Here’s a fun exercise. Take the latest investor deck available for any given company and see if you can understand their value proposition and potential opportunity by reading the deck from end to end. If you can, the investor relations team did their job properly. Less is more, and the ideal deck doesn’t drown the user in the details. Given there’s a direct correlation between the quality of investor relations and the cost of raising capital, we’re puzzled why some industries assume their investors should have the same level of subject matter expertise they do. Drug development companies are probably the worst offenders, followed closely by electronics hardware manufacturers. For example, look at this gem found about halfway through the deck of a $14 billion company.
If you randomly selected 1,000 investors, maybe several would understand what’s being conveyed on the above slide. Should companies expect their audience of investors to have prerequisite knowledge of the industry to understand the value proposition? Maybe in the days of Liar’s Poker that was acceptable, but today’s technology companies should be able to articulate their value proposition so investors can easily understand it when window shopping. A simple deck can be supplemented by technical presentations for subject matter experts who want to dig deeper.
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