All Posts By
Caya
Startup Gambling: angel investing & venture capitalists explained
Most of the companies, most of the startups that you can think of, could not exist if it wasn’t for venture capital. The relationship between founders and investors is a weird, symbiotic phenomenon. In this article, we try to simplify very complex processes for every founder to understand.
The full Slidebean Financials [real data]
We are releasing our financials for 2016. You'll be able to navigate it and download the template as a reference for your company.
Why do bankrupt companies keep running?
What happens when a company files for bankruptcy? What does it mean to file for chapter 11? Let's analyze the bankruptcy process for big and small companies.
How the Paypal Mafia shaped Silicon Valley
In 2007, Fortune Magazine published an article along with a very eye-catching photo montage about the PayPal Mafia. Turns out they all have many things in common: from their beginnings to their work values
Dot-com Bubble: how the tech stock market crashed
The Dot Com bubble of the 2000s quickly eliminated many internet companies, but some of those that survived have thrived.
SaaS Company KPIs: an ultimate guide
When you live and breathe Software as a Service, is important to understand your SaaS company KPIs. Terms like ARR, MRR, LTV, CAC become just part of your daily slang. Gross vs. Net MRR Churn, and how is it different from Customer Churn.
Convertible Notes, Equity and Startup Funding Explained
If you are an early-stage startup in the tech space and you are looking for money to grow your company, the official term is raising capital, the most commonly recommended instrument to raise funds is a convertible note. However, to understand how those work, we first need to understand how equity (or stock) works.
Startup Acquisition: what happens to employees?
We went through a theoretical company's story while analyzing how the cap table evolved through various rounds of funding.
Presentation Outline Template: A Complete Guide
A presentation outline is a roadmap to a more successful business pitch — a general plan that summarizes what you want to say to prospective customers, clients or investors. This presentation outline template will help you cover the key points of what to include in your slides.
How to manage a remote team
Managing humans takes time.We are going to go over the hacks that we did to scale our staff and tips to know how to manage a remote team.
Accelerator programs: are they still worth it?
Are accelerator programs still worth it when it comes to your startup?
The danger with convertible notes
The dangers with convertible notes when raising capital.
How to sell a company for 2x its price
In a parallel universe where SlideRocket wasn't acquired, we would have been direct competitors. We will share their insights on how to sell a company for 2x its price.
How Microsoft saved Apple from Bankruptcy
Apple might be the archetype of a rags-to-riches story. They seem to have done it all. This is Company Forensics: How Microsoft saved Apple from Bankruptcy.
Building a Monthly Marketing Report
Keeping the information updated about your job and the goals that you've achieved is necessary in order to prove that you're doing a fantastic job. This is when having a top-notch sales and marketing report steps in. It allows you to showcase your hard work with numbers that smile. Here's how to successfully build one.
10 Best Presentation Websites Alternatives
Best Presentation websites, there are plenty of alternatives coming up that are set to disrupt the presentation landscape. We've compiled a list of some of the presentation websites that we think you should keep an eye on.
Pitch Deck Mistakes: the Go-to-Market Strategy
Go-to-Market Strategy is a super important item investors really want to understand, yet most startups don’t really know what the term means. They struggle to describe their go-to-market strategy in a clear and focused manner.
Investor types: Which one is right for your company?
Most startups are obsessively focused on finding investors to back their idea. Someone to take a chance on them. Someone who wants to get behind the “next big thing.” But often founders are perplexed on how to find those investors, why it’s taking so long, and how to speed up the process. Let’s dive in.
8 red flags when pitching investors
Raising venture capital is no easy task; many variables need to come into play and align for a round of funding to happen. We've covered extensively what a pitch deck should have and what your financials should answer, but today we are going talk about the deal-breakers. The stuff that (ourselves included) didn't know was working against us until it was too late. Let's do it.
How to Calculate Customer Acquisition Cost
The backbone of Slidebean's growth has diligently and accurately tracking our customer acquisition costs. It's really easy to track where a customer came from when you are using digital channels. Some channels, however, are much harder to measure. We'll go over the tactics we've used to track conversions over the years, and a few hacks that might be useful for harder-to-track channels like YouTube.
How to build a financial model - Tutorials and Templates
A financial model is an essential tool for every business owner that’s built in Excel or any other spreadsheet processor to calculate their business’ financial performance into the future. The calculation is typically based on the company’s historical performance, or assumptions about the future. How to build a financial model is usually answered into its sections SG&A (Selling, General, and Administrative Expenses), COGS (Cost of Goods Sold), Revenue, and CAPEX (Capital Expenditure).
Best Pitch Deck Software for startups
A pitch deck needs to showcase the company's business plan and startup vision. Although there are many platforms that can help you build your outstanding pitch deck, here are the best pitch deck software for startups
Finding investors: 5 mistakes startups make
We deal with thousands of companies in the process of fundraising. Last year, I spoke to over 1,000 founders, and I've set a personal goal to beat that this year. These companies mostly come to me for office hours, and most of the time, their questions revolve around fundraising. One thousand people are enough to detect some patterns: the mistakes these companies are making when approaching their fundraising.
Airbnb pitch deck: teardown and redesign (PDF Download)
The Airbnb pitch deck has become an increasingly popular reference for entrepreneurs around the world. The company founders, Brian Chesky raised $600K in 2009, from Sequoia Capital and Y Ventures. The company has since become a giant in the Travel Industry.
A SaaS Entrepreneur’s Budget: Where to Spend & Where to Save
A third of startups end up closing shop for the simple reason that they run out of money. That’s why it’s important to know where you can afford to spend your money, and where you can’t afford to. In this article, we’ll show you the best practices to keep up with your SaaS budget!
How to start a business: The best video tutorials for an early stage startup
Starting your own business requires a lot of new knowledge. And most of us didn’t have Entrepreneurship 101 in Middle School So sometimes, you have to take learning into your own hands. Thankfully, today is not that day, as we’ve done the heavy lifting for you.
Work from home: Are offices dead?
Last week, we celebrated our 100,000th subscriber on YouTube- we had pizza and beer and fun... on a Google Meet session. Our office has now been pretty much empty for the last three months, and there is no sign of when we'll see it full of people again. But, hear this, we are not considering canceling our lease.
How did Slidebean invest its first $250K in funding?
We have a policy of sharing some of our finances and our lessons as part of our transparency marketing. We started doing this back in 2015, inspired by companies like Buffer and Baremetrics, whose own blog posts and materials were an inspiration for us. We are taking a trip down memory lane to understand how Slidebean was formed, where the first money came from, and how we spent it.
Starting a business: What nobody told me
If you are new to our brand or our YouTube channel, you might assume I am just this guy that makes videos on failed companies. But no. Our company, Slidebean, actually, around 30 people, is a venture-funded startup. And our core business is not video, but presentation design.
Zoom vs Skype face-off
Zoom vs Skype: A face-off! Our Company Forensics episode about Zoom has now over 200K views. In it, we not only tried to tell the story of Eric Yuan’s success with this video conferencing platform but the reasons why it defeated others like Meet and Skype during these pandemic times.
Financial model for e-commerce business
I am going to show you how to estimate the business scale for an eCommerce platform with our financial model template.
Startup Funding Explained
The fundraising process for a startup requires a crash course on some terminology that you've probably never heard of. So, to better explain all of this, we are going to tell the story of a startup company, from funding to IPO. This is Startup Funding Explained, part 1.
How to Pitch a New Business to investors: Monthly
This is a rare occasion. I am going to pitch you a new business today. It's a real business; I made a real pitch deck for it. I am going to assume you guys are investors, and this is our first call. And I'll pitch it. Then- I'll breakdown some of the key slides and how I solved them. Let's do it.
Slide Deck Presentation Design: How to make better presentations
It's essential to have well-thought-out slide deck presentation design before facing not only customers but also investors, who are the ones that will help you secure seed funding. In this article, we'll show you how to build an effective deck.
Startups Fundraising: 16 Most Common Mistakes
A pitch deck is one of the most important representation that a startup could have. If you get this first step wrong you could jeopardize startup funding opportunities before investors even take a look at the 2nd slide. Here are some of the most common startups fundraising mistakes.
Content Marketing Google and YouTube : How we made $2,500,000
There is no clickbait here. The backbone of our company success has been Google, and by extension, Youtube. Hear me out. Our website gets around 250,000 organic visits per month. I'm excluding all paid and all social media traffic from that number; those are visits to our website that came from somebody looking for an answer in Google and stumbling upon our content.
Best Presentation Software List of 2021: Complete Guide
We’ve created the best presentation software list with tools to ensure you make the right call in the platform you select. This articles is the result of several weeks of research and review of 50+ presentation tools currently available on the web.
42 Presentation Ideas to create the Best Slide Presentation
Creating presentations is usually a time demanding process, and frustrating for a lot of people. I am going to cover 42 presentation ideas for deck.
New business ideas for 2020: Beating the recession
This article is not about the next Unicorn startup, $1B business idea. If I had that, I wouldn't be here, probably. This article has new business ideas for everyone. They might not become unicorns, but can certainly provide a job, a lifestyle, and the potential to grow if you are good at it.
What is a Company Profile Template: Download FREE Example
Your company profile is a marketing tool that showcases your brand’s products, services, and activities. A powerful company profile presentation should be more than just a brochure.
Pitch Deck Examples from Successful Startups (Airbnb, Uber, Facebook)
A pitch deck is usually a 10-20 slide presentation designed to give a short summary of your company, your business plan and your startup vision. Here you'll find the Best Pitch Deck Examples that made companies like Airbnb, Uber and Facebook, the giants they are today.
Financial Modeling 101: Tutorial and Template
If you're starting a business, a Financial Model is a critical tool to estimate the potential of your company. How much do you plan to charge for your product? How much do you expect you'll pay to acquire a customer? How much time do you need to finish development, and how much will those salaries cost?
How to Write a Business Plan: DON'T do it!
A relatively common question we get revolves around business plans. A good amount of our customers asks us if we can write a business plan for them, and we always respectfully decline.
How to start a business in 2020
2020 caught most of us off guard. A seemingly booming economy now seems to be headed towards a recession, which will inevitably leave a lot of people unemployed across many industries.
How to pitch investors remotely?
The dynamics of how to pitch investors investors and fundraising are likely going to change drastically in the next few months. I have always believed that real-life interaction between humans is critical in the decision-making process for an investor.
It's up to us (entrepreneurs) to kickstart the economy
Entrepreneurs are going to be the key to economic reactivation. We are the spearhead of innovation. We are accustomed to the rollercoaster of starting a company, which has taught us how to move faster, work faster even in complicated circumstances.
Coronavirus and startups: Overcoming a financial crisis
Well, it's here. Both of our Slidebean offices, New York and San Jose, are in areas with active coronavirus spreading, and we were forced to take action.
Why does a company fail after raising MILLIONS?
How does your company fail after raising $50MM? This was a real comment/question on one of our Company Forensics videos. For someone outside the startup ecosystem, the amounts of money these companies raise just seem obscene.
How to Grow a Small Business: growth marketing for startups (Part II)
In our last article, we talked about the 19 growth channels available in the world, so for this one, I am going to talk about the ones that we've tried, the ones that failed, and the ones that worked.
What is Total Available Market? | With Steve Barsh from DreamIt
One of the most common questions we get is calculating a Market Size slide on a startup pitch deck. After so many years at this, I believe I can come up with better market size estimations than I used to.
How to build a financial model for a SaaS Business
In this webinar recording, Caya, Slidebean’s CEO, develops a step-by-step financial modeling tutorial, using a spreadsheet that can be easily downloadable and customized
Slidebean Founder's Edition: What We Can Do to Help Startup Founders
Our Founder's Edition plan gives you access to our company founders, who are available to answer your questions around fundraising, growth marketing, and design.
Startup Funding: How we spent our first $250,000
Balancing burn rate and runway in a startup is probably one of the most critical tasks a CEO must deal with. That's why we're giving you an insight on how we spent our startup funding and the mistakes and lessons we learned throughout the way.
How to Find a CoFounder: Starting a Business as a solo founder
As we've scaled Slidebean and had the chance to connect with hundreds of companies, one of the most common questions I get is around how to find a cofounder.
How to Find Investors for a Business with just an MVP
Having an MVP doesn’t prevent you from failures to find an investor. You need to back up your idea with extensive data like a marketing strategy and a business plan. This post aims at finding out how to get funded with just an MVP and don’t get insane in the process.
Startup financial tools: Top 3 recommended resources
Every month we spend around $20,000 in SaaS products. Our landing pages, our servers, our accounting- you know, the stuff you need to run a business. I figured we could share our 3 top startup financial tools.
The Slidebean Office: a YouTube Sitcom
The Slidebean Office sitcom is a glimpse into the startup life. All the situations are inspired by true events!
Elevator Pitch Examples from Successful Startups
An Elevator Pitch is a succinct 20-30 second speech geared to convince someone about a product or company. We've collected some startup elevator pitch examples like Airbnb, Facebook, Buffer, for you to get some inspiration out of it!
How much money do we make from YouTube?
We are thrilled about our success in content, specially in video content. 2019 was a breakthrough year for the Slidebean Youtube channel, and since we don't get to be on Youtube's Rewind (yet), we figured we'd do one of our own.
Company Forensics | Yik Yak: a deadly combination
Anonymous messages and local context were the perfect mix to make the popular social network, YikYak, come to life in 2013. They were also the poison to kill it and to write on its tombstone the epitaph of: died too young and too soon.
Storytelling for Pitch Deck Presentations
Throughout this article, we will present practical ways to fix the insertion of storytelling for a pitch deck. If that is not what is happening in your business presentations already. Improve your presentation
Is WeWork dead? | Company Forensics: the downfall of Adam Neumann
In this article, we will analyze the story behind WeWork, their rise, and downfall, and of course, what lessons we can learn from them.
Startup ideas: should you compete against an established company?
Is starting a business that directly competes against a player as big as Microsoft a good idea? Maybe. I hope our story sheds some light.
Pitch Deck and Fundraising Fireside Chat with Slidebean & Dreamit
Join us in this casual conversation with Caya, Slidebean CEO and Steve Barsh, Managing Partner at Dreamit Ventures as they talk about how to create compelling pitch decks and how to effectively pitch to VCs.
Are Startup Accelerators Worth it?
In this article we are going to look into: What startup accelerators are, choosing a program that is worth it for you (or deciding if you should skip them altogether), and finally how to get in.
Startup Questions: Starting a Business, Startup KPIs and Product development
We get dozens of questions from people interested different topics. From starting a business to measuring KPI's of a successful company.
Pitch deck outline: What to Include in a Startup Pitch Deck
A pitch deck outline is the standard document used by startups to present their case to investors; it’s a brief deck comprised of about 10 to 20 slides. There’s a standard pitch deck outline because it’s what an investor expect to see before meeting a prospect.
How to Grow a Small Business: Growth Marketing for Startups (Part I)
In this article, we are going to talk about how to grow a small business. If you don't know me, my name is Caya. I'm one of the founders and the CEO at Slidebean- a venture-funded, profitable, multi-million dollar startup.
How to start a business with no money: tips for entrepreneurs
What if I started a new business today? How would I approach it?
Startup mistakes that almost put Slidebean out of business
In this article I am going to talk about the startup mistakes I made, the hard lessons I had to learn, and how they translated into the success of this new company.
5 Startup Myths that Kill Companies
9 out of 10 startups fail; that's just the hard truth. The most common reasons, according to founders themselves, are related to the 5 Startup Myths that we covered in this article.
Fees breakdown: a US Corporation costs $7,500 per year just to operate
If you are a US company or a foreign startup that is looking to incorporate in the US for billing/investment purposes, this article will help you with the number of corporation costs that you should be prepared of, in order to avoid a hit to your company.
The Uber Pitch Deck Used to Raise Funding in 2008
This Uber pitch deck that successfully raised the company's first round of funding. It's a fantastic example of a perfectly defined problem/solution combination.
How to Make a Pitch Deck: Dos and Don'ts
Coming up with a compelling pitch deck is an essential instrument for getting a startup off the ground. How to make a pitch deck, therefore, is crucial, and startups need to nail this part of the funding process.
Youtube content marketing ROI: the cost of making our videos
Each minute of this video costs around $150. Based on this numbers, what's a good YouTube content marketing ROI?
How to get seed funding: Getting your startup off the ground
How to get seed funding: Just as a seed needs unconditional care and water to grow, a startup business needs crucial nourishing of finance to expand and grow.
Startup Business Funding: Ready to meet with investors?
Startup business funding: Going into business for oneself is always a daunting decision especially if you cannot personally fund the launch.
Series A Pitch Deck: Creating a Killer Presentation
You’ve started up, and gaining traction. You’ve put your seed money to good use, you’ve got a small but sustainable customer base, made your first couple of million and it feels like you’ve got something good going.It’s time for Series A pitch deck.
Slidebean revenue: we made our financial model public
What is a Startup Financial Model and how does it work? We reviewed the full financials of Slidebean for our most important year.
Pitch Deck Design: Make your first impression count
Discover three powerful alternatives to deliver a powerful pitch deck design to your potential clients or investors. A pitch deck that stands out can say a lot about the stage your company is in.
Starting a Business: FAQ answered by Caya, CEO at Slidebean
Caya, CEO at Slidebean, answers questions from the YouTube audience. These are frequently asked questions when fundraising or starting a business.
How to Write a Business Proposal
If you're a freelancer applying for a contract job or a company proposing a new vendor agreement, learning how to write a business proposal properly will guarantee that you showcase your skills and close more deals when making your pitches.
3 Startups Pitch Deck Templates Every Founder Needs
Startups Pitch deck templates can serve very different purposes, from trying to get a meeting with a new investor, to presenting in front of a stage, and each one of them should follow a different structure! Here's a few pitch deck examples every startup founder needs.
Starting a small business vs starting a startup
Not all businesses are created equal. There are many differences between starting a small business vs starting a startup.
Sales Deck Template and Examples
You only get one chance to make a first impression. Using these sales deck template and examples will be the tipping point that decides between a closed deal or a prospect passing on your product or service.
How to raise money for a business: startup funding, find investors and prepare for investor meetings
In this article, we to look into the workflow of how to raise money for a business. Today we are going to look into the process of raising capital.
Pitch Deck Design Service by Slidebean
We have decided to open a new pitch deck design business segment within Slidebean – Pitch Deck Content + Design. We can help your create a killer pitch deck.
Startup CEO Roles and Responsibilities
Startup CEO roles are a demanding and mentally exhausting job. The decisions you make, affect the future of your company and your employees.
Vivino's Founder Heini Zachariassen | Ask me anything (AMA)
Heini Zachariassen is Vivino’s Founder and currently serves as board member and chief evangelist. Largely credited with bringing a technology revolution to the wine industry, Heini founded Vivino because he was frustrated by not knowing which wine to buy. It’s been his passion project ever since. During his tenure, Vivino grew into a community of 30 million users, raised $57 million in funding and rolled out a worldwide wine marketplace. Prior to starting Vivino, Heini co-founded several startups, including global internet and mobile security company BullGuard.
What is a Pitch Deck Presentation: A complete Presentation Guide with examples
What is a Pitch Deck Presentation: it is usually a 10-20 slide presentation designed to give a short summary of your company, your business plan and your startup vision. Pitch presentation also serve very different purposes, and each one of them should follow a different structure.
Ask Lorem CEO - Sam Wilcoxon | Ask me anything (AMA)
Sam Wilcoxon, CEO and co-founder of Ask Lorem, a two-sided marketplace connecting SMB/e-commerce businesses with a network of pre-vetted freelance web developers and designers.
How to Write a Pitch Deck that gets you funded
The main goal behind presenting your pitch deck is to get investors excited about your product and confident enough to spend on your startup. Here are some essential guidelines on how to create a pitch deck, that will make your startup stand out and pave the way to your company’s success in today’s competitive market.
How to Insert a Youtube video in Powerpoint Presentation
In this article, you are going to learn how to embed a Youtube video in your presentation. We are going to compare how to do it with Slidebean and a couple of different Powerpoint versions.
Stock Options explained: basics for startup employees and founders
Stock Options explained: basics for startup employees and founders. You started a business and you want to compensate your early employees. Or you've joined a startup and were offered company stock options as part of your compensation. How do those work?
When to incorporate a business in the US: cost and expenses for startups
You're an entrepreneur and want to start your US company. You found this online platform that handles everything for $500 or so. Should you go for it?
Starting a Business: Founder agreements, Vesting, and Salaries
There's a lot to consider when starting a business, but the relationship with your co-founders is probably one of the most critical parts.
Product Management in Startups: MVP to 4.0 roadmap and product manager tasks
Keeping a product alive often seems like the sole purpose of an entrepreneur. So much of your time is dedicated to figuring out how to keep the ship from sinking and moving it forward, that you can quickly lose perspective of why you began the journey in the first place.
A note from the CEO
Running a startup has been one of the two most amazing experiences in my life (the other being raising a kid). It's an everyday problem-solving challenge. It's an everyday brainstorm. It requires you to reinvent yourself every other week, to try and outsmart the smartest people, who also happen to have more experience and more money. Holidays and weekends are but an illusion when the fate of 25 co-workers and hundreds of thousands of users rests on the decisions you have to 'sleep on.'
Slidebean Launches World’s First AI Slide Presentation Builder
Slidebean’s fully automated AI software can create stunning slide presentations in seconds, saving users time and delivering a beautifully designed slide presentation.
About Author
Caya
CEO at Slidebean/FounderHub. TEDx Speaker. 500 Startups Alum. 40-under-40.
Stay in Touch:
Made with love
in New York City