I agree. Unless a start-up is short on cash I don't see why it shouldn't outsource a service like this.
Thinking of solving the problem for start-ups on budget, maybe by offering a plan with a % of what they raise instead of a flat fee.
Seems categorically similar to having someone write your college admission application or your cover letter for a job application. Paying for an advantage where the established system is assuming you’re doing the work yourself and judging you on your ability to do so.
I actually think there is. It's a bit like getting someone else to write your college application essay. The details from the pitch deck reflect the founders and it helps the investors understand the personalities of the person with whom they're dealing. For me, I even think there's information contained in the font choices.
To me, if the pitch deck looks too good, that's a red flag.
That's exactly what I thought when going through the website. If you can't be arsed to build your own pitch deck, then I can't be arsed to listen to your pitch either.
That being said, a number of startup founders, especially technical folks, don't know WHAT to put on a pitch deck, so if this were some kind of service which would provide hints and guidelines to startup founders building pitch decks, then it would be a lot more interesting.
It's a cool idea, but I strongly suggest you guys find a good ex-IB/consulting person who you really trust to give you some ideas of what an A-tier startup pitch deck looks like.
Ideally, this person should have experience with startups as well -- you want someone with both tech/startup savvy and finance/investing savvy, who has a deep understanding of startups and also knows how investors think. You want one of two people. The first is the scrappy 24-year-old ex Goldman/McK/BCG/whatever analyst who can come on board as a potential cofounder. This person will have spent 100 hours a week for 3 years building slide decks, knows the rudiments of effective selling to buy-side people and (more crucially) can happily spam 50-100 people in their extended network for feedback on any given deck.
The other option is to find some age 40+ experienced entrepreneur or finance guy/lady to come on board as a mentor, talk to you for 2 or 3 hours a month, and consistently give you steady but firm nudges in the right direction. This person will give you insights like "you guys know how to design but you need to learn about topics X, Y and Z or you're dead in the water, please read these books/articles ASAP".
With the help of such a person you'll be able to shift from "we're a bunch of guys who build decks" (commodity) to "we're a small team of business and technology specialists who can help turn your fledgling startup into a serious investment prospect" (unique specialists).
You mention UpWork: UpWork is for commodity work, you don't want to do commodity work. And you don't want customers who are even thinking of hiring commodity outsourcers; someone who'd hire an UpWork freelancer to build their startup pitch deck is just dumb. You want founders who are smart enough to know your value.
Your decks look nice, but even speaking as a relative outsider to the startup funding ecosystem the content looks unsophisticated and a bit amateurish. Every VC and angel is constantly pitched by newbie founders chasing the currently hot ideas. Everyone reads the same blog posts and pitches the same metrics. To stand out a startup really has to either explain how they've found a strategic edge (the Bezos approach) or tell a bold narrative about how they can build something truly outstanding (the Jobs approach).
Hiring a freelancer makes sense for polishing slide designs (which is one of your options at the bottom) but the real money will be made working with founders to figure out their pitch from start to finish. Good founders should understand their technology and target markets, and you should be able to help them understand 1) investor decision-making and 2) effective sales/story-telling. Maybe you already know those things but nothing on your site says that you do.
I know this is a lot of unsolicited advice, but I think there's a promising business here; however, you have to know what you're doing to avoid falling into the commodity trap I mentioned above.
You made my day lol! Decided to take inspiration from another website actually, I don't think it's a new trend. (yet ;))
Thanks for the feedback though.
The anime mascot to cover up whitespace in the gutter is a pretty classic look, but it's not particularly professional. It's great for adding personality to a personal project, but for something you're trying to sell...?
The idea is very interesting, but I'm with the people suggesting the style of the site was a big turn off. I watch anime but I'd never dream of inserting something like that into my business site unless I was selling anime subscriptions or something.
I think it may be a disconnect between generations/cultures. I get the feeling this style is more popular with Zoomers, not derogatorily or anything just a difference in style.
If I am an investor, I would mandate all words and chart be written on an 8.5" x 11" white paper. Pitch should be about idea and not fancy graphics and design.
"trust the core ideas of your company, with a random company whose product is slideshows, but because we say pitch decks instead of slideshows, we can charge c-suite rates."
If you can't come up with your own pitch deck how do you expect to actually deal with investors? Or learn to communicate your businesses concepts yourself?
Making the slideshow is part of the work. Like writing is part of the work of having novel ideas. Maybe you can get someone else to write it up, but the act of writing it up teaches you things about your idea and how you communicate.
But if you want to trust this company and pay for their slideshows I guess your time is too valuable to spend on your core messaging, and you should chuck that money away to these nobodies for a slideshow.
When i opened the website, my screen turned bright yellow despite my darkreader extension.
If your website is bright by default and doesn't work with some very basic dark mode extension, i won't bother checking it unless it's super important to me.
Make websites dark by default if you're not able to make a clean website that can be manipulated by the user to their basic requirements.
42 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 92.4 ms ] threadHe writes a column for Bloomberg you can subscribe to for free somehow or other.
I mean, most of the time he's writing about other things, like Elon Musk and bond liquidity, but now and then he mentions pitch decks.
To me, if the pitch deck looks too good, that's a red flag.
That being said, a number of startup founders, especially technical folks, don't know WHAT to put on a pitch deck, so if this were some kind of service which would provide hints and guidelines to startup founders building pitch decks, then it would be a lot more interesting.
Ideally, this person should have experience with startups as well -- you want someone with both tech/startup savvy and finance/investing savvy, who has a deep understanding of startups and also knows how investors think. You want one of two people. The first is the scrappy 24-year-old ex Goldman/McK/BCG/whatever analyst who can come on board as a potential cofounder. This person will have spent 100 hours a week for 3 years building slide decks, knows the rudiments of effective selling to buy-side people and (more crucially) can happily spam 50-100 people in their extended network for feedback on any given deck.
The other option is to find some age 40+ experienced entrepreneur or finance guy/lady to come on board as a mentor, talk to you for 2 or 3 hours a month, and consistently give you steady but firm nudges in the right direction. This person will give you insights like "you guys know how to design but you need to learn about topics X, Y and Z or you're dead in the water, please read these books/articles ASAP".
With the help of such a person you'll be able to shift from "we're a bunch of guys who build decks" (commodity) to "we're a small team of business and technology specialists who can help turn your fledgling startup into a serious investment prospect" (unique specialists).
You mention UpWork: UpWork is for commodity work, you don't want to do commodity work. And you don't want customers who are even thinking of hiring commodity outsourcers; someone who'd hire an UpWork freelancer to build their startup pitch deck is just dumb. You want founders who are smart enough to know your value.
Your decks look nice, but even speaking as a relative outsider to the startup funding ecosystem the content looks unsophisticated and a bit amateurish. Every VC and angel is constantly pitched by newbie founders chasing the currently hot ideas. Everyone reads the same blog posts and pitches the same metrics. To stand out a startup really has to either explain how they've found a strategic edge (the Bezos approach) or tell a bold narrative about how they can build something truly outstanding (the Jobs approach).
Hiring a freelancer makes sense for polishing slide designs (which is one of your options at the bottom) but the real money will be made working with founders to figure out their pitch from start to finish. Good founders should understand their technology and target markets, and you should be able to help them understand 1) investor decision-making and 2) effective sales/story-telling. Maybe you already know those things but nothing on your site says that you do.
I know this is a lot of unsolicited advice, but I think there's a promising business here; however, you have to know what you're doing to avoid falling into the commodity trap I mentioned above.
I'm curious about your background that led you to work on such an idea.
I closed the window immediately, what a strange mascot. Is this style of art more popular than I expect or something?
I like the new graphics a lot more.
Dying to see it now, lol
I think it may be a disconnect between generations/cultures. I get the feeling this style is more popular with Zoomers, not derogatorily or anything just a difference in style.
If you can't come up with your own pitch deck how do you expect to actually deal with investors? Or learn to communicate your businesses concepts yourself?
Making the slideshow is part of the work. Like writing is part of the work of having novel ideas. Maybe you can get someone else to write it up, but the act of writing it up teaches you things about your idea and how you communicate.
But if you want to trust this company and pay for their slideshows I guess your time is too valuable to spend on your core messaging, and you should chuck that money away to these nobodies for a slideshow.