Videos are the new start-up pitch decks

The writer is a partner at early stage venture firm Patron

A new ritual has taken hold in Silicon Valley. A founder creates a company and instead of just emailing prospective investors with a pitch deck or a Notion link, they create a trailer. Under a minute long and stitched together with AI editing tools, these videos are uploaded to social media in a bid to grab the attention of customers who might like the product and venture capitalists who might back the idea.

The format of these videos is already becoming familiar to VCs. Many begin with three or four quick cuts designed to give the impression that something urgent, possibly world-changing, is about to happen. Text flashes on screen. Interfaces glide past. Sunsets, attractive people and slow-motion shots of typing hands fill the space. The product is often software but the vision is an aspirationally sci-fi future.

This switch to video has been organic. During the pandemic, when in-person meetings vanished, tech founders turned to recorded messages and product walk-throughs when they were trying to fundraise. The format was earnest and practical — a digital stand-in for the conference room whiteboard. Over time it has grown more sophisticated. AI has made high production values cheaper and easier to obtain and TikTok and Instagram have trained us to receive information via short-form vertical videos.

Success as an entrepreneur has always been inextricably linked to good storytelling. I remember the glossy trailer we created for Made in Chelsea that got the British reality TV show commissioned. I recorded a voiceover as cameras followed me around Shoreditch where I was working on my ecommerce start-up. Showing someone what a potential product could be is the oldest entrepreneurial tool there is.

From the consumer investor side, there is also something refreshingly clear about the start-up trailers that are being created. They communicate a knack for distribution that can back up a go-to-market plan. A polished trailer can also create a burst of excitement for a product, driving early user downloads. Virality signals a founder’s ability to command attention without paying for it. In the earliest days of a company, when all you really have is story and speed, this is not a superficial metric. It is an early read on whether the market cares. 

A well-made video therefore tells investors that a founder has taste, confidence and a point of view. It can reveal that they are fluent in the culture they are building for.

The pitch deck will survive though. What a video cannot do is answer the questions that determine whether a company will endure contact with real customers. Investors still want to see day 30-day retention rates and understand product pull.

Earlier this year, a flurry of provocative launch videos for AI products appeared. From apps that promised to help you cheat to wearables that served as emotional companions, they suggested a future in which dates, decisions and errands would flow through an always-present AI assistant. Yet not all have translated into products that last. The recent wave of AI-focused start-ups going from zero to double-digit annual recurring revenue shows how quickly attention can convert to revenue, but some VCs are questioning how sustainable this truly is, and whether it will evaporate once the novelty fades.

Whether users will return, whether revenue compounds and whether the underlying product solves a problem meaningful enough for someone to pay for it twice is key. Attention can be won with a nicely generated trailer. But loyalty is won with a well-designed product. 

Investors will continue to ask for metrics and customer behaviour. Retention will remain the truth test. A great trailer can get a new start-up founder a VC meeting but the real business still begins after the credits.