Ask HN: Review my Pitch Deck

[polquaser]

Hi guys,

I'm a tech founder based in Europe. I've come up with a concept for this really innovative social game and I've been building on this idea for the last few months. I think I have a lot going for me:

-> I've built most of the game server technology, I'm a competent developer and I can do most of the back-end / client work by myself.

-> I've come up with the branding, a snazzy marketing site and started work on the Game UI; paid for entirely out of my own pocket. I think that shows I'm willing to back my idea as is the fact that I've quit my job and work on my consulting company / this idea full time.

-> I've written a comprehensive business plan and slide deck (see my profile) explaining my business model.

-> I've got pro bono marketing support from a bunch of Twitter account with over 4m followers which are very specific to the niche I'm targeting... I launched a small and very poorly designed prediction game and we got almost 1200 users in a couple of weeks.

-> In addition, I can get my game featured in a lot of the casual game portals as I worked for a fairly large casual gaming portal.

-> Did I mention, I have previous experience in this industry? I worked as a programmer on an online soccer title for 2 years.

I'm seeking some seed funding to complete my MVP but I keep hitting brick walls in terms of getting angel investors interested in funding me. I've had a bit of traction and I think the work I've done and my back story (how I got where I am) is pretty interesting. However I'm burning through my personal runway and getting frustrated with my fundraising efforts so I thought I'd reach out to the HN community and see whether you guys can point me in the right direction!

Any feedback is appreciated!

[andkon]

Lovely design. It takes a long time to figure out what it is. Either lead with the problem and follow up with your solution (which I'm not convinced is a good strategy for games) or lead with the description and follow up with your traction.

Which is the other big problem: there is nothing about traction, whether in terms of users or finances. Forget projections - angels want to see what concrete rates of growth you've had.

OK now that I'm rereading your description above, it sounds like you haven't launched yet. I wouldn't expect an angel to invest in you based on (a) you having quit your job and (b) there being a market to address. Instead, you should expect an angel to invest in you because you've launched AND shown that you're growing massively. Especially in Europe, and especially in games.

I'd look into alternative funding options. In Canada, where there is also nearly no VC or angel money, we have a lot of game dev tax credits.

Finally, I'd close with this note, because I wish I'd had someone tell me it when I went full time on my first startup: focus on product, not fundraising. If you can't live off of your own savings or any other funding you can get together, then (unless you've raised money before and did well) don't bet on someone backing you until it's obvious that they should put money in (e.g. a hundred thousand users).

[polquaser]

Thanks for your input and I take on board your closing note because I'm coming to the same conclusion myself.

My initial plan was to quit my job and go full time on this in conjunction with my freelancing/contracting but the latter is almost a full-time position in itself and I haven't been able to save enough to invest into the game hence the reason why I started to look into raising finance.

I've been contemplating changing my plan and maybe finding a stable job and using my salary to fund myself to MVP stage.

[andkon]

It's good to be flexible, but it's also good to be stubborn and to find a way. I ended up finding government-based funding that let me get off the ground - I also had to learn how to code, so having a big runway was pretty important. Maybe you can pull off more with less than I did? Although, like you point out - quitting your job to work on something shows grit that investors like. In my case, it was the tipping factor in getting approved for that funding.

Good luck :)

[bopf]

Great design. I have been in gaming for a very long time and I can tell you that it is very very hard to raise money for games in Europe. Investors simply do not like game companies. Games are not predictable and often it is only luck that makes the difference between a smash hit and a failure. A few things you should try: - talk to the guys at London Venture Partners. They are the only VC that solely focusses on games. - talk to the European Games Group EGG. They are very open minded and can help with publishing and provide modest funding - talk to the guys at Spil Games. Spil operates the largest European online games sites. You might be able to get prepayment from them if you give them an exclusive.

Also talk to other publishers. When setting up my own game company I managed to get pre payments from publishers. These guys do not take any shares of your company but they will take a large chunk of your future earnings. But publisher prepay coupled with their power to market your game is a good thing.

[polquaser]

Thanks, really interesting to read bearing in mind your involvement in the industry. I've heard of a few of the players you mentioned - didn't get around to contacting London Venture Partners because I didn't have any connection to them and to be honest I'd never heard of EGG who look very interesting! :)

I'll look into this more in the next few days - would you mind if I reached out to you? Is it your first name @ riddle.com?

[bopf]

Hi.. yes.. good guess on the email :). Feel free to reach out.

[MalcolmDiggs]

I enjoyed the deck, a few ideas:

1. I had to skip around a bit to learn what FP was, then I came back and started reading from the beginning again. I think it's be helpful to provide a small amount of background in the very beginning (perhaps even just a tagline would suffice), so that the reader understands the context before they read the market overview.

2. This probably goes without saying, but the financials aren't filled in yet. For a product that has a beta launched, I'd want to see traction and revenue numbers above all else. If you don't want to share financial/growth numbers publicly that's fine, as long as the investors you're pitching get to see them.

Hope that helps.

[polquaser]

Hi Malcolm,

Good point, I was looking through a bunch of slide deck templates and they had the product description / game overview after the market sections hence the reason I've laid it out that way. To be honest, I prefer it the way you describe as well, I'll switch them over.

Regarding finances, I had a cash flow forecast for the next 3 years but it was based on modest financing and organic growth. I'm working on a scaled up version - to the investors I sent a business plan with the old forecasts with a small addendum of what the scaled up model looked like.