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I've collected over 600 pitch decks

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Re: I've collected over 600 pitch decks

#81

Post by ghc »

drew_m wrote: post #43
luckydata wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a couple spots I know they are. In others there's foresight that the founders simply wouldn't have had. In some the tone is clearly 2 year business student etc... they are not real pitch decks. I've seen more than my share of real ones to know the difference.

Sorry man... I'm sure you have good reasons to question the validity of some of them and I don't doubt your sincerity. It was my understanding that they are all legitimate. I don't want to promote a 2nd year business student's work as an original pitch deck so I can look more closely into the provenance of problem slides if you could name these and I'll either redact them or adjust the title accordingly. Thanks for b…

I just want to add my 2 cents in hope that it's helpful. I'm a co-founder/partner of a seed-stage VC fund and do keep track of the pitch decks we've seen as a partnership over the past two funds spanning six years.

Comparing these decks to the decks I have in our tracker (a dataset of similar size to yours), there's a lot of differences. Even if you only take the pitch decks of the successful companies (most of which we didn't invest in), a lot of these decks look a lot more polished.

Here's what I think is going on: Some decks are undoubtably real seed pitch decks, some decks are demo day decks from accelerators, and a few of these decks (Facebook's, for example) are after-the-fact business school exercises from students.

So, I do think most decks are real, but what's tripping up some people is how polished some of the decks are. True pitch decks used to get a seed round or into an accelerator aren't very polished because you're constantly changing the deck based on feedback over the span of 20-50 pitches. The truth is that many investors I know worry when they see a too-polished deck that everyone else has already seen the deal and passed :-P.

Re: I've collected over 600 pitch decks

#83

Post by ttul »

drew_m wrote: post #41
ttul wrote: post #40

The pitch deck is only good if the concept, team, and opportunity are good. A pitch deck should not be hard to put together if you have those three things on your side. If you do not, no slick pitch deck will really help you.

Not that I have first-hand experience at successfully pitching for huge money, but I completely agree. A lot of successful companies have average pitch decks but have great content on their side. One takeaway I've gotten from this side-project is that with pitch decks design doesn't matter but story-telling does.

The archive of pitch decks is really just post hoc confirmation of what were excellent, well-timed, and well-executed business plans. Imagine the thousands of great pitches that didn't end so well. I have seen many excellent teams with great pitches that failed for reasons entirely outside their control and reasonable ability to anticipate.

Re: I've collected over 600 pitch decks

#84

Post by superhuzza »

underdeserver wrote: post #80

The AirBnB one I thought was particularly good. Clean preso, no superfluous information, readable, addresses all the concerns, short and to the point. The reddit one is the exact opposite in that regard, but it has cats.

>The reddit one is the exact opposite in that regard, but it has cats.

I came to comment about this, it seemed particularly bad. I can only imagine doing this if I wanted to send a message of:

"We don't really need you - we're not taking this seriously at all".

Re: I've collected over 600 pitch decks

#85

Post by coolspot »

spurdoman77 wrote: post #64
gitgud wrote: post #56

It's the funny that Facebook were pitching advertising to investors in 2004, and they didn't have any ads until 2007. It's also interesting that there's no information on sources or anything to explain these pitch decks. I'm pretty sure the original would not start with " Facebook's original pitch deck ", so how much each pitch has been altered? Also survivor-ship bias... these are all highly sucessful companies with…

Successful startups dont really need that good pitch decks or pitching in general, because the metrics speak for themselves. Would be certainly more interesting to see Juicero pitch deck.

For Theranos I guess it was roughly:

1) list of big names advising or on board of directors acquired through connections

2) total adressable market of blood tests

3) current cost and complexity - need full vial for each single test

4) promise of lower cost and complexity - just one drop of blood

5) at some point down the time line they likely have added DoD contract and Walgreens partnership

Re: I've collected over 600 pitch decks

#86

Post by metafunctor »

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #76
metafunctor wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you are admitting some of the decks have been fabricated? Which ones?

If you read the comments here you'll find the author saying "I don't want to promote a 2nd year business student's work as an original pitch deck so I can look more closely into the provenance of problem slides if you could name these and I'll either redact them or adjust the title accordingly. Thanks for bringing this up :)" Don't think it's quite as dramatic as you imply here, and I don't think anyone is deliberate…

The site claims these are original pitch decks from famous companies. Exciting!

So, I look at a a couple, but quickly get the feeling that these may not be genuine, that this site might be theonion of pitch decks, or something. I go to HN comments to see what others think.

I was disappointed to find that the author of the site apparently doesn't really know if these are real or not. I'd like to see more than a passive aggressive "oh gee thanks this was a fun project 2nd year business student blah blah I'll look into it", when the site clearly claims to show me “Facebook's original pitch deck” as the FIRST one which is very obviously not genuine.

Re: I've collected over 600 pitch decks

#87

Post by drew_m »

gitgud wrote: post #56

It's the funny that Facebook were pitching advertising to investors in 2004, and they didn't have any ads until 2007. It's also interesting that there's no information on sources or anything to explain these pitch decks. I'm pretty sure the original would not start with " Facebook's original pitch deck ", so how much each pitch has been altered? Also survivor-ship bias... these are all highly sucessful companies with…

Thanks for bringing this up. I've taken the FB deck down. It was a mistake for me not to properly vet each of them before uploading them and it does look pretty dubious.

Re: I've collected over 600 pitch decks

#88

Post by drew_m »

Addressing the issue of fake pitch decks:

I gathered the decks from a variety of sources on the web and trusted they were originals. Although interpretations of company pitch decks may be of value for some people. I'd rather this be a collection of original pitch decks.

If I had have known this would receive the interest it got, I would have spent more time vetting them before uploading. The vast majority of them are originals and come from demo days of accelerators. But going through them again, some of them do indeed look dubious and I've removed them. I'm working on adding sources/references to each of the decks as well some of the other great ideas people have had.

If anyone notices pitches that don't look to be originals please comment here and I'll take them down. Thanks :)

Re: I've collected over 600 pitch decks

#90

Post by safwans »

drew_m wrote: post #21
stevenicr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see this too - I could learn from this when offline / at slow interwebs places.. and it's the kind of bite sized learning that lends itself to short bursts like waiting in line and such.

The thought didn't cross my mind when I was building it but come to think of it, it's actually something I'd like too. It would be nice to be able download them for traveling. I can implement it so

I'd love to see that feature also
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