Article By: Alex Norman, Partner at N49P Ventures, TechTO Co-Founder, and AngelList Canadian Partner
This is the first post in a series in which we will review typical slides that founders include in a pre-seed or seed deck. The goal of these posts is to challenge conventional wisdom on how to construct these sides and help founders use these slides to demonstrate knowledge of their business. One caveat - there is not one way to raise a round and these recommendations may or may not help you.
For the first post in this series, we are going to focus on the slide that everyone hates but feels compelled to include - The Competitors Slide.
Most founders feel compelled to show this page for two reasons:
1. Every founder has heard that if there is no competition there is most likely no market.
2. By not including known competitors in their deck, founders worry they will come across as naive or not knowledgeable about their market
This results in one of two versions of a competitor slide which address the two points above but don’t add any credibility into why this is a team or startup to back.
I am sure that everyone reading this post has seen these slides:
*photo is an example*
The problem with both of these approaches is:
How do you have a better impact with the Competitor Slide?
Think of the competitor slide as a way to explain your unique positioning in the market. Ideally you can use the slide to explain why your positioning is important for a subset of customers, why the incumbents can’t or don’t want to take a similar positioning and, if possible, why this positioning is important now.
There is not one way to do this but you can use the title of the slide, the clustering of the competitors and a few bullet points to demonstrate the depth of understanding without doing a talk over.
*photo is an example*
The way to adjust the feature version of the competitor slide is by explaining how your group of features creates a unique solution for your ideal customer slide.
Using the competitor slide to better explain your positioning is not easy and you will most likely need to iterate on the slide several times prior to making it work.
The benefit is that a potential investor will better understand your positioning and why it makes sense. More importantly, it will demonstrate the depth of your knowledge and thinking about your startup, and reinforce the fact that you are the right team to build this business.
Alex is an entrepreneur and tech community builder, helping to build Canadian tech communities across the country through events, connections, advice, and investment.
Connect with him on social to chat about all things Canadian Tech!