SalesStash Berkeley 2016

1. Josh Tobin
CS PhD student
Frank Ong
CS PhD student
Martin Maas
CS PhD student
Patrick Castles
EWMBA student
Business development,
partnerships, sales &
marketing
Engineering &
product
Engineering &
machine learning
infrastructure
Business development,
product, & machine
learning infrastructure
Helping sales teams find and deploy their best content
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=DGLSfxmSkwM

2. PART I
How we got here

3. BearSketch
Make professional-quality graphics in seconds using the
most natural user interface: hand-drawn sketches
We all have to
start from
somewhere…
Customer archetype
Mid 20s – mid 30s
management consultant
working as a Business
Analyst or Associate at a
large firm.
Value proposition
Eliminate the work
required for slide
creation, allowing
consultants to focus on
higher value activities.
Reduce the need for
outsourcing.
Key Technologies: Machine Learning, Computer

4. SalesStash BearSketch
Helping sales teams find and deploy their best content in
seconds using machine learning
Make professional-quality graphics in seconds using the most
natural user interface: hand-drawn sketches
…But how did
we make it
here?
Customer archetype
Mid 20s – mid 30s
account executive / sales
rep at a mid-large size
technology company w/ a
non-SaaS product
Mid 20s – mid 30s management
consultant working as a Business
Analyst or Associate at a large
firm.
Value proposition
Improve the effectiveness
of your sales force by
making it easy to leverage
the best content you are
already creating
Eliminate the work required for
slide creation, allowing
consultants to focus on higher
value activities. Reduce the need
for outsourcing.
• 100 interviews
• 10+ mentor interactions
• 5 MVPs
Key Technology: Machine Learning

5. Some themes of the things we learned
Timesaving alone may not be
a great value proposition
Go where the money is
A great product is not always
a great business
Focus on the biggest pain
point

6. An overview of our journey
Close to
the money
Far from
the money
Minor pain
point
Biggest
pain point
1
Sketches to
slides
2
Automated
slide cleanup
3
Automated
slide design
4
Automated
slide design 5
Deep content
management
Targeting
sales teams
Targeting
consultants

7. An overview of our journey
Close to
the money
Far from
the money
Minor pain
point
Biggest
pain point
1
Sketches to
slides
2
Automated
slide cleanup
3
Automated
slide design
4
Automated
slide design 5
Deep content
management
Targeting
sales teams
Targeting
consultants

8. What we
thought…
• Consultants sketch slides first
• Converting sketches to slides is slow &
painful
• Consulting companies use outsourcing
providers for this
• Consulting companies would pay to save
consultants’ time
1

9. 1Initial business model canvas
Reduce time
spent on low-
level activities
Higher quality
than manual
design
Lower cost
than
outsourcing
Analysts at big
consulting
firms
Analysts at
financial
services
companies?
Self support
Individual vs.
enterprise
sales?
Monthly license fees vs.
per task/job?
Premium features?
What R&D?
Customer
Development
Training Data
R&D, Data, Cloud
resources
Starting from
what we thought
Some completely
open questions
But keeping an
open mind…

10. 1Sketches to slides – MVP

11. … What we
learned
• Many different processes – not all sketch
Consultants sketch slides first
• Converting sketches is usually quick
(except a few complex examples)
Converting sketches to slides is slow & painful
• Not all consulting companies outsource
Consulting companies use outsourcing providers
• Consultants thought we were solving the
wrong problem!
Consulting companies would pay to save consultants’
time
1

12. Conclusion
A great product
does not make a
great business!
1

13. An overview of our journey
Close to
the money
Far from
the money
Minor pain
point
Biggest
pain point
1
Sketches to
slides
2
Automated
slide cleanup
3
Automated
slide design
4
Automated
slide design 5
Deep content
management
Targeting
sales teams
Targeting
consultants

14. What we
thought…
• Slide cleanup is a universal part of the slide
creation process
• Cleanup is necessary, but low value-add,
painful and time consuming
• Consultants will love this product and
snatch it out of our hands
2

15. 2Automatic slide cleanup – MVP

16. … What we
learned
• People thought this was nice to have, but
wouldn’t change the way they work
Consultants will love this product and snatch it out of
our hands
2
“If I had this and it worked well, obviously I would
use it, but it feels more like an add-on to me”
-Addie Bidder, Former Project Team Leader at BCG

17. 2
Conclusion
Add value
beyond time
savings!

18. An overview of our journey
Close to
the money
Far from
the money
Minor pain
point
Biggest
pain point
1
Sketches to
slides
2
Automated
slide cleanup
3
Automated
slide design
4
Automated
slide design 5
Deep content
management
Targeting
sales teams
Targeting
consultants

19. What we
thought…
• If we allow customers to create designs
that are infeasible to create themselves,
they will value our product more highly
• Consulting companies will invest heavily to
make their teams more efficient
3

20. Automated slide design – MVP 3

21. … What we
learned
• Most firms would not pay enough to make
this a large market
Consulting companies will invest heavily to make their
teams more efficient
3
“This is great, I would love to use it! But I’m not
sure how much our firm would care –
formatting doesn't really matter”
-Dan Baldini Former Consultant at Deloitte

22. We may also have some competition 3
BearSketch
Google Docs Explore
Released Sep 29, 2016
Auto-design slides, charts,
pull in content from the web
Powerpoint Designer
Released Sep 26, 2016
Auto-design slides
NEW!

23. 3
Conclusion
Move closer to
the money!

24. An overview of our journey
Close to
the money
Far from
the money
Minor pain
point
Biggest
pain point
1
Sketches to
slides
2
Automated
slide cleanup
3
Automated
slide design
4
Automated
slide design 5
Deep content
management
Targeting
sales teams
Targeting
consultants

25. What we
thought…
• Salespeople will have more or less the
same pain points
• They will have a higher bar for good design
• Since more money is riding on each deck,
sales teams will be more willing to pay for
tools to help
4

26. … What we
learned
• Salespeople have bigger problems!
Salespeople will have more or less the same pain
points
4
“If you built this, I would use it, but it wouldn’t
change how I do my job. If you solve my other
problem it would”
-Mac Conn, Enterprise Account Exec at DoubleDutch

27. 4
Conclusion
Focus on the
biggest pain
point!

28. An overview of our journey
Close to
the money
Far from
the money
Minor pain
point
Biggest
pain point
1
Sketches to
slides
2
Automated
slide cleanup
3
Automated
slide design
4
Automated
slide design 5
Deep content
management
Targeting
sales teams
Targeting
consultants

29. What we
thought…
• The biggest pain point for many inside
sales teams in tech is access to and
management of internal collateral
• By matching sales decks with 3rd party
content, we can add value to both
• We can get around the issues with existing
solutions using machine learning
5

30. Deep content management – MVP 5

31. … What we
learned
5
“If this can really do what you say it does, I could
take it to my Chief Revenue Officer right now.”
-Ross Biestman, VP of U.S. Sales at Lithium

32. PART II
What’s next?

33. The vision for SalesStash is to disrupt the
market research industry
Phase 1
2017 - 2018
Phase 2
2018 - 2019
Phase 3
2020+
Sales enablement
through deep content
management
Insights marketplace
– matching sales
teams with the best
3rd party content
AI-generated market
research, leveraging
our unique dataset (i.e.,
knowledge of what
research people need)
$600M TAM ~$4B TAM $40B+ TAM

34. 2017 2018 2019 2020
Operat-
ing plan
$0M
$1M
$10M
Product
Proof of concept
Sales
Features
Deep content management
Insights marketplace
AI-gen. research
Initial customer
20-30 additional customers
Build out sales org. Market research partners
100+ customers
Content search
Tool integration
Content scoring
3rd party integration
AI-gen. research
We will raise money to fund each phase
Angel
600k
Seed
1.1M
Series A
3.5M
Series B
10M

35. Outbound
Sales
Advertising
Sales Blogs,
Word of
mouth
Customer
Trials
Adding features
Vendor lock-in through
ecosystem
Upsell to premium
features (auto-design,
additional data sources,
slide ratings)
We plan to use a freemium model
Get Keep Grow

36. Early hypotheses suggest CLTV/CAC ~15
Lead conversion
Variable costs Cost / lead % Leads paid Lead stage Pipeline stage Trial stage CAC
Premium product 8.5 60% 10% 33% 40% 386.36
Enterprise product 25 100% 10% 33% 40% 1,893.94
3rd party content 100 100% 25% 50% 20% 4,000.00
CLTV
Price/unit Average deal size Churn Discount Commission CLTV
600 3 2% 10% 10% 6,075
2,400 12 2% 10% 10% 97,200
100 0.25 / customer / month ** ** ** **

37. BearSketch
People.ai
Sales presentation tools is a crowded
space, but this need is not well-addressed

38. Final business model canvas
Speed up
content cre-
ation by re-
using existing
material
Record and
predict
effectiveness
of material
Sales &
Marketing
Professionals
Get: Outbound
Sales
Monthly license fee
Premium features: auto-
design, content
IP (ML/CV)
Customer
Development
Training Data
R&D, Data, Cloud resources
Direct Sales to
Enterprise
R&D (ML,
Integration)
Marketing
intelligence
firms (Phase
II)
Sales
Bloggers
CRM
Providers
(coin
operated)
Insurance, legal, HR/Admin,
recruiting, etc.
Some parts of
the canvas
changed
completely
Other decisions
were remarkably
similar and our
interviews
helped us pick
the right option

39. Our product landing page goes live today
www.salesstash.com