Background

Zazuu is a money transfer platform that helps people avoid unknown hidden fees when sending money to Africa. Zazuu is a growing startup that relies on DocSend to raise funds, as they focus on their mission to make sending money across borders more intuitive and accessible to Africans, wherever they are in the world.

The Challenge

Prior to DocSend, Kay Akinwunmi, Co-Founder and CEO, would send out his pitch deck to hundreds of potential investors as an email attachment. But needing to continuously make changes to his deck and wanting more peace of mind on the distribution of his deck, Kay wanted to find a more secure sharing solution that would provide him more security, visibility, and insights.

The Solution:

Kay turned to DocSend’s secure document sharing solution to more strategically manage outreach and follow-up to potential investors.

Creating pitch deck changes in one click

Time is everything to a founder. When working with limited time and resources, especially in the early days of a startup, founders need to efficiently prioritize activities that will have maximum impact.

For Kay Akinwunmi, his experience was no different. While growing his early-stage venture, a platform that makes transfering money across borders a better experience for customers, Kay wanted to more effectively communicate with potential investors. “Before using DocSend, I had been sending my deck manually as an old school PDF to loads of people and we had no visibility into if they viewed it and who was potentially interested. Our deck, company narrative, and numbers were constantly changing. It was very hard to manage who had which version, and it was not the most respectful to go back to those investors and share an updated version,” Kay shared. In addition to managing version control errors with potential investors, Kay needed valuable time back in his day. Manually emailing hundreds of potential investors with updates was not a sustainable solution.

When Kay first heard about DocSend, he immediately understood the value it could have on his day to day and was excited to gain more control over the fundraising process. “DocSend has been extremely helpful with revisions. We can make an instant change to our deck and now that every single person has the latest version straightaway,” Kay mentioned. He has saved countless hours and consolidated what previously was multiple versions of his pitch deck into one intuitive, up-to-date version.

Increased visibility into investor interest

Kay also wanted to more effectively prioritize his investor wishlist, going after the right investors who were most interested in his product. “Before DocSend, we would send our deck to dozens of investors. It was tough to then prioritize next steps because you did not know who was opening these emails much less looking at our deck,” Kay recalled.

Now, armed with DocSend’s document analytics, Kay is having a completely different experience. Instead of waiting for an email response, Kay can proactively know whether potential investors are interested in his company before they reach out. “I love receiving  notifications that investors are viewing my deck. Tracking investor activity in real-time helps me know when to reach out to them, what part of the deck they’re most interested in, and therefore, where to focus my conversation,” he shared. Kay can take charge and prioritize the right investors to spend time pursuing.

For example, when Kay was engaging with the CEO of a venture capital firm, he sent his DocSend pitch deck link via WhatsApp and he did not receive a reply. While a lack of response would have been a cause for concern without DocSend, Kay slowly learned that the VC firm was indeed very interested in his company. “The CEO was in Portugal at the time and over the weekend I noticed the same link I had sent to him was opened in Dubai, Amsterdam, and all over the globe.” Picking up on the signal that the firm was reviewing his deck even days after sending his initial pitch, Kay remained hopeful, “This was invaluable information then knowing I should follow up. They are actually one of our investors now.”

Additionally, Kay has uncovered new investor opportunities through DocSend. “We’ve been able to identify new investors for Zazuu by seeing when our deck is forwarded onto someone else and they enter their email to view the pitch deck. I’ll follow-up with them and see if they have any questions,” Kay shared. By using DocSend’s analytics, Kay is able to grow his top of funnel and identify new, potentially interested investors.

Creating more meaningful conversations with investors

Time becomes even more critical for founders when they have to set-up meetings with potential investors. For Kay, these meetings provided a limited time period to share his company mission and vision in more color than a static deck can do. With DocSend, Kay can use his time with his investors most effectively because he goes into meetings knowing exactly what areas of his pitch deck investors spent the most time on. As Kay shares, “DocSend’s insights allowed us to have better control over the flow of the conversation with potential investors. I now maximize my time with potential investors knowing they have seen the deck and sometimes don’t even need to pitch to them during our meetings.” Instead of repeating information, Kay is able to dig into the finer details and go straight into answering questions. Appreciating more nuanced conversations with investors, Kay remarks, “DocSend has been really useful. There is not any other way to track VC activity on pitch decks and accelerate the conversations we are having with potential investors.”

Additionally, at the end of his pitch deck, he includes an additional DocSend link to a frequently asked questions presentation. Kay shares, “It was helpful for us to know when potential investors wanted to learn even more because it meant they were very interested.” Overall, DocSend provides visibility into potential investor activity and interest, allowing Kay to target and partner with the right people to make his dream of creating a fairer market for international financial transfers become a reality.