
Six Slides - Chirag
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/06/six-slides.html
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thafman
I think six slides + an actual working MVP with some traction is probably the
best proposition for first-time funding.

Keeping your deck to just six slides, when you have nothing else to show might
not be the best idea.

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ojbyrne
My disdain for Powerpoint culture makes me ask, while we're cutting, how about
we just drop the six slides and show the product?

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replicatorblog
You can forward .ppt slides around in larger groups and help provide the
context for the product. Also, while investors/partners seem to not always
believe the slides they help visualize your thinking on the market
opportunity/product e.g.

1\. Team - Are the founders going to be able to grow the business, what have
they built before.

2\. Market - What is the market and how do you frame it. How big is this
opportunity? Who are your partners, where are you distributed?

3\. Economics - Sales projections, unit economics, how money would be spent
(Hiring, marketing, etc.)

4\. Competition - Are you aware of the competitors and what is your strategy
to compete? How are people solving this problem now why are their solutions
not good enough?

5\. Pipeline - Your MVP is likely rough, how are you going to improve it? What
is the timeline.

Obviously not needed for all projects, but if you need investment or to hook a
3rd party these questions are going to come up and are hard to communicate via
product.

Definitely the case where software is part of a solution not the end all
product. Key to have a deck for biz dev and other commercial situations.

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ojbyrne
Your argument is reasonable, I'm just sad that the people who control the
money have the cognitive level of 6 year olds.

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ojbyrne
I guess the person(s) who voted me down haven't read Tufte:

<http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_pp>

or Norvig:

<http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/>

and assumed I was making some random insult. I'm not.

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dcx
_"I made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it
shorter."_ \-- Blaise Pascal

This is an interesting pattern! You start with simple and wrong. You improve
it, and become complex and right. You master it, and finish simple and right.
And then you have six slides.

It seems to happen in every human discipline - writing/speech, math, games,
physical activities, philosophy. And many languages have the same kind of word
or concept: elegant, sprezzatura, shibumi.

I wonder if there are any good general techniques for minimising the jump in
the middle?

~~~
etal
That's evolution. Start with something that works, add something else that's
available, try it out, then see what you can drop.

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JoeAltmaier
So, where are they? Show me the 6 slides so I can see how its done. Sounds
like he's blowing smoke.

~~~
fredwilson
i am not blowing smoke

i cannot share the slide decks of our portfolio companies for obvious reasons

we are thinking of showing ours that we raised our first VC fund with in 2003
and 2004 but i am not sure how helpful that will be to entrepreneurs

