
Pitch decks we used to raise $1.1M - stuartlogan
https://www.twine.fm/blog/pitch-deck-used-to-raise-a-million/
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doctorpangloss
"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.

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oh_sigh
;)

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sfilargi
[deleted]

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stuartlogan
No worries. It was meant to be a joke but I removed due to the downvotes

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throwasehasdwi
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

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corford
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.

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powera
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.

~~~
stuartlogan
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.

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IAmGraydon
"Even the "final" version does because the company has evolved since we closed
our investment round."

Do your investors find that concerning at all?

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stuartlogan
I think they would be more concerned if we didn't evolve. For example, Twitter
isn't just an SMS service anymore

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josephpmay
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.

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alexbeloi
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.

~~~
stuartlogan
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.

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nthtran
What are your mechanisms for this?

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stuartlogan
This article explains it: [http://tech.co/twines-ceo-creative-marketplace-
brings-qualit...](http://tech.co/twines-ceo-creative-marketplace-brings-
quality-gig-economy-2017-04)

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dmitrygr
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?

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dasil003
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.

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wellboy
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.

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Henry1502inc
Isn't this a bit misleading since you had VC's unlike most startups who are
trying to raise money without them

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stuartlogan
Half our money has been from angels

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philip1209
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.

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

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sergiotapia
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](https://cl.ly/0C0K3z2n372c)

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

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krsdcbl
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?

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

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

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

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

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pavlov
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.

