[HN Gopher] Show HN: Never make a pitch deck yourself again. We ...
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Show HN: Never make a pitch deck yourself again. We will take care
of that
Author : saliagato
Score : 32 points
Date : 2022-10-10 13:44 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (deckly.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (deckly.co)
| Qtips87 wrote:
| 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.
| saliagato wrote:
| why not both? One doesn't exclude the other.
| Qtips87 wrote:
| Because I don't want my judgement to be tainted by fancy
| graphics and design.
| voakbasda wrote:
| Hand written. In ink.
| alvarlagerlof wrote:
| If you don't want to be able to read it
| casey2 wrote:
| wtf is a pitch deak? and why is it on "Hacker News"
| booi wrote:
| I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not..
| silisili wrote:
| New name for powerpoint presentation, it would seem.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| It's basically like a take-home code challenge where you're
| doing work for someone more rich with little chance of getting
| the job.
| intelVISA wrote:
| it's a money hack
| saliagato wrote:
| got you bro. https://deckly.co/blog/what-is-a-pitch-deck-and-
| how-to-make-...
| ShivShankaran wrote:
| it's a free money glitch for smooth talkers and charmers.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| I can't imagine an entrepreneur that can't be bothered to write
| their own pitch deck...
| saliagato wrote:
| there is nothing wrong with getting help from professional.
| Especially if that means saving time on something that is not
| product-related.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| 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.
| fakedang wrote:
| 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.
| gnrlst wrote:
| Shouldn't you put your company info on the website? especially if
| it's a company registered in Italy? (i.e. partita iva & ragione
| sociale)
| saliagato wrote:
| Just started out. Taking advantage of a 30 day policy law.
| ianbutler wrote:
| 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.
| IsaacL wrote:
| 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.
| JamesGriffin wrote:
| This comment is absolutely brilliant and great advice. Wish I
| could upvote it multiple times.
| saliagato wrote:
| This is gold. Thank you so much! I will be working on
| everything you mentioned.
| IsaacL wrote:
| No problem! My email is in my profile if you want to chat
| more.
|
| I'm curious about your background that led you to work on
| such an idea.
| skyyler wrote:
| When I open the page I'm greeted with a large deviantart quality
| anime drawing.
|
| I closed the window immediately, what a strange mascot. Is this
| style of art more popular than I expect or something?
| saliagato wrote:
| 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.
| jamestimmins wrote:
| I had a similar reaction
| dannyw wrote:
| I imagine there's a market for this, but this feels unethical.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Everything that can be outsourced to a specialist should be
| (unless you have serious reasons not to), shouldn't it?
| saliagato wrote:
| 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.
| bobro wrote:
| 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.
| saliagato wrote:
| Why? Genuinely curious
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| Is this kinda like Slide Bean?
| [deleted]
| LegitShady wrote:
| "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.
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(page generated 2022-10-10 23:01 UTC)