INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russ HeddlestonContributor
Russ is the cofounder and CEO of DocSend
He was previously a product manager at Facebook, where he arrived via the acquisition of his startup Pursuit.com, and has held roles at
Dropbox, Greystripe, and Trulia
Follow him here: @rheddleston and @docsendMore posts by this contributorFundraising has always been something of a black box
High-flying companies make it seem like a breeze, but most entrepreneurs lose sleep over it
My first startup was called Pursuit.com and although we successfully raised a seed round, it was incredibly tough (we were eventually
product itself reveals big pitching trends in a unique way.Since 2014, over 100,000 users have shared over 2.2 million links through our
document tracking and sharing platform, and these documents have received over 220 million views
business development and customer success
anonymized fundraising data of startups attempting to raise a Seed or an A round.We shared our early learnings in a TechCrunch article in
2015, Lessons from a study of perfect pitch decks
winning seed round pitch deck from those that fail to raise capital While both successful and failed pitch decks are about the same length,
an average of 18 pages, how the content is structured is vastly different
And while investors spend the same amount of time on both, 3.7 minutes on average, where they spend time tells us a lot about what
successful pitches and failed pitches have in common
Below, I detail three mistakes that you want to avoid.If you want to check out more details on what you should do in your deck, read my
it, their unique tech stack, and how convinced they are that they have just the right MVP for launch
But guess whatAll failed pitch decks start with the product
More time on my product slides, right No
not coming away with a clear connection between the two.Your target investors are also not your target customer
Showing screenshots and product details are just confusing for them
What are they looking at Why does this matter Most products are capable of being built; the question they are trying to answer is why is
Successful pitches start with their company purpose, followed by why this team, and why the timing is right for this particular product.All
We read this as investors are spending more time researching your team and your capabilities than they do with successful pitch decks
More time spent on these pages means that investors are not as convinced about this venture as the entrepreneur would like them to be
already a huge business.Image via DocSendMistake 3: Not telling a storyEveryone loves a good story and investors are no exception to this
All successful pitch decks tell a compelling story and follow a similar narrative thread
They start with the company purpose, the big problem they are trying to solve, why now is the right time, and why they are the right team to
Failed pitch decks start with the product, followed by business model, and competitive landscape
Successful decks cover these too but they invariably follow a narrative that makes intuitive sense while in failed decks there is no
compelling narrative.In failed decks, investors spend more time on product, team, and financials, 6 minutes on average, vs
2 minutes in successful decks.Successful decks also get more repeat visits, they are visited 2.3 times more than failed decks and are
forwarded along more often than failed pitch decks.Image via DocSendYour purpose is more important than your productIn the early days,
entrepreneurs spend most of their time conceiving and building their minimum viable product (MVP)
Naturally, they feel compelled to pitch this to investors
Although unintuitive, data suggests that you should restrain yourself from talking about your product before you have painted a narrative
about the business opportunity: why now and why you
Once investors are convinced of those key points, by all means, go through all the product details and roadmaps
My followup article now available on Extra Crunch reveals what our data shows you should do with your deck
challenges change as your company grows
In the meantime, have questions about the best way to raise money Check out our blog or reach out to us on Twitter at: @rheddleston or
