Fix the deck
Slide by slide, the brief identifies what currently works, what fails, what needs rewriting, and where the compliance flags sit.
Pitch Readiness Review
You have a meeting with a specialist allocator. The deck won't survive the first ten minutes.
A two-week written brief that fixes the deck, names the ten questions you'll be asked, and tells your team who in the room answers what. £7,500. Fixed fee. One revision.
Written by the capital intro intermediary who sits on the allocator side of these meetings every week. Not a pitch consultant.
Already qualified? Email claudia@vibe-advisors.com with manager, strategy, AUM, meeting date, and allocator. Reply within one business day.
Most first meetings die before performance comes up.
The deck got built by the founders, patched twice, sent out. Nobody who has sat on the allocator side has read it cold.
The verbal pitch tells a stronger story than the slides. The allocator never hears the verbal version.
The slide that sets up the capacity conversation kills the meeting before performance gets discussed.
The disclosure layer fails a COBS 4 read the moment it lands at a regulated counterparty.
The team walks in unprepared for the questions a specialist will actually ask, because those questions are not in the deck.
I have sat on both sides of these meetings for fifteen years. Nine times out of ten, the strategy is fine. The pitch is what loses the room.
What we do
Three things the brief has to solve before you walk into the room.
This is not deck design. It is allocator-readiness, written for the meeting you actually have.
Name the questions
The ten questions are bespoke to the strategy, ranked by risk, and translated into what the allocator is really asking underneath.
Prepare the room
The team gets choreography: who opens, who closes, who answers what, and what soft signals allocators read in the first ten minutes.
One sample. Anonymised. Pulled verbatim from a recent brief.
Question 6 of 10
What is your capacity, at strategy family level and at firm level, and where does the edge degrade?
What they are really asking
Can I write a meaningful ticket here without becoming the AUM that breaks the strategy?
The deck is silent on this
A platform allocator will not accept “we have plenty of capacity” as an answer.
A strong answer covers
- Capacity figures per family, per market, and at the aggregate firm level.
- Basis points of expected slippage per $50M of additional AUM.
- A view on hard cap, and on whether the firm would close the book to new capital at a stated AUM.
This is one of ten
Each gets the same treatment.
What one manager said
“Yesterday's meeting was highly interactive, with more than half the time focused on Q&A. Our next meeting is already scheduled for next week. Your inputs were incredibly helpful. We incorporated many of your suggestions into yesterday's discussion, and several of the questions you anticipated were exactly what they asked.”
Hedge fund founder. Post first institutional meeting. May 2026.
What you get
A single document. Twenty to thirty pages. Plain English. No filler.
Triage Page
Read this first. Headline assessment, the three blocking issues, what to do this week, compliance posture. One page.
Slide by Slide
Every slide gets four lines: what it currently does, what fails, the rewrite, the compliance flag. Promissory language identified. Disclosure gaps named.
The Ten Questions
Bespoke to your strategy. For each one: the question, what the allocator is actually asking underneath it, what a strong answer needs to cover, where to expect it in the meeting, and which are deal-breakers if fumbled.
The Structural Rebuild
New slide order. Purpose, content, and owner for each slide. Your team executes the slides. I do not move pixels.
The Disclosure Block
Draft institutional disclaimer, COBS 4 aware, with placeholders flagged for your counsel.
The Choreography
Who answers which question. Who opens, who closes, when to hand off. The soft signals allocators read in the first ten minutes. Room-setup notes: audio, seating, line of sight to the person being interrogated.
Every observation in the brief is anchored to a timestamp from your kickoff call. You can replay any claim. The work is reviewable, not opinionated.
Why me, not a pitch consultant
I am in the room when allocators ask the questions.
Vibe Advisors is FCA-regulated capital introduction. I introduce emerging managers to family offices and institutional allocators every week. The “what they're really asking” layer in this brief comes from sitting across the table from them, not from a methodology.
I read decks the way an allocator reads them. Fifteen years institutional. Fourteen of those on FX trading floors. I have been the buyer.
I write the brief myself. Every page. The last one ran 14,000 words. You are not getting consultant boilerplate or a junior analyst's spreadsheet.
I see what kills meetings, not just what is wrong with decks. Half of allocator meetings die in the choreography rather than the content.
Who this is for
For managers with a specific allocator meeting on the calendar.
Good fit
- Emerging and established managers with a live allocator meeting.
- First institutional allocation, new geography, new platform, or a second meeting after a first that did not land.
- AUM $20M to $200M.
- Track record live.
- Deck already written.
Not for
- Managers under $10M without a live track record.
- Managers who want their pitch validated rather than interrogated.
- Design help.
- Non-hedge-fund strategies. My edge is hedge fund and liquid alts.
Price and process
£7,500
Fixed fee. Two weeks from kickoff to delivery. One revision included.
For context: less than a fortnight of an institutional sales associate's time, and a fraction of the all-in cost of one disqualifying first meeting that closes a door for two years.
01
Thirty-minute scoping call.
Free.
02
One-page engagement letter and invoice.
Work starts when the invoice clears.
03
Ninety-minute kickoff call with the team.
I listen to the pitch the way an allocator would.
04
Two weeks later the brief lands in your inbox.
One revision is included.
I run a small number of these each month. If the next slot is taken, I tell you the earliest one I have.
FAQ
A few practical answers before you book.
Can you do this faster than two weeks?
Sometimes. Talk to me on the scoping call. Rush pricing applies.
Do you rebuild the deck for me?
No. The brief is the deliverable. Your team or your designer executes the slides.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes. Send your standard one before the scoping call.
Do you take a commission on capital raised?
Not for this engagement. It is a flat-fee piece of work.
What if I don't have a deck yet?
Book the scoping call. There is a related engagement upstream of this one and we can talk about whether it fits.
What does choreography look like on paper?
A page of named roles tied to specific question types, a meeting flow showing the handoffs, and a room-setup note.
Work with us
The meeting is on the calendar. Two weeks is enough.
Book a 30-minute scoping call, or email Claudia directly if you already know this is the right fit.