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Take a look at Facebook's first-ever ad sales pitch deck: 'What is thefacebook.com?'

Jim Edwards   

Take a look at Facebook's first-ever ad sales pitch deck: 'What is thefacebook.com?'
Tech1 min read

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook

An early Facebook user.

Facebook was launched on February 4, 2004. Founder Mark Zuckerberg was famously disinterested in selling ads on the site, which at the time served only Harvard University. But "thefacebook.com," as it was known, grew from campus to campus, and CFO Eduardo Saverin became increasingly enthusiastic about getting revenue for the site from ads.

This is the sales pitch deck, and some of Facebook's internal documents - including early spreadsheets of user data - used by Josh Iverson from October 2004. Iverson was employed by ad sales agency Y2M, and he made deals to put the first big brands on Facebook, including MasterCard, Paramount, Ford, The North Face, and (surprisingly) Apple. We believe it is Facebook's first ever ad sales deck.

It shows how few people were on Facebook at the time - some universities had only dozens of users - and how Saverin and Iverson hoped to get $15,000 from each advertiser who wanted to reach their users. These slides date back to October 2004.

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