I've seen a lot of seed decks and quite frankly while they may have many similar slides (summary, problem, solution, team, etc) I've noticed that the ones that get funded have one of the following:
1) Social proof
2) Significant Traction
That's it. In fact I'd go as far to say that without either of those, you won't get funded period, except through lucky angel connections. In fact I can't think of a case of something getting funded without one of these.
Social proof is typically something of the form of the founders being 3 PhDs in something hot from insert-top-school, or there's a co-founder with a previous successful exit, or there's a top notch advisory board of semi-famous or at least provably successful people. So when Mr. VC throws his money at this startup, hey it's in the hands of the best.
Traction is the other option, and is the typical desired hockey stick graph of users, revenue, deals, whatever. The traction metric often maps really well onto software startups specifically, because very limited labor and capital can lead to real results. Meanwhile for larger enterprises that require legitimate development and manpower to get traction - it's going to be tough to show traction before you have the resources to deliver something. So something like a "nuclear power startup" (which YC has funded for instance) would probably rely more on social proof.
It's a tad disheartening because it makes something like non-consumer hardware a very difficult spot to be in if you're a younger entrepreneur. Maybe an incubator/accelerator (plus personal savings) can get you on the order of $100K, but that's often not enough to prove real traction. And unless you have significant social proof (often not the case for a younger first time founder), then it seems you're going to be stuck in a vast fundraising chasm between $100K and $1M, e.g. between accelerator and seed financing.
In particular I'd be interested to hear people's take on hardware startups in this respect. Consumer hardware has the recently developed option of crowdfunding to bridge this gap. But what about industrial hardware, like a piece of smart machinery, or something in robotics that isn't a sub-$1K developer kit? Maybe then traction looks like a big deal or two that the crafty entrepreneurs are able to hustle.
Anyways, good overall deck template but I don't think people should be under the impression that a good deck is a huge piece of the puzzle. It's social proof and/or traction, plain and simple.
The basis of venture capital is the simple statement:
"For every buck you give us, we will give at least two bucks back next year."
You take this extortion because the benefits are ludicrous. "If we get EBay into every country before anyone else, we make silly money" or "We need want <mumble> million to make <mumble> billion in the next few years." The hardest part to get investors to understand that exiting in two years with only a 3x return is still a win.
I'd like to add two more points - unit economics, and bottoms up market analysis. And these are helpful to founders, these 2 give an important insight into viability of business before you start the multi year grind in to make your business work -
Unit economics - what it'll take to make this work with healthy profit margins? This is crucial in case of online-offline startups, infra heavy products, or hardware products. May not be critical in consumer startups until they start monetizing.
Bottoms-up analysis of market - what will be your CAC (cost to acquire customers), ARPU/LTV (avg. rev per user/lifetime value) etc.
Both of these things are quantifiable and it'll answer an important Q - how much money will it take for the biz to reach whatever milestones that are decided.
How do you define "fluff"? If you think design (how the story is told) or quality (how easy it is to understand) doesn't matter, then I strongly disagree.
Our instincts tend to be all wrong. When making general statements about a business, most try to make the most general statement possible. Otherwise we feel like we're selling it short. It's like when people write resumes. All trees, no forest.
That's why "X of Y" is so common, it's a formula to get past your bad instincts to a better, less accurate abstraction.
People are bad at going to abstraction without passing through specifics. If you'd never heard of jobs, it'd be hard to explain without examples. Fireman would be easier. Policeman would be even easier after that. Once we have two, the concept of job gets easier. Starting from the abstract... we'd be talking about, wages, specializations, uniforms, sick days... hard.
Case in point here, can we see this deck for an actual startup or startupses? It'd be easier to grasp the good/bad points in context.
Totally off topic, but this thread shows that sarcasm and irony do not always translate that well over the internet. I had a chuckle at the deck and the comments it generated.
I’d like to add one more tip: good design. I’ve seen and designed many decks for startups and some engineers pay zero attention to design. Sure if you have insane traction or other extraordinary data points it becomes less of an issue. But the investors, like yourself, are human beings who want things to look clean, neat and be clear. Nice design doesnt mean add nice colors. It means to make it a joy to go through with visuals of your product, clear font and font color selection, consistent branding etc. don’t waste too much time on the design but do treat your deck as a product of its own.
Tackling great design for presentations is what I'm working on with my startup, https://www.beautiful.ai/
We focus on exactly the types of things you're mentioning, but we try to automate it for those who don't have the design skills (or time to invest even if you do have design skills)!
I work at a VC firm and can second this. It's not terribly important for B2B companies, though it rarely hurts. But it's pretty important for B2C/Ecommerce companies. Customers don't grade on a curve and the bar for minimally acceptable design is pretty high these days. If your deck doesn't signal to the investors that you have strong design/branding instincts, be prepared for a tough sale.
> I’ve seen and designed many decks for startups and some engineers pay zero attention to design.
"design" is such a vague term. In 99% of the cases the meat of the pitch is much more important than design, at least because of the thinking process that needs to lead there. Making beautiful decks without substance is going to be the risk if you hammer that kind of message, because there is always going to be more time you should spend on perfecting your pitch that will be taken by trivial design details. By going with very simple decks (little text, spare visuals, very few colors if any), you remove the risk of "bad taste" and this enables you to focus on everything else.
Yes. It’s not only visually pleasing to especially a non technical audience. I’d argue helps build trust subconciously, signals competence, that you care, are looking after the details, and have some at least sense of what looks good (marketing).
[+] [-] pilingual|8 years ago|reply
http://avc.com/2010/06/six-slides/
http://avc.com/2011/09/six-slides-three-slides-or-no-slides/
[+] [-] keyle|8 years ago|reply
> No money raised means companies are forced to surive on revenue
[+] [-] CharlesMerriam2|8 years ago|reply
The statistically recommended pitch deck breakdown: https://docsend.com/view/p8jxsqr
The original FaceBook pitch deck, including a keg stand: https://slidebean.com/blog/startups/facebook-pitch-deck
[+] [-] zxcvvcxz|8 years ago|reply
1) Social proof
2) Significant Traction
That's it. In fact I'd go as far to say that without either of those, you won't get funded period, except through lucky angel connections. In fact I can't think of a case of something getting funded without one of these.
Social proof is typically something of the form of the founders being 3 PhDs in something hot from insert-top-school, or there's a co-founder with a previous successful exit, or there's a top notch advisory board of semi-famous or at least provably successful people. So when Mr. VC throws his money at this startup, hey it's in the hands of the best.
Traction is the other option, and is the typical desired hockey stick graph of users, revenue, deals, whatever. The traction metric often maps really well onto software startups specifically, because very limited labor and capital can lead to real results. Meanwhile for larger enterprises that require legitimate development and manpower to get traction - it's going to be tough to show traction before you have the resources to deliver something. So something like a "nuclear power startup" (which YC has funded for instance) would probably rely more on social proof.
It's a tad disheartening because it makes something like non-consumer hardware a very difficult spot to be in if you're a younger entrepreneur. Maybe an incubator/accelerator (plus personal savings) can get you on the order of $100K, but that's often not enough to prove real traction. And unless you have significant social proof (often not the case for a younger first time founder), then it seems you're going to be stuck in a vast fundraising chasm between $100K and $1M, e.g. between accelerator and seed financing.
In particular I'd be interested to hear people's take on hardware startups in this respect. Consumer hardware has the recently developed option of crowdfunding to bridge this gap. But what about industrial hardware, like a piece of smart machinery, or something in robotics that isn't a sub-$1K developer kit? Maybe then traction looks like a big deal or two that the crafty entrepreneurs are able to hustle.
Anyways, good overall deck template but I don't think people should be under the impression that a good deck is a huge piece of the puzzle. It's social proof and/or traction, plain and simple.
[+] [-] lima|8 years ago|reply
that's a bad thing?
[+] [-] akharris|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CharlesMerriam2|8 years ago|reply
"For every buck you give us, we will give at least two bucks back next year."
You take this extortion because the benefits are ludicrous. "If we get EBay into every country before anyone else, we make silly money" or "We need want <mumble> million to make <mumble> billion in the next few years." The hardest part to get investors to understand that exiting in two years with only a 3x return is still a win.
[+] [-] aresant|8 years ago|reply
AKA that is likely to be highly unprofitable, insanely stressful, and only more capital intensive for potentially years to come.
I think that PG does an outstanding job outlining this model for growth in his "Startup = Growth" essay:
http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html
[+] [-] carlosdp|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dm8|8 years ago|reply
Unit economics - what it'll take to make this work with healthy profit margins? This is crucial in case of online-offline startups, infra heavy products, or hardware products. May not be critical in consumer startups until they start monetizing.
Bottoms-up analysis of market - what will be your CAC (cost to acquire customers), ARPU/LTV (avg. rev per user/lifetime value) etc.
Both of these things are quantifiable and it'll answer an important Q - how much money will it take for the biz to reach whatever milestones that are decided.
[+] [-] mrkurt|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jph|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] artur_makly|8 years ago|reply
enjoy: https://goo.gl/u3gZuE
updated ::
Dark Theme: https://goo.gl/tcLkWY
White+Orange: https://goo.gl/i4e724
[+] [-] louisswiss|8 years ago|reply
Personally though, I found the original version to be more presentable.
Perhaps that's just me.
[+] [-] miguelrochefort|8 years ago|reply
Bright yellow background.
What were you thinking?
[+] [-] sebleon|8 years ago|reply
The opposite seems more true: insufficient revenue means companies are forced to fundraise.
[+] [-] jaequery|8 years ago|reply
Are there any investors that will take a look at the plain deck and think it is highly unprofessional, turning them down?
I like that YC don't care about the fluff. But I do wonder how "other" investors feel about it.
[+] [-] anthonyshort|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j45|8 years ago|reply
If there's a (little) design touch it doesn't hurt either.
Color, layout, can all be used for good effect as long as it's not over done or distracting.
[+] [-] artur_makly|8 years ago|reply
I think YC's stealthy AI is finally on to me..
[+] [-] davebryand|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dalbasal|8 years ago|reply
Our instincts tend to be all wrong. When making general statements about a business, most try to make the most general statement possible. Otherwise we feel like we're selling it short. It's like when people write resumes. All trees, no forest.
That's why "X of Y" is so common, it's a formula to get past your bad instincts to a better, less accurate abstraction.
People are bad at going to abstraction without passing through specifics. If you'd never heard of jobs, it'd be hard to explain without examples. Fireman would be easier. Policeman would be even easier after that. Once we have two, the concept of job gets easier. Starting from the abstract... we'd be talking about, wages, specializations, uniforms, sick days... hard.
Case in point here, can we see this deck for an actual startup or startupses? It'd be easier to grasp the good/bad points in context.
[+] [-] tnolet|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AJRF|8 years ago|reply
Would be really great to remove that description, no one should lionize that behavior.
[+] [-] biot|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jforman|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] artur_makly|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benjanik|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rman666|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fairpx|8 years ago|reply
If you need any advice, feel free to ping me.
[+] [-] benjanik|8 years ago|reply
We focus on exactly the types of things you're mentioning, but we try to automate it for those who don't have the design skills (or time to invest even if you do have design skills)!
[+] [-] brentjanderson|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] replicatorblog|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekianjo|8 years ago|reply
"design" is such a vague term. In 99% of the cases the meat of the pitch is much more important than design, at least because of the thinking process that needs to lead there. Making beautiful decks without substance is going to be the risk if you hammer that kind of message, because there is always going to be more time you should spend on perfecting your pitch that will be taken by trivial design details. By going with very simple decks (little text, spare visuals, very few colors if any), you remove the risk of "bad taste" and this enables you to focus on everything else.
[+] [-] dpweb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaequery|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mozumder|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m_ke|8 years ago|reply
Blindly pitch investors random ideas then build whatever they fall for.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] julesallen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] xrayzerone|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] podinatutorials|8 years ago|reply