My Favorite Slide from 35 Years in Tech

I started my first company in 1988 when I was 14 years old. I created Bullpen Capital in 2010 and have been formally in the venture capital business for 14 years. Over those 35 years in tech startups, I have seen literally thousands of pitch decks. Of all of the decks, there is ONE slide from ONE company that is simply put the most memorable. That company, JackPocket, was recently sold to Draft Kings for $750m.

We invested many years before when the company was valued around $12m. At that time, Pete Sullivan had the following version of my favorite slide in his deck.

From an Early JackPocket deck:

Why is this my favorite slide? There are two reasons. First, it is simply so surprising — how many of you knew that the lottery business in the US is larger than all of the Music, Film, Video Games, Books, and Sports Tickets COMBINED?! The second is the reason Pete so needed this slide in the deck. And that is because of the built-in bias to the venture industry. Since venture capitalists don’t buy lottery tickets (or take the bus, etc.), they had NO IDEA how big of a market opportunity JackPocket was attacking. This slide was needed to hit them over the head with a fact that would be difficult for them to digest.

From a Recent Jackpocket Deck:

The more recent version of the slide is above. It’s the same basic idea just a slightly different representation and different graphic format. The reason that this slide was needed (even though the company was kicking butt by that time) was the same. I would literally get calls from potential new investors asking, “Is the market really that big? I don’t know anyone who plays the lottery.”.

Congrats to Pete and his team at JackPocket for a stellar outcome and for fighting the group-think that is pervasive in our industry. And congrats for the non-monetary prize of my “favorite pitch deck slide ever.”