This time last year, I was spending a lot of time in Keynote. I spent so much time putting that deck together, and at the end of the day an email conversation with Brad Feld and a handful of key questions were the “pitch” of our Series A fundraise. The deck turned out to be more for me than for investors, forcing me to meticulously organize my mind around what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and what it will take to get to the next milestones. Since then, I’ve realized the power of communicating through decks — a truly unique medium for sharing ideas.
Your can read our in-depth Series A funding announcement here. (I love how this post says we are working on going from 27 to 80 employees this year… that’s CRAZY. We are 40 now and we are hiring — join us!)
Our Series A deck has more than 130,000 views on Slideshare! I hope it can help you think through your own business:
Looking at the projections in this deck is really a mind trip. We thought company coverage would be the most important thing, but that was wrong and eventually a sacred cow we would slaughter. Quality matters more. The MRR projections are similarly disconnected from reality (though that would have been awesome!) but made entirely in good faith. I hate projections as I am of the Warren Buffet school of thought about predicting the future, and in the end we were valued not on the future but on a multiple (12x) of current revenue.
I hope you find this helpful, and best of luck raising your own Series A!
This ended well, after a very long grind we found our way to a fantastic round will a fantastic human being who has teamed up with us to shape the future of business information for machines and knowledge workers everywhere. This was the email I received that may have made me cry… and then dance around the house!
