...pitch) or did the investor? If the company wants to keep it short, then why? Don’t have full presentation ready, just an update between financings, keeping slides short pre-CDA due to competitive concerns, desire for efficiency, skepticism about the investor? Different...2/13

...approaches and materials would be appropriate for each of these scenarios. If you have no presentation ready, still take the time to think through what you can say about the company; and speak slowly enough for the person to take notes. If updating someone who last...3/13

...heard the story a while ago, make sure to take a few slides to update them on the overall thesis before diving into new data. If you’re minimizing what you show pre-CDA, or just trying to be efficient, make sure the slide deck still has enough detail to make the meeting...4/13

...worthwhile on both sides. (And don’t try to use your typical 60 min presentation without first thinking through which slides you’d hit – you’ll either end up racing through content at the end, or going over – which defeats the purpose of scheduling short meetings.) If...5/13

...you are skeptical about an investor’s interest or qualifications, make sure you ask them some q’s too – try to understand their fund structure, experience in biopharma investing, etc., and try to engage in some dialogue on your story to see if they “get it”. Otherwise...6/13

...you’ll end the call being no closer to knowing if they’re legit, and could end up with a second, longer call with them by default if they’re interested. If on the other hand, the investor has requested that the meeting be short, try to figure out why based on the email...7/13

...exchange. Perhaps they’re skeptical that it’s a fit but just want to hear the high-level (might come across as “let’s do a quick call so I can see if it’s a fit”). This might particularly be the case if you provided no materials or something very minimal, or if your...8/13

...company is stealth. Maybe they want to suss out the particulars of likely valuation, deal timing, or something else they’d rather not ask by email. They might suggest “a call to ask a few questions” in that case. It’s possible that they just like to start with short...9/13

...meetings typically. You may pick this up from back and forth with an EA. Of course, you may not really know why they planned a short meeting. Since you’re likely to have a number of these (and banking conference meetings are similarly short typically), take the time to...10/13

...construct an appropriate deck. Send either the shorter deck or your longer non-con deck ahead of time. Hopefully the investor will review the deck before you chat so you can have a more productive conversation. And don’t just start the call by launching into slides –...11/13

...first try to ascertain their goals for the call. (Also keep the intros short!) If they have really specific questions, best to answer those and then see if they want you to go through more information. The reality is that short calls are sometimes inefficient because...12/13

...there isn’t time to cover much of substance. So rather than saving 30 min, you sometimes actually lose 30 min. Keep an eye toward your own goals for the call, and understanding the investor’s, and then be as efficient as possible in trying to achieve those. 13/13

@SaraNayeem Consistently the most informative tweet threads on biotech VC - thank you 🙏🏽