I have been working in marketing for over 10 years. During this time, I managed to create from scratch a digital agency and successfully sell it, speak at dozens of conferences, train hundreds of interns, and connect with an incredible number of people in the marketing and entertainment industries worldwide. Currently, I work in a family fund that invests in the creative economy, including influencer marketing.

To be honest, I never thought much about influencers and didn’t follow them as closely as I do now (I’m not Gen Z, a bit older). It took me a while to understand why everyone is so enthusiastic about Mr. Beast and why the world’s largest brands are launching challenges on TikTok. I used to think that much of it was a waste of time and money because real business and marketing happen behind closed doors in corporate offices. I’ve been there myself — approving six-figure budgets, sponsoring conferences, spending time at prestigious hotel after-parties. And over the years, I never really posted anything on Instagram or any other social media platforms.

I was deeply mistaken. Over the last 2 years, I fully grasped the importance not only of my offline networking and business but also of who am I and what is known about me online. Here are my five insights that helped me break free from this trap, and even consider myself as an influencer now.

#1. You have to invest in your personal brand. And it’s better to be online.

My awareness regarding social networks and being an influencer began two years after moving abroad. Throughout my conscious life, I built my career and networked in one place. My address book was filled with local contacts. A significant portion of these connections I acquired during my studies and early years of working. Most of my clients came to me through word of mouth. But how should I accumulate social capital now? Here was my plan:

• Choose the top 3 most popular social networks in country/market
• Post regularly
• Be authentic

I joined Zalo — one of Vietnam’s most popular social networks. I started communicating with neighbors, joining groups, and telling about myself. I returned to Facebook after many years and made my first post: “I’m now in Hanoi!” Gradually, I began to learn about the local culture. I was so fascinated that I simply wanted to share it. I started making posts about startups and businesses in Vietnam, using hashtags, and people began adding me as friends. I started learning Vietnamese, and my wife documented it on Instagram. Step by step, I built my media presence, understood my uniqueness, and why people found it interesting to follow me. And it wasn’t in vain:

76% of investors say they are more likely to invest in an entrepreneur with a strong social media presence.

Only 20% of CEOs and top managers are active on social media, making it a valuable opportunity for entrepreneurs to stand out in their industries.

80% of job seekers are more likely to apply to a company where the CEO is active on social media and shares the company’s mission and values.

Over time, we formed a company of expat friends who had recently moved here, and soon the first business contacts emerged. Now I know people from local startup accelerators, digital agencies, and even clothing manufacturers. Much of this became possible thanks to the slow but right steps I took two years ago to develop my social networks.

#2. Brands love you, and it’s a win-win partnership.

Among brands, it’s common to complain about how challenging it is to find good influencers. Creators often disappear, fail to respond to emails, miss deadlines, and do not adhere to technical requirements. There’s a genuine shortage of fresh faces! Everyone works with the same large influencers and is eager to find cool individuals willing to genuinely invest in content. Until now, I had only worked with brands, so I knew only one side of the coin.

But it turns out creators also struggle in this communication, just like thousands of marketers worldwide. The vast majority of creators (98%!) earn less than $1,000 per year. Good brand deals are almost out of reach for them. Moreover, creators often hesitate to directly engage with brands because they feel they aren’t big/cool/famous enough. But how does it really work?

• Micro-influencers have three times higher Engagement Rates (ER) than large bloggers, making them favorites among many brands.
• Micro-influencers typically charge significantly less for sponsored posts than macro influencers or celebrities, leading to a higher ROI for the brand.
• Micro-influencers often have highly specific niches, allowing brands to target a very relevant and engaged audience.

Now as I have 1,500 followers on my LinkedIn I regularly receive collaboration requests from small businesses and startups. I don’t plan on becoming a full-time creator and solely supporting myself through content creation, but occasional collaborations with brands I love and trust can certainly be a pleasant additional source of income. And believe me, this is a significant contribution to digital marketing. If you manage a truly fantastic professional blog, brands will eagerly grab the opportunity to work with you.

#3. Followers are useless. Community is priceless.

As a content marketing lover and advocate for building long-term relationships with the audience, I never understood the pursuit of amassing millions of followers. However, years of work in the agency business made me doubt my convictions. It’s hard not to when a single post can earn you the average monthly salary of a C-level manager!

Fortunately, recent trends have brought us back to the true purpose of social media: gathering like-minded individuals around us, rather than faceless subscriber numbers. In an era of information overload and algorithmic feeds, it’s not the size of your following that matters most; it’s the quality of interactions within your community. Meaningful conversations, shared experiences, and mutual support create content that resonates and cuts through the digital noise.

Communities help you find jobs, launch new projects, get investments, and even just find company for the weekend. And brands understand this too:

88% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand if they have a positive experience with the brand community.

A 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75%, and communities play a role in building customer loyalty.

Communities provide valuable data and insights, with 77% of brands using data from communities to inform business decisions.

Brands may not be able to speak for themselves, but they can communicate with their audience through real people — including creators and ambassadors. A community can be as few as 50 people with whom you play the same video game or discuss a new episode of a series. Or it could be your 10 college buddies with whom you go hiking once a season and run a shared Twitter account. Surprisingly often, we underestimate this resource, thinking that the value lies in followers, but that’s not the case. And it’s true for brands as well.

#4. You have a unique voice. Let the world hear it.

I know hundreds of unique professionals and specialists in my field who struggle with imposter syndrome. It’s a real plague of our generation. For years, I, too, believed that I didn’t possess any extraordinarily unique experiences worth sharing with the world. I didn’t sell a company to Google. I didn’t create the fastest-growing startup in the industry.

You might wonder why this stopped me from being active on social media? Well, I asked myself the same question, and then I delved into the top-viewed videos on YouTube and saw thousands of similar videos like “What’s in My Bag” and “A Day in the Life of an SMM Manager.” Oh, dear!

Yes, I didn’t sell a company to Google, but I completed a successful M&A deal after six years of running my business. Yes, I didn’t create the fastest-growing startup in the industry, but I established the largest player in my market within my region. But I made daily strategic decisions to develop myself as a professional, my team, and my business. And this was only possible because of my, in its own way, unique perspective that is worth sharing. I reinforced my budding confidence with statistics and was delighted to find:

92% of consumers trust peer recommendations more than any other type of advertising, highlighting the importance of authenticity in influencer marketing.

87% of employees and executives believe that a strong online professional presence enhances their career opportunities and overall professional authenticity.

45% of professionals say that social media has helped them build relationships with key stakeholders in their industry.

I know many need specific data to take the first step, so I hope it will help. It seems like a great resume will easily get you a job, and maintaining a blog won’t bring you closer to achieving your ambitions, and you’re not particularly unique anyway. Then just open Instagram and see how dozens of look-alike models are advertising the same bags. Close it and go write your first post, forgetting about fear.

#5. Be a driver of positive changes.

I’m used to evaluating my actions and decisions in terms of the values I bring to this world. It can be said it’s a part of my authenticity. It’s my guiding light, both in business and in my personal life. Will this decision bring something beyond money? Will it make at least one person around me better? Is there something more I can do to reach a larger audience and help them solve their problems?

I used to think that real change was only possible through billion-dollar investments and the strategic support of NGOs, and that only large media outlets could truly raise awareness about social issues. That was until I stumbled upon TikTok, where thousands of young people were sounding the alarm about fires in Australia, domestic violence, and Black Lives Matter. It was a real force. They organized fundraisers, provided each other with psychological support, and supported NGO initiatives. None of them had millions of followers, but they all had a tremendous impact on their small communities. And they became a driver of positive change.

For me, this is a long journey that lies ahead. With the mindset of an entrepreneur and investor, I took the first step — I am now developing the Squad.App platform, which helps make influencer marketing transparent and accessible to creators, brands, and NGOs worldwide. Today, I urge everyone to see social media as a tool that can truly change not only your reality but the world around you. I’ve witnessed it myself, and now I want to help others in this endeavor.

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/galushin/ or follow on Twitter (X): https://twitter.com/IGalushin

Why Everybody Should Be an Influencer? was originally published in Better Marketing on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It’s been more than 20 years since we entered the era of the creator economy. Starting with YouTube’s early days, we quickly transitioned to Facebook and Instagram, Twitter and Twitch, and finally Snapchat and TikTok. Now there are dozens of platforms, both local and global, and the creator economy is estimated to be worth more than $250 billion, with over 200 million people worldwide considering themselves creators. We constantly see celebrities in expensive cars, adorned with branded and jewelry accessories, and beneath these photos, there’s often a conspicuous “sponsored” tag.

But what about from the business perspective? The creator economy has significantly altered the entire marketing and branding landscape. According to Martech data, there are currently 11,038 marketing solutions in the market, and believe me, a significant portion of them operate within the realm of the creator economy. Community platforms, influencer marketing agencies, advertising products, and many more continue to attract investments and keep on growing.

All of this feels like the creator economy is thriving. But is it really that sunny? Not exactly. And here’s why.

1. The economy thrives thanks to creators, yet the creators themselves are significantly underpaid

It may come as a surprise, but a mere 2% (approximately 4 million) of creators boast followings exceeding 100,000, while the majority of creators (around 140 million worldwide) maintain follower counts ranging from 1,000 to 10,000. Remarkably, these 98% of creators serve as the true driving force behind the economy. Their content yields a 20% increase in conversions, and a staggering 82% of consumers place more trust in them than in macro influencers and celebrities.

However, does this translate into a compensation level that would enable them to transition away from their 9-to-5 jobs? Regrettably, the answer is a resounding no. A notable majority (59%) of fledgling creators have yet to amass earnings exceeding $100 within a year. Additionally, over a third fail to accrue more than $1,000. A mere 4% of creators earn upwards of $100,000 annually. To offer a comparative benchmark, this annual income aligns with that of a mid-level marketing manager within an average American company.

2. There is still no fair and transparent monetization models, and the market itself is very shady

Google sees thousands of queries related to topics like “How much should I pay a creator,” and the figures provided in response are incredibly varied. If you believe that agencies can rescue you from this unpredictability, unfortunately, you’ll be disappointed.

The overwhelming majority of agencies in the market don’t work with their own databases of creators with fixed prices. They manually identify suitable influencers for you and then manually negotiate the terms and costs of work. Did the creator have a bad month? Prepare to pay twice the amount you initially expected when filling out the brief. Are seasonal holidays upon us? Kindly pay several times more for the same type of integration, without any guarantee of improved results. Naturally, each market participant takes their slice in the form of a percentage of the integration cost, which in many cases can reach up to 40%.

A significant misunderstanding exists between brands and creators, and the market still lacks a unified standard for monetization. Brands would prefer to pay for specific actions (CPA), while creators aim to be compensated solely for views (CPM). There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, of course. However, I am thoroughly convinced that this issue needs to be discussed more frequently at the very least, and ideally, solutions should be sought to bring about greater transparency in the market.

3. Everyone is focused on creating tools instead of providing solutions

I’ve already mentioned the remarkable statistics from Martech, but just imagine that those figures only account for product solutions in the marketing and creator economy. Apart from them, there are an additional 428,744 global advertising agencies, and no single company holds more than 5% of market share. All of this contributes to making this market incredibly unconsolidated. And you might ask: why is that bad?

Well, in my view, the current state of the creator economy is akin to the Wild West, where everyone is fighting for themselves. Some continuously refine insignificant product features that don’t address the root problems. Others quietly raise commission percentages. And then there are those who quietly inflate their follower counts with bots to secure initial subscribers and, hopefully, their first advertising orders.

Look at the top selections on Influencer Marketing Hub (which, by the way, covers more than just influencers). Hundreds of companies offer identical solutions, yet none of them qualify as a true one-stop solution for brands or creators. I believe this is a compelling reason for reflection — at least, it has become one for me.

Fix it rather than complaining about it

I have dedicated my entire career to the realm of the creator economy, and I have experienced it from various perspectives. I founded an agency business before, and now, I work in a family fund that invests in projects reshaping the landscape of the modern economy. Honestly, I also consider myself a creator: I write here on Medium and make content on LinkedIn and Twitter on a weekly basis. This viewpoint empowers me to make products that benefit all market participants.

I would be delighted if you, too, discover a solution for yourself within our new portfolio project, Squad.App.

At Squad.App, we are developing an influencer marketing platform for brands, creators, agencies, and nonprofits fueling economic growth without intermediaries. To overcome the main challenges the creator economy is facing right now, we offer:

• open brand deals for creators of all sizes, all around the world;
• transparent pricing without any shady commissions for both creators and advertisers;
• deep analytics reports that are available 24/7 without any manual work;
• automated payments and docs solutions;
• and, in line with 2023 trends, an AI engine that enhances advertising campaigns and finds the perfect creators for your campaigns.

I am absolutely convinced that the market is ready for consolidation. At Squad.App, we firmly believe that influencer marketing, as a vital part of the creator economy, can be fully automated, transparent, and convenient.

Let’s try to make it real together.

***

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/galushin/ or follow on Twitter (X): https://twitter.com/IGalushin

Why Creator Economy is Broken, and How to Fix It was originally published in The Startup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

#1 ChatGPT — Product of the Year

OpenAI released the ChatGPT model, which interacts with the user in an interactive mode, in 2022. The dialog format allows ChatGPT to answer questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises and reject inappropriate requests.

This is the honorary owner of the golden crown and today a faithful assistant in texts. Translate into another language, write a text for mailing, create a post, find information guides for a new article — it can do everything.

Some interesting statistics:

1. ChatGPT currently has over 100 million users
2. In just 5 days, ChatGPT surpassed 1 million users
3. openai.com gets approximately 1 billion visits per month
4. Over 60% of ChatGPT’s social media traffic comes via YouTube
5. Over 15% of ChatGPT’s users are American

ChatGPT needed just 5 days after launching in November 2022 to reach 1 million downloads. In comparison, Netflix had to wait around 3.5 years.

#2 All-new Spark — Productivity

Spark is a fast, cross-platform email client designed to filter out the noise — so you can focus on what’s important. The application shows what “true productivity” is and helps to eliminate distractions that interfere with work. In the era of information noise, a necessary thing.

#3 CANVA— Design Tools

Canva is the design of documents, ads, videos, websites and much more that helps the team create professional content. With the help of one platform, you can weigh the entire visual communication. Definitely one of the best products.

Canva has users based in more than 190 Countries. As of it’s year-end report for 2021, Canva’s community has 100 million people. In 2021 Canva reached $1b+ revenue.

#4 RADAAR — Marketing & Sales

It’s a cool application that allows you to manage all your social media accounts in one place. The platform is suitable for brands, agencies and startups who want to attract subscribers, publish unique content and evaluate effectiveness. RADAAR has raised a seed investment from TechOne with a valuation of 5.9 Million TL (or $208К). It’s total raised — $120K.

#5 LeadDelta 2.0 — SaaS

LeadDelta (@LeadDeltaHQ) is a Chrome extension that can make it easier to work on LinkedIn. An intuitive interface with advanced network management features allows you to conduct detailed analytics, customize personalized messages, and use intelligent tags — all in order to make work and communication easier. LeadDelta’s total raised is $800K. A convenient solution if you suffer from chaos in the workspace.

#6 ruttl — Bootstrapped & Crowdfunded

Website developers will be thrilled. With ruttl, you can leave comments on any site in real time and make changes to CSS to make it easier to share accurate feedback with the team.

You need to register, create a new project, add a link to the site that needs edits, and everything is ready to work. ruttl simplifies your review process and allows you to collaborate with your team on live websites. This way you can collect visual feedback to know exactly what needs to be changed to make your design and development better.

The project was literally born out of an unsuccessful experience working with a client — developing a website. The reason for the failure was lack of time, free specialists and incorrect construction of the process of creating a website and making edits.

After that, Harsh Vijay, Siddhita Upare realized that they needed a new way to work on design and development in tandem. The whole process of taking screenshots and overlaying was laborious, exhausting, and the developer still couldn’t see exactly what they wanted.

#7 daily.dev — Community & Social

Where do developers grow? On a daily.dev. This is a feed of articles that is evaluated by a community of more than 50,000 developers. The best content from leading technical publications on any topic of interest to keep up to date with the latest news from the world of programming.

The total number of visits in June was 2.6 million. Daily.dev is most often used in Vietnam.

#8 Polywork — Creator Economy

Polywork is the first collaboration network. Discover opportunities to collaborate with other professionals — from speaking on podcasts, to beta-testing new apps, partnering on side projects, and more. You’ll never be bored again.

It’s currently raising $16.5 million in two rounds. Polywork doesn’t disclose the number of users.

#9 Causal— Fintech

Causal — business planning for modern teams. Causal allows you to create financial models, connect them to your data and share them using interactive dashboards and visual effects. Causal lets you build financial models effortlessly, connect them directly to your data, and share them with interactive dashboards and beautiful visuals. Run scenarios, compare versions, manage cash and burn, and prepare for fundraising.

#10 June 2.0 — Data & Analytics

June 2.0 — B2B Analytics assistant for startups. With June 2.0, you can get automatically generated reports focused on how other companies use your product

ProductHunt top-launches in 2022 was originally published in The Startup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Deep dive into the rules of visualization and comprehensible structure creation

In this article I would like to share my experience in creating a sales presentation for Amixr.io. This example illustrates the best ways to present products, sell services and engage new partners.

Step 1. Determine the problems of your audience

Understanding your target audience is a key feature in creating a successful presentation. Always keep in mind that you make the presentation for the client and not for yourself. In order to keep the audience excited, begin with a burning issue.

Significance of the problem

Choose a comprehensible yet a punchy topic. Avoid holistic issues such as global warming, cybercrime growth, etc. For instance, our client’s team shared a problem which is relevant for many software engineers. It turned out that the monitoring system overcomplicates the daily routine of numerous people by sending countless notifications not only in case of significant errors, but also in the event of minor ones. Besides that, it is generally rather chaotic and pretty tough to manage.

Step 2. Suggest your solution

Onсe you have stated the problem and shared its potential consequences, it’s high time to offer a solution. Your aim here is to briefly describe the key features of the product (or a service), e.g. modern technologies involved, competitive price, etc.

Techniques and features

The best way to demonstrate the features of the product is to compare it to other products. Tell the audience that your product is faster, thinner, more durable, etc., but make sure that you stay down-to-earth and don’t overcomplicate things. See how Apple present their products so you can learn from the best.

The price

Don’t forget to mention the payment terms and the price itself. If you have different fares or payment plans, let the audience know so they can choose the most suitable one.

Step 3. Impress and encourage

Keep in mind that providing a possible solution to the problem is not enough to make customers choose you. What can you possibly do in order to stand out in the competitive market? See a number of points below for those who have just launched their business and don’t have their first clients yet.

Benefits and gains

Regardless of whether you already have clients or not, you can always describe your strengths. Choose your advantages which are also beneficial for the client. For instance, you can measure delivery time and tell the audience that it is three times faster than your competitor’s.

Compare yourself with competitors

Attract and engage new clients by letting them see who’s better and why. Don’t wait for your potential clients to investigate the market — do it for them by providing a comparative analysis with a precise set of characteristics.

Awards

As soon as you start selling and become recognized by the professional community, share your awards and positive feedback with your clients. Upgrade your brand by taking part in professional competitions recognized within your industry such as “Product/Service of the year” or “The best enterprise”. These awards heighten your brand’s recognizability and help in terms of engaging new clients.

Feedback from the clients

It’s a well-known fact that people tend to believe other people more than the sellers. Thus it makes feedback from real people a powerful tool for your business. Use it by including the experience of your customers in your presentation.

Step 4. Call to action

A sales presentation is mainly used for first meetings or sent to potential clients via e-mail. Therefore your main aim is not as much to sell as to excite the client and make him invite you to a second meeting. Show that you are aware of the problem and present a perfect and precise solution.

Instead of making a conclusion I would like to offer a typical sales presentation structure:

1. Title slide
2. The problem and its importance for the potential client
3. Your solution (a product or a service)
4. Techniques and features of the solution
5. Price of the solution
6. Client’s benefits
7. A comparison with competitors
8. Your awards and feedback from clients
9. A call to a certain action
10. Contacts

4 Steps Towards Creating a Sales Presentation was originally published in The Startup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Reddit is the world’s 17th most frequently visited site, according to Alexa Internet and SimilarWeb. It comprises 1.7 billion visitors monthly and about 36 million regular users.

Reddit consists of groups — called subreddits — based on different topics such as startups, business, data visualization, etc. We targeted a subreddit named “Data is beautiful.”

r/dataisbeautiful is a community of 14 million people. It’s designed to share different data visualization techniques and approaches (graphs, charts, maps, etc.)

Given that our team specializes in presentations, we decided to make it in one simple slide. Now we are ready to share the whole process step by step.

Stage 1. The Idea and Concept Creation

20 minutes
It was the spur of the moment. We accidentally wondered if we could find out how much liquid is secreted by an average man during his lifetime. Google helped us find a community called Dollar Shave Club — that’s where we got our data from.

Frankly speaking, we had to prove some of it empirically (of course not, just kidding). It turned out men don’t provide much data in terms of liquids secretion, so we only had to visualize five variables.

Stage 2. Visualization

2 hours
We took a “typical businessman” image from Shutterstock and a bunch of relatable containers for the liquids. Three liquids out of five are transparent, so there is no chance of using their natural colors for the color scheme of the slide. Thus we decided to keep it formal.

Stage 3. Publication and Comments

After having 2.5 hours of fun, we uploaded our post, asked for a couple of upvotes, and posted a few comments.

We did not expect such a massive response: 33,000 likes and 2,100 comments in 6 hours.

We got ahead of the top post, which consisted of 15,000 likes and about 300 comments. It was a giant leap, owing to many reasons. Anyway, we managed to create a top post in Dataisbeautiful on that day.

Virality Was Produced Owing to Some Fun Facts

Spicy topic

No matter how old people are, they are always attracted by taboos and blue jokes.

️Random error

Semen and sperm are two different things. We are not aware of such nuances as we are not native speakers. Now we know it for sure because approximately every fourth comment was about that. It also happened to be one of the main drivers of virality.

Enormous tears volume

Half of the comments were written by people trying to question this figure by claiming that they “only cried twice in their lifetime.” In fact, our tear ducts produce liquid not only to generate tears but also to maintain the day-to-day functioning of our eyes.

“Challenge accepted” style

Semen volume has proven to be the most attractive figure among all. Enormous attraction by this calculation produced dozens of kinky comments such as, “My figures for tears and semen should be vice versa,” “I’ve reached this figure by 20,” or “Challenge accepted!”

Surprising facts

Some people started to make their own calculations and draw conclusions such as, “I can fill all basement in my house with my urine” or “All water in the world has been processed by somebody.”

Second-guessing

People started to wonder if there was something else produced by a man. There were five comments referring to the chorus of a popular song, “Remember the Name” by Fort Minor. They referred to the fact that there was no information about “the concentrated power of will.”

Summary

1. Choose a reasonable hour and a provocative topic. Publish in the morning during the daily ritual of surfing social media when having breakfast or traveling to work.
2. Haste doesn’t always make waste. There is no need to actually test anything. All information can be easily found in public sources and adjusted with the help of different software (such as Canva, Tableau, PowerPoint or even Excel).
3. Let yourself make mistakes. Don’t be afraid of mistakes, or even make them on purpose. Make people want to correct you, and you’ll get a lot of comments.
4. Great outreach can be achieved with a small budget. You can create viral content with a zero budget regardless of your whereabouts. Not only being interesting and providing high-quality content is important, but also being lucky.
5. Pay attention to the rules. Unfortunately, our post was banned six hours later because of not using computer-generated elements. It was mentioned in the group rules, but, unfortunately, we missed this.
6. Stay focused, stay on course. My main advice is to experiment. Try to find something that works and then repeat it.

How We Created a Top Post on Reddit was originally published in Better Marketing on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Pitches from AirBnB and Tinder to Uber and YouTube across various rounds of funding

Whether your pitch deck will receive investment or not depends fiercely on how convincing the presentation looks.

To find out how to create a successful pitch deck, my team reviewed and analyzed more than 100 presentations of successful startups from 1999–2018 (you can see the full list of companies and download presentations here).

We discovered several interesting facts and patterns, to say the least.

I hope our findings help you build a presentation that will impress investors and accelerate you to the next round.

Fact 1. Most startups are services

The most common startup format is service delivery. This type is known for its relatively simple implementation — no serious knowledge of the technological side is required, and the potential customer is, in fact, anyone with access to the internet.

Fact 2. Only a handful get an IPO

Over two-thirds of all startups in our sample stayed open for business. Only four companies from our sample managed to go public, while almost every tenth startup was closed. Another 18 companies were bought by strategic investors or merged with other companies. These include LinkedIn, YouTube, Soundwave, and others.

Fact 3. The most successful areas are “Technology” and “Analytics.”

All technology and analytics startups from our sample continue to work either independently or as a part of another company. They seem to succeed more often, judging by the incidence of them going public.

Innovations in the sphere of goods and services appeared to be less demanded: only one company from our sample was listed in the stock market, and almost every fifth startup was closed.

Fact 4. The seed round is critical for the future startup

If we analyze the distribution of pitches from our sample by financing rounds, then two-thirds (or 67) of them belonged to the seed round, 14 to series A, 9 to series B, and 4 to series C. Two pitches from the sample received IPO pre-financing, another pitch belonged to the earliest (pre-seed) stage.

Although somewhat obvious, the seed round is critically important for a future startup. If one doesn’t impress investors at this stage the next rounds simply won’t happen. This is difficult because, at this early stage, a startup often doesn’t even have a prototype of its solution yet. There is only an idea.

This is where a “perfect” presentation comes in. The right words and a visual story matter at this stage more than any other.

Fact 5. Each pitch slide makes an average of $477,000

The total amount of attracted investment in the sample was $882 million. 2015 accounts for 42 percent of this amount (mainly thanks to the corporate giant “WeWork,” which collected $335 million in a Series D).

In 2012, nine companies attracted $3 million. In 2017, another seven startups received $6 million. This was partly caused by the fact that the vast majority of them were in the seed round.

The total average investment per slide for all pitches was $477,000

At the same time, almost one out of 10 startups from our sample raised an average of over a million dollars per slide!

Fact 6. The number of slides in pitches grows in the initial rounds.

With each new round, the amount of money at stake is growing. Startups put more and more effort into convincing investors that their ideas are promising and that they are ready to develop a product. They disclose the details of the project but also show the intermediate results.

According to our sample, growth takes place in the initial rounds of funding. On rounds A, B, C, and D, the average number of slides in the pitch deck remains stable — from 22 to 25.

Fact 7. There are “mandatory” pitch elements needed to raise funds.

There are many approaches to structuring a pitch deck but there seem to be a few “necessary” pitch elements.

Recommendations on the usage of individual semantic blocks (i.e., words) usually repeat and overlap. We formed a list of the most “popular” presentation sections in order to evaluate how often they were used in our sample.

“Project team” is the most frequent section (87%), then “solution” (84%), and then a tie between “market” and “target audience” (81%).

The least popular blocks are “competitors” and “roadmap.” Even though one of the main goals of the pitch is to get investments, the required amount was indicated only in 41 percent of the presentations.

One can notice that over time startups began to pay more attention to the description of the business model and financial performance, leaving aside the uniqueness of the product and the presentation of the team.

Every year up to 2017, the market and the target audience were studied more and more often. That is, the focus is gradually shifting from the description of “who” makes the product, to “how” and “for whom” it is made. There are no stable trends for the remaining sections.

Every pitch deck by the startups in our sample that have gone public by now described three key pieces: the market, the target audience, and the uniqueness of the product. They also paid less attention to the team, competitors, metrics, and solutions than other types of startups.

Conclusion:

1. According to our sample, the most common category of startups is service delivery.
2. More than 2/3 of startups continue to work, technology and analytics companies are the most successful of them.
3. The seed round is the most important for the stable development of a startup.
4. The average amount of attracted investments of one pitch slide is $477,000 and almost every tenth startup has attracted more than $1 million per slide.
5. The number of slides in a pitch deck is highest in the initial rounds.
6. Several semantic blocks that were always present in the pitches of startups that IPO’d were absent in the presentations of the least successful companies (i.e., those who shut down). These terms are mentioned in the following point.
7. All sample pitch decks of the startups that were listed on the stock exchange described the market, the target audience, and the uniqueness of the product.

How to increase the chances of receiving an investment using this data:

1. If a startup can be categorized as technology or analytics, the probability of not shutting down and even going public is significantly higher.
2. Make sure your pitch deck contains information about the market, the target audience, and the uniqueness of the product. This is exactly what all those who managed to go public did.
3. Each pitch slide can theoretically bring in about half a million dollars or more. Of course, no one can guarantee this. But it means it’s worth spending the extra time to make them just right.

What We Learned From Analyzing 100+ Startup Pitch Decks was originally published in Entrepreneurship Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Many presentations have the same common problem — there is too much unnecessary information on the slides. As if the speakers want to prove that they understand the topic and convince the audience that they are experts.

Unfortunately, this works the other way around. The ones from the back can’t see anything and people on the front raw get tired too fast and you lose their attention almost from the start.

The main rule for every presentation is to make the slides easy to read with text, visualization, and a speaker’s speech.

Sometimes the topic of the presentation is complicated, the requirements are strict, and you want to put as many information on the slides as possible. Here are a few tips on how to make your presentation clearer:

1. Cut the text and show the main thing

Imagine yourself sitting in the hall. What presentation would you like to see? Simple, logical, inspirational. Surely after this exercise, it will be possible to remove a good third of words and numbers. Remember that each slide should develop an episode and lead the audience to the highlight of the story.

Work with the text
Rewrite slide titles in shorter, more actionable formats. Remove complicated abbreviations, divide long paragraphs into bullets, and add graphic guidelines (for example, numbers).

Thus, people will immediately see the most important and consistently read information from the slide. Always keep in mind the purpose of why you started a presentation, simplify data, and think about the audience.

2. Choose the right visualization

It is a frequent mistake when creating a presentation to choose the wrong formats for data visualization and use standard PowerPoint templates. Start with a simple one. If you remove the standard object strokes and the standard templates that the program suggests using, then quite a lot of space will be freed up.

However, there is a more important advice — you need to choose the right tools to visualize information.

For a vast array of numbers and text, a table is best suited. Also, for exponential growth or comparison of different periods, it is best to use histograms.

Believe your eyes. It’s easier to see what you are talking about than to read a few paragraphs but still don’t understand anything.

This rule is based on the creation of infographics, and it works great!

Suffice it to highlight the main thing, to rewrite the long text in a short explanation, and shift the entire emphasis on the visual form. Add photos or icons that reflect the essence.

Try to show your thoughts using graphical objects, and the audience will be very thankful!

3. Break the information into different slides.

It cannot be that all information is equally important. Instead, often it’s several different ideas that are combined and presented together. Give enough space to each of them! Create individual slides. You can create a new slide in PowerPoint by pressing just the pair of keys.

There is nothing terrible if the presentation grows from 20 slides to 30. In the end, it will look more straightforward and will help the audience to get acquainted with your idea faster. If you are worried that the audience won’t understand the topic of the slide, there is a proven tool to help them. You can make navigation for the presentation sections at the top of the slide.

4. Use animation

Using animations and slide transitions is a great way to show much information gradually. In the “Animation” tab, you can select the appropriate effect and apply it to each group of objects. Adjust the speed of appearance and select the format: by clicking or automatically when you start the slide. So you can decide by yourself whether it is worth telling more on this topic, and you can easily manage the attention of the audience.

Another tip is to use transitions between slides in the same tab, “Transitions.” “Transformation” works great. You can adjust the transition direction and continue talking about the same topic using seamless transitions between slides. The audience will not notice the “catch,” and you can increase the numbers and conclusions.

5. Put additional information to the appendix

You can use footnotes when it is crucial to clarify that the information is correct, confirmed, and obtained from a reliable source. Use this method in presentations of startups, investment proposals, or strategies that consultants make in expensive suits.

If there is too much information (tables, graphs, and formulas for calculation), then it is easier to create a separate section in the presentation after the main slides. Call it “Appendix”.

Presentation is a format where “smaller and simpler” means “better”.

Do not forget about it! Do not use all the content that is at your disposal. Use the main one. Use these simple secrets in your work. Surprisingly, the audience will believe you more and reward you with a well-deserved portion of applause.

Let the PowerPoint be with you!