stephnass's comments

stephnass | 11 months ago | on: New Way to Fund Solo-Founders?

Hey OpenVC founder here! Thanks for trying the Fundability test :)

The test is not out of 100 points. The idea is to place you against other companies raising at the same time. If you have no revenue and everyone else has revenue, you will rank lower because at the end of the day, it's a competition.

As a general rule, investors invest if (a) you have track record or (b) you have traction i.e. users and/or revenue. If you have neither, look at grants, accelerators, and family and friends instead. And your own money, ofc.

I know it's counter-intuitive for many. Aren't VCs supposed to take risks and put the first check in?

That's not how VCs think. They will see 5,000 decks a year and invest in 5, so they just pick the strongest projects at a given point in time.

Not denying your efforts and potential, but there's just another project that looks better on paper: more proven team, more traction. It's all relative.

On that topic, check out these 2 graphs that apply to your case: https://x.com/StephNass/status/1859447351187787826

For a longer read with some maths, this post by Jonah Probell is eye opening: https://www.openvc.app/blog/seed-stage-is-about-picking-winn...

stephnass | 2 years ago

Hello everyone,

We just launched a new way for investors to find startups to invest in.

Completely free for both sides.

How it works: - Founder signs up and enters company details - Top deals are anonymized and listed on an open page - Investor can browse deals and request intros - If founder accepts, then the details are revealed to the investor

We beta tested with 50 investors and generated 50 qualified calls from 200 "request" clicks, all with zero human intervention from us.

I was surprised this didn't already exist. Seems simple enough, but it could create a new deal flow channel on top of warm intros and cold emails.

Thoughts?

stephnass | 2 years ago | on: SpaceX rocket explosion illustrates Elon Musk's 'successful failure' formula

"Even though that rocket costs a lot of money, what really costs a lot of money are people's salaries".

Interesting, didn't realize that payroll was so high that you could actually afford to lose the ship and not break a sweat.

stephnass | 2 years ago | on: Assess your startup fundability (angel round to Series A(

That's right. You receive an email at the end with more details and the full methodology.

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: Show HN: Template to create a collection of links without (or with) code

I know that not the focus but - the dark theme button is really cool!!

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

Multiple filters will be for v2 :)

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

Hi all,

I just realized I did make a mistake in the title of the HN post. It should read "startups slides" not "startup slide deck". My apologies.

==> There are only 67 decks = 1,200 individual slides. <==

I cannot edit the title, apparently. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to mislead anyone. It's an honest typo :/

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

I just realized I did make a mistake in the title of the HN post. My apologies. It should read "startups slides" not "slide deck". You are correct.

I cannot edit the title, apparently. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to mislead anyone. It's an honest typo :/

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

I just realized I did make a mistake in the title of the HN post. My apologies. It should read "startups slides" not "slide deck". You are correct.

I cannot edit the title, apparently. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to mislead anyone. It's an honest typo :/

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

I just realized I did make a mistake in the title of the HN post. My apologies. It should read "startups slides" not "slide deck". You are correct.

I cannot edit the title, apparently. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to mislead anyone. It's an honest typo :/

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

Hi rogerdickey

It's 67 decks i.e. 1210 slides. It's my understanding that a pitch deck or slide deck contains several slides.

Is the wording confusing or misleading? Please suggest a better one, I'll be happy to fix it (English not my native language).

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

Ok, I will increase contrat a bit. I cannot increase too much or the text will hide the slide...

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

Hi Saxelsen

Glad you like it.

Unfortunately, I use a no-code tool (Table2Site) which allows me zero customization of the mobile design.

If OpenDeck is successful, I will rebuild it better and include your suggestion.

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

Hi pk78

- I use the email to announce my upcoming product to potential users. It's also a free product and also a product for tech founders so it seems fair to me. If I cannot communicate with my users, then it's hard to build something.

- 67 decks = 1210 slides. You are the 3rd person to point this out so maybe my English is wrong. For me, 1 deck is a whole presentation that includes many slides. Please correct me if I am wrong.

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

Hi tmpz22,

The slides are from decks that are publicly available on Slideshare.

The data (company name, year, funding stage, slide category...) is manually added by me with a lot of Google search.

The download includes 67 decks which corresponds to 1,210 slides.

It is true that in the download email, I also announce my next product, which is also free and also for entrepreneurs. So this seems fair to me - but happy to reconsider my position on that.

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

I had no idea oO

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

Thanks, I have yet to get better at that Hackernews thing...

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

Hi Marciplan!

It's already included - although you cannot filter (yet) by funding stage, they are indicated on each slide next to the company name.

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: OpenDeck: 1,200 startup slide decks by category – Team, Market, Funding

Thanks for the feedback, I am definitely building that for the next release.

So far, I am using a no-code tool called Table2Sheet, which only allows 1 type of filter, so I picked Slide category.

If you want to browse full startup pitch decks, check out https://starthouse.xyz/, https://pitchdeckexamples.com/, https://www.pitchdeckhunt.com/

stephnass | 5 years ago | on: The Pitch Deck That Makes Investors Say Yes

Perfect timing for me :D

One more thing that I see in good pitch decks: an intro slide about the "Context" or "Change" that is driving the startup. There was a good Medium post about it - will try to find it.