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How to Make a Deck
How to Make a Deck
Model deck · Nimbus Payroll (fictional)

The full strong deck, front to back.

The strong version of every slide How to Make a Deck teaches, on one company. Read it top to bottom to see how a coherent seed deck holds together. Nimbus is fictional; don't cite these numbers as evidence in your own deck.

Slide 1 · Cover

The one slide every investor sees. Category, customer, and the person to reply to, in under 12 words.

Guided view →
Nimbus

Payroll for remote engineering teams in 40 countries.

Seed · raising $2.5M · Jane Liu, CEO

jane@nimbus.co
Slide 2 · Problem

One workflow, one persona, measurable pain today, not a broken-industry monologue.

Guided view →

Paying a contractor in Lagos still takes 11 days and 4 tools.

A Series B startup with 40 engineers in 18 countries runs payroll through a US EOR, a UK EOR, Wise for 6 currencies, and a spreadsheet reconciling all three.

Founders we interviewed spend 6 hours a month on payroll ops and eat a 2.4% FX + fee drag on every international paycheck.

Slide 3 · Solution

Show the change to the customer's day. Save architecture for the appendix.

Guided view →

Nimbus turns payroll into one button in Slack.

Before Nimbus
  • US EOR + UK EOR + Wise + a spreadsheet
  • 11 days to pay a new contractor
  • 6 hours/month of ops reconciling
With Nimbus
  • One vendor of record in 40 countries
  • New contractor paid in 2 hours
  • Ops time drops to 20 min/month
Slide 4 · Why now

Cite specific shifts, with dates. If this were possible in 2020, it would already exist.

Guided view →

Three things that weren't true 18 months ago

  • 72 countries opened contractor-friendly digital tax IDs (2024–25 rollouts)
  • Stablecoin corridors cut FX cost on USDC→NGN from 3.1% to 0.4% (Mar 2025)
  • Legacy EOR seat pricing hit $599/user, a 4× ceiling for a new entrant
Slide 5 · Market

Bottom-up sizing the investor can audit in 90 seconds. Anchor to your plan.

Guided view →

Bottom-up: 18,000 remote-native software companies (10-500 FTE)

$62B
TAM: global payroll + EOR software
$4.8B
SAM: remote-native software cos, 10-500 FTE
$210M
SOM: 18,000 cos × $11.7K ACV × 100% capture

Nimbus hits $15M ARR at 7.1% of SOM, the number the Series A will judge us on.

Slide 6 · Traction

One honest curve of a metric that matters. Label the axis and the inflection.

Guided view →

ARR: 8 months since launch

NovDecJanFebMarAprMayJun

$196K ARR · 34 customers · 22% net new MoM · 118% NRR at 6mo cohort.

Slide 7 · Team

Why THIS team uniquely wins THIS problem. Not resumes, earned insight.

Guided view →

Why us

JL
Jane Liu
CEO, ex-Payroll PM, Rippling

Built Rippling's international contractor product from 0 → $40M ARR. Ran it for 40 countries.

MO
Marcus Osei
CTO, ex-Wise, staff eng

Owned Wise's SWIFT + stablecoin payout rails. 8 years building cross-border money movement.

PR
Priya Rao
Head of Compliance, ex-Deel

Wrote Deel's contractor compliance playbook for LATAM + APAC. Bar-admitted in 3 jurisdictions.

Slide 8 · The ask

Amount, use of funds, and the milestone it buys. That's the whole slide.

Guided view →
The ask
$2.5M
18 months of runway to Series A metrics
Use of funds
Engineering (4 hires) · 55%
Compliance + licenses (12 new countries) · 25%
GTM (founder-led + 1 AE) · 20%
Get to $1.8M ARR, 150 customers, 8% MoM by month 18, Series A default-alive.
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