Thank you pre recorded Alex, this is not pre recorded Danny, I'm super excited to introduce our panel on pitch deck and how to create a pitch deck that can't be ignored. I gotta be honest, I think I'm doing our panelists, we've probably have read collectively 10s of 1000s of pitch decks at this point. And yet, some of them still grab our attention. Some of them still are the ones that are memorable and actually get investment. And that's what we're here to talk about today. I'm super excited to have more Sava and Mercedes talking about all aspects of pitch decks, we're gonna get into some of the logistics, the new technologies that are coming out, and obviously, how pitches have changed in 2021, in sort of this post, weird COVID pandemic, experience, all that and more coming up. But more, I'm going to start with you, your seed stage investor, obviously, looking at a lot of decks all the time, how has reading, pitch decks changed for you over the last two years, given the pandemic?
Well, thank you for having me here. So excited to be here with you guys, I would say the volume of pitches that we receive has increased and continues to increase at some form of exponential rake. So it's been, you know, for us, you know, we have to become far more efficient at sorting and reading through these DAGs. So, you know, US internally at pear, we've grown our team, partly to handle you know, the fact that there was just a lot more people starting companies, you know, the decks that we used to receive were in the same way in some form of doxon, or PDF. So the actual reading of the individual deck hasn't changed, but the rate and volume dramatically.
And Mercedes, same attempt to you, I mean, what are you seeing when you're looking at pitch decks these days,
the decks are getting better and better in terms of design, I think more and more people have realized that the visual representation of your deck is just as important as the material and the content that's in there, you know, there's these instinctive, kind of like, milliseconds, you know, seconds that an investor looks at your deck and almost make a snap judgment about whether it's even in the realm of something they want to look at it. Unfortunately, you know, it shouldn't be like that. But that's, you know, we're human. And so I think having I'm seeing decks that are super polished, I don't know where everyone's getting these great graphics from, but they're amazing.
And so, from your perspective, at TechStars, what are you seeing with pitch deck these days? In 2021?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a combination of teaser decks and different formats that I'm like, wait, I don't think I've seen that before. And then the ones that made me a little bit hurt inside, when they're, like, 40, to 50 pages long, not much, they want to just boil the ocean and tell you everything, because they're so passionate about it, and I love it. And, um, but I'm like, hold on, you need to be able to shorten it there. And so I think it's this is movement, I'm just getting so much feedback and going on, let me do what Martha let me do what Mercedes said, let me do what Silva said. And now this pitch deck is super long. And so they're doing what we're telling him. But then at some point, it has to be back down to the fundamentals and being like, cool, like, here's what we need to know about the business. So we can then get on to a phone call. And so it's been a mixed bag over the last year for sure.
Following up on that, I'm curious, you know, obviously, there's there's sort of this classic 12 to 15 slide format, Saba, you have a template online that you've shared with folks. And obviously, we've had quite a few discussions on on TechCrunch over the years, I'm curious, are you seeing more variety of formats? Are you seeing videos, product demonstrations? I don't know. Like, what do people give you a virtual reality headset in order to to look at their companies these days.
The best pitch deck that I got in a different format would be from a company that recently got into textile, who does actually a podcast version of their pitch deck that had my face on it. And I went into Apple podcast and and said, Hey, Saba, here's my pitch. That was amazing. But the second time, the third time that happens, it might not be as impressive because I've seen it before. But you know, I do appreciate the effort founders make right like think about loom, which does a really good video recording of the pitch and dachser. Like, there's so many different formats. And I do like and appreciate them. But I just again, go back to the volume. And like Mike was saying, and I just want to read it whenever in the format that I'm used to seeing. And that works the best sometimes, like, I really just want to know that the business and the founder. But
yeah, I would agree with you. You know, for for us having to format the pitch in a format that we are able to consume in a efficient way is super important, right? So we, there's a lot of this templates online, we all know the key points that need to be hit on a deck. So your job as a founder is to hit those in a deck and 10 to 15 slide and kind of do the hard work of synthesizing your business in a short format. Right. And that's really hard. Like, you know, Mark Twain said, right, it's just hard To be succinct. So I, you know, I think you can be original, but sometimes being original is to your detriment, I can tell you my own personal story, when we were first fundraising for pear, we decided we're going to be really original. So we're going to use Prezi, to send decks to LPs. And that was just totally the wrong call. Because the it's almost like what did this guy send me? Right? So you there is definitely a risk you take if you go beyond the originality, I would say there are two formats that I've been seeing one as notion. I think the problem with notion, sometimes is that people don't remember that there's also a limit on what you should write on the Belgian. Mind that 10 to 15 slides, but not how many words. So they tend to be very long and hard to consume, but not always. But they tend. The second thing that I've seen that for me is very, very useful is if there is a product to be have a loom version, you know, video of that product, I think it's super helpful and something that you can just attach to the deck, if possible.
I would also add the, in terms of you know, the utilization of the notions, what I've liked the most is, like Maurice said, like, the notions can be super long and wordy and depth. And so when I'm on my first scan to just figure out, am I going to take this meeting or not, like that's probably not the time for a notion. That's a quick pitch deck. What I really like is actually after I've had a first meeting, and now let's go into deeper diligence, then along notion of you know, sometimes I don't care if it's 10 pages, 15 pages, but when it's written out, and it can help me understand the next phase of my diligence so much better. So I really like when I get those a little bit further down the funnel.
You think about what do you think about making a pitch deck that can't be ignored, which is sort of the title of this panel. You know, there's a balance. So obviously Salba, you have this podcast with your face on You're like a macro, ignore that, because it's original. It's exciting. It's, it's fun. Number two, and three is really boring. I'm curious, how do you balance between, you know, originality doing something different, you know, you think different, as they say, in the apple parlance, versus, you know, doing the exact same formula working with the template, just having good numbers, I guess, in those graphs, you know, how do you how do you make the right call, there
are many US cities Go for it, don't go for it. I mean, here's how I think about it, right? Like, what founders forget is the goal of the pitch deck is just to get the meeting, the goal of the meeting is to then get the additional interviewing meeting. And then to get to due diligence, and then get the check. Like, the paycheck is just the entry point to everything that happens afterwards. And so you know, after reviewing 1000s of pitch decks, over the three years, I've been doing this role, dozens of pitch deck templates, I'm like, here are the 12 things that I want, I'll share it and I will still probably only review a deck within 60 seconds, but I'm looking for a couple of things that stick out whether it's a team, that is impressive, whether the vision is just incredible. And so really, it just comes back to the I know what I like, and I want to see more of that. And the design doesn't matter as much. Um, you could have the best traction, but I'm like, Oh, wait, just you working on yourself. And you're going to outsource, like, there's different things that I'm looking at and have, in my experience, seeing that has worked and hasn't worked, that I think makes a difference there. I mean, so the template is great, but I tell founders don't use it. If you've got your own narrative, throw it out the door, and just show me why I should invest in you, or why I should have a phone call with you in the first place. That all it is, is by getting the next step and founders I think forget that.
Thank god Mercedes,
I was just gonna say I think the most important aspect of originality if you're going to try and be original is personalization. You know what Silva was talking about when it has this face on it? We're attracted to it not just because it's different and novel. And that may be like you said, the first time second or third time not so much. But because it was me and wow, you went out of the way to actually put my face on something or you knew that you were, you know, speaking so I think the best originality is two sentences at the very beginning of your email about why you wanted to specifically speak to that person. Yes, it takes longer. But the hit rate, I do this on every outbound cold email I send to a founder, the, you know, the two minutes I put into crafting a really nice original two to three sentences. I increases my cold, you know, response to my cold response rate is like 90% Plus, because they know I wanted to talk to them.
Yeah, I was gonna say Mercedes, I should, we should put that in a software package and send it to all our companies. So we
can. The Mercedes machine learned leader. Actually, that might be $100 billion SaaS company. If you had it.
cold out, everyone would buy it. We have a question. So for folks in the audience, this is obviously day two. So you're familiar with the drill, if you want to ask questions, please do so and hop in on the q&a tab. We already have six questions. So there's already people coming up, one of which is Adam, who's asking, when it comes to formats, to folks like the idea of a one pager in lieu of a deck, something that shorter given how much stuff that you're reading every single day?
I used to love one pages. And then I was like, Oh, these are so good. My, my, my time is saved. And then I found myself automatically instantly going, can you send me the pitch deck anyway. And like it just this, it's one of those things where it's like, going back to the basics again, like again, and again, I go back to a going, it's really good for certain scenarios, but then the next step, I'm always going to need a pitch deck, at least in my experience.
And I think humans, when they say put it all in one page, they use font size eight. So you know, font size 16. So that's the challenge, just do a deck, I would say. Good.
I think, Well, I was gonna say font sizes, I actually comes up on this panel every year, which is, I don't know, I'm not saying anything. But I always think of there's must be an aging component. Cuz I also like increasing the font sizes on all my dogs these days. I'm like, 11 used to be very comfortable. And now it's like 14. But But it's true, like people stretch out the dock and stuff like this. Adam asks, I'm sorry. Sean asks, What are the right formats today in terms of slide decks, and put it another way, what slides are most important to you when you're reading a slide deck?
One of the most important sides for me is the way that you think about the market the way you've identified a unique insight that no one else has about why your approach your wedge, your product is going to be special. And especially that has to do with timing, or realizations that other people haven't realized yet. And when it's a difficult slide to craft a definitely think it is and sometimes it comes over multiple slides. But when I can really go Oh, okay. That's their unique insight, that and then the numbers by you know, I'm typically investing at series A and beyond. And so I want to know, the up into the right, you know, that hockey stick graph is amazing.
Yeah, I would say the same. I think we, you know, especially at seed when there is no, there's typically no numbers, right? It's all about your backing somebody that has a vision. And it's not just the product vision, but how it fits within a market and they can connect the two. And sometimes, you know, that's really hard to, you know, I it's really rare to find people that can do that succinctly on a deck. But when you do, you're like, here's my money.
I'm sorry, I went out for a second. My favorite slide is probably the roadmap. I want to see that the company is going to be founded funded this year and then exited next year, right back then.
I tweeted, without sarcasm.
Yes, it's been alive. Because when I did this on Twitter, people were like, Wait, really? No, I don't want that. But I it's my satire. This is why I'm a VC and not a comedian. My favorite actual slide in the in the deck is actually the roadmap, right? Like, it's really easy, I think, to talk about what you do now. I think it's easy enough to talk about the vision and where you're going to go in the future. But that space in between is I think we've found a struggle. And I want to see that. How will you grow to the next set of cities? How will you double your revenue, how you become the, you know, the the 100 million dollar company, and then that, you know, that unicorn, and so I look at the revenue? Okay, I think thinking about it properly in terms of the strategy, right? What's happening next month, three months, six months. So again, now is easy, the vision is kind of a leap, because you know, you want to be the next Uber or sendgrid or classpass. But then what's happening in between, if they can explain that well, I'm like, cool. Let's get on the floor. So that's always the first slide I run to.
I will say, I'm sorry, Martha, do you want to go? I just
want to say one thing. One thing that I think helps founders sometimes with is answer the question of, you know, what does the company look like in 10 years? Why am I important? What does the future light look like and why I will be a relevant company then. Right? And I think if you try to answer that question in some slide, at least you're forced to saying future, which is really, you know, again, what we're all looking for, what does the future look like?
I will say, I think you've triggered our audience. Questions. I think we have 15 or 20 questions that have come in through the transom. Pretty I'm just going to point out as asking for a model pitch deck, you can look at Savas, he has a venture capital pitch deck template on I guess your website is that correct? Saba yes.com forward slash pitch deck like sardines. There's a sort of a model deck right there. But I want to go into a more in depth question. So Christina Here is asking about deeper tech startups. So obviously, if you're in health biotech deep tech, you know, sending over a loom giving a quick MVP product demonstration, even just having like early traction can oftentimes be impossible for seed and maybe even series A companies. I'm curious how you think about pitch decks in cases where there's a high IP barrier, or a lot of work to be done before there's going to be any sort of traction, what changes with the pitch deck? Would you recommend?
I do, I've done a bunch of deep tech stuff. And I think for me, ultimately, it's all about market, you know, is this if this takes a lot to get one of his biotech companies to work or semiconductor companies to work. So the reward has to be really big, right? So you have to be able to connect not only I'm doing this really, I don't know, optical interconnect chip, that is great. But what market does that unlock? And how big is that going to be on? I want to see that more and the initial pitch more than whether you have the technology working right. And if the market is big, then we can go back in the next follow up meetings to figure out if it's worth, you know, putting more money than, say, software company to play.
And along that line, I'm curious, do you think that those decks need to be longer for more complicated projects? Or can you summarize it down to the sort of same length of 12 to 15? slides?
Not not the first one, not your commercial, right? Like the one that gets in the next meeting, I think you can say very succinctly why my biotech come, but I have this technology have been typically is academics, where people left many labs that come up with, say, a biotech. Do you just need one slide? Just Hey, I've done this. I have some preliminary studies, and this is where I'm going. But later, yes, of course, there's far more diligence than if you're doing a, you know, some vertical SAS. You know, I think people would believe you can build software, but it's harder to believe that you can, you know, cure cancer. That's, that's what it is. So in the next meeting, we've prepared for more.
I'm the biggest dummy. When it comes to deep tech, I'm putting it out there. All I want to know is does the founder know, or do they sound like they know what they're talking about? Like, I have no idea about the technology. And then for me, I was in connecting to my managing directors at Tech stars filing, we've got 50 different people looking for 50 different things. And I'm gonna go, Hey, Jenny, hey, Nate, this founder knows exactly what they told me. I don't get it. But they seem to, you know, have a lot of traction already. Or they've got a really cool team and you talk to them. Right? It's sometimes it's that, but I think you brought up a good point, Danny, and I just specify like, I think there are two different types of pictures, there's one pitch deck that you send out, that gets a meeting. There's this one pitch deck that you present. And that has a little bit more information, maybe about the deal and stuff like that. But founders always ask me, you know, how many different types should I have? And I think I think it's about two, maybe there's more sounds like maybe the third one that was alluding to, which is a bit more deep tech related. But really, at the end of the day, I really think that if you can avoid pitch decks and presenting altogether and just have a conversation, like that's the key, right? Like just a connection between two people about who you are what you do, why should care? And will you be working on this in 10 years time, like the conversation is the most important part of it for me.
I would maybe just say one quick thing. I have a particular anecdote where, you know, we backed a biotech company, and it was two professors. And the first deck we had, I said, you know, this is a really good company, I'm bringing it to my partners, I think and what maybe wasn't an attack or something. And it was super technical. It looked like an academic paper. Right. So they were rejected from everywhere, because there were there was just impossible to comprehend. Right? So I said, I'll help you turn it into something that is consumable by investors. And it just mad like, what is the impact of this technology if you actually demonstrated, so for I do believe that everybody, academics, PhDs, this is something you can learn, you don't have to. It's not rocket science. It's just getting yourself out of the lab and doing that, you know, learning a little bit of how investors thing. So that's the biggest mistake I see in deep tech DAX that they forget the other half.
Mercedes, did you have anything on this before we moved on?
Oh, let's go on.
All right. Well, we have a lot of format questions, which are always the most exciting. So anonymous person asked whether deck animations are a yes or no, I'm going to say no, unless any of you defend deck animations. I want to go through a fast you want to go for the super, super fast. So Derek is asking, when it comes to design and Mercedes, you had said earlier on that you've noticed that the design aesthetic is getting better and better for a lot of these decks. Is it better to have something that's very colorful or minimalist? I'm not sure that's like the exact binary but how do you think about colors and I guess branding when it comes to to pitch decks?
Yeah, I think simplicity is always the best, the faster and most simple way you can get across your narrative, your story and why you're different. The better. Simplicity doesn't mean, its simplicity could mean the deck that isn't, doesn't have like what people would consider much design aesthetic at all. But simplicity also often does mean it has simplistic aesthetic that is pretty, but not too much crowding color I actually don't care about it can be any color scheme. I mean, there are brighter colors that sometimes catch my eye. But if the it doesn't make a difference about whether or not I take the meeting.
Anyone else have any opinions on colors? Not like everything yellow in a blink tag. That'll that'll get attraction? Yes. No,
um, one thing I always I mean, once a week, I send an email back to a family going, this was too hard to read, I'm going to maybe the only person that's going to tell you that can you resend it in a formula easier? And I'm helping them right because I because I care, right? But my my saying is always, you won't get bonus points for a good design. But it doesn't hurt to do it right. Like to pitch decks together one with just plain Google slide background or one with a lot of colors like it might, if I'm just looking at the business, alright, so don't spend too much time on it. Sometimes people say, Hey, if you're spending too much time on the design, you know, thinking too much about the business. I kind of get it, I kind of don't, I don't know how I feel but like you're not going to get your bonus points. So it's more about just focusing on the business there. And that I think is the most important.
I have seen several pitches that use the same Canva template, which is interesting. I think founders like one specific template. But it's fine with me. Now I'm used to that template, which is great.
It's a sound as the founders are all sharing their secret templates in the back alleys of Soma. You know, but following up on that, I mean, one of the questions we have here from Manny is about YouTube videos. So I think both Y Combinator startex, quite a few accelerators, particularly during COVID went to a virtual Demo Day, oftentimes with pre recorded videos. One, two, maybe three minutes. Um, how do you feel about you know, it's not a loom? It's not a product demonstration, it is just a pitch. But it's video as a format, as opposed to a deck is something that you like something that is attractive, something that is, you know, discredited? What, what, what's your thoughts on that? Ma,
I have a funny story for you. astounded last year applied same pitch video for PE VC. And I'm like, yeah. I mean, that's bad, I still looked at the business. But it can be higher risk for you to miss that you said something in the middle, like, if you can pull it off, then just do it. Which is why we keep going back to the same thing. Keep it simple. And you won't make mistakes like that. But I was like, wait, what's PVC, and I'm like, oh, wow, this is cool. You should check out that program too. But big mistake on the founder part.
I prefer to have again, a deck, the video is nice to have once I've gone through the deck, because I think we're all trained and looking at decks really, really efficiently. And when I see a video is like a like I it takes me more time to you know, get through. So even if you play them at 2x.
Exactly. And I'm like the the yc videos when they have a one page slide of text that tells you all the details of the business. To me that's basically a deck like you almost always have to go back to some type of typed information or some type of chart. Same as Mara, I mean, for context, like I'm sitting down in the evening on my couch and flipping through 50 to 70 decks that maybe came in my inbox. And so if I have to watch a video for 10 minutes like that, and 50 of them, you know, like that is made me stay up until 3am in the morning, versus going through them really quickly in say a few hours.
Please go mark.
I'm saying it's not an orange zone. And yeah,
exactly. Well, you know, one things we talked about in the prep call is online versus offline with dex obviously a lot of folks send things over with doc said, I'm curious, are you still getting a lot of stuff with Doc's? And do you like PDF attachments to email? This question comes up surprisingly a lot. And we have one here from the audience as well.
I very much prefer PDFs because the doc sent and that's I'm on my phone, it takes forever to load. When I used to be on planes, I would get something docks and and you know, it's the time I'm sorting through that email and you know, I wouldn't be able to want to really even open it on a plane. So I prefer PDFs. I understand why founders preferred doc said, but definitely a little easier for us to get the PDF.
I also much prefer the PDFs. And once again understand but also founder should just be aware there's a lot of tools out there for people to PDF your toxins. So So it's not necessarily a ton of things.
I love that we've gotten to the point where a PDF doc you have downloaded and doc said, it's like, you know, Napster circa 2021. You know, all these sort of tools to to pull this out. But but so I cut you off?
No, no, no, that's funny, I think it's full for for I mean, PDF is preferred less complex. I mean, I love dogs and and other analytics as a founder that he get like all this founder sorry this investor was on this page for this much longer I'll wonder what I need to fix that. But I think they're looking into it too much like, just send it out, pocket protected if you want but know that I can't send it on to someone else, unless you provide the password easily. So just know that it comes as a bit of friction, but I also get the benefits of it. But just proceed with caution, right, there's so many cool tools out there. But if the goal is to just get the meeting gets big about what you need to do, to get there,
right. And I want to pivot the conversation a little bit. So I'd love to sort of get people into your heads and how you start to read decks. How how, what's your sort of habit for reading decks? Do you read them all in one batch in the morning? Or you interspersing them in between meetings throughout the day? Where and when do you sort of read them? And you know, what's sort of the the batch or continuous function that you're using there?
For me, you know, I'm often going I try I prefer to batch them. I think that it there's a lot of context switching and VC. And for the most part, I'm on calls from, you know, 8am until 6pm every day, and it's hard to constantly switch of being in like conversation mode to then you know, in the 10 minutes, maybe if a call ends early to start flipping through deck. So for me it happens a lot in the evenings and weekends. And if I just happened to have time, that's not an evening or weekend. But yeah, like with that that thing I described as sitting on the couch. That's what I'm doing after dinner.
And Mercedes real quick before anyone comes in. Are you reading those on your laptop, your iPad on a phone? I don't know, projecting it to a TV like what what sort of the format you read those in,
I prefer on my desktop just because similar to you guys like size 11 is too small size anything is too small these days, my eyes have gone. And at the same time, like I do look at them sometimes on my phone, I always turn my phone sideways, and then I'm trying to scroll through but it's just easier for me to type a reply email, you know, on on desktop as well, when I'm batching them.
What I do it in the morning, so I'm a morning person batch as well. And I use my big screen, I split it in half that on one side email client on the other side. And I know exactly, you know, I kind of try to close the loop at that point. So but yeah, it's, you're in the mode when you're like, Okay, I'm on it.
Well, I'm a terrible human I read everywhere. I read them on my phone in bed like this. And I'll be like crap, like, I don't I just getting spamming, obviously, we all do. Like we get really inspired by really great ideas and founders in the businesses. And I have no limitation. Again, because I for me, it's just a quick little foreword to my colleagues, right? Who the investors at TechStars, or my awesome staff members like I for the deck on going here's one that we should look into and talk more. Right. Again, something something hidden within that question I think is before I can even open the pitch deck, I want to see if this is for me, but I think Mercedes said it earlier. Hey, Saba would love to show you a deck. We're interested in this TechStars accelerator. I think it could be a good fit to talk to Taylor, could you make that intro? Let me know if there's anything needed on the pitch deck. If there's not a clear ask in the email, I'm not just open the pitch deck for no reason and hope to know. And the final slide that I know what exactly they want. So the hidden thing is actually the subject line then the email body and then the pitch deck itself. And then if you've got my attention, I'm forwarding it on easily. So yeah, I do have no control with regards to pitch deck reviews.
I will say prior to the epidemic back when I was a VC, you know obviously was in New York going from meeting to meeting and I would read them on the subway. Yeah, as I was going in between the place and if anyone knows anything about the New York subway First of all, it's very crowded and there's no Wi Fi and so it's a toxic situation was very miserable. So I'm on Mars team on Pete Teeoh team PDF, as well as large font sizes on iPhone in terms of getting out there. But let's let's move on from that. So let's say you you you you have found a pitch deck that you like you just bad process the molester Saba in bed, reading them on your phone, you just read through 50 of these. It sounds like you're actually emailing back right away. What's are the next steps that come with those particular pitches? Are you expecting someone to send you more detail? Are you trying to schedule a meeting? What What happens next?
For me, I'm opt in. I'm not we I'm not necessary. forcing them to other folks internally, it's kind of like if I respond, it's because I want to do the meeting. And so, you know, if I, I tried to respond to all of them, all of the nose, and actually the nose is what takes up the vast majority of the time of me going through decks. The yeses are very short, quick, I just reply short start scheduling immediately. And those wins the replies Yes, I would love to meet. So it's, it's easy. The nose, it's more, you know, either it's not a fit. Or if it is something that's right in the sector, why do I try and give a little bit more explanation of maybe why I'm passing because I think that's, you know, helpful to founders. So after that, then though, I'm going and taking a first meeting, normally 30 minutes trying to figure out if it's, if I think it's a good fit for continuing on to future diligence. And then second meeting, third meeting, meet more of the team and maybe potentially come in and pitch to the full partnership.
important distinction, again, for the audience, right, like, I'm working at TechStars. And it's an accelerator, and I'm passing it off to other managing directors, investors, but other people like Ma and Mercedes in your organization. So when you're targeting a principal, or a scout, or the head of pipeline, like me, like, I am just looking for the next step of how I can help you. And so for me, it's figuring out who to route that to right, hence, pipeline manager. You know, I see 1000s each year. But I guess if there's a company that appeals to me the most, I think it's sort of touching on something that recently tweeted out or spoken about and said, Hey, this is something that I'm really interested in. And it's a really good next step, like, Oh, you know, what I really do like, audio first, you know, whatever the idea is, and then the other thing is a follow up. Like, I imagine you will just get so many different pitch decks, and you can't reply to them or reply within seven days. The most exciting thing for me is when a friend a follows up almost like a SDR and says, Hey, Sam, I emailed you last week, I know you probably busy, you're following up. Here's what we've done in the last week. Like that. That is amazing, right? Like, that is progress showing to me that they were definitely targeting me, because I get a lot of cold, which I love as well. They showed me more reason why I should talk to them. That nudge is like a game changer. I also do the same thing back to founders, like, Hey, I said, I'll email you in a month, and I'm doing it now. What's the latest with your business? Right? It happens both ways. And so communication, building that rapport is, I think, the most important part. So yeah, hope that hope that makes sense.
You know, I'll say something hidden. When I get a DAC, I'm always thinking, What do I have to believe for us to get to a Yes, what are the typically one or two things that you really have to believe sometimes, if I'm, like, just drowning in work, I will just send those questions to the founder ahead of time, and see what how they respond, right? Doesn't mean that we don't go later and try to, you know, convince everybody, but um, you know, even in DAGs, I think, you know, one mistake that founders do is they may be concerned about something, maybe their growth is not very high, or maybe they have a big competitor, who knows, they might have something that they're concerned about. And the natural human reaction is to hide it, right, and let's put it in the back. And I'm not going to let people know that that's my big concern. But in fact, the opposite is more important is if you say, I know, I have this big competitor, or let me tell you, how am I going to win, or I know I didn't grow, but this is how I'm going to grow. And this is what I learned. It makes you like, feel like this CEO is in control of this company, like they know how to drive this boat. So, you know, makes us want to continue to the pizza that the company doesn't have to be perfect. I mean, we're seeing investors, if it was perfect, it'd be I don't know, talk, you know, go IPO or something, right? We know something has to be shown. And if you're aware of what that is, and you I read that deck, and I get it, I just want I'm looking for that founder is aware, right, and knows how to get to that big market. So anyways, yeah, I don't even know why they started response to your question, but I thought I should say that.
I gotta say more. I just love the fact that you think perfect companies are IPO. Just as many flaws I put on page 285 of the s one filing? Forgot. Yeah, I know, we only have a three, four minutes left. But I do want to bring up one important question well, which is from the audience. And we also talked about it a little bit in our prep chat, which is around analytics, obviously, proving traction is getting harder. Pitching is accelerating. How do you think about receiving data from from founders? And when you receive it? Are you asking folks for their mix panels, or their amplitudes that are Google Analytics? How do you sort of get access to the data room and get a sense of traction in depth?
Well, I think Mercedes should probably answer that question. From a series eight perspective, I can tell you from a seed perspective You know, I personally, my personal tastes and VC, there are so many personal tastes, but I love data driven SEO. So people that run their business based on numbers, not quite, you know, qualitative data. So if you talk to me numbers, you, you will look really good, right? So when I asked for additional data, maybe retention or send me something, because the numbers are so small when we get involved, right? There's even, there's not even a standardized data. And the founder gets back to you immediately, oh, this is what it is, I'm like, Wow, great, this person is running their business with numbers, right? If it takes a long time, that's not a great sign, in my opinion. So actually, being ready is very important. I have seen people send us their mixpanel and amplitude, which is great. And, you know, very helpful, very transparent, they have nothing to hide. And again, that's great, because we're gonna partner with this person for a decade. So might as well know what what's coming where we're getting into. But anyways, let's speed of coming up with the data is the most important.
I completely agree with Mark. And, you know, I think people have to remember that AI for all sales processes, time kills deals, if it starts to lag. And if it's like, very, like, you know, they request something, and it takes a while to come back again. So I always tell founders, actually starting series A and beyond, you know, I used to think data rooms were more for growth rounds. But it's such a competitive environment, you need your data room, when no matter how robust it is, at, you know, even series A's raises, I think, and having you know, it ready, at the same time you plan to do your first week of calls is really important. Because then immediately, if people really like what you're doing, then they're going to ask for it right away. And you know, the faster an investor responds to you after that first meeting, like if they're responding within 24 hours, like they're really interested, and they want to move it along fast, and the next week or so. And so you don't have a week to prepare. So you know, in terms of what I'm seeing with the data rooms, and what I'm at least, like, I love getting things in Excel, or Google spreadsheets, but some type of spreadsheet, you know, the investors want to do a lot of different types of their own charts and their own calculations. And if you give them you know, kind of preset charts, it's helpful to an extent, but I think the best of both worlds is the charts you've made plus the raw data that made those charts, including the assumptions and everything that followed through, and then they can put it together and honestly use the process as a learning process so that you can get their insights about how they look at data differently.
And you can ask venture people, how did you evaluate my data, they typically typically will tell you it's not like a big secret.
So well, there we go. So I'm unfortunately gonna have to cut you off because we are on time already. 40 minutes on pitch decks, covering everything from formats to looms to doc sends to pitch.io and everything in between. Thank you so much for our panelists for joining us. And thank you for the audience. I think you actually sent 25 questions over all together, which is amazing. Tons of engagement. Obviously, super excited. Please enjoy the rest of this drop. And thank you, everyone.