So, they basically used javascript and target anchors to make a fancy navigation bar? The design and idea are really nice, but there's nothing earth shattering here.<p>I do like the idea of a one page "pitch" that flows more like a slide show than a website. It gets to the point and covers off the main ideas.<p>As to this particular pitch:<p>1. Let's hope the rest of the math isn't as optimistic as the 31% conversion rate. It's basically an online wedding dress shop, so it's going to suffer from the same issues that all online clothing retailers do. Interesting that none of the founders have a background in the fashion industry.<p>2. I couldn't really figure out what the purpose of the pitch is... are they looking for Partners? Cash? Staff? To do what with, exactly? The expansion plans essentially seem to be: grow out what we have and build a mobile site or two. I'm not sure why they would need investment to do that.<p>3. (Late add): I disregarded the AppSumo/GroupOn bit, but I took a closer look... Do people really shop for wedding dresses like this? The thing about weddings is that they are a fixed time event, unlike say GroupOn which is a "spur of the moment" purchase enabler. Point being that you have a wedding, need clothes for it, will be in a "search" mode for x number of days, make the purchase and move on. This idea basically tries to hit you in that "search" mode. The thing is that they are presenting 1 or two really good deals rather than opening up a store for you to browse. It's interesting math, but I'm not sure that works... you're betting that those deals will be so good (as in - not crap that doesn't sell) that it will beat out all the other avenues that women will use to solve this problem - to the tune of 31%. Hrm.
Cute, but I don't buy the business.<p>For starters, how are any of the "152 average guests" apart of the target market? Last time I checked, the only people who buy wedding dresses are...the 2 people getting married, and their immediate family.<p>That brings their inflated metric of 448.2 million potential customers down to...2-5 million, globally. Sorry, but when you pull out ridiculous statements like <i>"8% of the Earth's population is in our target market!"</i>, you look inexperienced.<p>You might as well say <i>"Our target market is 6-7 billion, because everyone wants to get married."</i>
Agreed... we need to see better breaks in between sections. It's no fun trying to sort out the navigation by having to combine clicking the numbers at the top of the page and scrolling to figure out where each section ends. A simple arrow between sections and more space between them could solve it.<p>Also, I wonder about the business numbers. A $0.17 cost per click on Google Adwords/FB Ads? Seriously? Sounds like nobody is bidding on wedding-related keywords.<p>Also, a 31% conversion rate on all ad-based traffic sounds AMAZING.<p>So the world's cheapest PPC ads combined with the world's highest converting pages makes for a good business? Sure! Who wouldn't want to invest in that.
Check it out if you haven't seen the deck, <a href="http://investors.dressrush.com/" rel="nofollow">http://investors.dressrush.com/</a><p>I think the navigation is a little awkward since some of the slides are much too large to fit on a single screen, so you end up scrolling and flipping pages.
I'm with....most people in saying that this was an extremely nice looking site/pitch deck.<p>But it scares me that all the talk and publicity about this BUSINESS is based on how pretty it made its slideshow. Even to the point that Dressrush pushed it that way (look at the tweet they sent out. Changing pitch decks, not changing wedding shopping). It's one thing to get credit for some great technology and design work, especially on a site like this, but this is being actively promoted.<p>How many people here looked at this great deck a week ago, but as of yesterday couldn't recall what the business did? I'm in that group. AppSumo for weddings? I guess, except I had to look up what AppSumo was. Seems to me we're moving so far towards the "ideas don't matter, but tech and talent do" that it can't be good.<p>I'm not knocking their business. But I guess that's my point; neither is anyone else.
Lol, I love the exponential curves on the traction slide: <a href="http://investors.dressrush.com/#slide7" rel="nofollow">http://investors.dressrush.com/#slide7</a>
The article references the deck "going viral" - that phrase causes me to immediately lose interest as a reader.<p>That being said, the deck is beautiful.
So it's a website, about a website ? Am I missing something here ? BTW it does not seem to work quite right, I am on IE5.5 behind a corporate firewall, I clicked start 20,000 already and still nothing happens ?