Pitch Deck Teardown: DeckMatch’s $1M seed deck

I not too long ago wrote about DeckMatch’s $1 million seed spherical. On condition that the software evaluates pitch decks, it’s solely honest that I provided to guage its pitch deck, too. The founders noticed the irony in that and provided its pitch deck as a sacrifice to the teardown gods.

We’re on the lookout for extra distinctive pitch decks to tear down, so if you wish to submit your individual, right here’s how you are able to do that. 

Slides on this deck

The deck is frivolously redacted. A piece on upcoming hires and an appendix on how the corporate is coaching its mannequin have been eliminated.

That apart, DeckMatch raised with a decent 14-slide deck:

1. Cowl slide
2. Drawback slide
3. “Generative AI is a part of the issue” slide
4. “Who experiences this drawback” slide
5. Drawback influence slide
6. Answer slide
7. Demo slide
8. Market alternative slide
9. Go to market slide
10.  The Moat slide
11.   Targets/milestones slide
12.  Crew slide
13.  The Ask slide
14.  Closing slide

Three issues to like

As a result of this product straight targets VCs and even tries to guage decks, you’d higher imagine I’m going to look notably shut at this deck. Even with that in thoughts, the startup tells a really compelling story.

Turning the issue into the answer

[Slide 3] Om nom nom. Picture Credit: DeckMatch

It’s intelligent that the issue assertion reveals that the issue is the answer. The convenience with which companies can ship huge quantity of high-quality outbound requests is a bonus for firms, however not for those who’re on the opposite finish. I’m already seeing a large uptick in search engine marketing spam, for instance. Excessive-profile VCs get 1000’s upon 1000’s of inbound pitch decks.

Turning the issue on itself, then, is an efficient answer: In case your inbox is filling up with personalized, automated emails resulting from generative AI, why not use AI to guage and take care of all of it? This slide makes it very straightforward to grasp, it’s humorous, and it’s an important visible illustration of the issue at hand.

Bonus factors: Learn the slide rigorously, and also you see that it doesn’t say pitch decks or VCs wherever. It says “inbound,” which hints at what the remainder of the deck entails. However that additionally implies that the corporate’s title, DeckMatch, is maybe overly particular, contemplating that the market alternative is gigantic.

A fantastic workforce

[Slide 12] The “enjoyable truth” is cute, although. Picture Credit: DeckMatch

This isn’t essentially one of the best workforce slide, but it surely in some way works to point out off the standard of the workforce regardless of the slide.

Skilled founders tackling an issue that is smart makes me perk up straight away. Founding Edgefolio implies that Leo Gasteen has expertise with the monetary trade, and whereas Homefair doesn’t instantly appear all that related (and maybe the workforce may have carried out a greater job at explaining why it’s related), Walid Mustapha has deep AI and market expertise (I discovered this throughout my interview with him). On the floor, this looks as if a stable workforce.

You probably have an important workforce, I often advocate main with the workforce slide. As a rule of thumb, if the workforce slide is close to the top of the deck, that sometimes means the founders try to bury it. However DeckMatch is doing the other: By sticking the slide on the finish of the deck, they hope that the dialog will finish on a excessive notice. It’s a high-risk method, however I feel it labored properly on this circumstance, in a humble-brag sort of manner.

Drawback influence slide

[Slide 5] Drawback → Who has this drawback → What’s the influence of this drawback. Picture Credit: DeckMatch

I hardly ever love decks which have three completely different drawback slides, however DeckMatch is doing a extremely intelligent factor right here, breaking the story into 4 completely different steps:

• Slide 2: What’s the drawback? An excessive amount of information.
• Slide 3: How is the issue evolving? It’s about to get so much worse.
• Slide 4: Who experiences this drawback? Traders, HR, procurement, grant-making establishments and trade.
• Slide 5: What’s the influence of this drawback? Missed alternatives and wasted effort.

DeckMatch does an important job spinning a story round a fancy, nearly common drawback. It’s an important approach for serving to buyers perceive what the chance is.

In the remainder of this teardown, I’ll check out three issues DeckMatch may have improved or carried out otherwise, together with its full pitch deck!