Speaker 1: (00:00)
What I've learned, a successful investment is based around the process. It's a numbers game.
Speaker 2: (00:08)
Hello and welcome to the investment season of how to start up a podcast for anyone starting or scaling a company hosted by me, Juliet Fallowfield, founder of the B Corp certified PR communications and podcast consultancy, faller Field and Mason, where we teach you how to own your PR in-House. According to CDAs, investors spend an average of three minutes and 44 seconds reviewing pitch decks. So clearly it's crucial to create one that's sufficiently brief, yet still conveys your business proposition to your target audience. In this episode I hear from Venetia Archer, founder and CEO of Ruby, the UK's leading at home beauty and wellness service founded in 2015. Venetia shares her advice on what a pitch deck should include, how long it should be, and common pitfalls to avoid when putting yours together. Hi Venetia. Thank you for your time today to talk about how to write a pitch deck. Before we go into that detail, it would be wonderful if you could kick off with a brief introduction as to who you are and a bit about the business that you started.
Speaker 1: (01:08)
Thank you so much for having me. My name's Venetia Archer, I'm the founder and CEO of Ruby. Ruby is an on-demand beauty services platform operational across the UK and recently France as well. So I founded the business in 2016, was seven, almost eight years later. Whole roller rollercoaster ride but really looking forward to talking about it today. ,
Speaker 2: (01:32)
I can't believe it's eight years old that has gone so quickly. So remember when it launched and when you did launch, given the seasons all around investment, was investment something that you knew you'd have to go after from the get go?
Speaker 1: (01:44)
So no, I was very naive when I started my business. I think I was 26 years old, like just 26. I previously had left university. I started a career in geopolitics. I didn't know anything about startups or starting a business and I remember my initial goal was to create an app that people could use to book a manicure through. I didn't have these big ambitions. I didn't have this like five, 10 year time horizon of what I wanted the company to be. I really just wanted to make an app that would enable me to book, book my beauty treatments. It was as simple as that. So I remember I got a little bit of cash beforehand. I put this small amount of my own savings in and then got a loan, a 25 K loan, which I thought, this is great, this will be enough. And then obviously quickly realized, hold on, this is very different to what I thought. So then I raised my first 150 K, which was an SEIS round with angels. And then the whole process kicked off from there and I got a real swift reality check as well when that first 150 grand went out .
Speaker 2: (02:48)
I bet. And that's the thing, it's so interesting you say that 'cause a lot of people say that. Had you told me today what I'd have to have gone through then to get to here today, I probably wouldn't have done it because you have no idea what's coming when you start a business. And I love that you're like, I just want a functional app that's gonna help me solve my problem. And that's gonna solve other people's problems too. But now look at you eight years in it's an unbelievable success Ruby's had. Congratulations. Thank
Speaker 1: (03:14)
You so much. I mean other people are very different. Some people have like their plan, their time horizon, they wanna do this by then I'm really different. I like to have short-term goals. Obviously there's a bigger picture in there somewhere, but short-term achievable goals, which kind of makes things a little bit more manageable
Speaker 2: (03:33)
And it helps manage that overwhelm for sure. So given this season's all about investment and you have gone through that loan process, you've gone through the raises, what happens when you want to raise and you need to write a pitch deck? I meet so many people like I need the most amazing pitch deck. It needs to be designed and have all this amazing information in it. A lot of people um, have different ideas about what successful pitch deck looks like. So I was wanting to ask you, to you, what would it look like?
Speaker 1: (04:01)
So pitch decks, so I don't think you'll get any founder, if you ask any founder, do they enjoy the pitch deck experience? I think everyone that I've spoke to, we hate it. It's the thing I hate most about what I do. It's like when fundraising season comes along and you have to put a pitch deck together, it's just like, oh they're really hard. 'cause you have to distill all of this information into a very simple, beautiful, incredible document. And it's challenging. You know, I've spent so much time on my pitch decks, I've done so many of them. I think that we can get to a point where we think it's never perfect, it's got to be absolutely perfect. And actually I had this learning once when I'd showed it to so many people and some were like, it's absolutely great, it's spot on, fantastic. Send it out.
Speaker 1: (04:50)
Others said, no, no, change it all around, change the shape, change the format. And I just realized, I was like, you know what, there's no perfect solution as long as it tells the story. Well it looks good and you can speak to it as long as it's to a certain standard, that's great. I think we can go round and circle thinking this thing has to be in a certain way and actually at the end of the day it's gotta tell your story, it's gotta make sense, it's gotta sell the dream. All those kind of key facts in there. And it's a way that you talk about it when you have those subsequent conversations with investors.
Speaker 2: (05:20)
So I was going to ask, what is a pitch deck? I mean a lot of people will have an idea of what you think a pitch deck is, but for you, what defines a pitch deck?
Speaker 1: (05:29)
So a pitch deck is a document that outlines your business, what it stands for and what you're looking to achieve the mission of the company. And its formulated for a fundraising round. So it'll also include information about the financials and what you're looking to raise and on what terms.
Speaker 2: (05:47)
We often talk about this in communications that a lot of companies, a lot of startups have spent a lot of time looking internally and they forget to think externally and they forget to think about what their audience might want to hear or see. So for you, how do you bring all that information down into one place and what information is absolutely paramount to include? Presumably a summary of the business, the goals, the financials.
Speaker 1: (06:11)
Yeah, absolutely. Information about the product as well, any traction that you've had, any things that kind of bring the personality out of the business, whether it be testimonials or KPIs that are super strong, like for example, return run rate. I think that the average investor looks at a pitch deck for the almost four minutes and they focus on the team, the financials, the competitive environment. So that's what they're really looking at. So I always say make sure to include those slides as well because that's what investors are looking for.
Speaker 2: (06:41)
And what
Speaker 1: (06:42)
Is it about the
Speaker 2: (06:42)
Team that they're looking for?
Speaker 1: (06:44)
I think they want to know that there is a strong and capable group or individual who can actually make this happen. I think investors are looking at hundreds of pitch decks a week if not more. And they have that sort of quick scan and, and one of those is, you know, great, it's a great idea but how is this gonna happen? And I think particularly with early stage, it's very much about the founder and the founding team because they're the ones that can actually make this a reality.
Speaker 2: (07:12)
So an overview of the talent that you already have within the business and their key capabilities, what they're gonna be able to do to support with the business and with you actually that's really interesting. I hadn't thought about that because I know a lot of people talk about when you are in the room through the first hurdle getting to that room, it's then your passion for the business, then how well you articulate your business and how much you believe in it. But I guess it can also be the team that support you. And that's one of the hardest parts of running in companies. The peoples finding the right people onboarding them and the amount of time that you can waste doing this as well when you get the wrong people and my goodness we've learned the hard way. So what would you say a one page synopsis of the talent and the team and their key capabilities.
Speaker 1: (07:55)
Exactly those key points. And if it's a very early stage company, let's say it is just you and an idea and you have to, you know, you have to hire people, listen, no one expects like a seed stage business to, to have the team in place. But you can always include, you know, who are your advisors, who are the people that are mentoring you at at this point so they can get a feel for you and the people around you. And then also what you can do is include, you know, with this fundraise I'll be hiring XYNZ. So you can also do that.
Speaker 2: (08:21)
That's such an important point about the community around you because it's not just you on your day to day. Every single guest in the podcast says get a good accountant. And there's a lot of people who confuse, mentor and coach as well, but they're part of your advisory team who can really help get your business to where you want it to be. And then in terms of the financials and numbers, a lot of people talk about they're not comfortable managing sort of the budget side of things. They don't feel particularly strong on their financial literacy. They could have an amazing idea but they're just really not confident on the number crunching. Is that something you came up against or is it something you really enjoyed about running your own business and how did you tackle that part of it?
Speaker 1: (09:00)
So for me, I'm I, I don't have a financial background and so it wasn't something that came naturally to me. So it was a really steep learning curve to understand how, I mean I never put a financial model together myself. I don't know if I'd even be finished with it now. I'm the one to have to try put it together. But definitely I brought on an advisor who could help with the financial modeling and just like the pitch deck, it's like an iteration over time. It's, I think in the early days it's, it's very much proving out the key of a business through kind of assumptions no one expects it to be right. I think, you know, we always want it to be right. We think it has to be right. But you know, I don't think there's any company that's put to some financials particularly well, particularly early stage, later stage, yes but early stage, you know, whether it's sort of achieved those financials but it's to give a general steer. So yeah, it's really important to include them to be as literate as possible through learning. That's something that some investors understand but others it can really frustrate them. They want to know that the founder knows about the numbers. So my advice is spend as much time as you can getting your head around them with someone who can help you learn.
Speaker 2: (10:04)
Yep. And I love the fact that people are looking at the forecast and their forecasting numbers in the future. We all know what happens with where the forecasts they change. And I think a lot of people feel really like we've gotta get that number. Not, it's not a guesstimate, it's an informed plan, but you're never gonna know what's gonna come your way in a business. So it's all sorts
Speaker 1: (10:22)
Of things,
Speaker 2: (10:22)
Brexit, lockdowns,
Speaker 1: (10:24)
All sorts
Speaker 2: (10:25)
Of things you wouldn't be able to forecast that will completely shift your business. I think that piece of mind of you are putting a model together but it's not necessarily an actual,
Speaker 1: (10:34)
Some might disagree with me and I think that's probably, it's just from my experience from kind of early stage with the business. And I think later again, you know, like I mentioned, I think later you kind of do wanna be hitting or or nearly hitting the numbers that that you present. But like you say this unexpected circumstances or indeed a shift in strategic direction of the business. So let's say you have B two B and B two C, but you decide, you know, particularly now a lot of my peers who run businesses who are B two C and B two B, their B two C is slowing and they're pushing on B two B because of the macroeconomic climate and then obviously that's gonna change the the forecasting going forward.
Speaker 2: (11:08)
Yeah, totally. And then are there things that you've learned over time that you've removed from your pitch decks that you thought at the beginning, oh we can goodness we have to have that in there but now you're like that was completely a waste of a page.
Speaker 1: (11:21)
Great question. I think that
Speaker 2: (11:23)
Often
Speaker 1: (11:24)
You
Speaker 2: (11:24)
Wanna
Speaker 1: (11:25)
Include everything,
Speaker 2: (11:26)
You
Speaker 1: (11:26)
Want people to know
Speaker 2: (11:27)
Everything
Speaker 1: (11:28)
About the business and it's hard. I find it hard to know what
Speaker 1: (11:33)
Is useful to others and what's not. Then you have this pride you're like, oh I really want to include this picture of this something that we've done or achieve. But actually it's probably too much. So to answer the question, I've always seen too many extra pages on like I love the brand, I love the marketing of things that we've done, et cetera. Adding the kind of color probably too much there. What I always do is run it by a friend or someone, an investor and just say, you know, give it to me. Tell me like what to remove to get that kind of additional perspective.
Speaker 2: (12:01)
There's so many similarities when you are pitching to a journalist except journalists spend four seconds, not four minutes looking at press releases. Would you tailor your pitch deck per investor sir and tweak it to an inch of its life depending on the character that you are pitching it to or sending it to.
Speaker 1: (12:17)
I think that the fundraising experience, it's a process and in an ideal world you're sending that deck to to hundreds of people. I think that it's very difficult and almost too time intensive to be tailoring it to everyone that you are sending it to. So I do is I have my master, my sort of main highlights teaser deck that I send out to everyone and then if they're serious or it's worth another conversation, I'll send out a much more detailed deck with a lot more metrics, KPIs, et cetera. And then thirdly, and this kind of happens later stage in the process, I'll have like a proper metrics deck. So really deep diving into all of the metrics that they might look at. So then I've just got three, it doesn't matter who they are, it just matters like how serious they are in the process.
Speaker 2: (13:05)
Yeah And it saves you time that automation of those processes. It's, I love it. Someone said to me in a podcast, automate delegate soul, save yourself time. Yeah. And that is the automate with that. How do you design a pitch deck? 'cause something I've really struggled with is finding good designers to help us with our social media templates or make things look beautiful in our business. We're very wordy people, we're not graphic designers and I've yet to find someone that can understand our brand visually. How do you go about getting this beautiful or you've got all the numbers, you've got all the copy, how do you make it look beautiful?
Speaker 1: (13:40)
So I completely agree. I think that that's not your, you know, forte absolutely outsource that. Find someone who can make it really beautiful and on brand and that's advice that I was given very early on like invest in a designer to make it really, really slick and um, eye catching. So I think that you know, there are definitely um, you know there are definitely kind of platforms online that you can work with freelance designers. I think Behan is one of them that we've used in the past,
Speaker 2: (14:10)
Upwork,
Speaker 1: (14:11)
Et cetera. It's hard, right? Because it's such a kind of personal thing and and branding and design is so specific but I think you can get a feel from existing work and portfolio. Um, and then if you are nervous or if you are kind of very budget conscious, maybe it's also worth just saying okay, you know, here's 50 quid or
Speaker 2: (14:30)
Whatever it
Speaker 1: (14:30)
Might be. Can you just gimme a a taste or can you just do the first two pages? What would you do to kind of sense check that like that might be a an option as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: (14:39)
To save time 'cause there's nothing worse and you delegate something out and a month later it comes back and I know
Speaker 1: (14:44)
It's
Speaker 2: (14:44)
Exactly not what I want. It's either
Speaker 1: (14:46)
Gonna work or it's not. And if you get something back and it's not, it's never gonna happen. It's never ever gonna happen. You can't kind of, you know what I mean? It's like oh
Speaker 2: (14:56)
Yeah,
Speaker 1: (14:56)
You may as well just like stop start again with someone else.
Speaker 2: (14:59)
Yeah, that gut feeling for sure. I think we're both on the female founder WhatsApp group, which I find fascinating to see all the questions that come up and there's a few times that I've seen people say, can somebody help me write my pitch deck? And I was like, but you are the founder, surely you know your business better than anybody else and in our day job we help founders do their NPR. So I get that you need somebody to potentially pull you outta the weeds to articulate it, but is it something that you should be doing yourself with say a copywriter support? I find it quite surprising that people ask for other people to write a pitch decks, but is that a normal thing in the business?
Speaker 1: (15:35)
I think early stage, no. I think that you are the best placed person to write your pitch deck and it's a really great exercise to distill your thoughts and information about the business into one document. It's a good exercise to do. I think that as pitch decks get more complicated and as your workload increases, I think you really wanna be creating something efficiently and having a second pair of eyes in the room is really helpful. So I think it's about getting the skeleton down yourself, sitting with someone else in the team sense checking and optimizing every page, making sure the flow will make sense but to to each their own, right. That's what I do because that's how I work well like me and a blank piece of paper are are not friends. I like to have someone else in the room something down like to bounce ideas um, off and you know, others, others might love it. They might just be, you know, ha happy to kind of pull it together themselves and others might think this is just not my strength, I'm much better placed elsewhere. And then I would say, great, go ahead find someone who, who might be able to help you.
Speaker 2: (16:39)
Yeah, fantastic. Just with your own experience with Ruby, are there things that you've done just generally around investment would never do again or had you known having gone through the experience you'd have done differently?
Speaker 1: (16:51)
I think what I've learned, which I kind of touched on briefly previously, is that investment, like a successful investment is based around the process. It's a numbers game and if you set and structure out that process properly early on and invest time, get your materials ready, have your investor list
Speaker 2: (17:15)
Ready,
Speaker 1: (17:16)
You know, sort of priority 1, 2, 3, 4, start with four, start with the people that like might not be perfectly aligned or a pro, you know, or just not, not your kind of dream investors. Practice, practice, practice, get pitch perfect and then go up potentially get a few early commits which kind of looks good when you are talking to talking to your priority one investors but get that process nailed because a good process equals a um, successful investment round or at least helps with the odds of a successful investment round. So I think early on I was a little bit scatter gun in in the approach, which probably meant it took a little bit longer. Again, it's a learning process but for any of my next fundraising rounds it is really about getting that process nailed early and all the materials ready because what can also happen, and again this is as the company matures, you sort of have better access to data, et cetera.
Speaker 1: (18:11)
But what I found when I was fundraising early on is that you'd get like, you'd be so distracted because you'd get, you know, one VC saying, can you please send me like the breakdown of like this very sort of specific detailed KPI or metric and it's like oh my god, how the hell are we gonna find that? You spend ages finding that. So making sure that you ideally have those metrics ready beforehand or if you haven't, make sure that you start to record these so you can then put them into a, a broader document to share with future investors as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: (18:43)
Anything to save time, you're not double handling, you are got a million versions and the same thing hanging around. It's that sort of clinical documentation. I know my team laugh at me about our processes but even in PR it's important that we've got banks of hero copy that there's one version that we all use that you know isn't sort mudd up in lots of different emails. Good. And then in terms of your experience founding a very successful business,
Speaker 1: (19:09)
What
Speaker 2: (19:10)
Would you go back and do differently in the past if you could have your time again, just generally not necessarily around investment. Is there something that you now know and looking back,
Speaker 1: (19:20)
It's such a hard question because if I started the business today, I would like leap frog to the end. You know, you make so many mistakes, you learn so much about your customer, particularly with what we were doing. So at Home beauty services that didn't exist when we launched. So it was very much like trial and error, you know, learning as we went. And there are a lot of things i I would do differently if I went back, particularly as a first time founder, you know, you're learning on the job. Um, but at the same time it's really great making those mistakes. It's really great actually living those learnings because you don't make mistakes. It's the same mistakes again, in terms of like, to answer your question directly, the main thing for me, the biggest learning I've had is how crucial an excellent team is. And the day you bring someone amazing on, you're like whoa, everything kind of flows and it's game changing. So really hiring a great team early is what I would recommend. I would always say hire fewer people, but those who are more aligned or more experienced, because you can get a lot done with a few strong people.
Speaker 2: (20:31)
Oh my goodness, it is the best money I've ever spent on the business is investing in people. But on the flip side of that, getting the wrong people, it can just drain everybody's energy and it can take up so much time and thought and attention and you have to make those quick decisions, which not everybody's comfortable with doing. But flipping back to investment quickly, is there such a thing as taking the wrong investment? I mean similar to taking the wrong people, I imagine you can also have the wrong investors.
Speaker 1: (20:58)
So I think that yes, a lot of entrepreneurs or founders would say that they brought the wrong investors on. So it might be those who aren't necessarily aligned with the founder's goals, whether that be in terms of when, when they're looking to exit or what they want for the company. So I think really understanding the investor's goals when you are having those early conversations is crucial. I think that understanding what you want from an investor is really important to define early on. Do, are you looking for angels who are gonna put some money in and let you get on with things? Are you looking for strategics? Who can in introduce you to the right people or support with fundraising or support with strategy? Who are those people? Making sure that you are asking the right questions as well when you are having those early conversations. And then also understanding how much time you want to spend with those investors. So I think that there are a lot of stories where people, like they've sort of had a small ticket from someone and kind of an early round and they are, you know, sending more emails than than their number two. And so they're sort of become a time drain. So I think really setting intentions early is crucial.
Speaker 2: (22:12)
Well that's it, isn't it? 'cause you are bringing more people into the business, aren't you? And there's accountability there and it's what they can expect from you, how much they can expect from you. You have taken finances from them for your business, but oh my goodness, I've heard so many horror stories in the coworking place that I use of this investor put in X, but they're demanding x plus plus plus plus. And a lot of people say the smaller the investor, the more demanding they are. And perhaps it's setting out from the get go of this is how we work, this is what we're gonna be doing in terms of communication, this is what we're offering you in terms of feedback and update and this is what also we would like back from you. And is that realistic? I think that management of expectations from upfront is a key element, uh, of any business practice actually
Speaker 1: (22:58)
At the end of the day. I think when it comes to investors, I think that we have a responsibility to to communicate with investors and you can just decide how to do that in whichever way you want. For us, we send quarterly reports, we used to send monthly reports and that was too much. I, I said a message everyone we're gonna send quarterly ones, this is what you're gonna receive done. They know when they're going to hear from me, they know they can message me, but I think having those regular updates is really useful. So setting that out, defining it and sticking to it is important.
Speaker 2: (23:30)
So that trust is built, that expectations are managed, they know exactly what you are gonna be doing and when I completely understand why that makes total sense. So something that we've been doing with our guests on our podcast is that the previous guest has a question for you and we'd like you to ask a question for the next guest. So the question from the previous guest, which was Michael Tobin, was what piece of advice that was given to the younger version of you that has really stayed with you and helped tune your business today?
Speaker 1: (23:57)
The advice that was given to the younger me that's always stayed with me is to have the courage of my convictions. It's always stayed true and something that I like to say to people who are beginning in their journeys too.
Speaker 2: (24:09)
And what would be your question for our next guest?
Speaker 1: (24:12)
The question I'd like to ask the next guest is, what is the one thing that you've done for your business that has really moved the needle that's really, um, enabled you to grow faster or, um, accomplish things faster than you had in the past?
Speaker 2: (24:26)
Thank you so much for your time today. It's been so interesting talking to you and I've learnt so much about pitch decks. Thanks.
Speaker 3: (24:34)
If you'd like to
Speaker 2: (24:35)
Contact Isha, you can find all of her details in the show
Speaker 3: (24:37)
Notes along with a recap of advice
Speaker 2: (24:39)
That she has so kindly shared. Thank you for listening to how to start up. I hope these conversations offer you some confidence, encouragement, and reassurance that you are on the right track. If you can join this podcast, I'd be so appreciative if you were to rate, review and subscribe as it will really help other people starting a company discover it. Of course, if you've got any questions at all on PR, communications or podcasting, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me because at Fallowfield and Mason, we love supporting startups.