
The pitch deck heard ’round the web is now yours to copy - mjfern
http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/08/dressrush-pitch-deck/
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run4yourlives
So, they basically used javascript and target anchors to make a fancy
navigation bar? The design and idea are really nice, but there's nothing earth
shattering here.

I do like the idea of a one page "pitch" that flows more like a slide show
than a website. It gets to the point and covers off the main ideas.

As to this particular pitch:

1\. Let's hope the rest of the math isn't as optimistic as the 31% conversion
rate. It's basically an online wedding dress shop, so it's going to suffer
from the same issues that all online clothing retailers do. Interesting that
none of the founders have a background in the fashion industry.

2\. I couldn't really figure out what the purpose of the pitch is... are they
looking for Partners? Cash? Staff? To do what with, exactly? The expansion
plans essentially seem to be: grow out what we have and build a mobile site or
two. I'm not sure why they would need investment to do that.

3\. (Late add): I disregarded the AppSumo/GroupOn bit, but I took a closer
look... Do people really shop for wedding dresses like this? The thing about
weddings is that they are a fixed time event, unlike say GroupOn which is a
"spur of the moment" purchase enabler. Point being that you have a wedding,
need clothes for it, will be in a "search" mode for x number of days, make the
purchase and move on. This idea basically tries to hit you in that "search"
mode. The thing is that they are presenting 1 or two really good deals rather
than opening up a store for you to browse. It's interesting math, but I'm not
sure that works... you're betting that those deals will be so good (as in -
not crap that doesn't sell) that it will beat out all the other avenues that
women will use to solve this problem - to the tune of 31%. Hrm.

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keiferski
Cute, but I don't buy the business.

For starters, how are any of the "152 average guests" apart of the target
market? Last time I checked, the only people who buy wedding dresses are...the
2 people getting married, and their immediate family.

That brings their inflated metric of 448.2 million potential customers down
to...2-5 million, globally. Sorry, but when you pull out ridiculous statements
like _"8% of the Earth's population is in our target market!"_ , you look
inexperienced.

You might as well say _"Our target market is 6-7 billion, because everyone
wants to get married."_

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ja27
The 448.2M number also assumes that there is no overlap between the 152
average guests at each wedding. Does the average guest only attend one wedding
per year? I don't think the number itself is a big deal but it's sloppy enough
to stand out to me right away.

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jcampbell1
I don't understand. If a coffee shop has the same 100 customers every day for
a year, is that fewer customers than an airport coffee shop that gets 100
different customers every day? Where was it written that customers are counted
once per year? It seems obvious that they mean 448M wedding attendances per
year.

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LanceJones
Agreed... we need to see better breaks in between sections. It's no fun trying
to sort out the navigation by having to combine clicking the numbers at the
top of the page and scrolling to figure out where each section ends. A simple
arrow between sections and more space between them could solve it.

Also, I wonder about the business numbers. A $0.17 cost per click on Google
Adwords/FB Ads? Seriously? Sounds like nobody is bidding on wedding-related
keywords.

Also, a 31% conversion rate on all ad-based traffic sounds AMAZING.

So the world's cheapest PPC ads combined with the world's highest converting
pages makes for a good business? Sure! Who wouldn't want to invest in that.

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jcampbell1
》Also, a 31% conversion rate on all ad-based traffic sounds AMAZING.

31% is the conversion rate for "type your email to see deals". It is not that
unusual.

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LanceJones
Fair enough, but then I question the $0.55 to acquire a customer. You're not a
customer until you BUY something (for etail, anyway). What they're really
talking about is acquiring a prospect for 55 cents. Huge difference.

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tantalor
Check it out if you haven't seen the deck, <http://investors.dressrush.com/>

I think the navigation is a little awkward since some of the slides are much
too large to fit on a single screen, so you end up scrolling and flipping
pages.

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daversa
It's the ol' designer with a 27" cinema display problem.

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Jun8
The Google bikes that three of the founders are riding is a nice touch, a
gentle hint to their expertise?

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dpritchett
I did not realize those were Google bikes the first time I saw the photos.
Thanks for sharing!

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jcampbell1
> "AppSumo for weddings"

People need to stop doing that. Isn't AppSumo Groupon for webapps? Great pitch
otherwise.

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bravura
No, because AppSumo works on a niche and Groupon is general. Also, Groupon is
hemorraging money, which AppSumo doesn't appear to be.

AppSumo for weddings is a perfect pitch.

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tatsuke95
I'm with....most people in saying that this was an extremely nice looking
site/pitch deck.

But it scares me that all the talk and publicity about this BUSINESS is based
on how pretty it made its slideshow. Even to the point that Dressrush pushed
it that way (look at the tweet they sent out. Changing pitch decks, not
changing wedding shopping). It's one thing to get credit for some great
technology and design work, especially on a site like this, but this is being
actively promoted.

How many people here looked at this great deck a week ago, but as of yesterday
couldn't recall what the business did? I'm in that group. AppSumo for
weddings? I guess, except I had to look up what AppSumo was. Seems to me we're
moving so far towards the "ideas don't matter, but tech and talent do" that it
can't be good.

I'm not knocking their business. But I guess that's my point; neither is
anyone else.

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noahc
What you'll find is that often the talk and publicity is the dog and pony show
needed to drive business. That's not to say it isn't valuable; it is. The
problem is that ultimately the dog and pony show has to accomplish it's
objective: get funding. That's the not so easy part.

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akkartik
Lol, I love the exponential curves on the traction slide:
<http://investors.dressrush.com/#slide7>

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bittermang
Well, I don't think it's meant to be taken as a literal graph. The X or Y
axises aren't labelled. But otherwise, yes, a chuckle-worthy presentation of
growth.

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robjohnson
Really not sure how effective the template will be once the novelty wears off,
but still glad they lifted the....dress to show everyone.

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reagan83
The article references the deck "going viral" - that phrase causes me to
immediately lose interest as a reader.

That being said, the deck is beautiful.

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tudorw
So it's a website, about a website ? Am I missing something here ? BTW it does
not seem to work quite right, I am on IE5.5 behind a corporate firewall, I
clicked start 20,000 already and still nothing happens ?

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tricolon
> I am on IE5.5

Well there's your problem!

(No, really.)

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tudorw
This was a joke, forget to include :), here's an extra one for kicks :)

