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Holloway Pitch Deck to Raise a $4.6m Seed

This is the Holloway Pitch Deck used to raise $4.6M in a seed round.

I never understood what Holloway was doing and a number of investors reached out to ask me what I thought about it. I did love they were making content for founders… I reached out to Andy to chat about it when I was in SF but wasn’t able to make the meeting. Mea culpa.

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With hundreds of hours of research, writing, and editing, Holloway’s comprehensive Guides help readers make better decisions.

Basically, they make startup guides.

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Pitch deck review summary

It’s a solid deck for the stage the company is. I can tell that there is smart content in it and that the founders are likely connected, but there is a lot which is confusing to me.

The deck looks as solid as a deck needs to be design ways, but I have some structural questions. I would probably take a meeting with them to see if it is actually interesting based on content, but not on the idea.

You can probably rip off some inspiration on how they constructed slides.

This deck is good in some ways, but it is also a little hard to follow and requires the reader to invest time.

It is apparent that the team knows their business and is smart.

Structured summary review

Words

The slides oscillate between quasi-essays and zero text. You have to be brutal with words on slides and balance making points, and not being read at all.

Slide length

There are no page numbers…

There are 23 slides including an appendix. I think they are in the safe zone of length, but since the idea isn’t obviously a big market, they have the opportunity to make their point.

Headers

They just declare what the slide is. They don’t have descriptive headers.

I have three levels of quality headers:

Slide title: Founders copy the Sequoia outline without understanding they are not just meant to write ‘problem’
Highlighted title: The slide header lightly calls attention to the core point but doesn’t explain why. ‘Productivity is the holy grail’
Explained problem: The slide is fully explained so you understand the content without reading. ‘Staff that want to work are 17x more productive than staff who feel they simply have to work’

Holloway is in camp 1. They make a little effort, but don’t make enough effort to make reading the deck effortless.

Headers are so important for comprehension. I’m writing a book on pitch decks- I should just call it ‘do headers better’.

Appearance

Your deck only needs to be so attractive so don’t obsess too much. This is a great example of a basic deck that didn’t have a designer that had free-reign.

Narrative

There isn’t really a narrative and the slides aren’t in the ideal order, but it’s ok.

Structure

Things are generally aligned well, but not perfectly. There is negative space. It’s adequate.

Slides

I think that they cover everything I would need to see in a deck.

Holloway Pitch Deck Slide by Slide Review

I think that the cover is strong. It asks a compelling question. I would want to know more.

I’m normally basic and at least allude to what the company does, but this works too.

I always start with a slide explaining what the startup does.

There are lots of views as to where the team slide goes. You only put the team slide up from if you are ballers. I put the deck in the middle of the deck at a particular point by default now.

There is too much text on the slide. The descriptions are what I call ‘walls of text’. Investors hate reading.

Only use bullet points. They will go to your LinkedIn if they don’t know you, so make sure you update it properly.

I typically say to only add the people on the slide that investors are investing in. I wouldn’t say it is terrible they are listing contract and FTE staff, but does it add value?

Better might be to use the space to show the advisors and add their pretty face on to the slide, and ideally explain what they are adding value (and hopefully they have invested?).

I think Andy and the founders know what they are doing, but they are doing their deck in an order I wouldn’t normally. Starting with the team and then traction (proof) is a baller move.

I start with the industry, timing, problem, competition, team then eventually get into traction later.

There is logic to bring in traction early, but it doesn’t hold for most startups.

It would seem they started with a guide on AWS and the numbers relate to that? The slide isn’t terrible, but I suspect Andy had to explain it. There is good content on it, but it doesn’t smack you in the face obviously. I always try and make the point of a slide very clear to investors.

This is not an overview slide as I know them- it might be more like an investment thesis? I would categorise it as a traction slide? Actually, I’m not sure? Ok, whilst it looks like it is a series of new quotes, I think it’s a progression of thoughts. I haven’t read as investors won’t read it either.

I think that there might be smart content on this slide, but there is just too much so it won’t be read by an investor that gets sent this deck in an email. It’s something you read again after you have a first meeting (or if founder explains in a call using slides).

I’m guessing this is an intro to product slides? I mean it looks like a web page.

Not being dull, I think the point is that you look at the images and read the covers to see topics?

I am not a fan of pretty slides. I prefer ugly, structured, and to the point.

I am massively a fan of consistent slide structure so the header is in the same place and there is no header on this slide.

I guess this is a slide on product detail (this is why you need a header!).

I can see that it may make sense to use vertical space for readability, but I would prefer to cut image size for the header.

Also, frankly, you can do a product demo, or send a link for investors to look at when they feel like it.

The screen shot continues. I don’t see what the commercial sale is here? Every slide to me needs to sell. There needs to be a ‘so what?’. If it doesn’t sell delete.

I think this is a milestone slide. I don’t typically make these unless you are really early and you want to show you actually have made things happen, in lieu of traction.

If I was to make this slide then the content isn’t bad. I would probably cut text in last two columns and increase line spacing by at least 6 points to aid readability with spacing.

If you are early stage and pitching angels that don’t get crazy deal flow, then this isn’t actually a terrible idea. They have more time and want to pay more attention. Normal ‘banker types’ would probably like reading details to feel they can be more analytical to project out.

I am obsessed with headers on slides. They are the biggest opportunity to tell investors what the point is. ‘The Library’ is as useless as problem, solution, etc. Drives me nuts when people do that.

The slide isn’t super obvious. I would remove the image and make a table to show the before and after. Even then, It’s not really clear what their x for y is.

I find the slide order weird. You want to lead with the problem (well, I start with industry, but that’s not being taught).

I drives me nuts when people use the header to write ‘problem’. Write the problem so I can read and know!

I don’t know if I agree with the notion that online knowledge is not reliable as I’ve read a lot of books which weren’t particularly useful.

I would probably lean into that people just want to learn a boring topic quickly and that’s a pain in the tits.

This slide does not excite me. I typically explain things in a 4 step process.

Most decks do not need a timing or why now slide as there’s not normally an immediate reason. It’s typically a directional thing.

I think there is smart content on this slide, but there is too much ‘wall of text’ that I’m not going to.

They did a solid job at making this sound smart.

It’s not clear how this slide builds on the last one adequately.

I don’t understand the difference between supply and demand on this slide. I’m fairly sure their business didn’t play out like this anyway.

I do market sizing differently, but this is better than a lot of crappy slide I have seen. I like that there are starts and sources so feels like some kind of though was put in.

I find the subscription fees very optimistic. People hate paying for content. They should have explained the volume of content they could produce to compel me to pay $120 a year.

The point is not clear. I get the vibe the market is very niche in their ‘top and to the right’ quadrant.

The deck feels very conversational like the founders are used to talking to investors.

I don’t know why the slide is titled milestones.

It’s a bit of a slog to get to the point of the slide.

I’m really on the fence on timeline or product roadmap slides. They can be useful really early on to convince angels that there is a plan.

I personally feel like if you need to ask founders what the detailed plan is, that you shouldn’t back them. You want founders to make you feel dumb and that they know what to do.

I find the slide a bit basic to look at quickly.

I guess it’s interesting if you start getting into details, but then you can answer those questions once an investor is asking for another meeting.