

DressRush Pitch Deck - tchae
http://investors.dressrush.com/

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patio11
If I had this level of design skill, I'd be tempted to write a pitch deck like
this for the SEO benefits alone. This is the best job I've seen of a startup
creating something which pushes the buttons of a link-rich audience in recent
memory. It is orders of magnitude easier to get links out of the techy crowd
than it is to get them from brides, ushers, or the bridal-industrial complex
(where virtually all coverage is pay-to-play).

(DressRush also benefits from the inevitable knockoffs since, if they get
mentioned, it will likely be in the same breath as "The concept was, of
course, stolen directly from <linky>DressRush's ridiculously beautiful pitch
deck</linky>.)

~~~
mmahemoff
They could improve SEO with HTML5 history. There's no direct link to each page
right now.

~~~
JoshTriplett
The links show that each page has anchors, though as you pointed out,
following the Javascript versions of those links doesn't actually change the
current page location, making it difficult to copy those links other than via
the context menu on the links. And the anchors themselves don't quite lead to
the right place; the link for slide 5 took me to part-way through slide 4.

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azov
Am I the only one who doesn't get this UI? If I have to scroll anyway, what's
the point of those next buttons? What is the purpose of page numbers at the
top when there's already a scrollbar showing where I am? I think it does
nothing but adds clutter and distracts from the message they are trying to
convey.

A simple web page with the same infographics would tell me the same story,
take less time to design, print well, work everywhere, and (in my humble
opinion) look just as good.

~~~
periferral
I'm with you. The buttons on the top and the next are redundant. However, the
worst bit is that if a point doesn't fit on the screen, you can't hit the down
button on the keyboard to scroll down because the down button takes you to the
next point. Painful.

~~~
cantlin
Seems they're listening, as this no longer appears to be the case.

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sudonim
The numbers for acquisition look way off.

$.17 per click X 33% conversion...

I just ran an experiment with google ads for dating keywords. There were a few
gaffs with hugely expensive keywords but overall, $2.45 CPC. We spent $200 and
ended up with 1 conversion. Totally amateur, I know.

From other research I've seen, I think conversions tend to be way lower than
the double digits. Like people first click on your ad and then check out and
pay you money. From the per click of your ad they are often in the single
digits or fractions of a percent.

It's a great looking pitch deck. Im concerned that they skewed their focus a
little too much on looks over sound information.

Edit: Seems the company is live and moving product to real customers? If those
are the numbers they're actually acquiring customers at, I take it back
however improbable from my limited experience.

~~~
patio11
They're trying to get a conversion to something free, which has an order of
magnitude or two easier than getting a conversion to something paid. The
typical offer in the deals industry is "Sign up for our free emails for deep
discounts." You can get 33% conversion to that if you're pitching something to
a fresh audience which doesn't have deal fatigue. (Quick comparable: BCC
landing pages convert at 40%+ for some sources of traffic. I know a guy who
pities my terrible stats.)

The business model is then "Most people don't buy anything and have LTV of $0,
some people buy one thing, and a fraction of people make a habit of buying
from you. You optimize such that the people who buy stuff subsidize cost of
customer acquisition for everyone else and then some, then scale like crazy
while keeping an eye on those metrics.")

See also AppSumo / Groupon / etc. This is why they're all very aggressive
about getting email signups: this space runs on email.

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aaronblohowiak
31% conversion rate? That seems very high to me -- is this just in the bridal
niche?

Also, the LTV is 5-7x the CCA, which it says is 0.55, so that means the LTV is
about $3 ? That seems very low given their market. I wonder if they are
counting "converted" as something other than "sold a product."

~~~
JoshTriplett
I suspect they've counted "converted" as "entered an email address" or "signed
up". That would then explain the long-term value: lots of value from a
fraction of customers, and zero value from the rest.

Alternatively, given prices like those they put on the big price tag on the
"Problems / Solutions" slide ($150), $3 sounds about right for the
affiliate/kickback benefit they'd get from the retailer.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Ah, that's the "AppSumo" part of it, then. I assumed that since they had a
"Buyer" in the core staff that it was more like Woot! where they'd have
inventory themselves, but it looks like you are right.

~~~
bmelton
I think Woot has a buyer too. Buyer, in retail, means more than the person who
pays, it means the person who finds the products, makes sure they're up to the
standards of their brand, looks for the best deals on the good, sources the
deals, generates the PO, etc.

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JoshTriplett
The design looks impressive, but at the cost of usability. When I reached the
Team slide, I could see the first two people, but I'd have to scroll down to
see the next two. But, I can't scroll the way I normally do, because hitting
the down key scrolls right past the other people to the next slide. So, I had
to manually grab the scrollbar and drag it down to see the rest of the "team"
slide, then hit the down key again to see more of the presentation. I ended up
giving up on the magic arrow keys and just manually scrolling through the
pages of the presentation.

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JoshTriplett
The "Market" slide makes a very effective point.

On the "Problems / Solutions" slide: "save ... up to 100% off retail" says
absolutely nothing, except perhaps that the author doesn't know how percents
work. "save ... up to 100%" means "save somewhere between nothing and
everything".

On the graph in the "Customer Acquisition" slide, the "reduce customer
acquisition cost through SEO" point implies a lower cost to acquire a
customer, not a higher long-term value per customer.

The "Traction" slide provides four useful figures, attached to giant
meaningless arrows made of up-and-to-the-rightium.

This pitch still sits on a webpage, so why don't the logos on the "Press
Coverage" slide link to the actual coverage?

~~~
jules
Their market slide: <http://investors.dressrush.com/#slide4>

Their math doesn't compute?

    
    
        2.7M weddings * (14+152) people per wedding = 
        445.5 million people * 28k $/wedding = 
        75.6B $
    

They probably mean:

    
    
        2.7M weddings * 28k $/wedding = 75.6B $
    

But surely they're not trying to pocket $28k per wedding just for clothes?

It certainly looks beautiful, but the information is lacking. Also, 31%
conversion rate?!!

~~~
a5seo
I think the bigger problem is 2.7m * .55 CPA * 7x ltv = a market oppty for
THEM of $10.3 million if every bride in America signed up for their service,
assuming knot.com and competitors don't try to copy them first. What's worse,
they have to re-acquire their user base constantly. Weddings are like
apartments or cars... It's totally point of need, and only one or two brands
will be on people's minds.

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marcamillion
One accuracy problem with the info...under 'Problems/Solutions':

> Our curated collections save brides up to 100% off retail.

So they give away dresses free? If they mean they cut the price in half, then
it's save 50% off retail. That's a pretty common mistake.

Double going up, half coming down.

Edit: Btw, I think this presentation/slide deck is awesome.

~~~
lionhearted
I thought the same thing, but they probably give away a free product
sometimes, which is technically 100% off.

I actually thought it was a good slide since I went, "WTF? ...oh wait, yeah,
that could be right" - good way to wake up critical thinking type people and
get them paying attention if they were zoning out.

~~~
underwater
It made me think they were either bad at math or exaggerating.

If it's used in the context you're suggesting then it's a meaningless snippet
of information as it doesn't reveal anything about the typical user
experience.

~~~
marcamillion
Agreed. It's bad math. Even if they gave away something every now and then, it
definitely does not explain 100% off. They would have to give away everything
and make money some other way (say shipping) - which could be plausible, but I
don't see it explained here.

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tptacek
The average price of a wedding is $28,000? That doesn't sound right. I know
many do cost that much, but the _average_?

~~~
m0nastic
While it's possible that Kim Kardashian's 17 Million dollar wedding might be
skewing the average, that figure doesn't seem outrageous to me.

Just hiring a wedding photographer can average between 5 and 10 grand (and
that's not to hire Annie Leibowitz).

I charge on the low end of that average and I'm "cheap".

~~~
apaprocki
And keep in mind that figure doesn't cover video, which nowadays for 1080p and
editing to a finished BD is another tidy sum.

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alphakappa
It's pretty, but this lacks substance on many levels. For example, it talks
about how large the market is. That's cool, but less important than talking
about your own addressable market. Also, some of the numbers need backing up
(31% conversion rate from adwords? That's optimistic enough to require some
explanation)

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deyan
To be totally honest, I really wonder how long it took to create this and
whether it was really a good use of their time. It is beautiful, full stop.
But it also appears as if it took a ton of time to create and put all the
bells and whistles in, which would make me at the very least question their
judgement of how they spend their time.

~~~
ysilver
The code that runs it is simple and the design assets would have been part of
their ppt pitch deck. Definitely worth it.

It's a work of art!

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huhtenberg
Is Flipboard that big of a deal? Why integrate with it? What have I been
missing?

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mikeryan
Is it strange that as potential investor my biggest concern about this deck
would be that its for a bridal product with 3 Men and only one woman on the
founding team?

~~~
ahall
Sara & I founded Weddzilla.com (Wedding expertise) and have an advisory team
chock-full{edit} of women from the biggest sites in the space. Mike and I
founded an earlier company and although he never plans on getting married, is
never short on dates = a lot of female insight. Matt...well he's married so
he's been through the drill. ;)

~~~
mhartl
N.B. It's _chock-full_.

<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chock-full>

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stevenp
Gorgeous. It looks like the bulk of the functionality here is made possible by
jQuery Waypoints (<http://imakewebthings.github.com/jquery-waypoints/>). The
custom script that contains the bulk of the in-page logic is pretty basic.
I'll definitely have to check out this plugin at some point in the future.

~~~
mmahemoff
The script is <http://investors.dressrush.com/js/script.js>. Would make a nice
micro-library/framework.

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joez
Beautiful execution.

I'd give people a way to print out or download your deck so that associates
can hand a hard copy to the investing partner.

Edit: Also really quick, not sure if this is the correct use of market size.
What is your actual segmented address market? 28k is the average wedding but
that must be skewed by 500k+ weddings. Next, I'd like to know how your 2.0
products are going to be able to capture pieces of the market you're not in
already (maybe this returns better margins at a higher acquisition cost? not
necessarily .55 flat).

~~~
jonah
A PDF is linked at the bottom with their contact information:
<http://investors.dressrush.com/Dress_Rush_Pitch_Deck.pdf>

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DavidJWang
Start-ups need to be realistic with their market size estimates. Their
provided number is too inflated after adding wedding guests to their market
estimate. Wedding guests are not the ones paying for weddings dresses. Plus,
under this assumption, the groups of wedding guests are mutually exclusive. A
better estimate should not factor in the guests at all. Lastly, how is every
person paying that much for a single wedding? That last calculation is absurd.

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lallysingh
So how come 3 of the 4 people are on google bicycles?

~~~
ahall
That's because Mike can't ride a bike

~~~
jc4p
Doesn't really answer the question... why are they on Google bikes? The
beautiful design lacks in color so if I see a Google branded bike that's all
I'm going to look at.

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tooba
I don't get the market estimate where you include the guests. It seems like
you're treating each wedding as an independent event. I'm attending two
weddings in the next month. Are you counting instances as the same person at
different weddings as the same person?

Otherwise, the presentation looks amazing and it's interesting to see a
company be so open about their deck.

~~~
aparadja
Counting each guest-visitation as a separate instance makes sense to me.

On one hand, the hosts will provide certain things for each guest.
Invitations, individual decorations, etc. It's not like Rose & Billy can skimp
on their flower budget because Marcie & John had nice bouquets at their
wedding last month.

On the other hand, each guest will bring their own gift. In case of a themed
wedding, they will probably buy something for that specific occasion.

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DodgyEggplant
A bit off topic but nevertheless important: The wedding is overrated. Plan and
think about the marriage.

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rprospero
The bit that struck me is that they're asking brides to buy wedding dresses
without trying them on first. I guess that Zappos has proven that free return
shipping is a viable clothing model, but I'm not sure how well it's going to
work for wedding dresses.

~~~
pbiggar
Don't brides go back for 3 more fittings after they pick the dress, including
one just a few days before the wedding? I wonder how this fits in.

(Maybe a local tailor solves this problem though).

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tylerneylon
How were these slides created? Basically I'd love to be able to make a similar
pitch deck for my startup.

A little embarrassed to ask b/c I'm guessing it may be obvious to those who
use these tools every day (not me, though).

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angryasian
do people really want something like this. I would think investors would want
a no hassle, no bs way to review a company. It looked nice, but the experience
was no good , compared to a standard ppt deck with notes.

~~~
tchae
all it's meant to do is start the conversation. i believe this does that very
well.

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n9com
Nice pitch deck, but 100% off retail prices? free??

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temuze
One thing to note: 4) says 444.5 million people x 28 k = 75.6 billion spent
each year. The 75.6 billion came from 2.7 million * 28K.

~~~
kenneth_chau
Which seems wrong to me. Only ONE COUPLE spends 28k per wedding. The cap
should really be $28k/wedding * 2.7mil wedding. Fancy design, flawed math.

~~~
aparadja
2.7 * 28 = 75.6

The final number itself isn't flawed, but the graphical equation on the deck
does have the math symbols in the wrong places.

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damonpace
Great iteration of the slide deck. If I were an investor I would prefer this
over powerpoint any day. So much smoother.

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icefox
Shouldn't "Sara Morgan" be the first person listed on the team as she has the
most Wedding experience?

~~~
cpeterso
How many times has she been divorced?

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mattsjohnston
Thanks for all the comments! I've already started implementing some of your
feedback in the UI.

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mikebracco
I'd like to see links to the team members' Twitter and LinkedIn profiles on
the team page. :)

~~~
davidhansen
Really? Do you believe that founders and other team members would gain
followers simply by virtue of being founders and team members?

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steve-howard
That is one weird map of the US (the one where they indicate the US dress
retail centers).

~~~
tricolon
They filled in Lake Michigan!

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OoTheNigerian
I thinks this is the clearest pitchdeck I have seen. it gives people the
template to use to do theirs.

Lovely design.

The "500 Startups" Logo sticks out like a very sore thumb.

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teflonhook
Errr their market size calculation assumes everyone going to a wedding pays
28k??

~~~
mdda
That's what the graphical equation says, but the approximate arithmetic ($30k
x 2.5MM weddings ~= $75Bn) is right.

