This is what I learned after researching 300 Decks, So will you.

I always had great admiration and compassion for entrepreneurs that dare to change, challenge status quo, question, and are curiosity-driven individuals that disrupt, optimize, or bring refreshing perspectives to everyday state of affairs.

After raising our first 500K$ for Wonder project I wrote the following piece- The Art of Raising 400 Million Dollars and How they Made it? that motivated me to express my thoughts, insights and those companies that rewrote the history, and this article is considered the continuation.

As an entrepreneur and explorer, I enjoy reading success stories of startups and successful exits. I also like to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty charting unknown territories, like Reid Hoffman, perfectly explained: “An entrepreneur is someone who will jump off a cliff and assemble an airplane on the way down.” 

There are so many great stories out there, especially being at WeWork learning the company`s history, reviewing the pitch deck, and talking with its founding team members Adam Neumann, Miguel McKelvey, Jen Berrent, and others.

Redesigning the art of work could make one stay longer within the supportive community. This fun and lifestyle-centric way is what intrigues me for hours.

Researching all the decks and learning about these founders led me straight to LinkedIn. Approximately 70% have a presence on LinkedIn, which allowed me to directly connect and chat with most of them. It is LinkedIn, the pitch deck, and founders Reid Hoffman, Eric Ly, and Allen Blue that shaped today's ecosystem that connects professionals globally, providing a fantastic platform for meaningful networking.

The more decks I researched, the more I was compelled to reflect on my previous exit as well as those that I met and spent time with. One of the revelations I noticed was that each person seemed to have a number of commonalities. It motivated me to share these takeaways that resonated with me – I think it will be helpful to those interested.

Here are seven tips for entrepreneurs from vision to creating a pitch deck to networking that hopefully will make your experience short, effective, and rewarding.

#1: Have a vision that transforms the future

In one of his talks, Eric Schmidt, former Executive Chairman of Google, mentioned the importance of being a salesman and having an ability to sell. That’s what matters most. No matter what your idea is, it has to be big, get people to think, and be realistic. At Wonder, we have been convinced that we don't need to waste time searching on Google, because links could be promoted or a website could have a well-developed SEO strategy for a better ranking. However, it doesn't guarantee one will get the answer to their question. We believed that we could transform the nature of information based on the inquiry by directly talking to experts.

Experts get paid for the time they invest in answering and the inquirer would save a ton of time obtaining the required information. I give credit to Donald Trump`s comment:

As long as you think, you may want to think big, as well.

#2: Solve a problem and tell how

I am a great believer of #storytelling. I have been fascinated by TED talks, which have shaped my way of delivering speeches and articles. Consequently, I apply the same approach when I provide solutions for the problem that you are focused on. Having a vision or bigger picture is the beginning – taking that same vision and breaking it into problems that require a solution is the next step to achieve results. It is based on answering a bunch of questions. How did this problem occur? What are the reasons it needs a solution? Why? What is the scalability of the project? 

#3: Develop an effective pitch deck

Having a vision is just the beginning. Researching the problem and developing ideas for a solution is the next step. Once you realize that your solution is unique, you are ready to pitch, and to do so you surely need an effective pitch deck. A pitch deck is a brief presentation used to provide an overview of your business plan. It enables you to share it with your audience, which could be potential investors, customers, partners, and co-founders.

There is no standard of length for a pitch deck. As you will see below, there are a variety of options and approaches for communicating your story. There are dozens of versions that you could make use of prior to developing your own deck.

#4: Identify metrics

Before any funding can be generated, experienced investors should think in terms of metrics. Consider the following:

·     CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)

·     LTV (Lifetime Value)

·     MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue)

·     ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)

There are many others. You should be able to wear many hats and think from many perspectives, based on your users, investors, and marketers.

David Skok probably has written one of the greatest articles detailing how, why, and the importance of metrics. In his article, he shares his expertise and experience. It is one of the must reads.

Some investors just invest because you are hard-working, even though you may not have a plan. That's how Masayoshi Son invested in Jack Ma's Alibaba. He did not have any experience related to retail and e-commerce, while others conduct due diligence, put a team together, go through all the required steps, and start pitching.

Check it out the piece below:

#5: Determine how much you need and why

It is important to identify, at least your best guess, so you will have an idea of how much you will need to scale your project. Depending on the stage of your project (for example, you may have X number of users or plan for organic growth the way Facebook did), there will be many factors to consider when deciding to fund or not to fund.

These include founding team members and their experiences, the industry that you are willing to disrupt, the potential for someone to copy your idea and launch faster, scales, and more. There will be tons of questions.

In spite of everything, luck is also important. I am a great believer of the harder you hustle, the luckier you become. It is not just work for the sake of work, but a more strategic and smart way of hustling. On the other hand, showcasing a realistic financial forecast based on metrics, facts, and scaling examples will help you nail down the deal.

#6: Focus on people first, then money

It's really hard to sell a dream to someone unless you are a visionary ready to disrupt the status quo. Most importantly, you have to convince your potential team members to be onboard, knowing that there won't be stability, guarantees, a stable lifestyle, and many other hurdles before you even start.

But once you do, it doesn`t mean that project you kick off will be successful without challenges. Starting a company is very challenging, and yet promising and exciting at the same time. 

For inspiration, I personally enjoy the talk by Brian Chesky about his journey in the making of Airbnb.

Two giants of the software and hardware industry, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, their talk back in D conference is also a must watch.

Once the team is in place and there is an MVP (minimum viable product) to show to investors (which will drastically improve chances of getting funds), having some good connections that could be your advisors will do the trick in shaping your history.

Steve Jobs was fortunate to have Steve Woz to build the first Mac computer. In this interview, he reflects on that very experience. Bill Gates worked with Paul Allen, who made a great team member to start Microsoft.

Sometimes you go forward, building strength and scale, letting people with money to come to you. Other times, you take plan B by building a team, designing a pitch deck, dealing with metrics, and then start scaling. But, before you start making big bucks, it all goes back to having great people that share the same vision.

#7: Network, connect, pitch – and repeat

Being new in a startup world is tough. When you believe you have a vision and your team has a skillset, but you realize that you don't have a network or connections, you can utilize online and offline meetings as well as connect with potential investors on LinkedIn. I have to warn you to be ready for rejections, but once you get used to it, life is easier. Having a sense of humor helps a lot, too. 

Once you start the journey of hanging out in meetups, connecting online and offline, researching funds, and sharing your one-pager or teaser, Alper Carik did a great job helping startups with One pager related challenges, simultaneously look for valuable insights on Quora and blogs.

There are so many others who have had an identical experience or shared a journey similar to the one you are about to start.

Below are the decks that I found quite insightful, logically convincing, and facts-centric. Alexander Jarvis, and his great work, based on which I selected those decks that I liked at most.

Kudos to those founders that are mentioned below that transformed the way we live, work, and get things done.

Here the list of Decks and those CEOs/Co-Founders that made it Big Times

Laxman Papineni and his App Virality Deck 

Mike Nolet and his AppNexus Deck

Rufus Lidman and his AIAR Pitch Deck

Ankit Oberoi and his adpushup deck

Manjot Singh Pal and his Wunderlist 

Adam Benayoun and his Binpress deck

Tobias Br?uer and his Barcoo deck

Natalie Gordon and her Babylist deck

Andrea Pfundmeier and her Boxcryptor pitch deck

Felipe Betancourt Celis and his Bliss AI deck

Leo Widrich and his Buffer Pitch deck

Jonah Peretti and his Buzz feed Deck

Sean Rucker and his Cadee deck

Melanie Perkins and her Canva Deck

Tracy Lawrence and her Chewse deck

Mikael Cho and his Crew deck

Joe Coleman and his Contently Deck

Brian Armstrong and his Coinbase Deck

Mike Olson and his Cloudera Deck

Matija Kopi? and his Farmeron Pitch Deck

Henry Ward and his eShares Deck

Charise Flynn and her Dwolla Deck

Arash Ferdowsi and his Dropbox Deck?

Dave Koslow and his DocSend Deck

Farooq Adam and his Fynd Deck

Laurent Perrin and his Front Deck

Dennis Crowley and his Foursquare Deck

Kyle Hill and his Flow tab Deck

Des Traynor and his Intercom Deck

Sampad Swain and his Istamojo Deck

Nitesh Agrawal and his Indiez Deck

Martin L and his Icon Finder Deck

Deobrat Singh and his GazeMetrix Deck

Nishith Rastogi and his Locus Deck

Elliot Schneier and his LaunchRock deck

Marten Mickos (Former CEO) and his My SQL Deck

Tom Blomfield and his Monzo Bank Deck

Amir Movafaghi and his Mixpanel Deck

Paul Walsh and his Metacert Deck

Josh Pigford and his Poprurvey deck

Ednaldo Souza and his Pinmypet Deck

Todd Olson and his Pendo Deck

Chad Billmyer and his Panjo Deck

Lee Hower and his NextView deck

Charlie Hung and his Rocket Internet Deck

George Arison and his Shift Deck

Tiago Paiva and his TalkDesk Deck

Taavet Hinrikus and his Transferwise Deck

Stuart Logan and his Twine Deck

Garrett Camp and his Uber Deck

Adam Goldstein and his Vettery Deck

I truly hope this piece will help future entrepreneurs, startups, visionaries to connect dots of reality with their vision, communicate to those that have resources, and build the tribe.

To Be Continued...