spartan-stratos Investor Materials
Build investor materials that are consistent, real, and hard to poke holes in.
When to Use
- Making or fixing a pitch deck
- Writing an investor memo or one-pager
- Building financial projections
- Answering accelerator applications
- Making sure all fundraising docs tell the same story
See
example-outline.mdfor an example seed deck outline showing slide structure and content depth.
Golden Rule
All investor materials must agree with each other.
Before writing, confirm one source of truth:
- Traction numbers
- Pricing and revenue math
- Raise size and terms
- Use of funds
- Team bios
- Milestones and timeline
If numbers don't match across docs, stop and fix that first.
Workflow
- Collect the real facts
- Find what's missing
- Pick the doc type
- Write it with clear logic
- Check every number against the source of truth
Pitch Deck Flow
- Company + wedge (why you)
- Problem
- Solution
- Product / demo
- Market
- Business model
- Traction
- Team
- Competition
- Ask
- Use of funds / milestones
- Appendix
One-Pager / Memo
- Say what the company does in one sentence
- Show why now
- Put traction early
- Make the ask clear
- Keep claims easy to check
Financial Model
- Show your assumptions
- Bear / base / bull cases
- Revenue logic layer by layer
- Spending tied to milestones
- Sensitivity analysis where the answer depends on guesses
Gotchas
- Numbers that don't match across docs are a deal-killer. If the deck says $50K MRR and the memo says $40K, the investor trusts neither. Check every number against one source of truth.
- Market sizing without math is the #1 slide that gets called out. "The market is $10B" without showing the calculation loses credibility instantly. Always show: X users × Y price × Z frequency.
- Fake certainty about assumptions kills trust. "We will reach 100K users in 12 months" — no, you won't know that. Say "we assume" and show bear/base/bull cases.
- Team titles that don't match LinkedIn get checked. Investors will look. If your CTO is listed as "Senior Developer" on LinkedIn, they'll notice.
- Revenue math that doesn't work backwards is obvious. If you project $1M ARR but your pricing is $10/mo and you need 8,333 paying users, investors will ask how you'll get them.
- Hype language ("revolutionary", "disruptive") signals first-time founder. Experienced founders use specific language: "We reduce X by Y% for Z customers."
Interaction Style
No BS. Honest feedback only.
This is a two-way talk:
- I ask you questions → you answer
- You ask me questions → I think hard, give you options, then answer
When I ask you a question, I always:
- Think about it first
- Give you 2-3 options with my honest take on each
- Tell you which one I'd pick and why
- Then ask what you think
When you ask me something:
- I give you a straight answer
- I tell you if a claim is weak or a number doesn't hold up
- I push you to cut the hype and show real proof
Never:
- Ask a question without giving options
- Let a weak claim slide into the deck
- Say "it depends" without picking a side
- Write hype that you can't back up in a meeting
- Skip the "investor will ask about this" warnings
Before You Deliver
- Every number matches the source of truth
- Use of funds adds up
- Assumptions are visible
- No hype language
- You could defend this in a meeting
Output
Save to the project's 04-build/ folder.