BuzzFeed pitch deck (2008)
BuzzFeed's 2008 pitch deck is the Series A deck Jonah Peretti used to raise $3.5M, later shared with Ad Age. It pitches BuzzFeed as a technology company that tracks what is spreading on the web and sells ads that look like content. Founders study the BuzzFeed pitch deck because it predicted native advertising years before the term was common.
- Company
- BuzzFeed
- Year
- 2008
- Round
- Series A
- Raised
- $3.5M
- Slides
- 21
Deck © BuzzFeed. Shared for learning, credited to adage.com.
What's in the BuzzFeed pitch deck
All 21 slides, in order.
Slide 1 · Cover
The BuzzFeed logo with the tagline What's Buzzing on the Web?
Slide 2 · Where We Are
2.5 million page views and 700K unique visitors a month, 30 million widget impressions, two editors, a patent pending and a $60K monthly burn.
Slide 3 · Where We're Headed
Become a one stop shop for web buzz, grow traffic without hiring editors, launch self-serve ads within a year and hire six people.
Slide 4 · Editorial Content
A screenshot of the current model, where editors write short posts about trends.
Slide 5 · Algorithmic Content
A buzz detector that finds rising phrases and ranks the stories moving up or down.
Slide 6 · User Generated Content
Posts written by users about the things they spot, planned for the 2.0 launch.
Slide 7 · New Front Page
A front page mixing editorial, algorithmic and user generated buzz in one feed.
Slide 8 · Platform for Buzz
Screens of aggregation, video buzz, links and new buzz words in the 2.0 platform.
Slide 9 · The Web App
Screenshots of the tools users work in to post and track buzz.
Slide 10 · Optimization
A dashboard that measures viral effects, widget traffic, landing page metrics and search referrers.
Slide 11 · Leaderboard
A ranked list of the top buzz spotters by views and other stats.
Slide 12 · Revenue Model
A free platform for launching buzz, with paid advertising as content, distributed promotion, premium tools and trend targeting.
Slide 13 · Ads as Content
Google and YouTube show sponsored content next to organic content, which the deck calls the market direction.
Slide 14 · BuzzFeed Ad Model
The same pattern on BuzzFeed, with sponsored posts sitting next to organic posts.
Slide 15 · Distributed Promotion
A standard ad unit and a BuzzFeed widget that carry promoted content to other sites, with optimizer controls.
Slide 16 · Custom Promotion
A custom widget on a client's landing page and a custom skinned BuzzFeed microsite, shown with a Cloverfield example.
Slide 17 · Trend Targeting
Ads placed next to a trending topic, shown with a Miley Cyrus page and a paid ticket link.
Slide 18 · Competitors
A diagram placing BuzzFeed between media sites like Digg and Reddit and ad firms like viral agencies, and saying competition will come from firms moving to the center.
Slide 19 · How Big Can This Get?
A global platform for trend based ads and media, and the top outlet for every brand that wants word of mouth.
Slide 20 · Team
Jonah Peretti as founder and CEO, cofounders Kenneth Lerer and John S. Johnson, advisors Duncan Watts and Jason Kottke, and a small staff.
Slide 21 · Contact
Jonah Peretti's email and the BuzzFeed website.
What the BuzzFeed deck does well
- Slide 2 puts traffic, team size and the $60K monthly burn on one page, so an investor knows exactly where the company stands.
- Slide 3 turns the plan into four specific goals, including proving the revenue model within a year and the exact roles to hire.
- Slides 13 and 14 show a pattern investors already knew from Google and YouTube and then show the same layout on BuzzFeed.
What founders can learn from it
- Open with a plain status slide that lists your traffic, team and burn, because honest numbers early make the rest of the deck easier to trust.
- Follow the status slide with a short list of what the money will do, written as goals you can check a year later.
- When your business model is new, point to a bigger company already doing a version of it.
Questions about the BuzzFeed pitch deck
- How many slides are in the BuzzFeed pitch deck?
- The BuzzFeed 2008 pitch deck has 21 slides.
- What's in the BuzzFeed pitch deck?
- It starts with where BuzzFeed was and where it was headed, then walks through product screens for editorial, algorithmic and user generated content. After that it covers the revenue model, examples of ads as content, competitors, how big it could get, the team and contact details.
- How much did BuzzFeed raise with this deck?
- BuzzFeed raised $3.5M in its Series A in 2008 with this deck.
- How did BuzzFeed plan to make money in 2008?
- The deck describes a free platform for launching buzz, paid for by advertising that looks like content, promotion through widgets, premium tools and ads targeted to trending topics.
- Can I download the BuzzFeed pitch deck?
- Yes. The full BuzzFeed pitch deck is available as a free PDF on this page.
Get your deck reviewed the same way.
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