Pitch decks we used to raise $1.1M

https://www.twine.fm/blog/pitch-deck-used-to-raise-a-million/

by stuartlogan • 9 years ago

148 40 9 years ago

twine.fm

softwarelimits• 9 years ago

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

keir-rex• 9 years ago

Not on my iPad... Which browser are you on? I used the arrows on the side of the slide not underneath.

ju-st• 9 years ago

Doesn't work either on my FF. I works when you click on "show only this frame"

stuartlogan13• 9 years ago

Sorry, bloody SlideShare.

Try here: https://www.slideshare.net/stuartlogan2002/the-pitch-deck-we...

pbiggar• 9 years ago

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

pavlov• 9 years 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• 9 years 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 :)

stuartlogan13• 9 years ago

Damn I wish I saw the comment. Share again ;)

doctorpangloss• 9 years 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.

socalnate1• 9 years ago

For someone named "doctorpangloss," this is an oddly negative take. :)

oh_sigh• 9 years ago

;)

stuartlogan13• 9 years ago

sfilargi• 9 years ago

[deleted]

corford2• 9 years ago

Ha. Someone sounds a little jaded with start-up land today :)

Henry1502inc• 9 years ago

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

stuartlogan13• 9 years ago

Half our money has been from angels

throwasehasdwi• 9 years 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• 9 years 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.

stuartlogan13• 9 years ago

You're totally right, a deck alone won't do anything. This opens to door to speak to someone.

alexbeloi2• 9 years 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.

corford2• 9 years 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.

alexbeloi2• 9 years 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.

stuartlogan13• 9 years 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• 9 years ago

What are your mechanisms for this?

powera• 9 years 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.

stuartlogan13• 9 years 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• 9 years 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?

wellboy• 9 years 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.

dmitrygr• 9 years 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• 9 years 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.

stuartlogan13• 9 years 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• 9 years 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

stuartlogan13• 9 years ago

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

philip1209• 9 years 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.

stuartlogan13• 9 years ago

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

josephpmay• 9 years 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• 9 years 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?

Pitch decks we used to raise $1.1M

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