Example report

The clearest thing in this meeting was that your growth number describes something different from what an investor will assume it describes. The forty per cent month-on-month figure is rollout inside six accounts you have already won; your rate of winning new accounts is about one group a month, and it has come from a former colleague, one trade show and one inbound search. That is a real business, but it is a different story from the one the number tells, and it took two questions before it came out. The second gap is the bridge from 31 sites to 200. The raise is sized against that target, and the plan behind it currently rests on two assumptions you named yourself - that the trade show channel scales and that larger groups will arrive inbound once case studies exist - neither of which you have evidence for yet. Expect that to be the question you get asked most often.

• You gave the site-by-site breakdown straight away and without hedging. Being able to produce the monthly numbers from memory shows you actually watch them.

  • Based on: What you said in the meeting · when asked for the monthly site numbers

• When pressed on what 31 sites represents commercially, you corrected the framing yourself rather than defending the larger number. That distinction - six buying decisions, not 31 - is the honest version and it is better to say it first than to be caught by it.

  • Based on: What you said in the meeting · when asked how many buying decisions 31 sites represent

• The path to 200 sites is stated as an outcome, not a plan. Both mechanisms you offered are assumptions with no evidence behind them yet, and you offered them only when asked directly.

  • Based on: What you said in the meeting · when asked where the other 160 sites come from
  • Based on: Your company brief · use of funds

• Per-site pricing with no volume position is a gap you will be asked about by the first group larger than your current average. Saying you have not had that conversation yet is accurate, but it invites the follow-up about what happens to your revenue model at scale.

  • Based on: What you said in the meeting · when asked about pricing for large groups

• The waste-saving figure is doing a lot of work in your materials and rests on three sites over six weeks. The number may well hold, but it is currently presented as an average rather than as a pilot result.

  • Based on: Your pitch deck · the waste-saving claim
  • Based on: What you said in the meeting · when asked where the waste figure comes from

• Needs clarification

  Your brief presents 40% month-on-month growth as the headline metric, while your answers describe roughly one new group per month. Both can be true at once - they measure different things - but nothing in your materials tells a reader which one they are looking at.

  • Based on: Your company brief · traction
  • Based on: What you said in the meeting · when asked how the six groups were won

  To settle it: State both numbers together and label them: new groups won per month, and sites live per month. If site growth is mostly rollout within won accounts, say so before you are asked.

• Contradiction

  The deck describes the GBP 1,100 monthly saving as an average across sites. Your answer places it at one pilot group of three sites. As written, the deck claims a broader measurement than exists.

  • Based on: Your pitch deck · the waste-saving claim
  • Based on: What you said in the meeting · when asked where the waste figure comes from

  To settle it: Either re-label the deck line as a pilot result with its sample size, or measure it across the 31 sites now live and use that figure instead.

• 1.What is your cost to win one new group, counting the trade show and your own time?
• 2.Of the six groups, how many have added sites since signing, and how many stayed flat?
• 3.What does churn look like at the site level and at the group level?
• 4.What happens to the GBP 149 price when a forty-site group asks for volume terms?
• 5.How long from first contact to first paying site, for each of the six?
• 6.Which of the two engineers you plan to hire unblocks the 200-site target, and what specifically are they building?

• New groups won per month since May, and sites live per month, as two separate series.

  It removes the ambiguity in your headline growth number before anyone has to ask about it.

• The waste-saving figure recalculated across all 31 live sites, with the date range and sample size stated.

  It either strengthens your strongest claim or tells you early that it needs rewording.

• Cost and time to win each of the six groups.

  The 200-site plan is a question about acquisition cost, and you cannot answer it without this.

• A site-level and group-level retention figure, even if the window is short.

  Per-site subscriptions live or die on retention, and its absence will be noticed.

1. 1

   Rewrite the traction line in your brief and deck to show new groups and live sites as two separate numbers.

   It is the single change that removes the question you were asked twice in this session.

2. 2

   Recalculate the GBP 1,100 waste saving across all live sites, and label it with its sample size wherever it appears.

   As written, the deck states something your evidence does not yet support, which is the kind of thing that costs credibility for the rest of a meeting.

3. 3

   Write one page on how groups 7 through 40 get won, with a cost per group and a named channel for each.

   The raise is sized against 200 sites; without this page the amount has no argument behind it.

1. 1. Site growth month by monthAnswered the question

   Gave the month-by-month site numbers that were asked for.

2. 2. Buying decisions behind 31 sitesAnswered the question

   Answered with the number of separate buying decisions.

3. 3. How the six groups were wonAnswered the question

   Named where each group came from and the resulting rate.

4. 4. Where the other 160 sites come fromPartly answered

   Described assumptions, not where the other sites would come from.

5. 5. Pricing for a large groupPartly answered

   Explained the current price but not what happens when a large group asks for a discount.

6. 6. Source of the waste-saving figureAnswered the question

   Gave the source and the sample size of the figure.

• Pace

  When you listed the monthly site counts, the four figures came quickly one after another, and one of them had to be confirmed before the conversation could move on.

  Try: When you give a run of numbers, slow down, then say the one thing they add up to - six groups, about one new group a month.

• Structure

  Asked where the other 160 sites come from, you began with your assumptions; the direct answer - that you do not have that plan yet - came last.

  Try: Lead with the direct answer, even when it is that you do not know yet, then give the assumption and how you will test it.

• Pauses

  Your longest pauses came while you worked through the path to 200 sites, where you stopped to reach for figures.

  Try: Keep the figures you expect to be asked for on one page you can glance at, and place one deliberate pause just before the number you most want heard.

• Concision

  Your two longest answers were both about growth, and in each the key number arrived near the end.

  Try: Give the number in your first sentence, then stop and let the investor ask for the detail they want.

• Filler words

  A few filler sounds gathered at the start of your answers about winning new groups, and hardly appeared elsewhere.

  Try: Before answering an acquisition question, take a short silent breath instead of the filler.

These figures were invented for this example. In the real product your browser measures them from your microphone signal during the meeting and keeps only the numbers. There is no correct value for any of them.