earlier this week, I wrote a story about EV charging company Orange and how it’s taking a different approach to putting chargers everywhere. Instead of a few high-speed chargers, placing charging sockets everywhere in multi-family housing (think apartment buildings) would make it easier to turn electrical sockets into a source of income for building owners, taking care of EVs, billing and the like. It’s easy for EV owners to charge their cars.
It’s a smart model that replicates the benefits of charging at home using a simple charging infrastructure. I asked the founders if they wanted to share the pitch floor. To my delight, they said yes!
We’re looking for more unique pitches to break down, so if you’d like to submit your own, here’s how to do that.
Slides on this floor
- Cover slide
- mission slide
- Problem slide
- Macroeconomic Market Slide (“Why Now?”)
- Market size slide
- The solution slider
- Value proposition slide
- Product technology spec slide
- Product slide
- Competitive landscape slide
- Competitive advantage slide
- Business model slide
- Cash flow slide
- Go to the market slide
- Group slide
- Counselors slipped
- “The question” slide
- Contact slide
- Appendices cover slide
- Appendix I: Product Shipment Photos
- Appendix II: 3-year financial projections
- Appendix III: Head Count Slide
- Appendix IV: Sources and References
Three things to love
The Orange Charging deck is one of the best decks I’ve seen in a long time – it looks great, tells a coherent story, and covers all the parts investors want to see in a deck. It also includes slide examples that many novice founders get wrong. In fact, when I first walked around the deck, I found myself thinking that I was going to use this as a teardown – what’s the point of criticizing something that’s perfect?
Let’s start by looking at some highlights.
Amazing summary slide
[Slide 2] Preparing the sound. Image Credits: orange
When I first walked around the deck, I found myself thinking that I was going to use this as a teardown – what’s the point of criticizing something that’s perfect?
You only get one chance to make a first impression, and Orange’s second slide does a hell of a job on multiple dimensions. Visually, this is an amazing slide; the bright orange paint that goes on the garage wall (it may be a photoshop job rather than paint or vinyl work, but that doesn’t matter for slide deck purposes); The three cars and the orange charging boxes are all quite a sight.
Then the text. The company summarizes the problem it solves in a really simple and easy to understand way.
To get the perfect score here, I made this slide about the company. Make the text orange and change it to something like “We make it easy to install, sync and manage ⚡️ Electric vehicle charging In multi-unit properties. This way, it’s not about the problem – it’s about the company and the solution. A little box showing the company’s process and the goal of this fundraiser (“500 chargers installed in 75 locations, raising $2.5 million, 10x our installation base”) would be even better.
An overview of price estimates
[Slide 9] A great overview of Orange Charger’s win-win composition. Image Credits: orange
In a world where people are so used to the Tesla Supercharger network and the general idea of gas stations (where they fill up when they’re close to empty) on the one hand, taking the orange is different from both.
Instead of fast charging from time to time or only charging when you’re empty, the company offers a solution that home chargers use: plug in your car every time you get home and you’re good to go. Every time you return to your car. Turning this charging prototype into a company is the core of what Orange is doing.
This slide helps explain why installing a 110V or 240V outlet, charging at 16 amps, is sufficient for most EV drivers. In addition, the low installation costs (and the absence of a charging cable) and the simple operation make the solution a good alternative to the competitors.
Which is a fantastic setup for the next two competitive slides.
Amazing market slide
[Slide 5] Of course, the electric charge will be large. Image Credits: orange
It is a rare opportunity to be in a world where there is 100% certainty that a major change is coming in an important market. That’s true for electric cars and all the infrastructure that comes with them. No investor worth his salt would argue with a company that claims EV charging is a big, solvable problem. Seeing it presented at this level of purity on the slide is reassuring and exciting for anyone following the rapid expansion of EVs.
On another slide, Orange makes the argument that EVs will cost gasoline cars by 2025 – I’m a little skeptical, but that’s less important than the fact that when that happens. Add government incentives (in the form of higher gasoline taxes or a more carrot-like approach to new incentives for electric vehicles) and you have a very interesting market indeed.
In the rest of this tear, we’ll see three things the Orange could have improved or done differently with a full pitching floor.
