That’s a good point - I went back and forth on what to base my sample slides off of. Ultimately, it was important to me to protect the privacy of the founders I work with, and was worried that any non-meta example I used would be taken to resemble any company I had worked with. I also didn’t want founders to copy the deck wholesale, but instead to adapt it to their specific situation, so I chose an example that doesn’t apply to any startup. Of course, the numbers used shouldn’t be taken too seriously anyway :)
I’d argue that for the majority of founders, they’re both important - knowing someone gets you in the door, but having a compelling pitch and story (with the metrics to back it up, which assumes you’ve done the hard work to build a solid business) is what you need to get to a term sheet. Of course, there are always exceptions - like the extraordinarily well connected founder who’s had a successful prior exit might be able to raise purely on the basis of relationships and reputation.
i've seen many founders in my direct vicinity raise lots of money simply because of who they know or charisma, and with a very short deck with basically just an idea and nothing more. i've also seen other founders who were super nerdy and crazy talented, and wrote a library/toolkit that became very succesful, and who never raised any money despite endless pitch decks and actual revenue and customers. IMHO investors just want to invest in copies of themselves instead of making the right decision and investing in someone smart who they might not relate to or like. finally, if you have relationships and charisma, then most likely you haven't had time to actually build something. those who build don't have time for networking or public speaking.
Analogies can be helpful if they're straightforward and accurate, and the company you're comparing yourself to is well-known and has a $1B+ market cap (at minimum). Beware of using analogies that are either overly convoluted or inaccurate. As I suggest in this guide, you can test out whether or not the analogy works by trying it out on a couple people that know nothing about your business and asking them to explain back to you what your company does.
Right - it's why we suggest founders start with a one-liner that describes what they do right now, that's clear enough that investors have a concrete picture of it in their heads. Once they've established that foundation, they can cast the vision / make the argument of what $B company that foundation allows them to build towards.
Credibility comes from both the progress you've made with your company, as well as the relationship you build with the investor. We cover how to build credibility in your relationships with Series A investors in our Series A guide (https://www.ycombinator.com/library/1s-relationships). In short, the best way to establish credibility is to consistently predict an ambitious goal and achieve it.
We talk about this in the "Relationships" section of our Series A guide (https://www.ycombinator.com/library/1s-relationships), but in short: introductions from other entrepreneurs and your existing seed investors that can't lead an A themselves (typically, if you're raising an A, you've raised previous rounds of funding).
Very true - simplicity is probably the #1 thing I emphasize. Often founders are so in the weeds that they forget investors are learning about their company for the very first time, and information overload is real.
Thank you! That's definitely a good one; just wanted to flesh out a little what each slide in the deck is meant to accomplish -- and how to knit it all together into a coherent narrative.
That's critical, of course! The advice here assumes you have a solid business, existing relationships with or warm connections to investors, etc. and that's why YC helps with those parts.
Over the course of working with 128 founders who've collectively raised $1.5B in Series As from 100 different investors over the past 2 years, I found I was giving a lot of the same advice - especially it came to how to most effectively tell the stories of their companies. I've decided to open source that advice - hoping any company looking to go down the venture capital route and raise an A will find it helpful!
It feels very helpful, thanks. It's good to have things informed by lots of deals as opposed to speculation.
In my experience the conversation eventually has to be about the product you're selling at the moment - preferred shares in a private company. It may be that for the founders you work with, your role is to sell the actual financial product.
"This is how your preferred shares will increase the fund's IRR and fit with the investment themes and click for LPs" is really all people who actually write checks need to hear.
To some extent the preponderance of rich fools is the ultimate refutation of the very idea of a deck. You're really selling a high-risk, high-reward opportunity via a financial instrument your buyer will repeat-buy, and you should focus on communicating these fungible aspects of what you do instead of what makes you special.
