Everyone’s talking about SBF scamming the world. But, as a business consultant, I am more interested in how he raised that much.

I’ve been reading recently a book called Sapiens that explains how humanity reached where it is today. It’s a fascinating read for me.

However, how we reached this level of evolution is mainly due to our brains and how we think. The one thing we always do as humans is learn from the past. If touching fire burns, then let’s not touch it.

The person in this article’s display picture has caused much financial damage to thousands of people. For that, one must learn how he did that to educate others. That’s why this article exists.

When you read about FTX, you have to wonder how their team raised over $1.8 billion. Well, they obviously did that by convincing investors to invest. So what was their first line of approach? Their pitch deck. So let’s see this and analyze it together. Then, feel free to shoot your opinion in the comments.

FTX’s Pitch Deck Analysis

Slide 0 — Cover Page

The standard clean gradient cover page with the logo and the confidentiality warning. Not much to comment on this one.

Slide 1— Overview and Milestones

The first thing they’re doing is showcasing that they’ve been here for quite a while, which conveys credibility (ironically.)

If an investor thinks cryptocurrency is unsafe, then this slide eases them into thinking FTX is safe.

By saying “Non-Chinese,” they’re slightly targeting the political segment of investors and positioning themselves away from Binance.

Mentioning the founders coming from Google is also a way to establish credibility. Finally, a showcase of acquisitions guarantees that this company is on the right track.

Slide 2— Market Opportunity

If an investor is wondering whether crypto exchanges are here for the long run, this slide puts the fate of FTX alongside the fate of Bitcoin, which symbolizes a big part of crypto.

Hence, they’re trying to say that the only way FTX would fail is if the crypto market fails, which is if Bitcoin fails. So every monthly rise of BTC lets the investors think that FTX is an investment opportunity they’re missing out on.

They’re describing some other features of the exchange as well.

Slide 3 — Traction

Again, a showcase of credibility and traction. You know the phrase, “Traction is king.”

This is what this slide is all about. One should only wonder whether investors who went into FTX did proper due diligence to confirm these numbers.

Nonetheless, whether FTX had traction or not was not the questionable matter in its scandal. It’s how they used the money on the platform.

Slide 4— Further Traction

Just throwing more “B” and “M” to the deck creates a strong FOMO effect. Fortunately, I was not a user of FTX, so I couldn’t know whether those statistics were valid. I think it’s hard to confirm this at this stage. This could possibly appear in a couple of months.

Slide 5 — Competitor Analysis

This showcases that the only real threat is Binance. It also showcases that FTX is exceeding Binance in multiple metrics.

While typing this, it still does not sound believable to me how this whole thing went in the direction it is today. However, I’m sure a few books will be released in a year or so with the exact story.

Yet, going from a graph that looks like this to being bankrupt in no time and having billions lost is just unbelievable.

As an impartial analysis of this slide, it’s quite good if it were true. I’d create it for a client if the facts are exact. I expect certain due diligence to commence afterward that would confirm this or cancel the deal.

Slide 6— Products

This is a pure information slide about what FTX provided as an exchange. There’s not much to mention here.

Slide 7 — Go-to-market or future plans

Similar to the slide before this one, there is not much to comment on here. It’s mainly showcasing future plans.

Slide 8 — Legal (My Favorite)

This is primarily a legal slide to showcase their operating correctly and legally. They would not engage in any money-laundering activities or let FTX Intl. service US customers. (No-one said anything about using the users’ funds to purchase properties in the Bahamas, huh?)

Slide 9 — Team

Finally, as an investor, you must ensure that the team is legit and reliable. So when you see people working at Google, Facebook, and similar companies, you ought to feel safer.

Also, there’s a Forbes article about the founder, so it can’t get safer than this. Showcasing images of the founders is a way to communicate that “We are here, and we are human.”

Slide 10 — Contact

To close, they just put an ending vision sentence with a charity contribution statement. So if you’re thinking a crypto exchange is evil and all about money, donations could be the perfect take-home message for you.

Final Thoughts — Deck that shows credibility.

I do not blame anyone who believed in FTX. The deck is quite persuasive. However, I think that investors could’ve done earlier and better due diligence to see the financial gaps.

Reading the news makes anyone not know what to believe. Hence, I’ll stay away from that and just watch the facts. I invite you to do the same.

However, it’s important to understand and learn from how FTX raised $1.8 billion in this market and wasted more than $8 billion. As an entrepreneur, you’re always told to create a convincing deck. This is quite a convincing one as it’s pure numbers.

But, of course, after this scandal, not a single company in the crypto space with those numbers would be able to raise easily without extensive due diligence.

What do you think of the deck? Do you think it was a fake-it-till-you-make-it sort of thing? Then things got out of hand? Or do you think the deck conveys a strong product doomed by only a few wrong personal decisions?