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The deck we used to raise our seed funding

airbyte.io

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Re: The deck we used to raise our seed funding

#111
post #13

Interesting to see the competitive analysis with Fivetran in the article but then see almost identical copies of infographics used between their site and Fivetran's. Airbyte: https://airbyte.io/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Airbyte-Seed-D... Fivetran: https://images.cms.fivetran.com/mgtdf72hs0mx/6qYtmEEotXqScar...

segment work with a similar visual: https://segment.com/product/connections/?ref=nav

Re: The deck we used to raise our seed funding

#113

* after getting funded by YC. This deck without the YC stamp would probably not be sufficient for serious investors for a variety of reasons: Missing market size, addressable market, and market growth, doesn't answer the question of "why now"? (whereas why this and why you is answered). It isn't a bad deck but let's be honest here.

No, that's not how VCs work. The pitch deck first and foremost tells a story with the objective to get a VC interested - or not. This is a necessary but not a sufficient step in the process. Think of it as a marketing prospectus or a 'door opener' type of thing. If a VC is indeed interested they will conduct intensive due diligence and leave no stone unturned.

In our case, we're disrupting a well-known industry. So only a non-educated investor would ask for the total addressable market, and the "why now". Both are pretty obvious if you know the industry.

Having investors ask us about those was a strong signal that those VCs didn't know enough about our market, so they wouldn't be great partners for you.

However, in a standard pitch, I would agree those slides need to be there, especially if you're creating a new category. On our side, we're disrupting a well-known one, so not the same.

Re: The deck we used to raise our seed funding

#115

For those of us not in the the SV area... when I do stuff like this I have some slides (not nearly as pretty), but really they are a small part of the presentation. I would also have supplied a prospectus with a business plan etc. Is that the case with YC too, or is it really slide_deck>$$$$?

Honestly, it depends on your stage. But seed stage, only a slide deck.

Re: The deck we used to raise our seed funding

#117

Step one: join YC. Step two raise seed. Seriously, this deck would likely not have flown without the YC backing and implicit stamp of approval, once you are in YC you'd have to do pretty bad not to raise seed funding.

I wonder if there is any YC company that failed to even raise Seed Round.

A friend of mine went through YC but then had to close without any funding due to RIAA

Re: The deck we used to raise our seed funding

#118

* after getting funded by YC. This deck without the YC stamp would probably not be sufficient for serious investors for a variety of reasons: Missing market size, addressable market, and market growth, doesn't answer the question of "why now"? (whereas why this and why you is answered). It isn't a bad deck but let's be honest here.

No, that's not how VCs work. The pitch deck first and foremost tells a story with the objective to get a VC interested - or not. This is a necessary but not a sufficient step in the process. Think of it as a marketing prospectus or a 'door opener' type of thing. If a VC is indeed interested they will conduct intensive due diligence and leave no stone unturned.

> Think of it as a marketing prospectus or a 'door opener' type of thing.

YC and other accelerators help to get in the door though. My first deck was worse than this but we ended up with USV at seed (thanks to the accelerator, in my opinion), which opened the doors through B/C and out.

Re: The deck we used to raise our seed funding

#119
post #76
post #9

Great post. After just going through a 6 month, pain-filled fund raise for an open source database (big on integration), this is probably the most upsetting thing I have ever read in my life. Far away from Silicon Valley with no flashy credentials, 13 days is an impossible dream. That said, massive kudos to the team for such clear storytelling & delivery.

> Far away from Silicon Valley This could end up helping much more than hurting long-term. Engineering salaries in the Bay Area are insane. Salaries for engineers in the US overall are very high. If you’re in Europe, you can likely afford 2-3x more engineers than your competitors for the same amount of $ raised.

that's true, but they get more money at better valuations so it balances out -> and engineer headcount is a bad predictor of success! It is as much the experience of taking a database/dev tool and going big that's lacking outside SV -> marketing, operations etc. Plenty of talented engineers (and marketers) around the world, very few engineers who have built a MuleSoft or a Snowflake.

Re: The deck we used to raise our seed funding

#120

Step one: join YC. Step two raise seed. Seriously, this deck would likely not have flown without the YC backing and implicit stamp of approval, once you are in YC you'd have to do pretty bad not to raise seed funding.

I wonder if there is any YC company that failed to even raise Seed Round.

We (YC S20) had issues raising our round after demo day, a good number of investors we spoke with were series A focused while claiming to be "early stage" investors. Long story short, we ended up pivoting, considered the amount we raised (under $500k) as pre-seed, and now are actively moving in direction of profitability instead of taking outside capital.
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