Chapter 15Outbound Slide Decks: Incomplete Canvas with Details To Be Filled In
Contrary to a fundraising deck that includes the vision and concrete set of steps on how you are equipped to get there with an infusion of capital, a M&A deck focuses on the existing body of work and how your company could be the missing puzzle piece that realizes the grand vision of the acquiring company. Now this is completely unnecessary if all your acquisition interests are inbound or from private equity, but could still be a helpful exercise to help align how you fit into the buyer’s overall strategy.
In the case you are catering the deck to an outbound target who you are trying to convince to buy your company, come up with a few theses on how this specific acquiring company could use your platform, technology, product, or team to reach a certain business goal. Now this is a complete shot in the dark, as what you believe to be their strategy may be completely off base. So the idea here is to establish a common set of beliefs from your slide, that could be a vision for the future, an untapped market that is up for grabs, or a specific pain point that the target company is trying to address that you are uniquely qualified to solve. Put these down as the first set of slides of your outreach deck as the hook to get your acquirer’s attention, and make sure they are customized to specifically cater towards the company you are targeting.
Once you have your hook slides, put in a few slides that uniquely differentiates your company in this problem space. Make sure they are indeed noteworthy as generic information such as headcount or a vanity metric like number of downloads would get your deck discarded immediately. Put yourself in the situation of a Corp Dev who receives tens of these slides of failing startups who are trying to find a buyer, how do you become the signal from all this noise. Put down things like the explosive growth rate you have in revenue or user traction, user net retention that is above the industry standard, domain expertise of your current team with a number of PhDs in fields that are difficult to hire, or anything else that separates your company from the rest. Typically, unless your revenue is in the hundreds of millions and your daily active users are in the tens of millions, big tech acquirers would not care as your revenue and user base are simply a drop in the bucket to their scale. Instead, focus on growth rate, domain expertise, or unique value propositions that only your company can offer.
To finish off, add a couple slides on future outlooks and how joining forces would get to the desired destination faster and quicker. Again be specific here in terms of a few bold predictions on how the market is shifting, and why the acquiring company needs you to stay competitive or thrive in the midst of change. Sell the buyer on a combination of fear and opportunities. Once you are done with the slides, practice it with your co founders, board members or advisors and get feedback.
I can’t stress enough on doing homework on the potential target acquirer and try to look for signals from their executive team on what space they are after, what is the problem they are trying to solve, and what kind of investment they are making in this space. Look for interviews and news articles and use the same language as the acquirer. The goal is to invoke interest for a first meeting and tease out if there is a potential for an acquisition.
See appendix for a sample outreach deck that I used when selling Polarr.