General Investor Presentation Checklist: What Are Investors Really Looking For?
IROs, when crafting a General Investor Presentation for your company, one question is the most important, and it should guide the process: What really drives investor decisions?
To get to the heart of this, we’ve reviewed research from various advisory firms and boiled it down to six key factors that consistently matter to investors. Depending on your company or industry, there might be more, but we recommend starting with these and adapting them to fit your unique situation. Keeping things simple can be powerful.
Six factors (that investors care for) to address in your general Investor Presentation
1. Industry Dynamics
Investors pay attention to the category your company plays in and the markets (or verticals) you’re exposed to. They want to understand the secular trends, and size + growth projections of your market. Even when your category / end-markets are under pressure, it’s important to be transparent and set right expectations – and use this to inform your strategy. Check out this example (02:15 mark) – this company does a great job of talking about its category, and the larger markets they operate in.
2. Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Investors want to understand what makes your business difficult to compete with. What’s your moat? Is it your brand, IP, technology, supply chain, first-mover advantage, scaled go-to-market, or a combination of multiple such factors? The key is to show that you’ve built something that gives you a lasting edge and as a result will deliver returns investors care for.
3. Quality of Management Team
Investors are looking for proven leaders with the vision, experience, and skills to execute the strategy and drive long-term growth. Most decks just list names and photos of execs, but I believe companies can do more. To showcase the strength of your C-suite, highlight their years of industry experience, relevant prior experiences (e.g., ex-Google or ex-P&G) and provide more context as to why they are best suited for the job.
4. Strategy and Long-term Goals
Investors want to know your long-term goals and, more importantly, the concrete strategy you have in place to achieve them. It’s about showing a clear path forward, so they can trust in your direction and execution. A clear, well-articulated strategy is often missing in many investor presentations. If you’re struggling to nail down your strategy, start by creating a simple placemat that outlines your long term financial goals. Next, try to articulate “where you play” and “how you win.” This framework should help establish the core strategies that will guide you toward achieving your LT goals. Here’s an example.
5. Execution Track Record
Words only go so far—investors value companies that can consistently deliver on their commitments and execute with excellence. In fact, according to research, execution excellence is a top factor when investors are evaluating companies. One way to do this is to show your past performance, ideally for the past 3-5 years, across KPIs (e.g., revenue, EBITDA, cashflow, EPS) and compare versus your commitments or industry benchmarks. If you’ve met goals committed in prior Investor Day, take credit for those too – show that you walk the talk.
6. Capital Allocation Strategy
Money makes money, and how you plan to invest it matters to investors. Outline your capital allocation strategy and priorities, emphasizing your disciplined approach to capex. It’s a good idea to show how you’ve been investing capital in the last 3-5 years, and the results you’re seeing.
Let’s review a real-world General Investor Presentation example
So, the next question is how do you bring the above checklist to life. Collaborating with an IR team on a general investor presentation, we used this checklist to keep us honest. Take a look at this video to see concrete examples in the form of slides.
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