Insights

Three concentric circles and a trillion-dollar number do not prove a market. A credible bottom-up calculation does.

“We have no competitors” is the fastest way to lose an investor’s confidence. Here is how to show the landscape honestly and still come out ahead.

Investors do not want your spreadsheet on a slide. They want to understand how the business makes money and whether your assumptions are sensible.

Board members are busy, sharp and short on patience for decks that report activity instead of asking for decisions. Here is a structure that respects their time.

Most bad charts are not ugly. They are the wrong chart for the point being made. Start with the message and the right format usually chooses itself.

Senior people often read one slide and decide whether to read the rest. Here is how to make that slide do its job.

Storytelling in business does not mean heroes and journeys. It means putting information in the order that makes a decision feel obvious.

Some decks need new clothes. Others need a new skeleton. Knowing which one you are dealing with saves weeks and a fair amount of money.

A TAM, SAM, SOM diagram proves a market exists. A bottom-up calculation proves you know how to win it. Here is the before and after.

Same company, two audiences, two different stories. Here is where an investor deck and a sales deck part ways, and what you can reuse between them.