Pitch Deck Teardown: Palau Project's $125k pre-seed deck
Summary
Often these decks arent very good, but its important to remember that they dont have to be.For a small round (say $200,000 or less), most well-connected entrepreneurs will be able to find a group of people who believe in them and are willing to invest in them. Do they have the connections, skills, or experience that gives them an unfair advantage?Heres the truth: If youre considering companies at a very early stage and you cant say yes to both questions with 100% certainty, dont invest. A little later, your plan should match the funds, which should match the milestones youre trying to achieve.At this stage, I just need some money to prove what were trying to do will work, and if the angel investors think it makes sense, you raise money.Ive said before that the only thing that matters is the market size and the team, and Ill come back to that in a moment. How would the manufacturers know that a user has changed their behavior as a result of using an app?You can learn two things from this slide: Make your product demos as simple as you can its easy to understand, visual and impressive. More questions?What you as a startup can learn from this slide is to think about the story youre telling with your stats, because you could be telling the wrong story, or it could raise more questions than it answers.Pretend youre a VC and ask yourself: If a company told me these numbers, what caused the numbers and what do they tell me about where the company is going?The image on the left really hits a point: companies blatantly using greenwashing to pretend theyre sustainable, tree-hugging hippies really do (and Coca-Cola in particular is wrapping itself in some curious green pretzels trying to prove how much they care.