[throwasehasdwi]

All this tells me is that a slide deck matters little, if at all. There's hardly anything on these slides except some marketing bs. None of the graphs even show important metrics.

I'm sure what was said when the deck was presented was far more influential

[corford]

You shouldn't dismiss it so quickly. The deck does exactly what it needs to do if your objective is getting face time with VCs as an early stage start-up:

1. Kept it under 15 slides

2. Used tight copy to succinctly get across what they do, why they're doing it, what their "angle" is and how big the space is

3. Illustrated some traction and hustle

4. Showed the team wasn't completely wet behind the years (and that they could successfully recruit and execute)

5. Outlined a plausible initial growth strategy

6. Signalled some social proof: from early investors and happy users

7. Wrapped it up in a clean design and sensible slide sequence

It's harder than it looks.

Edit: and that's just the deck. Chances are they will have had to plough hundreds of hours in to: networking, google+linkedin+crunchbase+angel list deep dives building a VC pipeline, reading countless money raising blogs/books/podcasts and practising their in-person pitch for when they do get a meeting (not to mention making sure their existing cap table wasn't fucked up from earlier FFF investments, if they had any). After all that comes a probable 75% to 95% rejection rate from the final list of VCs they drew up and managed to get a meeting with [and you have to keep the company moving, growing and developing while you do all of this].

Basically, if you're early stage and a founder who doesn't already have one or two notable previous wins under your belt, there's a lot of background shit you need to do before you even have a chance of getting in a room with a credible VC and winning them over with a slick sales pitch. An effective deck is one of those things.

[alexbeloi]

If you look through the marketing lingo, this does show some basic info that every investor wants to know:

* who are the founders and what is their experience?

* what is it? (freelance network for creatives)

* what is the size of the market? ($500b)

* what is the business model? (20% cut for arranging contracts)

* growth rate? (linear, but decent)

Things some people might want to know that were missing

* who are your competitors?

* how much are you asking for? for what portion of your company?

You say they're missing important metrics. What metrics are you looking for? They gave user growth, money in contracts posted in a month, and even gave user retention rate and contract acceptance rate.

[ganoushoreilly]

It's more about having the connections to pitch to the right investors. I think people see a pitch deck as the answer similarly to the mindset of presentations in business (powerpoint), often failing to realize the pitch is the pitch and the deck is a supplement. A well crafted deck is to support a well crafted pitch, not the other way around. A lot of want-reprenuers I've met haven't learned this and think flashy decks are the answer to good old fashion salesmanship.

[stuartlogan]

You're totally right, a deck alone won't do anything. This opens to door to speak to someone.