
Parody Color Pitch Deck - kacy
https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ajdtctfhv4hn_264g329gwcc&pli=1
======
nickmolnar2
I'm gonna play devil's advocate here.

Don't bet against a world-class hustler who can also build cool shit. And
that's Bill Nguyen.

Let's remember how Lala came to be. He built a service for swapping physical
CDs, which promised to make sure that every album ever recorded made its way
onto Bittorrent (since someone could rip and flip an album that had never been
encoded for <$1). He managed to use that as leverage on the record labels to
give him extremely permissive licensing for the Lala streaming service, in
exchange for shutting down the CD swapping business. I've been involved in
content negotiations with record labels, and they do not give up ground
easily. Not even Apple seem to be able to get that far...and they're Apple.

Then, he managed to get Sequoia to give their highest-ever pre-launch funding
round. Sequoia isn't known for being a pack of dummies. Color has probably
spent less than 10% of that round so far. There's a billion dollar market
somewhere in this mobile photo sharing thing (I can't see it yet, but I can
smell it), and I wouldn't be shocked if he's the one to cash in on it. Color
has an accomplished team, and enough cash to make plenty of mistakes. He might
have used every buzzword on earth to raise the round, but it worked, and now
he's got plenty of gas in the tank to build something genuinely disruptive.
And if Lala is any indication, he knows how to disrupt markets and build tight
products (Lala was at least 2 years ahead of its time as a product).

While Color app might sound like it was created by pasting together TechCrunch
and FastCompany articles, this is only the beginning for them. Color is
clearly in it for the long haul.

~~~
rebelidealist
"There's a billion dollar market somewhere in this mobile photo sharing thing"

Where will the billion dollar come from? Getting paid to take pictures next to
McDonalds?

~~~
revorad
No, advertisement.

------
jedsmith
Hello, my name is Ms. Connie Jones . I am from SILICON VALLEY . I have
recently inherited a social program from deceased prime minister of SILICON
VALLEY with valuation of USD 100,000,000,000 . Contact my barrister to arrange
transfer of USD 41,000,000 to secure ownership

~~~
giu
Guys, caution, this looks like some kind of fraud.

Regards, a prince from Nigeria

~~~
kmfrk
DEAR SIR/MADAM,

There is nothing conspicuous about this.

~~~
jedsmith
How could I forget DEAR SIR/MADAM? Typing 419 scams is harder than I thought.

~~~
revorad
No more. Use <http://toutapp.com>.

~~~
geoffw8
you beat me to it

------
Klonoar
This is the best thing in 2011 by far. I enjoy the fact that more people are
seemingly calling bullshit on this industry, it kind of needs a dose of
realism.

~~~
Alex3917
I'm not so sure. According to Forrester, the average American will use 187
different photo sharing services by 2016. It seems like this could be a good
chance to get in on the ground floor.

~~~
mhb
Why would anyone believe that number? It sounds insane.

~~~
raquo
Why not? They used a pretty solid methodology, I'm sure.
<http://xkcd.com/605/>

~~~
nlavezzo
That is an awesome comic. I'm going to totally use that.

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chriswesallen
I love how the backlash of this app racing through the web.

I'm not sure if this one bad investment is a horseman of the startups
apocalypse but I think the valuation is definitely wayyyy off.

I still wish them the best but until this thing hits critical mass I don't see
myself using it....

Maybe that was the plan all along.....Get alot of hype and backlash at a
crappy app...get alot of users willing to try it since it sucks soo
much...BAM...critical mass => the app now has value??

~~~
artmageddon
I think the guy who wrote the "I'm Rich" iPhone app is salivating at the
thought of this.

(to be fair, the Color service will certainly be more useful)

------
blhack
Not location aware, less deals than a groupon. Lame.

~~~
lancefisher
Slide 10: "locquanintances"

------
graceyang
I have a serious question: why do people get upset at bubbles? Is it jealousy
that others are getting investment or flipping their companies where you
perceive little value? I'm not asking to be a bitch - just curious cause i
feel some of those emotions myself but I rationally know that they are
counterproductive.

Shouldn't we be happy for our startup brethren? Does color's funding hurt you
(or the industry?). I imagine all this froth is serving to make it easier for
worthy people to get investment, raising developer salaries and other
generally good things.

Would appreciate serious feedback.

~~~
jedsmith
Recalling the .com bubble, when the bottom falls out there is a lot of
collateral damage, and not just to the players involved. Those of us on the
sidelines and not involved in the idea-investment-flip cycle will suffer when
the industry inevitably implodes upon itself. Facebook's valuation,
specifically, has a lot of echoes to the past.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble#Aftermath> briefly mentions the
ripple effect on programming jobs.

As a result, there tends to be some animosity toward watching the cycle repeat
itself.

~~~
graceyang
I was too young to experience the job market post the first dot-com bubble but
I would argue that if you're in a job that is going to suffer from the
collapse of this current bubble, you're most likely currently benefiting from
the bubble already. If not, the collateral damage should be relatively low.
Would a 37signals, patio11's BCC really be affected by a crash of this current
investment bubble? Probably not.

~~~
alex_c
After a bubble bursts, the pendulum tends to swing the other way, towards
extreme thrift, caution, and near-paranoia - it affects spending as well as
investment. The over-correction can hurt everyone.

------
noelsequeira
Reminds me of a tweet by Angus Davis I stumbled upon a couple of months back.

 _Amazing how many brilliant minds and millions of dollars have been applied
to enable people to share photos._

------
jeffclark
I'm going to post this up on Path for my friend to see!

~~~
giu
I just Google Waved it!

~~~
nailer
I'm going to make a Convore thingy for it.

~~~
tesseract
I'm going to look it up on Cuil.

~~~
bobds
I desperately need a Qwiki on this subject.

~~~
sewerhorse
rabble rabble Quora!

~~~
fogus
What is Quora? #SO

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giu
The team will consist of rockstars and gurus, but no ninjas and pirates? Yer
going to be doomed to failure, arrrr!

~~~
petervandijck
A guru is someone who tells others what to do, having long since achieved all
his own goals. Who'd want those in a startup?

~~~
die_sekte
The gurus are imported from the future. I.e. the gurus already solved your
problem and now help their past selves.

------
gruseom
This is a very low-quality post and an even lower-quality thread. Stop to
think. Sequoia have the best track record in the industry. Is it _likely_
they're completely fucking stupid? Because that's what follows if these snarky
comments have merit.

Man am I thankful I have something awesome to do with the rest of my day.

~~~
JarekS
I'm sorry - do you think that people on Wall Street were stupid when they were
creating CDS and pumping huge speculation bubble around subprime mortgages? I
think that we have enough evidence that smart people make mistakes - actually
much bigger and more expensive mistakes then anyone could have expected.

~~~
pg
The two cases are different. The guys manufacturing credit default swaps had
someone to sell them to. But (unlike in the 90s) there is no one buying lame
startups for billions of dollars.

------
zaidf
More likely, this Colors app is probably a very, very tiny part of what they
really got funded for.

Conclusion: no one _really_ knows what they got funded for. Sure, a stealth
company getting 40M in funding is bad; but getting 40M for an app called
Colors is what's got people ticking.

~~~
Apocryphon
I've read Halting State before. This is a secret government operation! The
mobile photo social sharing app is just a cover for the Dept. of Homeland
Security to prevent terrorists from acquiring our nation's coupons!

------
mrcharles
This damn thing reads like a Better Off Ted Veridian Dynamics intro.

edit: Or the Jabberywocky presentation:

~~~
kevinherron
I just finished watching both seasons of Better Off Ted... I can't believe
they canceled that show :( It was absolutely HILARIOUS!

------
gjm11
I want to know what they're doing with those 77,216 other colours they're
hoarding.

~~~
elspinko
freemium.

------
dstein
This sounds a lot better than those n-tier scalable e-business solutions they
were hawking a decade ago.

~~~
ramchip
But will it leverage my team's core synergies and bring a critical competitive
advantage to take us to the next level?

~~~
revorad
Not just that, it will take us to the future faster.

Citation: [http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/03/24/sequoia-to-
co...](http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/03/24/sequoia-to-color-labs-
not-since-google-have-we-seen-this/)

------
aeden
I fully expected that some part of your app would involve porn. In fact I
think by using a .xxx you're obligated to include porn...well, at least you
should be obligated.

Add porn, raise the round to 80 mil and we have a deal.

------
MatthewPhillips
Where do I flattr this?

~~~
kacy
I followed the link on the last slide. You have an opportunity to give $100 on
Paypal for "Color.xxx Venture Funding Capital Investment for Equities." :-) I
wish I could flattr this too. Gave my coworkers and I a good laugh this
morning!

------
jpastika
You had me at slide #2.

Seriously though, how many "social"...excuse me "elastic" networks do people
need to be a part of? I'm one of those weird people who doesn't care that my
"friend", whom I've never actually met or spoken a single word to, is getting
ready to brush her teeth (yes, I know she is probably a he). With Color in
particular, I don't understand how sharing photos with people who are within
eye sight is interesting considering you are seeing the same thing!?!?

The presentation of Color is slick, but from a usability aspect, the video
looked very confusing. Admittedly I haven't tried using the app since no one
I've talked to about it has installed it and the app store description clearly
states "Warning: Don't use Color alone". I personally hold nothing against the
Color team for taking the money, but VCs COME ON! Even if VCs are investing in
apps like this in hopes of a Facebook or Google acquisition, $41,000,000 seems
ridiculous. Then again, I'm just a developer hoping someday I'll create
something that someone thinks is worth a buck.

------
josh33
It's time's like these I refer back to my favorite HackerNews comment of all
time: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2133161>

------
nlogn
Dibs on the color #80881E

~~~
cpeterso
Ironically, the Name That Color website reports the name of color #80881E is
_Trendy Green_!

<http://chir.ag/projects/name-that-color/#80881E>

------
WesleyJohnson
Okay, I'm confused. I get what the app is about and I get that this is just a
product pitch, but what do I actually get if I donate?

------
Apocryphon
I just listened to the Richter Scales' "Here Comes Another Bubble" last week.
I would repost it as a thread, but I'm not sure how well it'll fare, so here
it is on all its glory.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I>

When was the song released? December of 2007.

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devin
Very funny. I especially enjoyed the wheelbarrows of money slide.

I have one lagging question I can't seem to find an answer for: Where can I
register a .xxx domain?

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allending
Kind of disappointed in the lack of Porn in the pitch, that is at least a
multiplier of 10x. Having said that: Where do I sign up?

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alexgandy
"ACT NOW. Supplies are limited to 16,700,000."

Fucking genious.

------
Kilimanjaro
I pressed the green button at the end and nothing happened! Where do I send
the check? Don't want to be left out!

------
monsterru
<http://imgur.com/sIwtt>

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tedsbardella
A dive is a female version of a hustler, of a hustler, of a, of a hustler

------
DanielBMarkham
This is an incredibly viral piece of promotional content.

Awesome job, guys.

------
yannickmahe
I have money, may I invest a lot of it in your company?

------
sant0sk1
You had me at Mr. Belding. Where do I send my money?!

~~~
jorisw
The link on the final slide is a paypal link.

------
zrgiu
all that could be said by a lot of startups. After the somewhat unexpected
success of twitter, facebook and all that social crap, all investors are
afraid of missing out on the next opportunity. Thus, artificially increasing
the market and inflating the "bubble"

