going to want to get into the weeds. Investors will often have numerous questions, and different investors will care about different things. It's very useful to have a long, detailed deck on hand, which will help you answer the majority of those questions. For the door opener, on the other hand, you need something much more short and snappy. Give enough evidence to support your big, bold claims, but don't dig deep. The purpose of this deck is pure and simple, get a reply from the investor, which says they're interested and would like a call/meeting/coffee/etc.

Note: This is raw, unedited footage of the first time I've seen this deck. I recorded it to try to help Sofie gain more insight into how investors like me might react to her deck. I am sharing here, with Sofie's permission, in the hope that the video might help other founders, like Sofie, to overcome similar challenges.

Image Credit

– Cover image from hiveonline