In case you’ve ever needed to plan a big infrastructure challenge — like constructing a brand new part of a metropolis or making an attempt to determine how a lot water and wastewater you want in a sure space — you’ve in all probability run into just a few issues alongside the best way. “However modeling and planning,” I hear you cry. “Isn’t that what computer systems are supposed to be good at?”
Nicely, sure. No marvel, then, that Transcend scooped up a $20 million Sequence B spherical from Autodesk, amongst others.
It’s a courageous new world of design that, frankly, I don’t know all that a lot about. However $20 million doesn’t lie, so let’s see the place Transcend, er, transcends and the place it stays painfully mortal.
We’re searching for extra distinctive pitch decks to tear down, so if you wish to submit your personal, right here’s how you are able to do that.
Slides on this deck
The Transcend workforce shared its deck with us in a considerably redacted state. I’m often not an enormous fan of that, however the workforce included as a lot of the deck because it might, with solely minor edits. The redactions are as follows:
Slide 11: Proprietary provide chain information level
Slide 13: Product roadmap and monetary tasks per vertical
Slide 14: Buyer identify, challenge names, income numbers and sale dates for OEM use case
Slide 16: Monetary targets, together with internet income retention projections, CARR projections, ARR projections, money move margin projections and whole capital projections
Other than the above, the deck is as-pitched, so it is best to nonetheless have the ability to get a reasonably good concept of the move of the corporate’s narrative. That is the complete breakdown of the slides within the deck:
Cowl slide
Abstract slide
Downside and Answer slide
Product slide
Traction slide
Advantages slide
Digital demo (video) slide
Firm/product historical past
Differentiation slide
Buyer section slide
Worth proposition per buyer section slide
Market alternative slide
Product roadmap slide [redacted]
Buyer case research slide
Group slide
Use of funds slide
Closing slide
Three issues to like
The Transcend deck has quite a lot of actually good examples. Listed below are my prime three:
You spin me proper out, child, proper out
It isn’t precisely uncommon for a startup to be spun out from one other enterprise, however telling the story of how and why that occurred may be fairly tough. However Transcend does it significantly nicely:
[Slide 8] An in a single day success, 10 years later. Picture Credit: Transcend
There’s often a reasonably good purpose for a startup to spin out of an organization. On this case, the software on the middle of Transcend is one which was constructed internally, earlier than the corporate originating the software realized that it may be helpful for others. From product to product market match, by way of business validation, to a spinout that will get to construct its personal buyer base may be an arduous path. The nice factor, on this case, is that the spin-out was accomplished 4 years in the past. A lot of the danger related to that a part of the method ought to now have been resolved, however the advantages from being a 10-year-old product, quite than an lively 4-year-old also needs to be seen. Having this slide within the deck helps place the corporate in time and area (and solutions the “why now” query) .
Very nicely achieved!
Similar software, completely different advantages
Instruments can be utilized for all kinds of issues — that’s the great thing about a software — nevertheless it’s tough to clarify that completely different goal audiences can discover worth for various use circumstances.
[Slide 11] The design is giving me a cluster-headache — however the data conveyed is nice. Picture Credit: Transcend
Let’s say little or no in regards to the design of this slide and deal with the content material. Transcend does a superb job exhibiting how the completely different buyer classes have completely different facets of the enterprise. Out there sizing slide, the corporate doubles down on how it will promote to all of those classes of shoppers; beginning the dialog with what the advantages are is a good way to construct a multi-layered story.
Watch out, although: It’s nice to have a number of classes of shoppers, nevertheless it’s straightforward for a startup to appear unfocused. Promoting to varsities is completely different from promoting to hospitals or governments, and also you usually want completely different gross sales strategies for every. On this case, I’ll let Transcend off the hook; the variety of organizations which have a necessity for infrastructure-scale design might be restricted, so outlining how the corporate can promote to a number of verticals without delay helps inform the “Hey the market measurement is completely cheap” a part of the story.
A propos market measurement
[Slide 12] Helloooo market measurement(s). Picture Credit: Transcend.
It’s a little bit odd to have a graph that appears to go up and to the appropriate; you’d anticipate the Y axis to be “time.” That isn’t the case; this graph describes the assorted industries. Transcend focuses on three of them (sewer/waste water, water and energy) and exhibits that it’d probably increase to others sooner or later.
Graphic and data design apart, I really like that this slide provides a really clear indication of how large the chance is at this time, and the way large it might develop if the corporate added extra verticals to its focus record. I don’t know this business nicely sufficient to know whether or not the $100B+ spent on design work is a quantity that Transcend might realistically go after (in different phrases, if it sucks up the entire market share, would Transcend be a $100 billion per 12 months firm? That appears a bit formidable, however I’m not really certain sense-check that). Presumably, buyers who’re energetic on this area would instantly have the ability to know whether or not that is life like.
As a startup, what you possibly can be taught right here is to needless to say vertical expansions can supply enormous alternatives. If related to your organization, paint the image — it will possibly assist illustrate the scale of your ambition, and, finally, the chance to the buyers.
In the remainder of this teardown, we’ll check out three issues Transcend might have improved or achieved in a different way, together with its full pitch deck!