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Today, I want to look at this deck from Smart Tire Company, which they used to raise $1.3M in pre-seed funding.

Incredible perspective framer. I always tell clients that the more your pitch can feel like you are solving a high-stakes (life/death) problem, the more investors will be drawn into your pitch. It’s just basic human psychology. They turned a flat tire into that type of existential crisis!

Jumping from that perspective framer to an educational slide is a mistake. This slide could have waited until they got to the solution/product. Their strategy was to really go all in on the “NASA technology for regular people” angle, but even considering that approach, there was a better way to do this. (Practical Tip: Don’t

have educational slides in the first five slides unless you absolutely need them).

Now, onto the problem slide. This would have been a tremendous third slide. Keeping it to three points would have made it more effective. But it’s fine nonetheless.

There is a

great mix of straightforward and marketing talk here. Enough to understand the value but also be interested in learning more about the product and how it can deliver on these promises. (Now, the slide after this would have been a great place to indulge that curiosity with the education slide they already used).

This is just a bad idea. They are selling tires. Give me the tire market. They can explain why they are starting in two-wheel vehicles and then scaling up, but to limit your market opportunity slide to two-wheel vehicles is a horrible strategic decision.

Further to my point on the last slide. The decision looks even worse when your first prototype is for a four-wheeled vehicle. I’d also change the name of this slide to opportunity or products and not prototypes. Even if it is a prototype that word makes it sound worse.

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If pitching a sustainability fund this can be here. If not I’d bury it later in the deck. Many VCs don’t care about this.

This isn’t clear at all. Timelines should include some idea of market entry, profitability, etc. Not just testing and development (especially on a 5-year timeline).

Nice social validation here. It might seem unnecessary, but it will help break the deck and give a third-party recommendation before you need to start answering questions.

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