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Similar to this: I raised a seed round with a deck that was (deliberately) just black Times New Roman text on a white background, plus a few screenshots. The pr
by alasdair_ 3y ago
Similar to this: I raised a seed round with a deck that was (deliberately) just black Times New Roman text on a white background, plus a few screenshots. The product was also deliberately simple and rough around the edges.
I stole an idea from Joel Spolskey and made beta features in the app have graphics that were literally drawn in crayon, to make it clear they were unfinished and to make it easy to test changes.
Investors liked the deck. It made it clear that what mattered was the content, not the presentation.
- jjeaff 3y agoI wonder what percentage of investors might actually draw the conclusion that while you may have a great product, you might be bad at marketing it? Because, while lots of engineers would like to think that the success of a product is due to the tech and features, the reality is that good market can make a crap product successful a lot more often than a good product can overcome bad marketing and presentation. Craigslist seems to be an exception rather than the rule.
- blululu 3y agoIt might have been great marketing for the same sort of counter signaling as the Mark Zuckerberg hoodie. “A man who can dress that poorly must be really good”. Craigslist is an outlier in many ways. The most significant is that they did not raise huge venture rounds so they have never been existentially committed to fulfilling an investor’s opinion of what a top 25 website should be.
- asdfman123 3y agoSimilar to this: consistently be a total weirdo and end up with a girl that actually likes you. (Don’t ask me how I know)
- nonethewiser 3y agoThis is a tangent, but perhaps similar to what you are saying. Dare to stand out. Even if it’s unpopular and immediately pushes away 90% of people. Your goal when dating is not to make everyone like you. It’s to find one person that loves you.
- asdfman123 3y agoThe real "be yourself" advice means "be true to yourself." Do be real about who you are and what you care about (innate to you), don't be rude and poorly prepared (not innate to you).
- hluska 3y agoThis chain of messages was unexpected but filled with great info. Good advice - thanks for sharing.
- bombcar 3y agoAnd if you're playing a part to get a result; you'll have to keep playing that part. It can work for a job, but it's a shaky basis for a long-term relationship.
- WalterBright 3y ago> Do be real about who you are and what you care about All of us have tendencies that are better repressed. This is why we have a brain.
- asdfman123 3y agoThere’s obviously nuance to it
- Dudeman112 3y agoThe "be the real you" crowd never quite has a good answer for "what if the real you is an unlovable, broken piece of shit?", do they?
- asdfman123 3y agoThere is an answer once you’re willing to break out of the cycle of self pity that’s trapping you there.
- 3y ago
- forrestthewoods 3y ago> I stole an idea from Joel Spolskey and made beta features in the app have graphics that were literally drawn in crayon As a programmer I refuse to waste any cycles on “slightly better than shit programmer art”. Nope. Colors are magenta, font is Arial, and 3D models are all teapots. It serves two purposes. It signals this is genuinely temp and forces artist/designers to update it. The danger of making it better is it’s good enough for mocks, shouldn’t ship, but ships because no one took the time to update.
- logbiscuitswave 3y agoI don’t do PowerPoint presentations often, but whenever I do this is basically what I do. Blank template, just enough text (in the default font), sparse animations/transitions (reserved only for slides when exposition is useful for clarity), and light on graphics.
- antonvs 3y ago> Investors liked the deck How many dollars were invested as a result?