Board Deck and Pre-Read Builder
Builds the board pre-read: exec summary with bad news first, stable KPIs, plan vs actual, runway, decisions requested, reconciled numbers.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
Board decks require a lot of information pulled together from different parts of the company. You'll want a strong narrative that connects product strategy to business outcomes. Finance usually has metrics to share—revenue, burn rate, runway, that kind of thing. Product might share feature progress and customer feedback. The team section could cover hiring and retention. Board members care about risk, opportunity, and execution ability. A typical deck might have 15-20 slides. You'd want a compelling story arc. Some boards prefer lots of data, others prefer high-level summaries. What's most important to your board right now?
Q3 BOARD DECK STRUCTURE (CFO + Head of Product + Chief People Officer perspectives) OPENING (Slide 1-3) → Headline: "Series B momentum: 156% ARR growth, path to profitability in 18 months" → Key wins: 3 enterprise customer closes, 40K MRR milestone → Board perspective: Why this quarter matters for Series C positioning EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (Slide 4-7) → Financial snapshot: ARR 1.2M (up from 480K), burn rate 220K/month, runway 16.2 months → Unit economics: CAC 2.8K, LTV 18.6K, payback 2.1 months (improving trend) → Top risk: Sales rep turnover (2 departures, backfill in progress) PRODUCT UPDATES (Slide 8-12) → Q3 roadmap delivery: 92% completion rate (4 of 5 planned features shipped) → Customer impact: Support tickets down 18%, NPS up 6 points → Technical foundation: Database migration completed (0 downtime), API latency improved 40% → Next quarter focus: Enterprise features (multi-org, SSO, audit logs) FINANCIAL DEEP DIVE (Slide 13-16) → Revenue breakdown: PLG 52%, sales 48% (rebalancing toward enterprise) → Operating expenses: 340K (COGS 40%, ops 25%, R&D 35%) → Cash flow: Positive in month 3 of quarter if churn stays below 2% → Board pressure: Path to breakeven requires hitting 1.8M ARR (by Q1 2027) PEOPLE & CULTURE (Slide 17-18) → Headcount: 12 → 16 (+4 hires: 2 engineers, 1 sales, 1 ops) → Retention: 94% (industry 89%) → Concerns: CTO overloaded on roadmap + fundraising, recommend hiring director of engineering CLOSING & ASK (Slide 19-20) → Next milestones: 2M ARR by Q1 2027, Series C readiness (metrics on track) → Board decisions needed: Approve hiring plan (Director Eng + Sales Manager), strategic partnership with distribution partner → Timeline: Next check-in in 90 days
About this skill
Your board reads the pre-read before the meeting, so it has to stand on its own. This skill builds a deck directors can absorb in 30 minutes, with the bad news on page one and numbers that reconcile.
What it does
- Structures the deck: executive summary, decisions requested, KPI dashboard, plan vs actual, cash and runway, one discussion topic, appendix
- Flags silent metric redefinitions, re-baselined plans, and mixed revenue, ARR, and bookings figures
- Checks every repeated number reconciles across slides
- Shows a miss in four beats: number vs plan, driver, action, leading indicator
- Lists news that needs a pre-wire call before the deck ships
What you get
A slide-by-slide outline with action titles, content, and data sources, plus decisions requested, reconciliation checks, and a pre-wire list. Full slide text on request.
Best for
Startup CEOs and finance leads preparing quarterly board meetings, especially when results missed plan.
SKILL.md preview
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name: board-deck-builder
description: Build the board deck and pre-read for a startup board meeting - executive summary up front, a KPI dashboard with stable definitions, plan vs actual with variance explained, cash and runway, the decisions the board must make, and an appendix - with numbers that reconcile across slides and bad news on page one. Use when the user says "build our board deck", "Q3 board deck outline", "turn these numbers into a board update", "how should I structure the board pre-read", "we missed plan, how do I show it", or "make my board slides", including casual asks like "help me with board slides" or "what goes in a board deck?"
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# Board Deck Builder
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