In this first video episode, Kahran and Divya break down the deck that Smiqql recently used for their acquisition, looking at what the different parts of the deck are doing and places they could be more successful.
In this new running series, we invite listeners to submit artifacts (decks, websites, pitches, etc.) and we love to unpack them on a future episode to hello@joyus.studio.
An acquisition deck tells a different story than a fundraising deck. You're not selling potential anymore — you're selling proof.
I think maybe the editing will remove the sirens. I mean right now there are no sirens, so there is that. Just wait. No it doesn't all face happen. I think you just are used to it the way I'm used to it.
Like there's sirens so often. It's a running joke about New York, but it's very true. Okay. Should I explain what we're doing here? You're going to explain what we're doing here?
You can explain. Well, one of the things that Divya and I have spent a lot of time talking to our clients about is how to strengthen their ideas and how to take something that might be at the point of being like a small idea, a little Genesis and get it into something bigger.
And sometimes that means, you know, when it's a small company, it's like, how do you take it to that next step? And one of the things that we've done a lot of as part of that is just helping think through these kinds of important pieces of work, these artifacts that get created in that process.
Sometimes they're for investors, they're pitch decks. Sometimes they're to explain the business and they're to share the story with potential co-founders or early employees. Or in this case, this was an acquisition opportunity that Dina, who was on the podcast last, you know, last season or the two, I think season five.
Yeah. Season five. So Dina, who was on the podcast in season five, she talked about how she was closing down this business successfully then. And she talked about the end of this acquisition and she hinted at what she was
going to be doing next, which has turned out to be this red light therapy studio. And it's very cool. And so you all should check out what Dina's up to. But we wanted to take this opportunity to walk through this and to talk about how we would bring out the story that's in this.
And one of the things that we want to start doing is doing this as a regular type of podcast that we have as part of thinking on thinking where we take and we brainstorm with people or just with the artifact and really speak out how do we make this story stronger. But we're walking through it the first time live with you guys because we thought
that'd be kind of fun. And figuring out a little bit as we go along with this first one. What lens are you going to be like sort of looking at it from? Because I feel like I maybe want to think about, of course, some of the design stuff, but also just how are they thinking about the story and what do they think is
important and where do they want to put that quote unquote important thing? Could I think of that second one is how well it's meeting the purpose? Is that what you're saying? I feel like, but we wouldn't know what the purpose is, right? Would be if we are looking at the deck.
Then maybe you have to say what you were saying again in different words. I don't know if I fully understood you. I'm just thinking about like, you know, what are they trying to do with this page? So instead of like, you know, thinking about what the purpose is and how well is it meeting, what is it actually doing?
Like that's how I want to think about it. I see. So not so much the intended purpose, but the outcome. Like what is what is being communicated here is what you're saying. We can't know intended purpose, right?
Well, I mean, you can have a sense, right? Like if something is as this is presenting to us, right? Like this is an acquisition opportunity tech. There is an intended purpose, which is like, you're trying to present this in a way that this company seems appealing for acquisition.
What is that in? Okay, great. So that's a good point before we even begin. What does that mean? Like, what does that involve?
So I think there's different styles and we'll see which style they're doing here. Generally, I think you're trying to present the information of the company. In a way, you want to have a story that you're presenting, right? And that the information and the data that you're presenting as part of the company are coming as part of that story.
So I think the kind of like telling thing that sometimes happens is that people just try and let people come up with the story in their heads. But they're like, Oh, you know, this data is so compelling. This company is so compelling. But what happens when you are a founder, when you're really close to the company,
is you forget that you know the story, right? You know so many parts already. So you have so much context that you're going to apply when you're thinking about, Oh, what is this thing trying to tell? You're looking at not just the content actually in it, and you're actually
looking beyond that into the content that is not there. That is from your previous interactions. So coming back to your question. I'd say you want to tell as part of that story that there are valuable assets in the business. And what that means is sharing that, especially in situations where the
business may not be throwing off that much revenue or it may not have profits, right? There may be revenue, but there may not be profit. You want to be showing that something built in that business is valuable. And a lot of times that has to do with how the customer is engaging with that. So I would think about is how a key part of the story in an acquisition deck is
where's, what is the customer story, right? How are customers coming to you? Why are they coming to you for? Where is that? Yeah.
So where are they getting that satisfaction or fulfillment that is either bringing them back or is being helping them find friends or become a referenceable customers for you? Interesting. So like according to you, there are two pieces. One is the business story, which could be like the numbers story.
What is the revenue? What is the profit? What are the margins? What is the unit economics? What's our marketing distribution?
What do we own all of that? And then there is the customer story of like, why are your customers likely to maybe stay with you? And they're likely to recommend you to other people. Yeah. And what is the fulfillment that your customers are finding in your business?
Right. And, you know, it's easy to think about this just from a B to C company, but there's a lot of places where you could be selling to another business and you're still really driving fulfillment for them in a way that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Right.
So I would think about it like that, that it's what are they coming? Yeah. How are they coming to you? Why would they come back to you? Why would they bring friends to you?
Yes. But also like, what is the satisfaction that they're getting from doing work with you or using your product or your service? Interesting. And I think that really needs to come out.
And actually that's a lot of that's sometimes very hard to come out. But yes, let us go forward. Okay. So just from the first page, I have like one very distinct thought. Generally, when one would think cookies, they would think about like a bright, sunny, happy, that kind of a brand.
And they have like completely removed any. How should I say? I don't know. Cookies are a fun product. But this seems like a serious deck and it feels like a choice.
Right. Like this is a worthwhile business to invest in rather than this is a fun brand. Because like generally when you're thinking about a venture deck, you want to show off your brand's personality. And I wonder if like, you know, this was a well thought out. Okay.
We don't want to show our brand's personality too much kind of a thing. I wonder if that comes from not feeling as confident that it's the right sit for that situation. Right. Because if you feel maybe it isn't a right fit also. Right.
Like who is the who is the acquirer also matters here. Yeah. Right. And this is the stuff where I think what you leave in the story and what you leave out of the story really matters. Right.
You're not being untruthful. But if stuff is going to be distracting or send the viewer's mind in a different direction that's not helpful. Then yeah, maybe it doesn't need to be led with and when you're telling to tell a story that they're going to give you five minutes for their initial reading. Yeah, fair. Like, see, for example, having the tiny cookie that is personality, but it's still not splattered everywhere.
But in on the other hand, if it was a marketing deck, like this would be so bright and so like. All over the place kinds. Yeah, interesting. I was expecting the story to be finished, but then it, it, yeah. Right.
Like it feels like you're like because of the ellipses and because of like where the positioning on the page that you're about to see the other half of it. Yeah, I think it's coming at some point. Yeah, I guess like it's the hook in this case because you start with cookies, but then you're like, OK, it is. Promoting the use case of Smekul's flaky salts and then there's a cookie and then it's like, OK, here's the content. Yeah.
How do you feel about content deck, like content slides on decks, especially on a 18 page deck? I mean, it's interesting that we're about to be on page four and we haven't actually learned that much. Like we've learned that they have another part to their business, which is in flaky salts. And we've learned that they originally were not focused on the cookies because they thought of them as a trick. And otherwise we've learned that there's a lot of content to come.
True. Oh my. This is a false size for an executive summary. But I also just feel like maybe this is possibly the kind of thing. That one would say if you want to do due diligence, this is the slide you need to focus on.
Yeah, interesting. In the decks that we've been working on, I feel like we've been making these into timeline slides. A lot of what is the content that's on here. What's the benefit of showing it like this? Would you remember any of this?
Like for our listeners and viewers, like knowledge, they did end up, this acquisition did end up. Happening. Like current mentioned it earlier also that last time Dina came, she was talking about the acquisition. Like this acquisition did end up happening. Right.
So this is a successful deck. How do you feel about like, would you remember some of this? How do you present something like this? I'm laughing because I was thinking we should have teased it to the end, you know, did the acquisition happen or not? You said it in the beginning also.
I know, but that you have to be really sharp listening to. It's all a certain feel, right? Like it all feels, it's all cohesive so far, right? The font size, the way the information has been presented where there was a little bit of information initially. And now there's like a lot of information.
There's just this feeling of you're kind of being brought in on a story. You're kind of being brought into something, right? That initially it's very. What's the word I'm looking for? Like it, it's very minimalist, right?
And then as you kind of come into it, there's like all this depth to it that you didn't understand. Like I feel that it feels cohesive across the different. Ways that could be presented. I don't know how you feel about that. Do you agree with that?
So I generally like feel very sus of these kind of pages because like going back to what you said earlier about like, you know, probably this person is going to give you five minutes to look through the entire deck. So I feel like people don't have short attention spans, but people have very short considerations. Spans, but like how quickly should you sort of like then once you have their consideration, how quickly should you sort of bounce on their attention is a very. I don't know.
To me, it's a very tricky business to just balance it. And yeah, this is not how I would do it. I would do it like either a little more visually or at the very least like have highlights of what is more important to think about. Right. So like if there are four eight points total, like I would at least highlight the key things in each of the points so that I know at a cursory glance, which one should I look at?
But here it is a choice that it's like, okay, this is an executive summary, which means that you need to read all of this to get a sense. But I'm not sure. It's interesting. I don't know. Not that I'm really thinking about it, though.
It's it's clear to me a couple of things. One, that this is a deck that was designed to be emailed and not presented. I'm almost 100 percent certain. I'm not. I would still say I'd have like maybe a five or 10 percent because of that content slide and those early ones those could have been designed for someone to speak while those were going on.
But this kind of slide, I really think is a slide that's designed for someone to be reading in their email. And so then that makes me think that this would be emailed after you have signed some amount of NDAs or like this is not your first conversation. This is like a second or third conversation. So their willingness to actually look at it might be a lot hot. So then if I just go back to this page, then this page doesn't make sense.
Yeah. Like to me, just it just feels like this slide and the fourth. Slide are incongruent with each other in some sense. Yeah. One assumes one kind of reader and the other assumes a different kind of reader is in Congress with each other.
You're quite right. Okay. This feels rightly positioned to me. Yeah. Hmm.
Excuse me. Like what to expect at this point? What are the products? Like if you have read about what the company did and what the company's journey was, you would want to know. Okay.
What is the product and like because it's a like we eat with our eyes as much as we eat with our mouth. Like it's good to have photos of the food product. So I think like that way it's quite nice. I mean, if this was a deck that we were working on, I would have done something that would give a little bit more continuity from that previous page to this one because like I would want to know like some sort of contextually placing maybe just like the year. Right.
Like which one of these came at which point in the life cycle of the company and or how did they contribute to that whole executive summary that we just saw. Something I saw in a deck that we did right was that you I feel like you used colors to kind of like draw cohesion through different parts, different ideas that were related but not presented all on the same page. So it's just something like that right or maybe like like a line or something that like shows like now we're talking about products or like these were at these point in the history. Yeah, I also feel like as soon as we get into something like this, we have to start asking the question of like form versus function very quickly. Right.
So like if it is following its function, how much there is no right or wrong way to do it. But I do feel like sometimes form can lean its like lean into function. So like the thing that you just said, right, you would have that information over here just so that you can place it on a timeline. Now, if you one could combine this with the previous slide, you could actually tell a really nice visual story, which might be quite memorable also because again, this slide is the problem is not that there isn't a lot clearly they've done very well for themselves. They have like, you know, grown at the right pace.
They have like an expanded both the product line and who their customers are. But like the product is separate from that growth and the form is not utilized enough to communicate that part. When you say the product is separate from that growth, you mean that this story is separate from that story in the way it's presented or you mean that it should be thought of that. Yeah, they're presented that way. But obviously they are not because a super example even here when they are saying that like, you know,
the cookies gain popularity due to their chocolate rich flavor and gooey texture and crunch. The first one, the triple chocolate chip could actually be accompanying that particular slide. Like that particular piece of information when they have made more flavors and when did the cookie dough like help them expand into the B2B side. Like all of that is like it's connected to the previous slide. But it is if I just see those pieces of information separately, it's very hard for me to get the sense that like all of this felt like a story.
Again, I'm also just thinking in the back of my mind, is it because I've generally worked with founders who are trying to raise and hence trying to connect everything? And is this a better approach for an acquisition where the product seems separate from the journey that the company has gone through? Well, so now I know another piece of information. Which is that I knew that they wanted to sell the products but not be caught into the sale themselves. They wanted to wind down their involvement because this kind of business is a lot of work.
Like Dina and Murat were like baking tens of dozens of cookies, I think like hundreds of dozens of cookies. And then you're making all this dough and use commercial kitchens and your packaging. So it's just like there's so much work. So they really wanted to sell the product and the IP built in the business but not get tied into the business itself. So keeping that then is this a better approach?
Yeah. You didn't know that and you were seeing it as a separate thing. So from that point of view, it seems like yes, they are being able to present the story in a way that yes, we created these products and we have this business, but the focus is this product. They really like these kinds of slides. All afterline bullets do you know?
Wait, so that is very interesting. They were actually given the recipe. That's the big part of what they've sold. Correct. But like they have just given it for Shreeno here. Where? In the acquisition deck.
Where do you see the recipe? Wow, you're really not reading. Correct. Which is I think the effective slides like this, right? Super text heavy slides. People just gloss over it, right? And they're like, oh yeah, I see this thing. I see this thing. I see this thing.
Right? Like, oh, I see 50% cocoa. I see 88. Huh, this must be a recipe. Right? Like you, you know, we hate to have to sit and read these big text heavy slides. So it's a really interesting choice because it gives you a feeling of density and a feeling of that these people really seem to have a lot to say and are really putting a lot here and they all seem like useful words. But then you don't actually read the words. So it's interesting because you're really about the feeling and not so much about the actual communication of the content that you're putting on there.
It's an interesting choice. I don't know. It does to me. It just all has this very exclusive feeling. You know, like in the way that it talks about the names and talks about like how they, the verbiage that's used and just the presentation, like it's all it's reminiscent like Uber black car in the early days and like, you know, these like exclusive clubs that. Yeah, right, like that are invite only and like,
I don't know, do you get that feel? Am I, I'm not being a articulate well where it's coming from. So I'm not sure if that is because it's a Swiss company and like Swiss design aesthetic is seen in America as that like Uber elite kind of like so in the Western design traditions, which is seen as like that. Slightly elite and more sort of clean and minimalist and like there's going to be a certain amount of quality and all of that just as a part of baseline for the brand. So I wonder like if some of the sense is just coming from the fact that they are a Swiss brand and they are able to.
The lack of a better term have those values, right? Like I don't think they're trying to fake it, but I think it is just a part of what their brand is. Do you don't have that immediate like reaction? You feel like that's more a cultural context that I'm bringing when I see this kind of branding than like necessarily inherent to I mean, I mean, I see it. I just see it as I don't know if it's this brand in particular or if it is just this culture.
I see it's a bit like, you know, a lot of the stuff from let's say Japan feels a certain way. Right? Like Japanese brands feel a certain way. They have two or three different categories and they all fall in that category unless you're from Japan and then you might be able to distinctly tell them apart. Right? But there is like this is what these brands feel like or like what Indian brands feel like they feel like a certain way.
Yeah. Yeah. But I would say like, like I remember having this French colleague and this is literally a thousand years ago because this was when I was working in Parliament and I was still an undergrad and yeah, for this this MP from Portsmouth, Mike and God could take me a minute. Anyway, so I had this French lady who worked also in his office with me and I remember I was wearing like some really bright things and she was asking where they were from. And then I was telling her from India and she was telling me like, oh, something like kind of dismissively around like how like the colors are like too too much right.
And this was kind of her way of speaking like she was very, I don't know. Direct. Yeah, direct, I guess is the right way. But right so I think that's the cultural perception of that where they have this influence or this veil, if you will, or whatever, you know that gives them a view a lens to kind of see things through. And so that was the way I was asking where do you feel like, like growing up in the US, I have this kind of cultural lens that I see Swiss design through that you don't think the world over necessarily shares and that maybe you don't share as much because you just don't.
You just don't grow up in the US. And so when you see things like this is not necessarily as like exclusive feeling. No, it is exclusive feeling, but I just feel like generally European design feels exclusive in general and Swiss design more so. Like that is just their design aesthetic just like generally Indian design feels busy like busyness as a feature of Indian design. I'm not saying it exists or it doesn't, but like there would be less busy Indian brands and more busy Indian brands, but like overall Indian design aesthetic is busy.
Interesting. It's like there can be more colorful European brands and less colorful European brands, but on the whole they will be beige. Like they will not be colorful. Okay. So yes.
Those are our listeners and viewers who did not read it. It does not have the actual recipe. It just talks about the recipe on the slide. Okay. So it's interesting.
There is this like very interesting cadence of like process product process product. Yeah. When I look at this, my sense is there's a few things that are varied that then create all these different combinations. Is that how you feel? How did you like did they end up selling the flaky salt with the cookies?
No, they just sold the cookie business and they sold the lightest. And they sold the licensing to make the flaky salts for the cookies. Okay. I feel like would this be the kind of so now there are like three slides off this. Wow.
Right. Like it says on the top one out of three, two out of three. I'm just like really curious if somebody's acquiring how much depth do they want? So like is this in a way of saying that oh, you're going to get all of these recipes? I think so.
I mean, that's what I would conclude. Like this is telling me what I'm buying. I'm buying those three products and those three products are about these whatever 16 however many it just was 12 12 different recipes. 15 recipes. Yeah.
15. Hmm. Interesting. Okay. Okay.
Like sales. Now it's like mentally it's like, okay, you've understood what you're buying and now I'm going to tell you how this product is right now I'm going to help you understand the value of the thing you're buying now that you've understood what you're buying. Interesting. And there are. Oh, sorry.
I wasn't looking to go back. I was thinking about it. So because these numbers are sensitive like and you know actually blacked out some of the numbers and then she shared it with us because of course we don't want to put it out in the public. We are anyways very thankful that she shared it with us for us to like, you know, discuss it. Yeah, it's hard to be the first one.
It is always. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So this you can take away some but even from that previous slide I feel like my sense is right you have all these different channels.
So this is like almost like showing you distribution and the strength of each arm of the distribution network almost. Yeah. Right. And it's interesting the part of the story that's not there right which is the cost of sale. And that's because they've been doing most of it themselves so there is minimal costs for sale and you know in making cookies what is their flour water sugar.
I mean obviously chocolate is very expensive and I mean I'm getting you know high quality of all of those is expensive. But I think there's a big labor costs that they're not having to talk about. Interesting. So what do we conclude from this? Obviously that sales have gone up from that top slide.
And that like they have a few hits and like you know over time they have added new things and the through the seasons the popularity and the sales vary. Yeah. See now I would have presented both of these slightly differently the lower one I would present as that type of a stacked bar graph I think they're called right so where it would be showing visually that cumulative to cookies old but it would show the proportion and then or even that type of line graph that moves over time. So then you can kind of see visually the proportion of cookies and then separately tried to show the actual quantities because it looks like the quantity story is a great story and the proportion story is an interesting story. So and then I think the top slide and this is something I've just learned because I've been presenting decks like this recently but people always want to understand the percentage increased.
Right like they really want to know like what was the year's West sales went up by 10% when they go like nearly double and that kind of thing gets really hidden by this kind of presentation because people can't do that kind of math in their heads very easily. They just eyeball it and be like oh yeah those look really similar you know. Like for example I can tell May 15th to May 22nd was like probably one of the biggest jumps they had but you wouldn't necessarily know that. And a lot of times jumps are really hard like obviously sustaining high volume is really hard too but jumps can be really hard. It just depends on the kind of business this is a really high touch business you've got to be making the product and then going on selling the product.
It's high touch on both sides. Yeah. Interesting. This is helping us understand the B2B size of the business. And this is summation on the next slide B2B versus B2C.
I'm curious how come they didn't show any numbers or graphs or anything on the B2B side. If a business is buying like would somebody be running the operations of it or would they be expecting to run like a B2B thing for something like this. That is a really good question and you're exactly right right like it depends on the buyer and finding buyers who are straddling B2B and B2C is not easy. You know they exist but yeah especially in a kind of world like they're existing in. I would need to understand the B2B business a little bit better which is right so a question that one would have which is like is this a white labeling business are people reselling the cookies.
They're saying baked and frozen or sliced is pretty cookie dough. This kind of makes me wonder if these are resellers who are reselling the cookies but they're buying them up front in order to resell them. And maybe or maybe not under their own brand. I guess this would explain a little bit. Okay.
So like almost all of the it's all interesting to share. So they also are aware of the fact that like people would want to expand the business if they got like if they acquired the business. And this is just showing more value right now you're being able to say that not only do my recipes have value and my products have value and the fact that we have this brand that's on all these sales has value. Also we have a leads book like a book of leads that has value to and you know we're happy to sell that too. This is the explanation of why those leads have not been followed up.
I think is what's the main communication here tools interesting how one owns. Like the challenges of a business. Yeah this is funny because there's actually a lot of different things being hidden on here. Yeah like the first three four bullets are about constraints and then the last two are about why the cost per cookie are what they are. Yeah.
Correct. It is interesting though. No. Like at least I find it quite interesting because the title says production economics. But they're also in some ways say explaining the previous slide which is funny because that means that I think when they were working on it they weren't thinking about it entirely from what I was just saying which is saying how am I showing this has a value in the business.
Even as they were saying that they were feeling like they had to give this explanation as to why it was not yet tapped. Yeah. Which is interesting because usually from the external place when you look at a business you never prejudged why they didn't go after something right it could have been a thousand reasons. Maybe you had I don't know you were changing suppliers maybe you were growing the business really fast in a different place and maybe you had shipping constraints that you needed to deal with. Right.
There could have been a million different reasons why you weren't able to follow up with a buyer at that moment. I would expect you to be able to tell me the story if I asked you and be like oh you know when did you first start engaging with them when do we expect that that B2B thing to close or is that kind of on hold for some reasons until other things need to happen. And I guess maybe that's a little bit what this slide is trying to say it's just I think that that's the kind of level of detail that you would let the person double click on themselves versus kind of. I also wonder like if this is also doing a separate thing. So by showcasing why we we couldn't do it they are able to show people that maybe you could do it if you don't have these constraints.
So like everything else in the business which generally would be unpredictable which is like what is the recipe discovery. How do you find the B2C customers what are your hits. How do you find B2B leads. They are saying we have all of that figured out. But this is the potential buyer saying for the potential no no no for the like for Smekul I'm saying they have all of this figured out before the potential buyer they are saying these are the things that we couldn't like you know manage or afford and all of these are predictable things.
Oh if I just increase the size of my production those challenges would no longer be challenges. So you are taking away uncertainty. Interesting. You're kind of telling the person you're telling to worry about buyer. And also you're telling the person what to worry about.
So they are not going to be worrying about a lot of other things. Yeah that reminds me. I have this friend in Seattle and we have a mutual friend and his father specializes in. I'm not explain this but basically what can happen to older houses is the foundation can start to sink which is like the concrete layer that's actually in the ground. Right.
So his father specializes in fixing sinking foundations so like getting them level and if they've sunk right like. Jacking them up like you want a car I guess and then like pumping in more concrete whatever. And so there was a house for sale really close to where our friend lives in Seattle and this house had this sinking problem. And so this gentleman was like really like dove into it right because he's like this is a perfect fit for my skills and the things I bring to the table. And you know as it turns out there's been a lot of questionable aspects to that house which have maybe got overlooked in the zeal to be like oh this is a good fit because he saw that problem and was like I know how to solve this problem.
So the other things feel like smaller problems because I know I have the special skills needed to solve that problem. And I feel a little bit like that's what's happening here is they're managing to say we have this problem. So anyone who's like oh you know what we do have two shifts per worker and we do have a kitchen that has these constraints and we do have all these things. Well we already have that solution like we would be able to pick up those four businesses right now if only this business was part of us. It's not about it you know it's a story and the story is what really matters you know there's truth in this story.
Not that I feel like it's also there that like it's also important to think about the fact that like a lot of businesses unknown unknowns and you find something that is just like you know known unknowns. So you know what the problem is you don't know how exactly play out like that can really take away a lot of risk and that's why this slide is very interesting to me because they are acknowledging all of their flaws but it almost feels like they are hedging against the fact that now since flaws are out in the open we know that these are the problems to focus on so maybe the person who's looking at the deck is not going to think about other externalities. Yeah I agree with that and I think when they do makes them go it makes them draw from their own context that they have brought to this business right when I looked at this deck I was like where are the labor costs. And that's the context I bring to this business because I'm so used to businesses with labor costs but someone else who knows maybe food and food preparation better might look at this and be like hmm you know I know what refrigerator storage space costs
and like the cost of buying a rolling fridge it's not a real constraint but we don't know that right like with the context that we're bringing to it. No it's a great way to do this right and I didn't mean to be mean when I said truth versus story a second ago because I think there's always layers of truth and there's a lot of things that are true. And like you said that there's when you're making unknown unknowns into known unknowns that's what makes the story feel manageable to people and I think that's something that we've like realized is a lot of the value that we have brought to our clients and like even in just like where to focus our own business it's been a lot around that which is saying how do you take these things that feel really like like big and enormous and like this pipe dream and make it into known problems. And then you can actually take it forward and do something with it. No it's a good way of telling the story I'm impressed. Come together, coming together. Okay what is this telling us?
This is telling us at least I think that like they have thought about the business and the future of the business they haven't not thought about how to grow it. I don't know how why how they're going to explain why they're sending it though. Yeah. Wait so what is this saying? This is basically saying if we could have more optimization there's going to be so the left side is saying the cost of goods is going to go down. The first couple of... No so like this one is saying the cookies one is saying how they can improve efficiency.
Yeah and the rest are about improving the sales. The other three bullets that aren't under the efficiency. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah this was one I would present differently. How would you present it? Remember we'll show me the previous slide again for one sec. And then the one before that. That was yeah right so that was showing us the leads we just seen the revenue and the sales now we'd seen like you know this is the story of who the right buyer is and how the sales could be even better.
And now we're coming into here is less numerical but more kind of like feeling oriented things of how the sales could grow. So I think I would have some way of showing this more like it's already a different feel because it's not a super small font and a really bunch of texts on the page but I think giving it more of a feel of hope. I don't know. It still feels so much like there's a... It feels like these are kind of thought through but not really.
And I suspect that there are more thought through than you would think. Right? Yeah. Right like I think knowing them the way I do that I would think that they will only have put these sick bullets here because they've actually thought through them. Whereas some people would put a subscription potential on any slide you know any kind of business. Yeah. Yeah.
I think this is something I've there's a there's a friend of mine in Seattle. But yeah there's a there's a friend of mine in Seattle and we've talked a lot about how marketers and just people who are a little faster with the truth than others right they'll just put bullshit on their slides. And it's just like you got to remember that's who you're competing against like that's a lot of the slide decks floating on the world are putting together by people are playing fast and a little bit with the truth. I would just I would give these to feel more depth and feel more hopeful. And without kind of giving that feeling that was there earlier where there was like this is these are we have a lot of density here but in almost an overwhelming way which I think came across in some of those early dense slides.
But I also feel like actually they could use the precedent that they already had said that they have high density slides and they could have like you know put your right use that here. And they could have added more density. You're right. You're right. And then you basically made each one of these boats into like three bullets right bulk density of these ingredients in this way the way they talked about it on previous slides. Yeah. Or like you know even if they don't want to give it that much detail like you know what would it what would it result in just from like a percentage increase right because they have numbers they have like detailed numbers on everything.
Right. So like what would be the change if you purchased ingredients in bulk versus like you know if you didn't or if you had freezer storage both were ingredients and for finished product. What would you know I realize that last line is trying to sum this up as a step change but I literally didn't read it till now. Did you read it like I didn't process what it meant. No I didn't think about the I didn't read it because this feels like a draft slide and not a finished slide. Yeah that weird spacing between the bullets there without the other heading and like right there's like. Yeah interesting.
Interesting. They never told us why they're selling now would you. Yeah. Why are you selling would be the first question if you have built something and you're coming to me to sell it. That I would ask. Now the end of this I hear you I have a different question first but now they're at the end of this who do we think the audience is for is this the end is there one more slide.
Okay there's a nice summation. Oh here here here they give the reason a little bit inherently limited its own growth. The slide is divided by the beautifier is how I'm going to put it. So it's like number 18 some part of this slide slide number five and this slide slide number two. It's just the way they are structured is so different from the rest of the slides. There is the font difference but I also just think that like it's almost like you know they're two different people who are trying to see so like there is one person who's trying to make a logical case and there's one person who's trying to say and this thing is really amazing. You should really not let it die.
It's worth buying because it has a lot of inherent value but that somebody else is convincing you off. Yeah yeah the key thing I guess that isn't here which is what you're saying is what is leading to the end of the business right and if it is money which is kind of what the logical end of a story would be right which is like you know we've been doing these sales and trying to do this growth but we were unable to support our growth we don't have the investment to give the capital to put into the business to sell to continue to support our growth. This should be an investment deck not like this should be an investment. Yeah you know why the reason why it's not is because of the thing I called out earlier which is because the labor costs are not in this deck. And the labor costs were all them right so the labor costs are actually what's killing the business but the labor costs are invisible because they're not fully compensated because they weren't paying themselves fair market labor costs.
Because the business couldn't afford it. I mean they do say it here due to Smeakwell's production limitation this is how much it is now but we don't know if it is more or less. Yeah well it's implicit that it's less that they doesn't have the capacity that's what you meant right. No no no like it could be more right because if they are not able to rent kitchen like if they don't own their kitchen because it's saying including kitchen rent ingredients material and labor it's it could be higher also. Well that they're having to rent a higher production capacity place than they need to with tribes of costs.
Yeah yeah like it could be both ways but you're not wrong because yeah the labor cost is not included. I mean congratulations to them to successfully selling a business. It's insanely hard to be able to do that. But I do know that they sold it to someone who knew the business and I think that's like I believe it was someone who was one of their partners in selling some of the products. That's someone who would deeply understand and fill in parts of the story right because the part of the story that's not here so much is what is the actual cost of running a business like this.
And for someone like the bakery I believe that acquired them right they already know the cost of production because they have other baked goods. But now they also know the value of selling this particular baked good because they've been selling it so they can fill in those parts of the story that aren't there. Interesting. Yeah. That was fun.
It's interesting because I do feel that the fact that it still has such a strong story is what makes that makes that deck successful. It really tells you who the right buyer is because it takes you from saying these are the issues that have held us back to these are what would make us not be held back and this is how much bigger the business could be if those issues didn't exist. So it means for the right person who can the right person who can fill in those parts of the story that they maybe don't have right which is the parts of the about the sales the parts about the production costs and the story feels really complete and it's like damn we got ourselves a deal. It's very cool. I'm really proud of them and there's also another thing that they did very smartly.
It looks like it's like I didn't know in the beginning but this looks like a white label sale. You're so right. So like oh you don't have to own like we you don't have to carry over our brand. Yeah. Which like makes a certain kind of sale easier.
It would drive the price up a little but I'm assuming that like you know they made that decision knowingly and they were like okay we don't want to sell the brand in a particular way. Well I think that's why they made a cookie brand right so Smickle cookies was a brand that was owned by the parent company and then they sold that cookies brand with thing because you think about a lot of cookies sometimes will have a little branding on the packaging right. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.
Congratulations to Dina. And this was really fun. And yeah. Absolutely. And so we would love to do more of these.
We're targeting about once a month maybe a little bit longer but if you have a deck or you have a story that you'd like help in taking through and seeing just how successful can it be especially when people don't really know that story we would love to do it. Yeah. And I also feel like we would love to do decks like whether it is a product or a brand or a marketing or a pitching or an acquisition or a raise like we would love to do those kind of decks but anything else also like whether it's a website. Or something else that you feel like oh this is a brand document what does that sound like and what does that feel like we would love to have a look at it have a little bit of conversation. Some people love to build in public.
If you are one of those people love to have a look at your whatever you're making. Trying to be divergent before we converge. Correct. We get to see how it goes. Awesome.
Oh, thanks. This was fun. Bye.