Assembles comprehensive board and investor update decks by pulling perspectives from all C-suite roles. Use when preparing board meetings, investor updates, quarterly business reviews, or fundraising narratives. Covers structure, narrative framework, bad news delivery, and common mistakes.
Instructions your experts follow when using this skill.
Packaging adaptation by AutoGPT, 2026-09-25. Original authorship and licence are retained. Changes are limited to the recorded name, metadata and file references; see ATTRIBUTION.md in this skill package.
Build board decks that tell a story — not just show data. Every section has an owner, a narrative, and a "so what."
board deck, investor update, board meeting, board pack, investor relations, quarterly review, board presentation, fundraising deck, investor deck, board narrative, QBR, quarterly business review
Ask for a board deck in natural language, naming cadence and stage:
"Build a quarterly board deck — we're Series A." "Draft a fundraising board deck for a seed-stage company."
Provide available metrics. The builder fills gaps with explicit placeholders — never invents numbers.
Every section follows: Headline → Data → Narrative → Ask/Next
3 sentences. No more.
Bad: "We had a good quarter with lots of progress across all areas." Good: "We closed Q3 at $2.4M ARR (+22% QoQ), signed our largest enterprise contract, and enter Q4 with 14-month runway. The strategic shift to mid-market is working — ACV up 40% and sales cycle down 3 weeks. Q4 priority: close the $3M Series A and hit $2.8M ARR."
6-8 metrics max. Use a table.
| Metric | This Period | Last Period | Target | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARR | $2.4M | $1.97M | $2.3M | ✅ |
| MoM growth | 8.1% | 7.2% | 7.5% | ✅ |
| Burn multiple | 1.8x | 2.1x | <2x | ✅ |
| NRR | 112% | 108% | >110% | ✅ |
| CAC payback | 11 months | 14 months | <12 months | ✅ |
| Headcount | 24 | 21 | 25 | 🟡 |
Pick metrics the board actually tracks. Swap out anything they've said they don't care about.
One sentence on each variance. Boards hate "revenue was below target" with no explanation. Say why.
The forecast must have a confidence level. "We expect $2.8M" is weak. "High confidence $2.6M, upside to $2.9M if two late-stage deals close" is useful.
No feature lists. Only features with evidence of user impact.
Keep this short unless there's a material issue. Boards don't need sprint details.
The "asks" slide is the most important. Be specific. "We'd like 3 warm introductions to CFOs at Series B companies" beats "any help would be appreciated."
Boards see 10+ decks per quarter. Yours needs a through-line.
The 4-Act Structure:
This works for good news AND bad news. It's credible because it acknowledges reality.
Opening frame: Start with the one thing that matters most — the board should know the key message by slide 3, not slide 30.
Never bury it. Boards find out eventually. Finding out late makes it worse.
Framework:
What NOT to do:
| Mistake | Fix |
|---|---|
| Too many slides (>25) | Cut ruthlessly — if you can't explain it in the room, the slide is wrong |
| Metrics without targets | Every metric needs a target and a status |
| No narrative | Data without story forces boards to draw their own conclusions |
| Burying bad news | Lead with it, own it, fix it |
| Vague asks | Specific, actionable, person-assigned asks only |
| No variance explanation | Every gap from target needs one-sentence cause |
| Stale appendix | Appendix is only useful if it's current |
| Designing for the reader, not the room | Decks are presented — they must work spoken aloud |
Quarterly (standard): Full deck, all sections, 20-30 slides. Sent 48 hours in advance.
Monthly (for early-stage): Condensed — metrics dashboard, financials, pipeline, top risks. 8-12 slides.
Fundraising: Opens with market/vision, closes with ask. See references/deck-frameworks.md for Sequoia format.
references/deck-frameworks.md — SaaS board pack format, Sequoia structure, investor tailoringtemplates/board-deck-template.md — fill-in template for complete board decksFiles installed alongside these instructions.
When the user wants to create or update their product marketing context document. Also use when the user mentions 'product context,' 'marketing context,' 'set up context,' 'positioning,' 'who is my target audience,' 'describe my product,' 'ICP,' 'ideal customer profile,' or wants to avoid repeating foundational information across marketing tasks. Use this at the start of any new project before using other marketing skills — it creates `.agents/product-marketing.md` that all other skills reference for product, audience, and positioning context.
When the user wants to research, profile, or analyze competitors from their URLs. Also use when the user mentions 'competitor profile,' 'competitor research,' 'competitor analysis,' 'profile this competitor,' 'analyze competitor,' 'competitive intelligence,' 'competitor deep dive,' 'who are my competitors,' 'competitor landscape,' 'competitor dossier,' 'competitive audit,' or 'research these competitors.' Input is a list of competitor URLs. Output is structured competitor profile markdown files. For creating comparison/alternative pages from profiles, see competitors. For sales-specific battle cards, see sales-enablement.
When the user wants to conduct, analyze, or synthesize customer research. Use when the user mentions "customer research," "ICP research," "talk to customers," "analyze transcripts," "customer interviews," "survey analysis," "support ticket analysis," "voice of customer," "VOC," "build personas," "customer personas," "jobs to be done," "JTBD," "what do customers say," "what are customers struggling with," "Reddit mining," "G2 reviews," "review mining," "digital watering holes," "community research," "forum research," "competitor reviews," "customer sentiment," "PMF survey," "product/market fit survey," "customer interview questions," "interview outreach," "Sales Safari," or "find out why customers churn/convert/buy." Use for analyzing existing research assets, mining online sources, AND running primary research (interviews and surveys). For writing copy informed by research, see copywriting. For acting on research to improve pages, see cro.