♞ Trameter Deck Breakdown

Today, we will look at a subscriber’s deck sent to me.

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This is a nice over slide, I like the design, logo, etc. The one-liner underneath the company name is more of a marketing phrase than something that would speak to investors. It still serves a purpose here by letting readers/investors know that this is a travel company but it could be a lot stronger by showcasing the value proposition.

This is a great opener to a perspective framer, makes you want to click on to the next slide to see what they will say next.

This is the right idea; they need to make you remember/feel the pain of booking a trip. This diagram, however, isn’t effective; instead of making me feel that way, it puts me in an analytical mode, trying to break down the information provided instead of digesting it. Keeping this narrative and using words (asking them to recall how they felt booking their last vacation, etc) would be much more effective.

This should be the problem slide. The industry has these problems because of the challenges in booking, and we are going to solve them.

This isn’t necessary; the slide before reads like a problem slide, so you should be jumping into the solution slide now. Not trying to force a narrative.

Jumping into the product here is a huge mistake. We still don’t have the basic problem/solution covered. Going into the product now kills any chance of this deck coming off as a painkiller, and instead it now reads like you are a vitamin. For many investors, you have put yourself into a box where they will automatically pass on the investment.

This would have been more impactful if the solution slide had been complete. Having this without a solution slide also starts to raise questions about feasibility and possibility. I personally also have questions about quality and personalization at this point. The product is not as impressive as the founders think, and as a product that almost anyone they pitch would use, they needed to preempt lots of the skepticism and questions that readers/investors would have.

I like that they jumped into a demo here, which is a great way to start fighting that skepticism, but I would have preferred they actually address it directly first, then allow investors to demo the app as proof. This would have given them more credibility and allowed them to showcase the innovations behind their technology.

Now they jump into the technology. Swapping the order of this slide and the last would drastically improve the impact.

This is very risky. If you pitch a product, then essentially throw it away as a short-term option and start pitching a different product, you can lose many investors. There is a softer way to do this, which is just to explain that you want to increase personalizations and chance the UI over time to make the process increasingly seemless and efficient.

This is an immediate red flag for me. I know Artisan has a full-service AI called Ava. I assume it’s just a coincidence, but as an investor, the fact that this company doesn’t know that makes me very nervous that they could walk into major legal issues just because they were too lazy to type Ava AI into Google and make sure this didn’t exist already.

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Onwards and Upwards,

Liam Gill