9 ms·

Pitch decks we used to raise $1.1M

148 points by stuartlogan 9y ago

throwasehasdwi 9y ago
All this tells me is that a slide deck matters little, if at all. There's hardly anything on these slides except some marketing bs. None of the graphs even show important metrics. I'm sure what was said when the deck was presented was far more influential
- ganoushoreilly 9y ago
  It's more about having the connections to pitch to the right investors. I think people see a pitch deck as the answer similarly to the mindset of presentations in business (powerpoint), often failing to realize the pitch is the pitch and the deck is a supplement. A well crafted deck is to support a well crafted pitch, not the other way around. A lot of want-reprenuers I've met haven't learned this and think flashy decks are the answer to good old fashion salesmanship.
- stuartlogan 9y ago
  You're totally right, a deck alone won't do anything. This opens to door to speak to someone.
- alexbeloi 9y ago
  If you look through the marketing lingo, this does show some basic info that every investor wants to know: * who are the founders and what is their experience? * what is it? (freelance network for creatives) * what is the size of the market? ($500b) * what is the business model? (20% cut for arranging contracts) * growth rate? (linear, but decent) Things some people might want to know that were missing * who are your competitors? * how much are you asking for? for what portion of your company? You say they're missing important metrics. What metrics are you looking for? They gave user growth, money in contracts posted in a month, and even gave user retention rate and contract acceptance rate.
- corford 9y ago
  You shouldn't dismiss it so quickly. The deck does exactly what it needs to do if your objective is getting face time with VCs as an early stage start-up: 1. Kept it under 15 slides 2. Used tight copy to succinctly get across what they do, why they're doing it, what their "angle" is and how big the space is 3. Illustrated some traction and hustle 4. Showed the team wasn't completely wet behind the years (and that they could successfully recruit and execute) 5. Outlined a plausible initial growth strategy 6. Signalled some social proof: from early investors and happy users 7. Wrapped it up in a clean design and sensible slide sequence It's harder than it looks. Edit: and that's just the deck. Chances are they will have had to plough hundreds of hours in to: networking, google+linkedin+crunchbase+angel list deep dives building a VC pipeline, reading countless money raising blogs/books/podcasts and practising their in-person pitch for when they do get a meeting (not to mention making sure their existing cap table wasn't fucked up from earlier FFF investments, if they had any). After all that comes a probable 75% to 95% rejection rate from the final list of VCs they drew up and managed to get a meeting with [and you have to keep the company moving, growing and developing while you do all of this]. Basically, if you're early stage and a founder who doesn't already have one or two notable previous wins under your belt, there's a lot of background shit you need to do before you even have a chance of getting in a room with a credible VC and winning them over with a slick sales pitch. An effective deck is one of those things.
joescarffe 9y ago
This is great! Thanks so much - really good reference point.
softwarelimits 9y ago
this needs flash to play? nothing happens when clicking the "arrow right" symbol below the logo...
- keir-rex 9y ago
  Not on my iPad... Which browser are you on? I used the arrows on the side of the slide not underneath.
  - ju-st 9y ago
    Doesn't work either on my FF. I works when you click on "show only this frame"
- stuartlogan 9y ago
  Sorry, bloody SlideShare. Try here: https://www.slideshare.net/stuartlogan2002/the-pitch-deck-we-used-to-raise-over-1-million https://www.slideshare.net/stuartlogan2002/the-pitch-deck-we...
pbiggar 9y ago
[deleted - supposed to be funny, ended up being mean]
- pavlov 9y ago
  If it seems that way to you, you're in the right place and know the right people. Not everybody has the connections you do.
- mhluongo 9y ago
  Times are fat right now, but remember not everyone has a YC pedigree, not everyone is West Coast, etc. EDIT: it was a little funny though :)
- stuartlogan 9y ago
  Damn I wish I saw the comment. Share again ;)
doctorpangloss 9y ago
"We use SEO to concentrate niche product conversions on our website." Seems briefer, more honest, and it's more obvious why that would make money. The people who ended up buying a creative stuff were going to do it anyway, and the people who were going to sell it do so slightly more often. Now they do it on your website, because a search led them there! The "Route to Market" slide changes are pretty funny. You're microoptimizing for how concrete you should state, "We're sending spam to Craigslist, Dribbble, and Behance users to find stuff to sell, and we're cramming Google to find buyers." It's smart from a business point of view, though utterly indefensible. Never mind that your post is a submarine advertisement. There's something about your deck and how you write that's very off-putting, like a synthesis of different startup personality tropes. It's ironic, because people who are actually really creative—who will deliver the best value for presumably your customers—would have an allergic reaction to this article. Maybe the mediocre sellers and desperate buyers won't. Does Twine concentrate mediocrity? That's my takeaway from the deck. It's probably unfair.
- deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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- socalnate1 9y ago
  For someone named "doctorpangloss," this is an oddly negative take. :)
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  ;)
  - stuartlogan 9y ago
    :)
  - 9y ago
Henry1502inc 9y ago
Isn't this a bit misleading since you had VC's unlike most startups who are trying to raise money without them
- stuartlogan 9y ago
  Half our money has been from angels
alexbeloi 9y ago
My take is that it will become like upwork for creatives. Meaning, some amount of people will try it to land their first gig, and then immediately drop it when they get lowballed repeatedly or after they have a couple referrals. But there are a lot of eager freelancers to churn through. They will be hated by everyone in the business and probably make boatloads of money.
- stuartlogan 9y ago
  We have mechanisms to stop Twine being a race to the bottom which I won't go into detail here. I wanted to keep this is about the deck rather than our positioning and hope its helpful to someone.
  - nthtran 9y ago
    What are your mechanisms for this?
    - stuartlogan 9y ago
      This article explains it: http://tech.co/twines-ceo-creative-marketplace-brings-quality-gig-economy-2017-04 http://tech.co/twines-ceo-creative-marketplace-brings-qualit...
powera 9y ago
This suffers from both the fundamental attribution error and the labor-theory-of-value error. They seem to be implying: 1) We got funded. 2) We worked hard on our pitch deck. 3) The effort on our pitch deck is why we got funded. I don't see any reason that their first pitch deck is better than their 12th or their 23rd. Just because the 23rd investor liked their business plan doesn't make that pitch deck, or their strategies to improve it, correct.
- stuartlogan 9y ago
  Your pitch deck will get you meetings, not investment. No one invests from only seeing a pitch deck. From speaking with investors, we learned about better ways to get across what we are doing. What the key ares that interested investors, etc. Most of that we learned was from the actual conversation rather than specific feedback on the deck. On a side note, the first version of this deck makes me slightly embarrassed. Even the "final" version does because the company has evolved since we closed our investment round.
  - IAmGraydon 9y ago
    "Even the "final" version does because the company has evolved since we closed our investment round." Do your investors find that concerning at all?
    - stuartlogan 9y ago
      I think they would be more concerned if we didn't evolve. For example, Twitter isn't just an SMS service anymore
wellboy 9y ago
Yeah, when someone writes "Look our pitch deck that raised us $x million" is clickbait. It was never the pitch deck, it was the traction that got them funded. If you have good traction and your pitch deck is not abysmal, then you can always raise money.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dmitrygr 9y ago
When did the transition occur from success and profit mattering to $$ raised being the most important metric? So many startups today brag about $ raised before they even mention what they do. Is this really the new norm?
- dasil003 9y ago
  Interesting, my sense was we just completed the opposite transition over the last 24 months. A couple years ago it was all about being a unicorn (ie. fundraising) and now it's all about revenue. I guess these things are cyclical though.
- stuartlogan 9y ago
  I totally agree that money raised is irrelevant. The hope was our journey can be useful to others. The hard work is just beginning.
sergiotapia 9y ago
I'm also trying to get quotes for a logo design for one of my open source projects, but I can't find logo design in the dropdown. What category do I choose? Edit: URLS not allowed so I can't do my brief properly... https://cl.ly/0C0K3z2n372c https://cl.ly/0C0K3z2n372c
- stuartlogan 9y ago
  If you choose "Graphic Designer" as the role you're looking for, that should help.
philip1209 9y ago
I'm overwhelmed by the noisy design of the blog. The pitch decks, what visitors want to see, are a tiny, 430px wide embed under the fold. There is a huge header image, left floating side bar, a large right sidebar, then a floating ad, then a slide-in form in the bottom right partway through the page. This all makes for a distracted reading experience.
- stuartlogan 9y ago
  You can view it directly here: slideshare.net/stuartlogan2002/the-pitch-deck-we-used-to-raise-over-1-million
josephpmay 9y ago
Just as an antecedent, for comparison's sake. We raised more (seed round) with no deck at all. What really mattered was the demo, story, traction, and market plan. We used to use a deck, but as time went on it became a distraction from having a fluid conversation.
krsdcbl 9y ago
Am I the only one who feels like a search focused business like this that presents itself well and is taking 20% (!) commission might be more an incentive to invest than the pitch deck?
deleted 9y ago
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deleted 9y ago
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148 points by stuartlogan 9y ago

All this tells me is that a slide deck matters little, if at all. There's hardly anything on these slides except some marketing bs. None of the graphs even show important metrics. I'm sure what was said when the deck was presented was far more influential

ganoushoreilly 9y ago
It's more about having the connections to pitch to the right investors. I think people see a pitch deck as the answer similarly to the mindset of presentations in business (powerpoint), often failing to realize the pitch is the pitch and the deck is a supplement. A well crafted deck is to support a well crafted pitch, not the other way around. A lot of want-reprenuers I've met haven't learned this and think flashy decks are the answer to good old fashion salesmanship.
stuartlogan 9y ago
You're totally right, a deck alone won't do anything. This opens to door to speak to someone.
alexbeloi 9y ago
If you look through the marketing lingo, this does show some basic info that every investor wants to know: * who are the founders and what is their experience? * what is it? (freelance network for creatives) * what is the size of the market? ($500b) * what is the business model? (20% cut for arranging contracts) * growth rate? (linear, but decent) Things some people might want to know that were missing * who are your competitors? * how much are you asking for? for what portion of your company? You say they're missing important metrics. What metrics are you looking for? They gave user growth, money in contracts posted in a month, and even gave user retention rate and contract acceptance rate.
corford 9y ago
You shouldn't dismiss it so quickly. The deck does exactly what it needs to do if your objective is getting face time with VCs as an early stage start-up: 1. Kept it under 15 slides 2. Used tight copy to succinctly get across what they do, why they're doing it, what their "angle" is and how big the space is 3. Illustrated some traction and hustle 4. Showed the team wasn't completely wet behind the years (and that they could successfully recruit and execute) 5. Outlined a plausible initial growth strategy 6. Signalled some social proof: from early investors and happy users 7. Wrapped it up in a clean design and sensible slide sequence It's harder than it looks. Edit: and that's just the deck. Chances are they will have had to plough hundreds of hours in to: networking, google+linkedin+crunchbase+angel list deep dives building a VC pipeline, reading countless money raising blogs/books/podcasts and practising their in-person pitch for when they do get a meeting (not to mention making sure their existing cap table wasn't fucked up from earlier FFF investments, if they had any). After all that comes a probable 75% to 95% rejection rate from the final list of VCs they drew up and managed to get a meeting with [and you have to keep the company moving, growing and developing while you do all of this]. Basically, if you're early stage and a founder who doesn't already have one or two notable previous wins under your belt, there's a lot of background shit you need to do before you even have a chance of getting in a room with a credible VC and winning them over with a slick sales pitch. An effective deck is one of those things.

joescarffe 9y ago

This is great! Thanks so much - really good reference point.

softwarelimits 9y ago

this needs flash to play? nothing happens when clicking the "arrow right" symbol below the logo...

keir-rex 9y ago
Not on my iPad... Which browser are you on? I used the arrows on the side of the slide not underneath.
- ju-st 9y ago
  Doesn't work either on my FF. I works when you click on "show only this frame"
stuartlogan 9y ago
Sorry, bloody SlideShare. Try here: https://www.slideshare.net/stuartlogan2002/the-pitch-deck-we-used-to-raise-over-1-million https://www.slideshare.net/stuartlogan2002/the-pitch-deck-we...

pbiggar 9y ago

[deleted - supposed to be funny, ended up being mean]

pavlov 9y ago
If it seems that way to you, you're in the right place and know the right people. Not everybody has the connections you do.
mhluongo 9y ago
Times are fat right now, but remember not everyone has a YC pedigree, not everyone is West Coast, etc. EDIT: it was a little funny though :)
stuartlogan 9y ago
Damn I wish I saw the comment. Share again ;)

doctorpangloss 9y ago

"We use SEO to concentrate niche product conversions on our website." Seems briefer, more honest, and it's more obvious why that would make money. The people who ended up buying a creative stuff were going to do it anyway, and the people who were going to sell it do so slightly more often. Now they do it on your website, because a search led them there! The "Route to Market" slide changes are pretty funny. You're microoptimizing for how concrete you should state, "We're sending spam to Craigslist, Dribbble, and Behance users to find stuff to sell, and we're cramming Google to find buyers." It's smart from a business point of view, though utterly indefensible. Never mind that your post is a submarine advertisement. There's something about your deck and how you write that's very off-putting, like a synthesis of different startup personality tropes. It's ironic, because people who are actually really creative—who will deliver the best value for presumably your customers—would have an allergic reaction to this article. Maybe the mediocre sellers and desperate buyers won't. Does Twine concentrate mediocrity? That's my takeaway from the deck. It's probably unfair.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
socalnate1 9y ago
For someone named "doctorpangloss," this is an oddly negative take. :)
oh_sigh 9y ago
;)
- stuartlogan 9y ago
  :)
- 9y ago

Henry1502inc 9y ago

Isn't this a bit misleading since you had VC's unlike most startups who are trying to raise money without them

stuartlogan 9y ago
Half our money has been from angels

alexbeloi 9y ago

My take is that it will become like upwork for creatives. Meaning, some amount of people will try it to land their first gig, and then immediately drop it when they get lowballed repeatedly or after they have a couple referrals. But there are a lot of eager freelancers to churn through. They will be hated by everyone in the business and probably make boatloads of money.

stuartlogan 9y ago
We have mechanisms to stop Twine being a race to the bottom which I won't go into detail here. I wanted to keep this is about the deck rather than our positioning and hope its helpful to someone.
- nthtran 9y ago
  What are your mechanisms for this?
  - stuartlogan 9y ago
    This article explains it: http://tech.co/twines-ceo-creative-marketplace-brings-quality-gig-economy-2017-04 http://tech.co/twines-ceo-creative-marketplace-brings-qualit...

powera 9y ago

This suffers from both the fundamental attribution error and the labor-theory-of-value error. They seem to be implying: 1) We got funded. 2) We worked hard on our pitch deck. 3) The effort on our pitch deck is why we got funded. I don't see any reason that their first pitch deck is better than their 12th or their 23rd. Just because the 23rd investor liked their business plan doesn't make that pitch deck, or their strategies to improve it, correct.

stuartlogan 9y ago
Your pitch deck will get you meetings, not investment. No one invests from only seeing a pitch deck. From speaking with investors, we learned about better ways to get across what we are doing. What the key ares that interested investors, etc. Most of that we learned was from the actual conversation rather than specific feedback on the deck. On a side note, the first version of this deck makes me slightly embarrassed. Even the "final" version does because the company has evolved since we closed our investment round.
- IAmGraydon 9y ago
  "Even the "final" version does because the company has evolved since we closed our investment round." Do your investors find that concerning at all?
  - stuartlogan 9y ago
    I think they would be more concerned if we didn't evolve. For example, Twitter isn't just an SMS service anymore

wellboy 9y ago

Yeah, when someone writes "Look our pitch deck that raised us $x million" is clickbait. It was never the pitch deck, it was the traction that got them funded. If you have good traction and your pitch deck is not abysmal, then you can always raise money.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

dmitrygr 9y ago

When did the transition occur from success and profit mattering to $$ raised being the most important metric? So many startups today brag about $ raised before they even mention what they do. Is this really the new norm?

dasil003 9y ago
Interesting, my sense was we just completed the opposite transition over the last 24 months. A couple years ago it was all about being a unicorn (ie. fundraising) and now it's all about revenue. I guess these things are cyclical though.
stuartlogan 9y ago
I totally agree that money raised is irrelevant. The hope was our journey can be useful to others. The hard work is just beginning.

sergiotapia 9y ago

I'm also trying to get quotes for a logo design for one of my open source projects, but I can't find logo design in the dropdown. What category do I choose? Edit: URLS not allowed so I can't do my brief properly... https://cl.ly/0C0K3z2n372c https://cl.ly/0C0K3z2n372c

stuartlogan 9y ago
If you choose "Graphic Designer" as the role you're looking for, that should help.

philip1209 9y ago

I'm overwhelmed by the noisy design of the blog. The pitch decks, what visitors want to see, are a tiny, 430px wide embed under the fold. There is a huge header image, left floating side bar, a large right sidebar, then a floating ad, then a slide-in form in the bottom right partway through the page. This all makes for a distracted reading experience.

stuartlogan 9y ago
You can view it directly here: slideshare.net/stuartlogan2002/the-pitch-deck-we-used-to-raise-over-1-million

josephpmay 9y ago

Just as an antecedent, for comparison's sake. We raised more (seed round) with no deck at all. What really mattered was the demo, story, traction, and market plan. We used to use a deck, but as time went on it became a distraction from having a fluid conversation.

krsdcbl 9y ago

Am I the only one who feels like a search focused business like this that presents itself well and is taking 20% (!) commission might be more an incentive to invest than the pitch deck?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]