Decktopus End of the Year Wrap-up

What a year it’s been. At first look, it was a year of calamities: a global pandemic, wildfires, natural disasters, earthquakes, the tumultuous election processes… But, it was also a year of growth, especially for the digital ecosystem. At first glance, the novel circumstances Covid-19 imposed on the world, the digital population, website penetrations, novel social media users grew steadily. Companies offering digital solutions to everyday problems skyrocketed as their services were sought out immensely. One such company was our very own Decktopus! Founded in 2019, but acquired flesh and blood in the past year, 2020 was no doubt the year of Decktopus. In the past year, our company reached new hights in growth and engagement. How you may ask? Take a glimpse at our end of the year wrap-up report!

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The Year of Decktopus in 12 Points

1. We brought in two new team members to the team:

-Ceylan Ersoy (the reporter) is our new Media and Communications Manager. A recent graduate of University of California, Berkeley, Ceylan is a long time content-producer and media strategist specializing in the creation of creative content for new media organizations and startups.

- Alara Akcasiz (the guerilla) is our new Growth and Community Manager. She graduated from Izmir Institute of Technology studying Chemical Engineering. She is currently working on her wearable technology company and is an avid enthusiast of technological innovation.

2. We launched our campaign on AppSumo!

AppSumo is the go-to software deal site for entrepreneurs, offering discounts and resources to startups like ourselves. With our joint deal, we offered lifetime access to our premium plan including all future updates for only 49 dollars. This deal is still ongoing, so you can claim your code now with 60-day money back guarantee! By the way, Decktopus received a breathtaking 4.92 out of 5 in terms of reviews. KUDOS!

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3. Launched a slack channel

Due to excessive user feedback and desire for our users to be integrated in our development processes we opened up a Slack channel where we post the latest updates from our roadmap. Still haven’t joined it? Join now, to become a part of the process as we work to make Decktopus serve you better. As you join our slack channel, you will directly be provided with a link to our roadmap.

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4. 30 blogs and counting…

No other startup produces as much creative content in the pace that we do. In an incredibly short amount of time, we produced a staggering total of 30 blogs where we demonstrated our expertise as a thought leader in the presentation and documentation creation industry. Check out our blog page here and get ready to be inspired.

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5. Run a presentation survey

As we dove deep into creative content creation, we started brainstorming about new horizons for creative content. All of a sudden, it dawned on us that we needed to generate our own data! Data has become everything, and it will be even more important going into 2021. As Decktopus, we wanted to utilize a user survey as a unique way to engage with our community, gain insights and improve our product offerings accordingly. Our survey collected data on presentation related trends and received immense traction. A primary thing it reinforced was to confirm that our product market fit is optimal; Decktopus is really responding to what users are looking for as they create presentations. To participate in the survey check it out here; to learn more about the current survey results in detail, follow our most recent blog!

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6. Social media boost

We were trending on social media! 2020 was a year of collaborations. The services Decktopus offers attracted the interest of many influencers, including industry trend setters like Silicon Valley Girl, Today with Judy, and Jim Harvey. Did you follow us on social media? Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Youtube! We recently launched two original video series, so it is worth the visit! The first was Presentation Diaries, where people will be sharing their experiences creating presentations for alternative tasks such as business proposals or homework assignments. The second and most recent series is Presentation Template Series, where our Media and Communications Manager Ceylan Ersoy walks you through all the necessary steps of creating the following presentation types: homework presentations, service proposal, startup pitch deck, and progress reports… Check it out now!

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We got published on Interesting Engineering! Christopher McFadden referred to our tool as “the next generation of presentation tools; an innovative platform Decktopus allows its users to save their precious time and reduce their stress levels while producing stunning and gripping presentations effortlessly.”

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7. New Tutorial Video

Our tutorial video is out! We value user experience above all else. That is why we created our product to be as seamless as possible. But, everybody needs help along the way. After all, we offer a lot, and you might miss out on some of our novel features as they come along. To give you a helping hand, we created a Decktopus tutorial video, walking you through everything our product has to offer. Through this manual, you can make the most out of your Decktopus experience.

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8. Our founder gave an interview to Medium!

Read more about his insights as a startup founder and the founding journey of Decktopus! He also gives you an insider tip on how we got started: “A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.” — Nelson Mandela. At the very beginning of the Decktopus journey, even before finding the “Decktopus” name, our code name was “Nelson”, coming from Nelson Mandela.” Read more now!

9. Amazing new features

1. After our AppSumo deal and the ongoing user feedback processes, we started rapidly integrating new features to our platform. The campaign truly generated an additional platform where our users could provide us with the necessary insights we needed. Following this cycle, we are proud to announce the newest features to the platform:
2. Now you can export or import your presentations in ppt format!
3. Users can now insert a presentation on a website with and embed code
4. Focus mode allows you to zoom in on the page you work on!
5. The new voice over feature allows you to record your voice on specific slides.

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10. New sample decks

Our sample deck structure is now divided into two as education and business! Under both categories, you can find a host of new sample deck templates including CV, product demo samples, online course structure and thesis projects…

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11. We expanded our scope!

It became abundantly clear that our users were not only looking to create presentations, but also necessary documents for their tasks and assignments. Given the feedback of our users, we started adjusting our roadmap to integrate more document related features on the platform to actually give our users what they are looking for! This was a great opportunity for us to observe how we shaped our future action items directly in line with our users’ needs.  This also applies to our business model; starting out as a strictly B2C business, our company started evolving to take on small and mid sized corporate partners, integrating a B2B approach to business in the meantime. This form of a future adjustment was foreseen by our team members as we started working on our business model; but the process was severely fastened by requests coming in by our users in the last quarter.

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12. We are about to reach 100 thousand users!

You read that right; imagine the speed of growth in just one year! We are so lucky to have our beloved users enjoying our platform and keep coming back for more.

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With this, we want to wish all our users the happiest new year filled with new possibilities, health, achievement, excitement and happiness. Thank you for choosing Decktopus; in 2021, we will be more than excited to help you create stunning presentations and documents in the simplest way possible. Decktopus your world in 2021!