Nalina Guest Stars - SO - 8/19

Because Your Future Deserves More Than a Couple of Spreadsheets.

You’ve got cap tables, burn rate, and maybe a big exit on the horizon. Startup life moves fast, and if your personal finances are still living in Excel or Google Docs, well… it’s time for an upgrade.

At Mercer Advisors, we help founders make sure their financial life is just as dialed-in as their business strategy. Think of us as your financial OS: a nationwide team of financial planners, tax professionals, investment specialists, and estate strategists, led by an advisor who actually understands startup life.

From pre-seed to Series C and beyond, we simplify the complex stuff:

• Stock options & equity comp

• Liquidity & tax planning

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• Business + personal financial alignment

So that when the term sheet lands, you’re ready.

Let’s build a plan for what’s next.

Mercer Global Advisors, Inc. (“Mercer Advisors”) is a SEC registered investment adviser. The firm only transacts business in States where they are properly registered or excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Mercer Advisors is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice to clients. Mercer Advisors is not affiliated with Hustle Fund. Mercer Advisors does not promote or offer investment in the Hustle Funds or any of Hustle Fund’s underlying portfolio companies or other start up opportunities introduced through Hustle Fund. This is sponsored.

📰 Today’s Edition

In this week’s Second Opinion, we got the chance to bring an actual investor to help us dissect a pitch deck. Nalina Murthy is an angel investor and fellow at Hustle Fund who focuses on health tech investments.

And today’s patient was the perfect deck for her to review.

✨ Today's episode: Nalina gives real-time feedback on Med's pitch deck – a health tech startup creating an AI companion for instant medical diagnostics.

Med is tackling a genuinely important problem: helping patients get faster, more affordable healthcare through AI-powered diagnostics.

The founding team has impressive credentials, including partnerships with Brown and Oxford universities, plus a PhD founder with AI experience.

But they're facing challenges that could be holding them back from getting investor interest.

There’s good news, though. These are all fixable issues.

In today’s episode, the Deck Doctors and Nalina break down the four key areas where Med (and probably your startup, too) could tighten up their pitch.

If you want, you can see the whole episode right here. Or keep scrolling for 4 timestamped moments with major learnings.

#1: The Identity Crisis

Med is addressing real pain points in healthcare: administrative overload, long wait times, and high costs.

But to Nalina, it wasn't immediately clear whether Med is solving problems for patients, doctors, or both.

As Nalina noted: "There's an identity crisis in what type of company this is… and if this is a marketplace, it needs to say that clearly."

When your positioning is unclear, it's hard for investors to evaluate your competitive landscape, market size, or go-to-market strategy.

Start with crystal-clear positioning. Your first slide should nail exactly what you are, who you serve, and your core value proposition. And you should be able to explain that in 1 sentence.

Here’s the clip if you wanna watch it.

#2: The Copy-Paste Dilemma

Nalina questions whether the product is defensible — or just a nice-to-have feature that any big telehealth provider could replicate.

Don’t get the wrong idea. Med's idea isn’t bad. But in a competitive landscape, investors want to understand sustainable advantages.

Investors are betting on your long-term success, not just your current product, so they need to see how you'll maintain that competitive edge as you grow.

Founders should focus on building deeper moats – network effects, proprietary data, regulatory advantages, or specialized expertise.

Here’s the clip, highly recommend watching it.

#3: The Spray-and-Pray Marketing Strategy

Med's targeting was broad, covering patients, doctors, and healthcare providers without a clear priority or acquisition strategy for each segment.

Investors want to see a founder who is focused on a particular segment of the market, even if there are multiple potential customers. It’s GREAT if you have a plan to expand into other customer personas, but who are you going to start with?

This approach shows that you have a deep understanding of your audience and at least some ideas of how you’ll reach them.

There’s a lot more to this part of the discussion. Highly recommend watching the clip. 

#4: Burying Your Assets

Med has partnerships with Brown University and Oxford. Impressive, right?

The head-scratcher was that this information appeared on slide 18 of 20. Basically the very end.

Nalina said: "This should be something like hero of your deck... This is a classic case of burying the lede... if this slide came earlier, we might've viewed the whole deck differently."

First impressions are powerful. So your strongest proof points should appear early. That’s a big part of what makes you seem credible.

When investors see impressive validation upfront, it colors how they interpret the rest of your story in a positive way.

I loved this section and recommend watching the clip here.

Would Nalina take the meeting?

Alex asks Nalina, "Would you take this meeting?"

Her answer: "At this point it would definitely be a no until they're going to tear it down and build it back up."

That might sound a bit harsh. After all, this startup has a PhD founder, institutional partnerships, and early traction. But none of that mattered because the fundamental story was broken.

The health tech space is brutal. Investors see hundreds of decks promising to "revolutionize healthcare."

Med had real assets but failed to clearly communicate what they do, why it matters, and why they'll win.

My hope is that this feedback will help them re-think their narrative, re-frame their slides, and go back into the fundraising ring stronger than ever.

Want feedback on your deck?

If you want your deck reviewed and featured in Second Opinion, fill out this form.

Or drop a link to your deck in the video comments and the Docs will reply there.

PS: Trying to create the perfect pitch deck? This is for you.

See ya in two weeks!

– Kera, Alex, and Mark