Slide 1 is a single-image opener that sets tone more than data: a monochrome photograph with the phrase “Do What You Love,” and subtle branding. It uses emotion to create immediate alignment with the audience (investors who respond to mission-driven narratives) and primes viewers to see the product as cultural rather than purely functional. This is effective at capturing attention and framing the deck’s thesis around lifestyle, community and identity rather than just square footage or lease terms.

Founders can learn the power of a purposeful opener: a short, memorable, emotionally resonant visual that supports the company’s differentiator. However, this kind of opener works best when followed quickly by crisp evidence — growth, unit economics and defensibility — because strong emotion can otherwise obscure important operational risks.

Slide 2 consolidates the most persuasive high-level facts: founding date, employees, locations, member counts, average revenue per member, occupancy rates and an abbreviated financial snapshot. There’s also a rapid-growth bar chart showing members over time. This is a classic investor-focused move — put the key metrics and growth trajectory early so investors can anchor their attention on scale and momentum.

The layout balances qualitative facts (locations, team size) with hard KPIs (ARPM, occupancy, EBITDA margin at mature locations), which helps the narrative move from mission to plausibility. Founders should emulate this by surfacing a one-page summary of the company’s most important metrics early; however, make sure those metrics are conservative and footnoted if necessary — overstated or unclear metrics will be the first thing skeptics challenge.

Slide 3 lays out the company’s core proposition: offering working and living spaces optimized for modern, mobile, creative workers. The slide enumerates macro trends (technology, urbanization, demographics), the company’s proprietary ecosystem and the size of the addressable market. This is effective because it connects product features to larger secular trends and articulates why demand is structural, not ephemeral.

The slide also attempts to justify scale economics and a first-mover advantage (projecting a $1B run-rate by 2016). For founders, the lesson is to pair product benefits with macro tailwinds and explain how your model captures value at scale. Be careful: strong forward-looking claims should be supported by conservative underpinnings and sensitivity analysis, since aggressive upside projections invite close scrutiny.

Slide 4 (and adjacent imagery) makes the case that millennials and the changing workforce are driving demand: entrepreneurial, community-oriented, sharing economy behaviors are visualized with photos and short labels (entrepreneurial, community, sharing). The slide connects demographic shifts to product fit, reinforcing why membership-based coworking resonates beyond freelancing; it’s positioning WeWork as culturally aligned with the future of work.

This approach is instructive: credible go-to-market narratives often need a human and societal rationale, not just spreadsheets. But founders should avoid relying solely on cultural fit — quantify how that cultural alignment translates to predictable conversion rates, LTV and retention. Otherwise, investors may see a compelling story with weak underlying unit economics.

Slide 12 presents the company’s unit-level economics and claims near-100% occupancy at mature locations with average unit EBITDA margins >40%. The slide lists desks, license fees per member, service revenue per member, rent & OpEx and derives Unit EBITDA and margin by location. This is the type of slide investors pore over — it’s where the story of scalable, repeatable economics must either stand or fall.

The lesson is twofold: (1) show real, location-level P&Ls to prove economics rather than aggregate top-line numbers; (2) disclose underlying assumptions (ramp time, capex, landlord contributions). WeWork used location examples to prove the concept, which is smart, but future founders should also include sensitivity ranges and conservative scenarios because reputational risk and capital providers punish undisclosed downside sensitivities.

Slide 13 demonstrates rapid top-line acceleration with an annualized membership fee revenue chart and a projection of 225% growth in 2015. Nearby slides (wework effect, pipeline maps) emphasize network effects: more community activity drives both demand and supply advantages (landlord deals, more locations). Presenting both a historical growth curve and a pipeline map is powerful: it shows not just what you’ve done, but where the company will scale next.

Founders should show both realized growth and a validated, staged pipeline — including signed locations, under-development and term-sheet agreements — rather than vague ‘target’ markets. However, be realistic about conversion from pipeline to revenue. Overstating how quickly pipeline converts into operating assets is a common pitfall that can turn a persuasive growth slide into a credibility gap.

Slide 26 outlines how WeWork planned to layer services on top of membership — telephone, conference, printing today; partnerships (TriNet, GA, momofuku, etc.) and future services to increase revenue per member from $28 toward $75+ per month. The slide ties product expansion to revenue uplift and projects large service revenue outcomes tied to the member base ramp. It shows a clear product-led monetization pathway rather than relying solely on real estate appreciation.

For founders, this is a good template: show a roadmap of incremental monetization, a timeline for adoption and concrete partners who validate demand. Also demonstrate how much incremental margin each service contributes and how cross-selling scales. The danger is overestimating per-member take rates or assuming partner economics without signed agreements — make sure to show pilot results, contractual commitments or conservative uptake rates to strengthen the case.