Show HN: My First Product for Founders and Startup Teams | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: My First Product for Founders and Startup Teams

basetemplates.com

Congratulations on launching, and having the confidence to put your product out there in front of potential customers. You're already farther along than about 80% of other startups.

Positives - You have a nice website and a good looking product, your message is clear, and there's no reason why startups, especially those that aren't 'design lead', won't buy. With more templates for different verticals you could build something big.

Negatives - Your first target market is poor and has relatively few customers. I would highly recommend considering a tiny pivot to aim more at middle managers who are presenting but want something better than powerpoint's builtin templates. There are tens of thousands of those presentations happening daily. I reckon there's a massive opportunity there.

Also ... I was extremely fortunate to attend a workshop by Nancy Duarte (http://www.duarte.com) once - I would really recommend looking through her portfolio and reading things she's written about presentation design. My pitch decks are about 1000* better now.

Hey, thanks a lot for your feedback! You just putted a big smile on my face=) Yes, you're right - The Presentation Market itself really big nowadays (I simply know this by working as a Presentation Designer=)). The reasons I post my product to NH: a) Feedback: do my landing page deliver sale message in a clear and actionable way? b) Audience. I know that most people here are more interested in "hardware" and "hacking" types of news. But I was also hoping to find some present and future Founders / Startup Team Members, that are in need of Pitch Deck Design service (and I actually see a little traction. Just a little, but some interest anyway=))

p.s. Duarte is a Queen regarding Presentation Design and Speech. You're lucky to attend at their workshop! I'll definitely do the same when will have a chance! Thanks again for comments regarding Target Market!

Hey, Vasyl is here, founder of Pitch Deck template. Over the last 3 years I have helped more than 30 startups to get “Visual Power” for their investor decks. During my work I have noticed that because of “money saving mode”, most founders / startup team can’t afford great graphic designers. They’re looking for graphic work help on their pitch deck with a maximum budget of $150, while professional designer will charge $400-$500 for work on 10-15 pitch deck. That’s why I created Pitch Deck - a presentation template that helps founders to create a visually impressive and effective pitch deck quickly and easily. Template has up to 5 different slide layouts in each of the following categories: Title, Problem, Solution, Product, Market, Competition, Traction, Business Model, Acquisition, Milestones, Team, Financials, The Ask and Contact. Tool is fully and easily editable. To create your own pitch deck all you need to do is: 1) have content, 2) PowerPoint on your computer with a basic knowledge of using it. Price for Regular Template is $29, and we will charge $49 if you want to get template with your own color palette. All options include free lifetime updates. We are also offering unique Custom Work for your pitch deck.

This is my first entrepreneurial attempt and I would really appreciate any feedback from you, guys. First 20 people can get our Regular or Custom template for FREE by using the following code: 644601f7f6. To all other folks from HN community we provide 30% off discount with code “HN30".

After a quick glance at your project I have one suggestion regarding the main value of PitchDeck. IMHO the most valuable aspect isn't the visual design of the deck, but the (battle tested I assume) structure to prepare the presentation.

I think that's the point were most people struggle: which content do I need? Which should I omit? What content do i need to produce? How to structure all of this into clear, powerful presentation? After finding the answers for all these questions, comes the time for graphical design, typography etc.

So, your product seems to have a potential to be more a guide than a template. And that's something worth emphasizing. Not to mention, that it opens new possibilities for you to monetize different services.

Arek, great ideas to consider! Millions of thanks!

This. You just described the reason why companies buy from Oracle and SAP. They want the software, but they pay for the knowledge of how it is done properly.

This is great! I am seriously considering using it. Will take a deeper look tomorrow.

Hey sent an order your way. All the best.

P.S - Sendowl kept spinning at checkout and am not sure if the order went through, but got a payment email from Paypal.

hey, looks like I have some issues with PayPal. Did you get a template file?

No I did not, yet.

just email me at support@basetemplates.com and I will send you template!

Its interesting.

Would I buy this, no, probably not, and I am in your target market.

Does that mean no one will buy this? Well there are a lot of start ups out there, and its cheep as chips (one time cost) so someone is going to give you some money.

Do I think you can recover costs on building and then marketing this, maybe.

If this is a side project, and your doing this as something low key or for extra cash its probably going to keep you in beer at LEAST.

I have to ask, is it your intent to make this one part of a more robust offering for folks at the early stage? If it is going to be part of a "larger offering" then by all means you should pursue that. A basket of 10 tools would give you more appeal and make it easier to market.

Hey man, thanks for your feedback! Yes, it's kind of side project (but I spent a good chunk of time to build it). If project goes well (and I see at least minimum interest to it), I have some space to scale product: templates for other business needs (conference, small business, real estate maybe); more Pro service like: Business Plan writing, Market Research, etc.

The rendering experience on my iPhone 6 (safari) was quite poor. Lots of text rendering over itself, things off the screen, etc.

Hard to evaluate the product, but personally I would write/iterate on the deck myself.

hey, thanks for a feedback!

Using Chrome on Android and idk if paying is messed up or it's supposed to be like this but the "Base" right up to wrapping "templates" starts right at the beginning of the page, it would look better if there was even the slightest padding. Also, the laptop slider is only about 85%on the screen with the right 15% cut off. Again, not sure if this is a bug or planned but those 2 things make the site look funky in my eyes. Once I scroll past that everything else looks solid though.

hey, thanks for testing! Regarding 85% of the laptop - the landing page was specially designed with such cropped layout. Regarding first "bug" - would it be possible to screenshot it?

You also have a small typo:

FULLY AND EASILY EDITABLE

with just a few ckicks fill any slide with your own content in a minutes

The fist bug is just that (on iPhone 6 chrome, for me) your logo is smashed to the top of the page with no space above it - add some margin/padding.

Also the laptop slider does look strange on the phone (portrait mode) - IMO it doesn't look intentionally offset, it just looks cut off.

Also the double carousel of slide previews was confusing and didn't seem to work for me (iPhone 6 chrome). Consider not using a carousel there. http://shouldiuseacarousel.com

thanks, will consider that info!

Sorry for the delay. Here you go: https://hanniabu.com/projects/misc/ss1.jpg

thanks hanniabu! will try to fix asap

Its good to see your product, really useful for me and new startups for who first time approaching to investors. Show your product to http://betapage.co

Thanks! Really glad you like it=)

I am not sure if i will use this or not. But anyways Congrats on the release of the product.

What i did not get from the site is sneak peek into the design. Do you have a link or something where we can see a demo template design.

Thanks for a comment, this is really valuable for me. So to present my template on a landing page I and my developer created this slide carousel: https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1g6io7gxzuq44u/Screen%20Shot%2020...

But as I understand, you want to see all slides in one document, am I right? Perhaps a PDF version of template may work here. What do you think?

Yes, something on the sort of where i can see a demo pitch. PDF will also be fine.

get you, thanks. Will add this function

Just an idea: If your business is to help startups raise money, maybe offer paid coaching\consulting services along with the deck, and then maybe even make the decks free as a marketing tool.

And I liked your idea and product :)

Thank you! Your idea can really work here, I just need to find relevant professionals in this field.

Going head to head with Sketchdeck?

hey, no. For now I'm just sell template and Custom Design option. Sketchdeck is more "design-agency" oriented service.

So basically you're selling $25 copies of a powerpoint file?

Basically I'm selling template with different slide layouts that could be easily customized for user needs. Template, by default, is a "copy", yes.

As I read it, he is selling the essence of his experience in form of ppt-templates for startups that are not able to afford his experience as a designer in person.

What is your goal with this comment? I'm genuinely curious - so many ShowHNs result in a vapid comment such as this, and I always wonder what the person was hoping to achieve.

vasylslobodian - congrats on shipping, good luck with it!

What I mean is that the value or whatever of what vasylslobodian is selling is completely nullified as soon as someone uploads a copy to the internet, for free. Maybe I don't understand the business model, but to me it's the same as selling music, you might as well give it away for free and offer custom services around it.

The same can be said of any downloadable thing - music, templates, ebooks, wordpress plugins etc. And yet, there are many businesses thriving selling these.

Not everyone is a pirate on the internet

With Chinas manufacturing surplus and cheaper and cheaper ways of manufacturing in mind, the same thing can essentially be said for everything that does not consist of 500lbs of steel or a custom service. Hence intellectual property laws exist.

There are ways to express your uncertainty about a business model without appearing to denigrate the effort the creator has put in to it. You could have asked the OP if he is concerned about people sharing his content after they have purchased it, and asking what steps he is taking to prevent that. If it's an area you are familiar with, you might even offer tips on how to, for example, include identifying watermarks to help identify the source of any leaks.

thanks a lot, mryan!

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