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Show HN: A curated library of venture capital investment pitch decks

127 points by chdaniel 7y ago

chdaniel 7y ago
Hi all, We’ve needed this for ourselves since we saw these pitch decks pop up on LinkedIn every few weeks. We wanted a library with all these pitches curated, but what we found was either: not going deep enough or a 404 return of a now-defunct website. Personally, that's what I find the most interesting: the early days. Not how big companies look like today and what decisions they take now — but rather what decisions got them there from the early days. Because when we start, we're in that position. I hope it will inspire you but, more importantly, I hope you’ll do something with it.
dstick 7y ago
Thanks for compiling this. Too bad Uber makes up 4/5th of your title’s claim ;-) Read Lost ans Founder a while back so nice to see Moz in there!
- chdaniel 7y ago
  It's like half isn't it? Heard ONLY good things about Lost and Founder — is it that good of a book you reckon? What stood out for you?
  - dstick 7y ago
    His openheartedness about the startup myth and the downsides of accepting VC money. What I really liked as well was his growth as an entrepreneur and how he valued his team. All in all it was a really relatable honest story about his journey. It definitely made me more aware of the pros and cons of VC and what the relentless pursuit of growth above all else does to an entrepreneur emotionally. And it made me do a second take of the “Why”. I think about his story quite a bit actually, more than most of the bio books I’ve read. There’s no chestpuffing or sugar coating at all :) Refreshing read.
luminati 7y ago
This is certainly a helpful resource but quite conflicted on whether Theranos' deck should be in here (along with the disclaimer) even if it's just for historical purposes.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Why wouldn’t it be? These aren’t examples of how to run a company. They are examples of pitch decks from companies that successfully raised venture capital. Raising a ton of venture money is the one thing that theranos succeeded at. In fact, even labeling some companies as failed doesn't help much. Might be more useful to see pitch decks from companies that failed to successfully raise any money.
  - chdaniel 7y ago
    Hi J, maker here. I would love to death to have pitches from those who have failed to raise money as that would actually fix the "survivorship bias" for raising money. What we put there would be eliminating the bias for... running a company I guess. Thanks for adding the comment, it was what I had in mind when we added Theranos. In fact, maybe Theranos teaches us what kind of behaviour/talk "slips" through VCs, thus making us understand how we, the founders, will pick the VCs. I know, not a popular opinion for US to pick VCs — but we need to start spreading this idea of selectivity. Not stupid selectivity ("I deserve this. Give me that"), but rather the one that makes us weed out those who don't have the acumen to tell between Theranos, a fraud, and a real startup Sequoia didn't invest in Theranos. Index, Benchmark or Andreessen Horowitz didn't. Maybe we can learn from Theranos' deck how we can pluck out those VCs.
- abraae 7y ago
  Au contraire, raising heaps of money on a pure vapor product just might be the mark of a truly powerful pitch deck.
tnolet 7y ago
Useful, but a shame none come with any extra context. Just the “from 300k to 9billion” blurb. Have a look at Buffer. Already had around 5 investors before going for a big round. Not dissing this at all. This is totally normal, but the less experienced might think one nice pitch deck will get you from 0 to Billions in one round.
- chdaniel 7y ago
  Hi Tim, glad to see you here. In other places where I've posted this, I've also added the following bit "We've added the "early days" only on some of them, let us know if you find it valuable and we can cover the rest as well." Wasn't sure whether people would want it. Glad to read your comment and to learn that people do want it. @Buffer — For MySQL or Monzo, for instance, we've added how it wasn't the seed. I understand what you're saying — I guess if someone does believe that they would... assume... by themselves that they're all "seed stage pitches"?
vmurthy 7y ago
Great resource! Thanks for compiling this. From the other side of the table, Scott Kupor (a16z) has written a new book[1] "Secrets of Sand Hill Road". I look around and find mostly positive reviews for this. Yet to pick it up. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Sand-Hill-Road-Capital-ebook/dp/B07KLJQ13R/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1560841825&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Sand-Hill-Road-Capital-ebook/...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
skrebbel 7y ago
This is very cool. That said, the fact that Theranos is in here without any commentary puts me off a bit. That's not a pitch deck, it's a fraud deck. This is like putting Al Capone in a list of "inspiring stories about hardball entrepreneurs".
- floodyberry- 7y ago
  You'll need to annotate or remove a lot more than Theranos if you're worried about truth or ethics
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- chdaniel 7y ago
  The headline of the website is "helping founder craft successful VC pitches". Emotions and controversies aside, Theranos did raise capital. No, I don't think it's nice to do what they've done (or smart, for that matter). But you want to see both ends of a spectrum, otherwise we'll fall prey to the survivorship bias. Hence, we've put up the "failed" category and didn't really want to give Theranos a category in itself called "fraud". Again, controversy aside, I think there are lessons to be learned from them. People can misinterpret what I'm saying here and say I'm pushing them to commit fraud, but from my end it's more of a "This is how you should not do it" We need to know both ends of an interval
  - skrebbel 7y ago
    The argument here seems to be "to raise capital, tell investors whatever they want to hear, irrespective of how true it is. Pass DD by covering up your lies, then cover up the coverups". This is supposed to be a curated list of VC pitches. I honestly don't understand how Theranos, a company that raised and grew solely by spreading lies and then covering them up, can end up in a list like that, except if the authors of said list think that this is a good way to raise money. I don't understand how it is that everybody agrees that stealing a painting from a museum is bad, but when you steal billions (!) from investors then suddenly it's "inspiration". EDIT: I hadn't yet realized you're the author. > but from my end it's more of a "This is how you should not do it" This is a good point, and with that I think it makes more sense. But IMO it needs a much bigger "fraud alert! don't do this, these people are evil" note :-)
founderling 7y ago
The headlines all seem totally wrong. Uber: $1.25M VC capital turned into $84.2B That sounds like the guys who invested $1.25M now own $84B worth of Uber stock. I don't think that is even remotely true. I would think there came many more investors who put in more money. And that's how the vast majority of the $84B market cap was created.
- chdaniel 7y ago
  Sad to hear the mark was missed - I'm looking at it from the founder/s' perspective since this is a place where founders hang (less so investors) They made a $84.2B company and started with that investment. Yes, the story is longer, multiple investment rounds were gathered but in a nutshell, we can look at it from this angle
outofoffice 7y ago
Very cool!

127 points by chdaniel 7y ago

Hi all, We’ve needed this for ourselves since we saw these pitch decks pop up on LinkedIn every few weeks. We wanted a library with all these pitches curated, but what we found was either: not going deep enough or a 404 return of a now-defunct website. Personally, that's what I find the most interesting: the early days. Not how big companies look like today and what decisions they take now — but rather what decisions got them there from the early days. Because when we start, we're in that position. I hope it will inspire you but, more importantly, I hope you’ll do something with it.

dstick 7y ago

Thanks for compiling this. Too bad Uber makes up 4/5th of your title’s claim ;-) Read Lost ans Founder a while back so nice to see Moz in there!

chdaniel 7y ago
It's like half isn't it? Heard ONLY good things about Lost and Founder — is it that good of a book you reckon? What stood out for you?
- dstick 7y ago
  His openheartedness about the startup myth and the downsides of accepting VC money. What I really liked as well was his growth as an entrepreneur and how he valued his team. All in all it was a really relatable honest story about his journey. It definitely made me more aware of the pros and cons of VC and what the relentless pursuit of growth above all else does to an entrepreneur emotionally. And it made me do a second take of the “Why”. I think about his story quite a bit actually, more than most of the bio books I’ve read. There’s no chestpuffing or sugar coating at all :) Refreshing read.

luminati 7y ago

This is certainly a helpful resource but quite conflicted on whether Theranos' deck should be in here (along with the disclaimer) even if it's just for historical purposes.

jjeaff 7y ago
Why wouldn’t it be? These aren’t examples of how to run a company. They are examples of pitch decks from companies that successfully raised venture capital. Raising a ton of venture money is the one thing that theranos succeeded at. In fact, even labeling some companies as failed doesn't help much. Might be more useful to see pitch decks from companies that failed to successfully raise any money.
- chdaniel 7y ago
  Hi J, maker here. I would love to death to have pitches from those who have failed to raise money as that would actually fix the "survivorship bias" for raising money. What we put there would be eliminating the bias for... running a company I guess. Thanks for adding the comment, it was what I had in mind when we added Theranos. In fact, maybe Theranos teaches us what kind of behaviour/talk "slips" through VCs, thus making us understand how we, the founders, will pick the VCs. I know, not a popular opinion for US to pick VCs — but we need to start spreading this idea of selectivity. Not stupid selectivity ("I deserve this. Give me that"), but rather the one that makes us weed out those who don't have the acumen to tell between Theranos, a fraud, and a real startup Sequoia didn't invest in Theranos. Index, Benchmark or Andreessen Horowitz didn't. Maybe we can learn from Theranos' deck how we can pluck out those VCs.
abraae 7y ago
Au contraire, raising heaps of money on a pure vapor product just might be the mark of a truly powerful pitch deck.

tnolet 7y ago

Useful, but a shame none come with any extra context. Just the “from 300k to 9billion” blurb. Have a look at Buffer. Already had around 5 investors before going for a big round. Not dissing this at all. This is totally normal, but the less experienced might think one nice pitch deck will get you from 0 to Billions in one round.

chdaniel 7y ago
Hi Tim, glad to see you here. In other places where I've posted this, I've also added the following bit "We've added the "early days" only on some of them, let us know if you find it valuable and we can cover the rest as well." Wasn't sure whether people would want it. Glad to read your comment and to learn that people do want it. @Buffer — For MySQL or Monzo, for instance, we've added how it wasn't the seed. I understand what you're saying — I guess if someone does believe that they would... assume... by themselves that they're all "seed stage pitches"?

vmurthy 7y ago

Great resource! Thanks for compiling this. From the other side of the table, Scott Kupor (a16z) has written a new book[1] "Secrets of Sand Hill Road". I look around and find mostly positive reviews for this. Yet to pick it up. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Sand-Hill-Road-Capital-ebook/dp/B07KLJQ13R/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1560841825&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Sand-Hill-Road-Capital-ebook/...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

skrebbel 7y ago

This is very cool. That said, the fact that Theranos is in here without any commentary puts me off a bit. That's not a pitch deck, it's a fraud deck. This is like putting Al Capone in a list of "inspiring stories about hardball entrepreneurs".

floodyberry- 7y ago
You'll need to annotate or remove a lot more than Theranos if you're worried about truth or ethics
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
chdaniel 7y ago
The headline of the website is "helping founder craft successful VC pitches". Emotions and controversies aside, Theranos did raise capital. No, I don't think it's nice to do what they've done (or smart, for that matter). But you want to see both ends of a spectrum, otherwise we'll fall prey to the survivorship bias. Hence, we've put up the "failed" category and didn't really want to give Theranos a category in itself called "fraud". Again, controversy aside, I think there are lessons to be learned from them. People can misinterpret what I'm saying here and say I'm pushing them to commit fraud, but from my end it's more of a "This is how you should not do it" We need to know both ends of an interval
- skrebbel 7y ago
  The argument here seems to be "to raise capital, tell investors whatever they want to hear, irrespective of how true it is. Pass DD by covering up your lies, then cover up the coverups". This is supposed to be a curated list of VC pitches. I honestly don't understand how Theranos, a company that raised and grew solely by spreading lies and then covering them up, can end up in a list like that, except if the authors of said list think that this is a good way to raise money. I don't understand how it is that everybody agrees that stealing a painting from a museum is bad, but when you steal billions (!) from investors then suddenly it's "inspiration". EDIT: I hadn't yet realized you're the author. > but from my end it's more of a "This is how you should not do it" This is a good point, and with that I think it makes more sense. But IMO it needs a much bigger "fraud alert! don't do this, these people are evil" note :-)

founderling 7y ago

The headlines all seem totally wrong. Uber: $1.25M VC capital turned into $84.2B That sounds like the guys who invested $1.25M now own $84B worth of Uber stock. I don't think that is even remotely true. I would think there came many more investors who put in more money. And that's how the vast majority of the $84B market cap was created.

chdaniel 7y ago
Sad to hear the mark was missed - I'm looking at it from the founder/s' perspective since this is a place where founders hang (less so investors) They made a $84.2B company and started with that investment. Yes, the story is longer, multiple investment rounds were gathered but in a nutshell, we can look at it from this angle

outofoffice 7y ago

Very cool!