When I was… As a student in the UK, I remember that it was common for some people, especially students living in short-term accommodation, to rent home appliances such as washing machines and televisions. Israeli startup Xyte (pronounced “excite”) believes a return to this kind of Hardware-as-a-Service model is the way forward for manufacturers whose profits are constantly under pressure, and has raised $30 million. I just procured it. If software-as-a-service works well, why doesn't it work well in hardware?
Xyte let me look at a deck of 27 slides to see how it worked. Were you excited about Zayt's deck? Unfortunately, this is not the case. Her 27 slides lacked the information I needed as an investor to make an informed decision whether to invest or not. Let me break down what I saw.
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This deck slide
Xyte's deck has 27 slides, some of which contain redacted information. The edits are related to customers and transaction amounts, which is fair enough but makes it a little harder to get a complete picture of the company.
- cover slide
- Company profile (including team details)
- team slide
- opportunity slide
- Opportunity 2 slide
- market slide
- problem slide
- value proposition slide
- solution slides
- Solution 2 slide
- Solution 3 slide
- Dedicated interface slides
- traction slide
- “Any industry, any size” slide (customer base)
- value proposition slide
- “Business Transformation” slide
- “Unique Business and Commerce Platform” slide
- customer survey slides
- Slides that usher in new product categories
- “Single Unified Platform” slide
- Team 2 slides
- interstitial slide
- business model slides
- Market launch slide
- Prediction and driver slide
- Investment overview slide
- end slide
three two things I love
With 27 slides, you might think there's a lot to choose from in the 3 Good Things section. Dear reader, I'm not going to lie. Try it as much as you can. I really struggled to find three things to like about this deck.
So let me tell you about the two bright spots I found in this pitch black despair.
Opening overview
[Slide 2] Very well made slides that are easy to understand at a glance. image credits: Zaite
Overall, Xyte's slide deck was a pretty underwhelming parade of mediocrity. Still, I really enjoyed this one-slide summary at the beginning.
Even though some of the key numbers have been redacted, a lot of important information that is likely to catch investors' attention is shown at a glance. In fact, I think this slide would be the template I recommend for most startups raising money. It's crisp, clear, to the point, and helps set the tone for what's to come.
all together
I have a lot of respect for summaries, and this deck pulled it off not once, but twice. The first sets the stage, and the second (below) recaps the same story again, but through an investor's lens.
[Slide 26] A solid summary of everything. image credits: Zaite
I really like the way the team works. It's great to see a company solve a problem and show they've figured out a go-to-market strategy that makes sense. So good, in fact, that we'll look at each of these points separately.
- Big chance: Yes! In order for a startup to become investable, it needs to reach “VC scale.” It might be worth reminding investors of the actual market size here, but this slightly more abstract summary works well.
- Unique solution: Yes! Including reminders of what to actually do is great.
- World-class product: Honestly, I would have liked to have seen this point backed up by data. Is it a world-class product? Maybe, but please bring the receipt!
- Tested solution: Of course, but don't forget to include your reasons. What validates this solution? I think the point the company is really trying to make here has to do with…
- Scalable GTM: Being able to acquire customers at scale is what makes startups stop being startups, and that's a good thing. For bonus points, I wanted to remind investors here of the CAC:LTV ratio, which is a very good start.
- Vision: Hmm. This is not a reminder of the company's vision and is a missed opportunity. Perhaps they could have swapped out the team summary to remind investors why this team is a good fit to build this company instead.
Minor adjustments aside, I think this slide is very effective. I'm glad the team chose to include this.
In the rest of this teardown, we'll look at three things that Xyte could have improved or done differently, as well as its full pitch deck.