According to studies by Docsend, investors spend an average of 3 minutes and 44 seconds reviewing a pitch deck. More importantly, they spend 15% of that time reading the Team Slide.

Creating an impactful team slide is an art. Your aim is to describe the key team members, their achievements, and why they are suitable for their roles. Unfortunately, the pitch deck team slide is one of the most challenging slides to get right. 

This article will discuss various team slide designs and provide examples from successful startups that have received significant funding. 

What is the Pitch Deck Team Slide? 

In a startup pitch deck, a team slide is a visual representation of each member of your team. This slide introduces the founders and team members and their backgrounds. More importantly, it proves that the team has the experience and skills to drive the business to success. The slide can incorporate many elements, including headshots, job titles, role descriptions, and prior career history.

When designing your pitch deck team slide, there are three approaches you should consider. These include the Full Bio, the Combined Experience slide, and the Minimal Approach.

Team Slide Option #1: The Full Bio

The Full Bio approach is a great way to showcase the pitch deck team slide. While there are numerous ways that a startup can utilize the team slide, the full bio is the most comprehensive. Generally, these slides resemble a resume, providing a full scope of the team member’s most notable achievements. 

This version of the pitch deck team slide can take many different forms.

Sometimes, founders use entire paragraphs to explain the team member’s background and career highlights. Other times, the team uses a series of bullet points to display each member’s history in a more digestible way. Some teams use a mix of paragraphs and bullet points for the slide. They leverage the length of the paragraphs to give a summary and highlight noteworthy accomplishments in the bullet points. 

Pros and Cons

Those who adopt this approach will face both pros and cons. This format uses more text and length than other slide structures, explaining team members’ experiences more broadly.

However, extended team slides are detrimental when presenting your pitch deck. Instead of listening to you, investors will use their attention to read your text. If investors are reading your slides during your presentation, you’ve failed. Instead, they should browse the text quickly while intensely listening to your pitch.

When To Use This Approach

We don’t recommend using full biographies in pitch deck team slides for every occasion. More appropriate team slide options exist that you can leverage when presenting your business to investors. However, this extended version is ideal if you’re emailing the deck as an introduction to investors.

The key to leveraging this slide is ensuring each member’s bio is concise and well-structured. Avoid overwhelming the audience with details or unnecessary information. Focus on team members’ relevant backgrounds and align their expertise with your business’s specific challenges. 

Full Bio – Team Slide Examples

Check out the following examples to see how these successful startups used the pitch deck team slide to raise capital from investors.

Fyre’s Team Slide

Those who have seen the Netflix or Hulu specials about Fyre already know how disastrous the venture was. However, while the event was a notable failure, the founders did a fantastic job proving a strong team.

Fyre’s team slide includes significant information about its founders. The slide gives insight into each team member’s track record and explains their role responsibilities. It shows how each founder contributes to the business and how their experiences match their team responsibilities. 

Ultimately, Fyre’s startup team successfully showcased the business idea and raised over $26 million from angel investors. 

Mattermark’s Team Slide 

Mattermark may have misunderstood what the term pitch deck team slide meant. Typically, companies present their teams on a single slide. However, Mattermark gave each member an entire slide for their biography.

If our team at ThinkLions had created this slide, we would have made several changes. Still, it has several positive aspects that caught our attention.

The slide is visually overwhelming, and the design is confusing. Although it details the founders’ skills and experience, the design is hard to make sense of. Ultimately, the pitch deck template feels off-putting instead of inviting.

It makes the reader avoid reading it instead of making them want to engage with the information. A better design would make it easier for readers to digest the information. The slide is similar to entering a hoarder’s home. Your eyes can’t quite comprehend what’s happening and your brain immediately feels overwhelmed with information.

Despite the long text and terrible design, the slide has some redeeming factors. The use of logos and imagery adds credibility to each founder’s background. Readers instantly know that the founders have experience at massive companies like Microsoft and Twilio. Unfortunately, that may be as far as investors get before giving up on reading through the clutter.

The Airbnb Team Slide

Airbnb’s pitch deck team slide caught our eye because it balances visual design with informative details. The team bolded each founder’s name and presented their positions and responsibilities in large text. The bios are informative and short, using a maximum of three lines. They aligned the photos and text to the left, making the slide look clean and easy to read. 

The Takeaway

We prefer some of these examples more than others. However, every one of these early-stage companies successfully raised investor capital. Some of these companies, like Airbnb, even had successful exits, earning the founders billions of dollars. When examining these pitch deck team slides, there are several lessons we can take away:

• Only incorporate the information that matters most. Although the team slide layout in a pitch deck commands detail, it isn’t the place to dump every detail of your professional life. Instead, highlight your relevant experience and the qualities demonstrating your ability to succeed in your startup role.
• Make it as easy as possible for the reader to digest. The issue with full bio team slides is that they are lengthy. Keep the text short to make it easy for readers to comprehend the material. Furthermore, use bullet points instead of paragraphs to highlight your career history.
• Utilize logos and graphics to improve the slide’s impact. Founders often lean on text to get their points across in a pitch deck. But in many cases, there are better options available. Graphics, like logos, can tell a story much more effectively than text while streamlining your slide design.

Team Slide Option #2: Combined Experience

Another approach to the pitch deck team slide is the Combined Experience bio. In this version, founders showcase their career experience as a team instead of describing each member separately. This shorter version shows the team working together towards one goal. The focus is on what the team can do rather than the backgrounds of each team member. 

A brand can present a pitch deck team slide with a Combined Experience structure in numerous ways. Brands can show combined experience with statistics, like their total sales or capital raised. They can also highlight key achievements or essential facts about their team. 

Pros and Cons

Every team slide format has strengths and flaws. While the Combined Experience variant is an excellent approach for a great team slide, it can also have drawbacks. 

The advantage of this type of slide is its brevity. The condensed format is presentable and readable and can quickly display the team’s abilities. It presents the team as a formidable unit and helps investors understand the potential of all members.

This approach’s drawback is that many investors don’t want to see the team as a whole unit. They may be interested in understanding the organization of the team. These investors want to understand each team position and find proof of each person’s skills for their respective roles. Unfortunately, a Combined Experience slide will not provide this level of detail. 

When To Use This Approach

Use the Combined Experience approach when presenting your pitch deck to an audience. That way, you can fill in the blanks about each team member during the presentation.

Avoid using this format when creating a pitch deck for reading instead of one for presenting. Since it provides a minimal view of each team member, it will leave readers with more questions than answers. Unanswered questions can lead to doubt, and doubt leads to objection. The last thing you want to hear from your prospective investors is an objection. 

Combined Experience – Team Slide Examples

Many startups have used this approach to present the team in the pitch deck. To create a great team slide, study examples from founders who secured funding from investors and venture capitalists. 

The Fyre Team Slide

While Fyre Festival is a great model for what not to do as a business, its pitch deck has many great qualities. In the slide, Fyre presents the team’s combined experiences and accomplishments.

The slide explains that the team members have worked at top companies such as Google, Nike, Helmut Lang, and Breather. The vital information is clear and readable.  

The design is clean and consistent throughout Fyre’s entire pitch deck. It utilizes small and light fonts for less critical information. Furthermore, it uses bolded text with a thin orange line to separate the most important details. The content showcases the team as a unit and clarifies that there is significant experience between the team members. 

Intercom’s Pitch Deck Team Slide

Intercom’s team slide showcases individual team members and their positions. However, as a Combined Experience slide, it successfully showcases the team’s highlights as a unit. It helps us see who is responsible for each role. However, it is unclear which achievement belongs to each member.

For example, we know that the team launched Qwitter and Exceptional, and participated in startup acquisitions. However, it is unclear whether the entire team launched these companies or just one of the members. Most likely, the founders kept things mysterious for a reason. 

One massive benefit of this slide type is that it takes the pressure off team members with weaker backgrounds. For example, say one founder launched both mentioned companies, while the other three had no accolades. In this case, the team would seem unbalanced, and investors would question the team’s strength. However, by combining the members’ experience, each member receives equal credit for the achievements. 

The Takeaway

The Combined Experience slide can either contribute to the success of your pitch deck or completely backfire. Investors will either love this approach or feel slighted. Only choose this option if your team’s combined statistics are notable enough to make a difference. When examining the previously mentioned samples, there are several lessons we can take away: 

• Know when to use a Combined Experience approach. The Combined Experience slide only works in certain circumstances. For example, use it when presenting the slide and when one founder’s accomplishments may have to carry everyone else’s. 
• Focus on the highlights that matter most. Refrain from overloading your slide with every possible detail. Be intentional with every highlight and only display the experiences that best align with the startup’s needs.  
• Consider adding names and team roles. Use this version when showcasing the highlights of the team as a unit. However, you should still consider adding each member’s name, image, and team role.

Team Slide Option #3: The Minimal Slide

Some brands give detailed background information about each member, while others use a simpler approach in their pitch decks. 

This approach is precisely what it sounds like – minimal. Usually, it only includes the member’s headshot, name, and job role. Sometimes, it may consist of a small blurb about their career accomplishments.

This version is relatively obscure and leaves many questions unanswered. On the other hand, this approach is clean, streamlined, and straightforward.

Pros and Cons

The Minimal pitch deck team slide is the opposite of the Full Bio version, with reversed strengths and weaknesses. 

Unlike the Full Bio team slide, a Minimal approach has a much cleaner design. Pitch deck writers and designers don’t have many elements to work with. Therefore, keeping the slide aligned with the design theme is easier.

Full Bio slides have lots of text and elements, so designers have to squeeze them in to fit. Those slides can become cluttered and overwhelming. 

While a minimal design is an advantage, it has its drawbacks, too. It doesn’t provide investors with enough information for them to assess and understand the team’s capabilities. 

When To Use This Approach

This approach makes sense only when someone is presenting the material. Other approaches are better if you use your deck to provide detailed team information.

When presenting the deck, the presenter can fill in the gaps the slide may have missed. You can verbally explain each team member’s background while displaying a clean, easy-to-read slide.

However, sending the pitch deck to an investor for self-review will leave more questions than answers. Unanswered questions lead to doubts, which turn into objections.

The Minimal Approach – Pitch Deck Team Slide Examples

For presentations, the minimal approach is the most popular. When presenting a deck, we recommend this version over others. See the examples below to learn about creating a practical but minimal pitch deck team slide. 

SEMRush’s Team Slide

SEMRush’s team slide includes components of the minimal and full bio approaches. While the information seems scarce, readers are clear about each member’s role and background.

Each team member’s bio follows a consistent format. The first line displays their names. The second line indicates their role. The third line highlights their experience.

The slide is minimal but still effective.  

The Buzzfeed Team Slide 

While BuzzFeed’s team slide is brief, it still provides significant information. This example shows the team role in bold, with the names of the individuals filling the role listed below. Some listed team members have parentheses beside their names, mentioning companies they previously worked for. 

Buzzfeed uses a unique but impactful design theme for its pitch deck team slide. Since creating this slide, the BuzzFeed team has raised more than $696.3 million in investor and VC funding.

Ooomf’s Pitch Deck Team Slide

Ooomf did an exceptional job presenting its pitch deck team slide. This slide combines the minimal approach with the full bio and combined experience versions. At the top of the slide, the team lists a combined experience statistic. Instead of only showing each member’s name and position, Ooomf listed several summarized highlights to display their credibility. 

In this version, the team maintained simplicity while still explaining each team member’s accomplishments. Even though Ooomf’s team slide uses sentence fragments, it offers more information than some Full Bio examples.

The Takeaway

Experts always suggest minimizing the amount of text on a pitch deck slide. However, it is possible to over-minimize the team slide in your pitch deck. The best slides were minimal but still presented the type of information an investor would want to know. These slides can teach you several lessons, including:

• Minimize the text, but not too much. The problem with minimal slides is that they can become too bare. You want to reduce the load on your pitch deck team slide. However, don’t minimize it to the point that it no longer includes the information investors want to know. 
• Minimize text, not impact. Ultimately, you should reduce the number of words on the page, but not at the expense of quality. To capture investors’ attention, you want to build memorable slides. If you eliminate the fluff, the highlights will stand out.   

Pitch Deck Team Slide – A Final Word

Creating the best pitch deck may seem easy, but I assure you it is not. Success means thinking like an investor, examining each slide, and presenting only the important information without any unnecessary details.

The best way to learn how to create a compelling pitch deck team slide is to assess decks from successful companies. Find patterns in their slides, and replicate them to create your team slide. 

At ThinkLions, our writers help startups raise money by creating investor packages, business plans, and pitch decks. Contact us, share your goals, and let us help you turn your startup idea into a successful business. 

The post The Art of Creating a Pitch Deck Team Slide appeared first on Startup Squared.

You’ve thought up an amazing business idea, built traction, and scheduled a pitch with an angel investor. As you’re ticking off the many boxes on your investor pitch checklist, you realize something is missing. Uh oh, you completely forgot that you need a pitch deck.

Immediately, you open PowerPoint on your laptop, with sweat dripping down your face. After three hours, the only progress you’ve made is typing the company’s name on the Title slide. With tears in your eyes, you give up and type “pitch deck writer” into the Google search bar.

Unfortunately, many founders share your experience. Thousands of entrepreneurs contact pitch deck writers every year in a panicked frenzy. But, if you know what to look for, you can find the optimal professional to create an investor pitch deck.

There are a few things you need to know before contracting a pitch deck consultant. With that investor meeting approaching rapidly, you may only have one shot to get your deck right.

What is a Pitch Deck Writer?

A pitch deck writer is an individual, agency, or company hired to write and design a startup’s pitch deck. They develop the tools that startup teams need to approach investors and raise capital.

The pitch deck writer’s job is to assist startups by performing market research and developing the brand’s messaging. Furthermore, they prepare financial projections, analyze competitors, write content, and design the final presentation.

Preparing to Hire a Pitch Deck Writer

Creating a pitch deck is an extremely involved process. Despite what most entrepreneurs believe, writing and designing are only small pieces to a much larger puzzle. Unfortunately, finding a capable writer or designer doesn’t guarantee that you’ll end up with an investor-ready pitch deck.

According to statistics, only 1% of pitch decks attract investors and land investment money. Finding the right person or company to create your deck is crucial for your success.

Preparation is key to hiring a capable consultant. There are three preliminary steps you should take to prepare for the project and maximize your success potential.

1) Define Your Goals and Objectives

Startup consultants have varied skills, backgrounds, and experiences. The company may have more experience in one industry than another. Or, they may have more success creating one type of pitch deck over the next. The best pitch deck writer is one whose experience aligns with your startup’s goals and objectives. 

Start the process by defining your goals.

For example, you should know what type of audience will view or read your deck. A pitch deck for presenting to a VC firm may vastly differ from one used to impress a startup accelerator program. Likewise, a presentation deck will look much different than one prepared for email. 

Defining your goals and objectives early on makes evaluating startup consultants easier and quicker. Ultimately, your goal shouldn’t be to simply hire someone to create a pitch deck. Anyone with PowerPoint experience can toss a slideshow together. Unfortunately, very few can successfully help your startup reach its desired result.

2) Outline Key Messages

Your pitch deck must capture more than just information about your business. It encompasses your brand voice, tone, and personality. It communicates the specific messages that form the foundation of your brand. 

Too many entrepreneurs expect a pitch deck writer to create magic without any guidance or prior exposure to the brand. You know more about your startup than anyone, and your insights are important in the process. If you want your writer to stay on brand as they communicate your business, spend time creating brand guidelines.

In your project spec, answer the following questions: 

• What key messages do you want to display in your pitch deck? 
• What personality should the pitch deck reflect? Young and fun? Mature and professional?
• What is the tone of the pitch deck? Happy? Stern? 
• What feeling do you want the audience to take away from your pitch deck?

Remember that the more information you provide to your pitch deck writer, the better the outcome you can expect. Knowing the goals beforehand gives you clarity in the evaluation process as you choose the right professional for your project.

3) Assess Existing and Required Resources

Finally, evaluate what resources you already have and what you actually need from your hired professional. Hiring a pitch deck agency gives you access to professionals who can help with different parts of your deck. For example, they can provide market research, financial modeling, branding, content development, and design. 

Yet, if you have some of these assets already, there’s no reason to duplicate them. That would only require you to pay for them again and lengthen the time required to complete your deck. For example, if you’ve already written the content, you may only need a designer. If you’ve already modeled your financials, it can save time and money to have the company use your existing asset.

How To Evaluate A Pitch Deck Writer

The difference between a successful and failed pitch deck comes down to the experience and ability of the person creating it. You’ll likely interview several startup consultants, but you also need to know how to evaluate them. As you evaluate professionals, agencies, and companies, you should analyze their experience, industry understanding, and track record.

1) Experience & Expertise

Hiring someone with pitch deck experience isn’t enough to create a winning document. A well-written and aesthetically-pleasing presentation alone won’t attract investors. It is more important to find a company with funding knowledge, storytelling expertise, and a keen market understanding.

Are They Knowledgable?

Look for a writer who deeply understands the startup funding landscape. The optimal professional will understand various funding sources, including venture capital, angel investors, and crowdfunding. They will also have a clear understanding of the specific requirements of each funding avenue.

With their expertise, they can help you decide the right funding source for your startup, situation, and goals. Writers unfamiliar with the nuances of each funding channel will struggle to craft a pitch deck that aligns with investor preferences.

Can They Tell Your Startup’s Story?

Although your deck needs to communicate the right information, it should also be engaging. A well-written pitch will pull investors in and have them hanging on every word. Storytelling is the key to keeping your audience’s attention.

Storytelling is a powerful approach for conveying a startup and its potential impact. Make sure the writer you hire can create a captivating story that grabs investors’ interest. They should know how to present characters, follow a plot, and leave the audience wanting more.

Do They Know How Investors Think?

Your pitch deck writer should also understand how investors think in today’s market. The startup landscape constantly evolves. Today’s trends become outdated quickly, and markets shift rapidly.

A worthy consultant stays updated on the most recent trends and incorporates them into their work. As an expert, they can offer valuable insights to align your startup to current industry dynamics. Since they know how investors think, they can craft a deck that speaks to investors’ interests.

2) Industry & Niche Understanding

No individual or company has expertise across every industry. However, some elements of operating a business apply across every industry. For example, certain words or phrases may carry over from one industry to another. Still, each industry has its own nuances, jargon, and challenges.

With enough time, a competent startup consultant can perform the necessary research to learn your niche. But, if your team is in a hurry, there may not be enough time to understand the nuances of your industry.

Ultimately, the less experience they have with your niche, the more they will rely on their research capabilities. Someone with a strong research background can quickly grasp and understand the intricacies of your particular niche. The best writer will find market reports and customer studies, analyze the market, and use insights to learn quickly.

Furthermore, a capable writer should know what questions to ask and who they should seek out for an answer. Sometimes, they will engage you as the source for certain information. Other times, they may reach out to industry experts, leaders, or influencers to learn more about the industry.

The ideal consultant will have a proactive approach to research. They will welcome the opportunity to research and learn about a new market.

A lack of experience in your particular industry shouldn’t always be a deal breaker. Consultants with no industry experience can still be effective if they’ve created decks for the same target audience.

A consultant skilled in creating pitch decks for real estate tech companies can likely make one for a crypto startup. While these industries are vastly different, they share similar target audiences – investors. Therefore, the consultant may already be familiar with the target audience, its situations, needs, and language.

3) Track Record

A consultant’s track record is another important consideration. Ask about the successful pitch decks they created in the past and the results of those projects. If they cannot produce case studies or success stories that align with your goals, it could be cause for concern. 

As you interview consultants, don’t fall into the trap of setting your expectations too high. A pre-seed startup shouldn’t require its consultants to have a portfolio full of clients that raised millions in funding. A very small handful of startups raise millions of dollars in the seed stage.

Instead, have realistic expectations of how much your company has the potential to raise. Then, look for consultants who have helped similar companies raise seed capital within the same range. 

It is also important to realize that the pitch deck isn’t the only contributor to fundraising success. A startup can have the best pitch deck, but other elements can still cause it to fail at raising capital.

There could be a reason that the consultant can’t deliver million-dollar success studies. It is possible that they created great pitch decks for teams in industries that investors aren’t interested in. Another possibility is that they designed amazing pitch decks for mediocre teams that couldn’t pitch them properly.

Sidenote: Don’t go into your pitch unprepared. Check out our article on how to deliver a great pitch to attract investors. 

As you interview consultants, ask about companies they have worked with previously. Don’t focus all your attention on huge numbers, but look at their overall impact.

Seek to understand where the client started and the outcomes they achieved as a result of the pitch deck service. Spend some time looking through their portfolio, if they have one available. Focus on the entire package, not just the pitch deck design.

Design is the least important element of a deck to investors. There are more important aspects to evaluate when you’re examining a consultant’s portfolio. Look at how well they researched the market, how they conveyed the startup story, and how they communicated product-market fit.

Contracting A Pitch Deck Writer

So you’ve contacted a consultant or agency, evaluated their abilities, and assessed their portfolio. You feel confident that they can deliver a professional pitch deck. They’ve proven their pitch deck writing skills and you’re excited to proceed.

Before you decide to move forward, it is important to understand the specifics of the project and contract. At a minimum, you should have a clear understanding of pricing, terms, and deliverables. 

Pitch Deck Service – Pricing

Pitch deck services can vary from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. If you want to hire someone with years of experience and proven results, expect to pay a premium.

Different companies have varying business models, so decide your top budget before you begin negotiating. Price is simple to understand, but the pricing model may be a bit more confusing. Startup consultants typically use one of the following pricing models, including fixed-fee, hourly, and equity-based.  

Fixed Fee

Most often, consultants use a fixed fee model for pitch deck services. The company will propose a price for the entire project based on your specific requirements. They usually request a 50% deposit upfront and require you to pay the remaining amount once they achieve certain goals. 

Hourly

Few companies charge an hourly rate for pitch deck creation. But if you hire freelancers, they will likely place bids with an hourly price.

Be careful when contracting a writer using this model. Make sure you understand how many hours it takes them to create similar pitch decks, on average. Pitch presentations may look simple from the outside, but they can prove extremely time-consuming. For reference, at ThinkLions, our pitch deck services typically require more than 80 manhours from start to finish. 

Equity-Based

It isn’t common, but some startup consultants may propose an equity-based payment model. An experienced pitch deck writer will only offer this agreement to a startup with traction and a high valuation. You should deeply consider the pros and cons of an equity-based agreement. You might pay more over time with equity than with a fixed fee. 

Pitch Deck Service – Terms and Deliverables

The final step is to negotiate the terms of service. The output of your project isn’t the only thing you should consider.

Ideally, you want to experience a smooth and predictable process from onboarding to delivery. During negotiations, ask the pitch deck consultant about revisions, ownership, and confidentiality. 

How Many Revisions Do They Offer?

Entrepreneurs often enter the project with certain expectations. Before starting a project, they already visualize how the deck will appear, including graphics and font selection. Even the best pitch deck writer may not meet your expectations on the first delivery. The project will probably need at least one revision along the way.

You might expect a couple of rounds of revisions to be industry standard. But, the contract terms may not state a specific number of revisions. Sometimes, consultants don’t allow for any revisions.

This situation is risky. You either have to live with the deck, make revisions yourself, or pay additional fees to the consultant for changes. An extra two or three rounds of revisions could end up costing hundreds or thousands of dollars. 

Other consultants may have a defined number of revision rounds. For example, their contract may clearly state that they are willing to do two rounds of revisions with no additional fee. This method is definitely less risky than agreeing to not have any revision opportunities.

At ThinkLions, we offer unlimited revision stages. Our team sends numerous client updates at every step of the process. These updates allow us to collect and implement our clients’ feedback along the way.

Even with unlimited revisions, problems can arise. If the consultant doesn’t update you, the first finished draft might be far lower than your expectation. It may require significant and time-consuming changes.

Clarify how many iterations the consultant will allow. Also, make sure they define how often they will update you on the project’s progress.

A Note About Confidentiality

Confidentiality is an important factor to negotiate in your service contract. You may think your consultant will be careful with your information, but that assumption can be costly. Many companies and freelancers use their client projects as samples in their portfolios. If your competitors contact them, they may also be able to access your pitch deck. 

Some teams encourage others to share their pitch decks. They want to reach the most people possible with their brand message and offer. However, this could lead to the wrong people gaining access to the details of their startup.

If you’re fine with a consultant using your presentation in their portfolio, make sure to state it in the contract. Better safe than sorry!  

The Final Step Before You Decide

Follow these tips and you will certainly find a pitch deck writer that can help you achieve your goals. Remember the factors that matter and use them to assess prospective consultants as you go forward.

If you need help with your pitch deck, we encourage you to contact us. Over the last decade, we have worked with more than 500 startups. We’ve created pitch decks and business plans that have raised over $50 million from investors. Click to learn more about our pitch deck services!

The post The Startup’s Guide to Hiring a Pitch Deck Writer appeared first on Startup Squared.

Pitch decks are essential for businesses in the fundraising process, especially when introducing investors to your brand and products. They play a pivotal role in telling your brand story and building excitement. While having a remarkable business idea is crucial, articulating its potential to investors can make or break your fundraising efforts.

Airbnb’s founders didn’t enter the market with fundraising experience. Still, in 2009, they crafted an extraordinary pitch deck that helped them raise an impressive $600,000 during their seed round.

In this article, we’ll meticulously analyze every aspect of the Airbnb pitch deck and uncover the secrets behind its powerful impact. By learning from this outstanding example, you can optimize your own pitch deck and maximize investor engagements for your startup.

About the Airbnb Pitch Deck

Before evaluating Airbnb’s pitch deck slides, let’s put the company’s situation into perspective. Airbnb is now a massive business, with millions of hosts and renters worldwide. However, the company didn’t begin with immediate success. Instead, the company’s humble beginnings started with an unexpected minimum viable product (MVP).

The company officially hit the market in 2008 but launched three times before attracting property owners and travelers across the nation.

The first launch was its minimum viable product. Before building an app, the team tested the market by offering airbeds for rent in the founder’s apartment. To validate its hypotheses, the team targeted travelers flying into California for a local conference. The team put the offer online, and three conference attendees immediately accepted.

Through this experiment, the company validated the customer problem. For travelers, hotels are expensive and don’t provide unique experiences.

After proving the concept, the founders created the initial website. The second version of the technology-enabled travelers to book a room in a renter’s home. After this launch, the team hit the fundraising trail, intending to raise $150,000 at a $1.5 million valuation.

CEO Brian Chesky said:

“We were introduced to 15 angel investors. 7 investors never responded, 8 replied – of those, 4 said no ‘it didn’t fit within their thesis,’ 1 said they didn’t like the market, and 3 just passed.”

Airbnb launched a third time at South by Southwest (SXSW), a festival that draws over 100,000 attendees each year. This final launch established the foundation for what would eventually become a unicorn startup.

By the time Airbnb reached the seed round, it already had traction, a website, and a proven business model. As a result of Airbnb’s pitch deck and positioning, the team raised $600K from Sequoia Capital.

Slide 1: Title

The vast majority of pitch decks start with a title slide that includes the brand name, logo, and slogan. Airbnb used a minimal design in its title slide, using its brand colors and grey text over a white background. Unlike many brands, Airbnb’s team chose not to include many design elements, like a background or images.

By leveraging this minimal theme, Airbnb’s logo stands out against the backdrop. The reader’s focus immediately goes to the most important elements, including the brand name and slogan.

The brand name alone brings intrigue and sparks curiosity. Separately, we know what air beds are and we are familiar with the Bed & Breakfast concept. But no one at the time could describe the relationship between the two. Readers would have to hold on to their seats and wait for the presentation if they wanted to gain clarity.

The appeal of the slide is that it leaves the reader curious. In 2008, booking with locals instead of hotels was an unfamiliar concept. Yet, the idea of merging the short-term housing industry with the sharing economy was intriguing.

When the team pitched this slide, audience members wanted to hear more about it. Even those who didn’t want to invest wanted to satisfy their curiosity. With only a logo and seven words, Airbnb successfully captured investors’ attention.

Slide 2: Problem

The Airbnb team decided to present its Problem Slide immediately in its pitch deck. Likewise, you should also consider placing this slide as one of the first in your startup presentation.

Successful businesses are those that solve massive problems for a vast number of customers. Investors are fully aware that if the problem isn’t large enough, then the solution doesn’t matter.

The Airbnb pitch deck makes the reader or audience aware of three massive problems among travelers. First, they mention that online bookings are too expensive for travelers booking online. Furthermore, hotels lack unique experiences and travelers don’t have a way to book rooms with locals rather than hotels.

The founders didn’t waste multiple slides explaining the problem. All they needed was three bullet points to expose the market’s challenges. In 2008, prior to Airbnb’s launch, any occasional traveler could relate to these challenges. Even today, hotel prices peak when there is an event drawing thousands of travelers to a particular city.

Airbnb proved that even a few bullet points can have a massive impact. They didn’t write in full sentences but presented each problem as a short sentence fragment. The audience can scan the slide for a few seconds and understand exactly what problem the startup is hoping to solve.

When creating your Problem Slide, focus on connecting the audience to the problem in a way they can quickly relate to. The audience should understand the market challenges even if they don’t experience them firsthand.

Slide 3: Solution

The Airbnb founders immediately followed the Problem Slide with the Solution. Following the same theme throughout the deck, this slide does not leverage extensive design. By minimizing design features, each element on the slide becomes more profound. The slide uses bold and capital letters to make the most important text stand out.

Notice that this slide refrains from explaining the features of the Airbnb solution. Instead, they focused on showcasing the benefits of the platform. Ultimately, customers don’t care about your product or what features it provides. They only care about how it can benefit them, improve their situation, or better their lives.

The slide emphasizes the following words: a web platform, save money, make money, and share culture. Without reading it word-for-word, the audience quickly grasps that it is a web platform that provides three significant benefits.

Your pitch deck may or may not adopt Airbnb’s minimal design approach. However, you should also focus on the benefits of the solution as opposed to its features. Instead of explaining every feature offered, detail how your solution directly solves the issues from the Problem Slide.

Slide 4: Market Validation

Airbnb had some traction, but the founders only served three customers during its MVP launch. While that may seem impressive to some, it isn’t a strong enough metric to sway investors.

The founders refrained from showing Airbnb’s minimal traction. Instead, they showcased the market size by detailing the number of temporary housing listings on sites like CouchSurfing and Craigslist. This approach was risky but worth it. By showing statistics from other platforms, the pitch deck validates that real consumers are in the market seeking a suitable solution.

In this slide, Airbnb’s founders focused on simplicity and proof. There are no complex graphs, no distracting images, and very limited text. In this slide, the focus is on the elements that stand out the most, the market validation numbers.

Slide 5: Market Size

The Market Size slide utilizes a framework called the TAM, SAM, and SOM target market analysis. Many startups use this framework and investors are quite familiar with it. This analysis enables startups to showcase the total size of their markets compared to the percentage they can likely attract.

For the Total Available Market, the Airbnb pitch deck detailed the number of trips booked worldwide. Any traveler could potentially be a future Airbnb customer.

However, the company doesn’t attract every type of traveler with its solution. Instead, Airbnb focuses on individuals seeking to travel on a budget and those actively booking trips online. When the team created its pitch deck, 560 million individuals fit this description.

Finally, the team expressed the market share they believed the company could acquire – 84 million customers. The Serviceable Obtainable Market looks at competition and the startup’s ability to secure a meaningful position. Then, it analyzes what portion of the SAM the startup could potentially capture.

Slide 6: Product

Airbnb’s Product Slide successfully fulfills two objectives. First, it showcases the company’s web platform with three images, making investors fully aware of its features. It also proves how simple it is for users to book a property – search by city, review listings, and book it.

The team could have decided to explain its payment system and the intricate details of its browse/search engine. However, these additions would have muddied the slide and made the process seem complex. Instead, Airbnb wanted to showcase the simplicity of its platform – and the Product Slide achieves this goal.

Slide 7: Business Model

Investors want to know about market sizes and problems. But always remember that they are investors, not activists. Their primary goal is to make money, not save the world.

There is one question every investor will ask – how do you earn revenue? Investors want to earn a return on their investment, which is impossible if the business cannot turn a profit.

The Airbnb pitch deck defines its revenue model with a short statement, “We take a 10% commission on each transaction.” Furthermore, it showcases a single business model and defines the company’s expected revenue by its third year.

Don’t expect investors to do complex calculations to estimate the financial potential of your startup. Follow Airbnb’s lead and model it in a way that they can immediately understand.

Slide 8: Adoption Strategy

Airbnb’s Market Adoption Slide used imagery to explain its strategy for attracting new customers. The three channels include events, partnerships, and a Craigslist dual posting feature.

Customer acquisition is critical to a startup’s success. This slide shouldn’t just provide a long list of marketing strategies. Instead, consider how you will introduce your product to customers who have never heard of your company. Furthermore, consider your budget and how you can leverage it to attract early adopters.

Slide 9: Competition

The Competition Slide explains the startup’s market position as it relates to competitors offering a similar solution. Most startups add a Competitor Feature Table to this slide. In the table, they list each competitor and use checkmarks to compare each brand’s features, offerings, and qualities.

However, Airbnb designed its Competition slide differently. It used a matrix with Offline vs. Online Transactions on the X-axis and Affordable vs. Expensive on the Y-axis. This approach positions Airbnb as an affordable online provider and separates its offering from competitors placed in other rows and columns.

Slide 10: Competitive Advantage

In the previous slide, Airbnb showcased its closest competitors and mapped out its position in the competitive landscape. In the Competitive Advantages Slide, the deck showcases how Airbnb outperforms similar existing solutions.

The slide uses six frames to emphasize Airbnb’s advantages. Despite having more text than previous slides, the clean design makes it simple to understand.

Slide 11: Team

There is nothing especially unique about Airbnb’s team slide, but it includes all the information an investor requires. The slide provides a short bio of each founder, comprising an image, their positions, and a detailed but short description.

Furthermore, the slide mentions the company’s advisors. Investors look for solid teams with the experiences needed to build and scale a successful startup. Investors feel more comfortable when teams have advisors to provide advice in areas where founders lack experience.

Slide 12: Press

By adding a Press Slide, Airbnb added credibility to its pitch deck and business concept. Since media sources seek out interesting stories, a new concept like Airbnb received massive coverage. In exchange for providing journalists with a great story, the media provided Airbnb with significant brand awareness across its markets.

In this slide, the founders showcased logos from different sources and added relevant quotes from the articles.

Slide 13: User Testimonials

User testimonials serve as a form of validation, giving investors confidence that the solution fulfills customers’ needs. Furthermore, they validate the company’s claims by providing evidence that the product meets its claims.

The Airbnb pitch deck uses personalization to make its user testimonials more impactful. They added real pictures, not headshots, so the audience knows it’s a real person. In addition to photos, they included a bubble with the user’s actual feedback.

Slide 14: Financials

In many pitch decks, startups showcase a separate Financials Slide and Capital Ask Slide. The pitch deck for Airbnb combines these slides. It showcases the investment opportunity on the left and financial projections on the right.

Too often, startups load the financials slide with complex graphs and tables. Yet, Airbnb’s design enabled the team to show how much they were raising and provide a 12-month projection. The Airbnb pitch deck makes it clear that less explanation can be more impactful than too much information.

Learn THIS About the Airbnb Pitch Deck

Startups seeking to approach investors to raise funds should study the Airbnb pitch deck template closely. The pitch deck was effective because it told a story using very few words. It utilized visuals and minimal design to hone in on the most important information. If you follow the pitch deck structures of successful startups like Airbnb, you may be able to replicate their success, too!

For more pitch deck examples, take a look at the following video. In this video, we evaluate slides from several of the world’s best pitch decks.

The post The Airbnb Pitch Deck: An Expert Breakdown appeared first on Startup Squared.

At ThinkLions, we know a thing or two about launching startups. Over the last decade, we’ve worked with over 500 startups, helping them bring innovative products to market and creating investor packages that have secured more than $50 million in seed and series funding. When it comes to our clients, there are three essential startup tips we offer them – and in this article, we will share them with you, too! 

Startup Tip #1: Don’t Obsess Over Funding

Ask any should-be entrepreneur what is holding them back from launching their business, and 80% of them will give you the same answer – a lack of funding. Of course, bringing a startup to the market will require some funding, but not nearly the amount that most people think. 

If you think every successful founder had tens of thousands of dollars in the bank or wealthy investors backing them on the day they hit the market, you’d be wrong. Some of today’s most successful businesses started their companies for hundreds, not thousands, of dollars. For example: 

• Mark Zuckerberg coded the initial version of Facebook in his dorm room. 
• Airbnb’s founders started with a simple landing page, not a full-blown platform. 
• Groupon’s founder started the business with a single group deal for a pizza restaurant and an email list. 
• Zappos began operations with a simple website and no inventory. 
• Dropbox started with an explainer video – not a sophisticated platform. 

Do You Need Funding Now?

The bigger your offering, the more funding you need. But no one said you had to start big! Today’s largest and most well-known startups don’t start with complex solutions, massive marketing strategies, and extensive inventories. Instead, they began with what they had, validated their solutions, earned their first revenue, and by the time they needed funding to scale their products, investors were already beating down their doors! 

Capital can’t replace creativity. Having access to too much money too early can backfire. Some startups receive millions of dollars in funding early on, and instead of helping them grow, it pushes them down the wrong path even quicker. For example, FAST received over $120 million in funding early on, and a year later, they were already closing their doors. In the beginning stages of your startup, more funding isn’t the answer to the obstacles you face. 

When Is Funding Necessary?

There is a caveat here, though. Some businesses do have enormous startup costs. For instance, before launching a nursing home, you will need a physical space, equipment, licenses, staff, and several other components just to begin operations. But suppose you’re launching a software startup. In that case, you don’t have to build out every feature to provide value to your customers and validate your solution – you only need a minimum viable product with the core features. And if you’re launching a physical product, you don’t need 10,000 units; you just need a few prototypes to get started.

Funding isn’t for the idea-stage startup. Instead, the most effective time to seek financing is after the experimentation stage – after you’ve put something on the market, validated that there is a market for it, and proven that customers are willing to pay for it. Once you have data proving what customers need and you’re in the position to scale the business, funding becomes easier to secure. 

How To Build Products Without Funding

There’s no doubt it would cost millions of dollars to build Facebook, considering what it is today. But it didn’t cost anything to create Facemash – the initial version of the platform. In the earliest stages, the goal isn’t to build a beautiful, complex product that solves every challenge your customers face. The real goal is to get something on the market to start collecting data and generating insights to help you decide whether you’re on the right track or should pivot your idea. 

There are many ways you can enter the market without overspending on product development. For example, you can: 

1. Validate ideas and generate revenue (pre-sell) using landing pages before building the product. 
2. Use open-source code to minimize the amount of custom coding. 
3. Use 3D printing to create prototypes of physical products. 
4. Integrate APIs from third parties to enhance functionality with little coding. 
5. Launch a crowdfunding campaign and earn revenue before building the product. 

These strategies allow you to get an initial product built and on the market quickly and without the typical expense of custom product development.

Startup Tip #2: Assume Your Assumptions Are Wrong

In the history of startups, there has never been an entrepreneur that launched a product that they thought no one would want. However, of all failed startups, 35% of them fail because there is no market need, according to studies by CBInsights. These businesses assumed that customers wanted one thing, launched it, and later found out that their assumptions were incorrect. And by the time they came to this realization, it was too late to recover. 

No matter how well you think you know what your customers want, it’s just an assumption until you validate it. A critical step in any startup journey is the market research stage, where you take the time to learn and understand everything about your customers. Ultimately, entrepreneurs don’t dictate what the market wants – the market dictates what they want. As an entrepreneur, you can make changes to your product and even decide to target a different market, but you can’t change what the market wants. You can’t change their experiences, backgrounds, or expectations – and you definitely can’t make them buy something they don’t want. 

It is dangerous to build products based on unvalidated assumptions. Having experience in an industry doesn’t mean you know what customers want. For example, construction workers are most likely to create a product based on the challenges individuals face while working in the construction industry. But just because YOU face a particular challenge and think it warrants a solution doesn’t mean everyone else in the industry seeks the same solution. 

No matter how many statistics you found on Google about your market, if you haven’t interviewed, surveyed, and engaged with them, then you don’t know anything about them. 

An Example of Bad Product-Market Fit

SchoolGennie is a good example of a business that failed due to a lack of product-market fit. The Company was supposed to improve child development by providing school-based management solutions. Initially, they launched their flagship product – an Electronic Records Portal that provided Competitive Edge Software and Cloud Software Services.

In 2013, the Company seemed to experience significant growth. But just a year later, they were already announcing their closing plans. Unfortunately, they failed to validate their idea and understand their market. Quickly, they found that schools weren’t interested in what they were offering. First, they lost money and time trying to delay the product’s release, hoping to perfect fit. Then, in a last-ditch effort, they tried to copy competitors and duplicate other solutions’ features. 

Ultimately, the product failed in the market. Since the company spent all of its money developing the initial platform, it didn’t have enough capital left to pivot into an idea better suited to its audience. 

How To Learn About Your Customers

Startups operate differently than established businesses or new small businesses. The goal of a startup is to experiment constantly, learn everything there is to know about its customers and continue to iterate on its offering until realizing the optimal product-market fit. 

When clients ask how to launch a startup, my first question is, “Have you asked your customers what they want?” More often than not, the answer is no. Or, they’ll link some report that shows an expert perspective of how the market will perform in upcoming years. Secondary research is necessary, but it’s not enough. Primary research is gold for new startups. When you develop systems and approaches to generate data and feedback from your customers, you’ll learn first-hand about their experiences, needs, and demands. 

Customer Research Techniques

There are three ways you can quickly generate data about your target audience: 

1. Customer Interviews: This qualitative research technique allows you to ask your target market about their situation, the challenges they experience, and their difficulty with current solutions. The benefit of customer interviews is getting right in front of your potential customers to figure out exactly what they are looking for and what inspires them to make purchases. However, customer interviews generate personal narratives, quotes, and anecdotes, and you may find it challenging to analyze answers and recognize patterns. 
2. Customer Surveys: As a quantitative approach, customer surveys allow you to quickly ask focused questions to many prospects. Since you are dealing with numbers, it is much easier to recognize patterns. However, surveys require large sample sizes to ensure statistically relevant answers. 
3. Experimentations: You can learn much about your customers by utilizing a minimum viable product (MVP), analyzing customer behaviors, and using the data to iterate your product. The benefit is you get accurate information and can even begin earning revenue. But unfortunately, developing an MVP will require a larger budget than customer interviews and surveys. 

Ultimately, you want to use all of these techniques and generate the most meaningful data. It’s important to note that research is not a one-time activity. Successful startups constantly engage with their customers and prospects through these techniques and never stop improving their products. 

Startup Tip #3: Marketing is Key

Even if you know everything about your market and have the perfect solution to their problems, it doesn’t guarantee startup success. It doesn’t even guarantee that you will receive a single purchase. Of course, you might get some traction from single promotions – such as having a viral Reddit post or posting a video on Instagram that gets shared a million times. But in the long-term, you’ll need an effective marketing strategy that introduces prospects to your products, generates leads, nurtures them, and converts them into paying customers. 

Furthermore, marketing isn’t a single event; it’s a strategy. Many entrepreneurs unwisely believe that a single marketing channel is enough or that a client will purchase just because they clicked an ad or received an email. It usually takes multiple touchpoints between when a prospect learns about a product and when they make a purchase. 

It’s a mistake to believe the old saying, “If you build it, they will come.” Actually, if you build it and don’t do anything else – they won’t come; they’ll just go to your competitors. One of the core parts of knowing how to launch a startup is knowing how to promote one. 

Understanding the Marketing Funnel

There are five steps to the marketing funnel, and a proper startup strategy will have the optimal techniques installed at each stage. These steps include: 

• Awareness: Awareness is the stage of the funnel where a prospect becomes aware of a brand and its products.
• Interest: In the interest stage, prospects learn more about the company and become interested in the products as a potential solution to their challenges. 
• Desire: When customers begin showcasing interest in buying a brand’s product, they enter the desire stage. Sometimes brands will push them into the action stage by offering special deals and discounts. 
• Action: This stage is defined by a customer taking action, such as making a purchase. In the action step, brands must ensure customer satisfaction to establish a positive reputation and build their retention rate. 
• Loyalty: The loyalty step is where customers showcase their devotion to a company by acting as brand ambassadors and referring the product to their peers. 

Choosing A Marketing Channel

There are dozens of marketing channels brands can adopt, including online channels like social media, search engine marketing, and online ads, and offline channels like billboards, magazine ads, and television commercials. 

Check out our video, “3 Digital Marketing Trends You Need To Know About” to learn about some of today’s most effective online marketing techniques. 

The Most Important Step For Launching A Startup

Not knowing how to launch a startup causes a delay for most new entrepreneurs. It’s the number one reason thousands of amazing concepts never make it to market. 

The most important step for launching a startup is just to LAUNCH. Don’t seek perfection; seek progress. You don’t have to hit the market with the prettiest product – you need to launch a product, get customers to it, collect their feedback, and continue iterating until you have the optimal product-market fit. Start with generating data (interviews and surveys), then launch a low-fidelity prototype or a first-version MVP. Talk to as many customers and prospects as possible, and ensure you understand what pains them, who influences them, and where they spend their money. 

The quicker you establish product-market fit, the more rapidly you will generate traction. Then, after validating your concept, you can seek investors to fund the product’s expansion. 
When you get to that point, ThinkLions is here for you. Contact us to speak to one of our expert consultants and learn how we can help you create world-class business plans and pitch decks that attract angel and VC investors.

The post Expert Tips: How To Launch A Startup appeared first on Startup Squared.

Without a process, everything is complicated. If you’ve watched a toddler trying to tie their shoe for the first time, you’ll see how impossible doing anything is without the proper process. However, launching a tech startup doesn’t have to take years. Veteran founders know how to bring new ideas to the market within months. In this article, I’ll show you how to launch a startup in 90 days or less. 

The Goal of Launch

Before I show you the process, let’s ensure we’re on the same page. Until we agree on the goal, the process doesn’t matter. 

First-time tech founders believe that before launching, you must build out every feature or function. But experienced founders know that they don’t even need to write a single line of code to enter the market and start earning revenue. 

The goal of launching your product is not to build the perfect product. Instead, the goal is to learn exactly what customers want, create it, and introduce it to the market. In other words, your goal shouldn’t be to take years to develop some ultra-complex solution that you think your market wants – it should be to get something simple on the market and learn what the market wants. 

Now that you understand the destination, let’s discuss the most appropriate route to get there. Specifically, I’ll give you a proven week-by-week schedule and explain what you need to do to build your product and get it in the customers’ hands. 

Note: For more information, check out the video, “How To Launch A Startup” below.

Week 1-2: Market Research

Let’s put this in context: you’ve recognized a market problem and have an idea of how to solve it. Great. Now what? 

Most people don’t know how to launch a tech startup. The majority of those with an idea will do nothing at all. They’ll keep thinking about it for years, and then one day, they find out that another brand brought their concept to the market. While they were thinking about building it, someone else was building it. 

A handful of those with an idea will move forward, but most will take the riskiest route possible. They’ll hop in and start building out every feature they can think of, spending thousands of dollars to create a product without validating that customers want to buy it. 

In the first two weeks, the most practical action you can take towards the progress of your tech startup is researching the market. Researching doesn’t mean just hopping on Google and searching for stats about your market and customers. Instead, during these two weeks, you’ll go out in the field, engage your audience, collect data, and validate whether a challenge exists that requires your solution. This process involves the following steps: 

1. Profile your ideal customer. 
2. Find customers to engage. 
3. Interview them. 
4. Conduct a competitive analysis. 
5. Assess the data and refine the concept. 

Profile your ideal customer

At the core of this How to Launch A Tech Startup guide are the customers. Start your research by understanding who your customers are. Ultimately, you want to build a profile of your customer – give them a name, a personality, and a face. When you create the profile, ask yourself the following questions: 

• Who are they? Look at your customer from a demographic and psychographic perspective. You should understand their lifestyles, from what they look like and where they work to how they spend their time and what things are important to them. 
• Where are they? Explain where your customer lives, where they spend their time, and who they spend their time with. Maybe they reside in a specific city, study at a particular university, or attend a certain nightclub every weekend. You need to know exactly where they are because that will give you valuable insight on how to reach them. 
• What are their challenges? In other words, in your customer profile, you should show that you understand the specific issues that your customer experiences. When you know their challenges, it makes it much easier to design a solution that directly solves their particular challenges. 
• Where do they search for information? Some customers may look in social media groups for product recommendations, while others may search on Google to find solutions to their challenges. For example, an elderly individual seeking a new medication may talk directly with their doctor, while a younger individual might turn to medical influencers. Creating a strategic marketing plan will prove impossible if you don’t know where your customers search for information.  
• Who do they trust? Likely, your customers won’t fully trust you as a new brand. However, if you can identify influencers and brands they trust, you can determine the potential partners you need to streamline brand trust in the market. 

Take all this information and organize it into a detailed profile of your customer. Furthermore, if you serve several customer segments, you’ll find it most impactful to create a separate persona for each customer type.

Find customers to engage

Now, you have all the preliminary information you need to understand precisely who your customers are. The next step is to find and engage with these customers. Before you knew who your customers were, finding them was like taking a shot in the dark. However, now that you have a detailed profile of who they are, where they are, and how they search for information – locating them should be a much easier task. 

Look at your contact list and determine whether anyone meets your created profile. Most entrepreneurs start businesses in industries where they are already active. If this is the case, you likely have peers with qualities that align with your customer persona. But if not, there are many other places you may look to find qualified prospects, like forums or social media groups. You may also find them offline in relevant meetup groups or social clubs. 

You can learn a substantial amount about these individuals by observing them as they interact. By following the questions they ask, you can quickly identify the problems they experience. By determining who they listen to or talk about, you may get more clarity on who influences them or whose information they trust the most. Still, you’ll learn the most about them when you begin engaging them in conversations and immersing yourself in their experiences.  

Interview prospects 

After identifying prospects, you’ll seek to learn more about their experiences by interviewing them directly. The goal is to determine whether they have a substantial challenge that warrants a solution and whether your proposed solution adequately addresses their challenges. 

Schedule an in-person or virtual interview with a dozen or so prospects. Create open-ended questions that allow you to understand the challenges in their journey, their existing solutions, and their perceived challenges with current solutions. Take notes as you conduct these interviews. Once you’ve completed your initial discussions, assess the data and see if you can find patterns in their responses. Then determine: 

• Is there a substantial challenge that they face? 
• Does your proposed solution effectively solve their problem?
• Are there features you can add to improve your solution? 

Entrepreneurs can learn two things by interviewing their prospects. First, they may discover that they have the perfect tech solution already, which will validate their initial assumptions. However, the most likely outcome is that they find weaknesses in their initial concept. Contrary to popular belief, this is a good thing. Finding flaws ahead of time allows you to fix them, severely reducing tech startup risks and improving your value proposition. 

Conduct a competitor analysis

Unfortunately, it’s not enough to just know what customers want; you also have to ensure that there aren’t other competitors in the market already solving those problems adequately. Entering a saturated market is complex, and there’s little potential for succeeding there.

For example, you might conclude that consumers want an e-commerce solution where they can find just about anything and have it shipped to their doorstep within three days. That would be a great insight for an entrepreneur. However, there’s already Amazon – and if your solution isn’t critically different or better than Amazon (which it probably isn’t), then it’s unlikely that customers will choose your solution over what’s already available to them. And even if your concept is better, what keeps Amazon from just building it themselves? 

Fortunately, you’ll find all these answers when you conduct a competitor analysis. The first step to competitor analysis is to identify all of your direct competitors. Next, you will analyze each of them and determine their positioning, strengths and weaknesses, effectiveness in solving customers’ problems, and how their solution compares to your prospective solution. Here are a few qualities you should seek to expose as you analyze each competitor: 

• What benefits do their products provide to customers? 
• What are customers saying about their products? 
• Do they have a clear value proposition? 
• What are their unfair advantages? 
• What do customers like and dislike about their products? 
• Which methods are they using to introduce their products to and reach customers? 
• Is their financial position strong? 
• Are there areas where they are weak that you can capitalize on? 

Assess the data and refine the concept

Market research aims to validate your concept and find areas where you can improve to maximize your potential. At this point in your journey, you should have significant data about your market, customers, and competitors. 

Assess this information and record any identified insights. For example, if you find that all your prospects mention a specific problem outside of your initial assumption, then maybe you should pivot your concept to address that particular challenge better. Or, if you find that competitors are doing one thing well, but failing in another area, maybe you should pivot your concept to address the areas where their weaknesses are most prevalent. 

Before you build anything, ensure that you are positioning your company correctly by conceptualizing the right products that solve a real challenge and doing it in a way that outperforms competitors. 

Week 3-4: Soft MVP Development

In only 14 days, you’ve generated valuable data and applied it to your tech startup idea. As a result, you know you’re building something that people will want. But unfortunately, that’s not enough. 

Unfortunately, need does not equate to action. For example, I need to buy a lawnmower. My lawn grows too fast, and the lawn service I hired rarely shows up when they are supposed to. However, I’m too lazy to mow my lawn every week. So would I actually buy a mower even though I need it? Probably not. Even if I was willing to purchase a lawnmower, there are 50 different brands out there, and with so much competition, it’s not a given that I will buy your lawnmower. 

Validating Assumptions

When learning how to launch a tech startup, you must also learn how to validate assumptions. Assuming that people will buy your product is risky. You won’t know if your market will buy your product until you give them the option to buy your product. 

We’re two weeks in, and we haven’t built anything yet. So how can we offer something for sale that we haven’t created yet? New and veteran entrepreneurs often differ in their market approach. New entrepreneurs build products, then sell them. On the contrary, experienced entrepreneurs sell products, then build them. 

In weeks 3 and 4, you should focus on building your soft minimum viable product. At this point, you aren’t developing the product yet. Instead, you’re offering the idea of the product as an experiment to test whether customers would purchase the product – if it existed. 

For startups launching a tech startup, there are two primary ways of testing customers’ purchase intent: crowdfunding platforms and landing pages. 

Soft MVP: Crowdfunding Campaign

Crowdfunding has become a trendy method of funding new product development. In 2021, the global crowdfunding market size was more than $114 billion. 

By definition, crowdfunding is the practice of funding a venture by raising capital from many people – generally, individuals seeking to pre-purchase the product. Numerous crowdfunding platforms exist, but Kickstarter and Indiegogo are the most popular ones today. 

In terms of building a soft MVP, crowdfunding platforms enable startups to produce designs or mockups of their products, describe details of the benefits, deliver visuals of the product, and allow people to pre-order their products before they physically exist. 

Pros and Cons of Crowdfunding

Launching a crowdfunding campaign can catapult your market introduction. However, this approach has both advantages and disadvantages. The benefits of crowdfunding include: 

• Millions of customers frequent the platforms, giving founders a broad audience of prospects. 
• Users are aware and excited about the fact that they are first adopters. 
• Enables founders to market and sell pre-developed products. 

However, there are also several disadvantages to launching your product using crowdfunding platforms. These disadvantages include: 

• Crowdfunding is geared towards a particular type of product – software rarely gains traction. 
• A successful campaign requires significant preparation and promotion to gain momentum and stand out against hundreds of other innovative products on the site. 
• Crowdfunding puts time pressure on the business. Customers expect companies to deliver products on the day they promised in the campaign. 

Crowdfunding serves as a minimum viable product because it enables you to experiment with the idea of your solution in the real market. If the campaign fails to generate traction, it is probably a strong indicator that your concept doesn’t resonate with the market.

However, if you succeed in meeting your fundraising goals, it can have a massive impact on your business. This benefit comes from accessing capital without giving away equity and receiving immediate brand awareness. Once customers receive the product, crowdfunding also provides social proof to make the product more attractive to other prospective buyers. 

Soft MVP: Landing Pages

For concepts that don’t fit the standard mold for crowdfunding, a more practical approach to launching a soft MVP is utilizing landing pages. Through this method, you will still create designs or models of your product, and you’ll still write up content explaining the solution’s benefits. However, you will promote your product independently using a landing page. Crowdfunding and landing pages share the same goal – generating brand awareness and validating interest in your product. However, you will do it without the motivated traffic that crowdfunding campaigns provide. 

How To Build a Landing Page MVP

Building a landing page today is much easier than it was in the past. There are numerous landing page builders like Unbounce and Leadpages, which also make it easy to monitor analytics related to your page. You can also buy landing page templates from sites like ThemeForest, which are customizable through basic HTML or WordPress. 

On the landing page, you’ll pitch why customers should buy your product. Then, provide them with an offer to pre-purchase it. However, some entrepreneurs choose not to offer a pre-purchase option but use a shadow button. A shadow button gives the impression that a user can purchase the product, but when they click the “Buy Now” or “Checkout” button, it sends them to a “Product Unavailable” or “Coming Soon” page. While this won’t generate revenue, you can monitor how many people clicked the button and know that those people intended to buy the product – if it existed. 

Week 5-6: Soft MVP Launch

Congratulations, you’ve built your first minimum viable product! But unfortunately, developing it and doing nothing else won’t get you anywhere. In the next two weeks, you’ll launch your soft MVP, market it to your target audience, and begin collecting data to validate that customers will actually purchase your product. 

How to Market a Low-Fidelity MVP

There are over one billion websites on today’s internet. Considering this vast number, you won’t get a single click if you don’t have a strategy for promoting your landing page to your audience. Hundreds of millions of businesses, organizations, and individuals actively promote their websites and landing pages, and everyone is fighting for visibility. 

Generally, there are two ways to promote your landing page. There is the organic (free) way, which is less effective, and the paid way, which is most effective. Likely, your strategy will incorporate both approaches. 

Organic Marketing Methods

On the organic end, there are a few activities you might want to consider. Posting a link to your social media profiles may get you a few clicks, but it won’t drive significant traffic. However, you can use several other social media methods, such as joining related Facebook and LinkedIn groups and participating in relevant subreddits (Reddit). After you’ve engaged organically within these groups and provided value to the other members, you can post your landing page to introduce it to the community. The benefit of these groups is that you can surround yourself with people who directly fit your customer persona, engage deeply with them, and create brand awareness among the group. 

Influencer marketing can also be impactful in driving traffic to your page. A micro-influencer is an online personality with 10,000 to 50,000 followers in a specific niche. By partnering with and hiring them to mention your business or product, you can immediately promote your page to thousands of people with the recommendation of someone they trust. This method isn’t necessarily free; likely, they will expect something in return. However, if your product is something truly innovative and impressive, you may be able to offer them future access to your problem in return for their promotion. 

Paid Marketing Methods

Paid strategies will give you the most and the quickest traffic. For example, running a Google Ads campaign with a large enough budget can drive hundreds or thousands of targeted individuals to the landing page within a few days. That is, as long as you focus on the keywords and phrases your customers are actively searching. When they type in those terms, you want your page to show up, allowing them to click the link and view your offering. Since this is a paid strategy, it’ll cost you every time someone clicks on your link. The industry you’re targeting and the keywords you select will determine how little or how much you’ll spend on each click. 

In addition to driving traffic to your low-fidelity MVP, this method will also show you what marketing tactics work. Then, once you launch your official product, you’ll know the most impactful strategies, and you can scale those activities to drive attention to your products. 

Monitoring Data for your Low-Fidelity MVP

With a strategic marketing plan, you’ll have people coming to your page consistently. But keep in mind that the point of launching this low-fidelity MVP isn’t to just generate traffic but mainly to figure out if people would buy your product. To validate your product’s potential to attract customers and drive sales, you’ll need to pay attention to the data. A few essential metrics you should monitor and assess include (but are not limited to): 

• Click-Thru Rate (CTR): The number of people that see your offer and click through to the landing page. 
• Time Per Session: The length of time people spend on your page in a single session – allowing you to determine whether they read through the page or immediately leave before learning more. 
• Conversion Rate: The percentage of page viewers who take action, such as downloading a lead magnet or pre-purchasing your product. 

Week 7-8: High-Fidelity MVP Development

By the sixth week, you will have already learned what customers want, conceptualized a solution, and validated that customers are willing to buy it. During weeks seven and eight, focus on developing your initial high-fidelity minimum viable product. In other words, you will build your product but with the minimum amount of features necessary to provide value to early adopters. 

Example: Airbnb’s MVP

Airbnb followed a similar strategy, launching with a minimum viable product. Realizing that a design conference was coming to San Francisco, the founders created a simple landing page, giving attendees a chance to rent a bed in their apartment. The price was much lower than other accommodations (like hotels) and gave a much different experience. So instead of launching a complete solution and struggling to find properties to fill the marketplace, Airbnb’s founders started with what they had – a landing page and their apartment. 

Airbnb’s platform would probably cost millions of dollars to build today, but their initial MVP cost almost nothing. Through the MVP, they validated the demand and potential of their concept and even earned their first revenue. 

During weeks seven and eight, you’ll take the same steps – build the simplest form of your solution that provides value to customers. Then, choose a limited market that you can promote to. Again, the goal is to get to market quickly, validate your product idea, and get the product into users’ hands. Once you collect data from those users, you can create valuable insights regarding your market, customer, and product. 

Week 9-10: MVP Launch

You will launch your high-fidelity MVP in the market during weeks nine and ten. Once you introduce the product, you’ll follow the same steps you did for your soft MVP. These steps include scaling up your marketing plan, getting people to your sales page, and convincing customers to buy your product. The good news is that you should know what conversion rate to expect since you tested for conversions and collected the data during your low-fidelity MVP launch. 

Week 11-12+: Build-Measure-Learn

Now, your product is on the market, and you’re making sales. But your job is just beginning. In weeks 11, 12, and beyond, you’ll continue generating customer data and insights, developing the product, and ensuring the optimal product-market fit. To accomplish this, you will implement a build-measure-learn feedback loop. During this process, you will build and launch a new feature (build), collect data and feedback (measure), and use that data to make insights on whether you have created the right thing (learn). 

Some of today’s fastest-growing startups utilize the build-measure-learn feedback loop. For instance, Facebook started with straightforward profiles and targeted a single market – students at Harvard. After validating their initial idea, they added new features like the news feed and messenger, tested them, and decided whether to keep them or pivot.

Some features, like virtual gifts, didn’t last. Facebook launched them, tested them, and learned that customers weren’t fond of those features, so they ditched them. Likewise, you might ditch some ideas as you build up your product. Some you’ll keep – but only after validating that customers actually want them. 

How To Launch A Tech Startup: Key Takeaway

You’re only 90 days from launching your startup, but you have to start small and build your way up using data from genuine customers. At this point, you have a product on the market, you’re generating traction, and you’ve validated demand for your product. You know how to launch a tech startup, and you’ve proven it through your actions. Now, you can start seeking investment to scale your product and business. For this, you’ll need a fantastic pitch deck and business plan – and we can help! Contact us today and learn how we’ve helped hundreds of startups grow their businesses and achieve their fundraising goals.

The post How To Launch A Tech Startup in 90 Days appeared first on Startup Squared.

Great teams can turn average concepts into million-dollar brands, and in the same vein, terrible teams can run amazing companies into the ground. Startup founders eventually realize that building a startup team is the most important, but most difficult, part of launching, establishing, and growing a successful business.

Before you can build your powerhouse startup team, you first need to consider which roles are required to propel the business forward. In this article, we will evaluate whether you need to build an executive team, and explain some of the roles you should consider.  

How Important Is A Startup Team? 

Keep in tune with startup media, and it would be easy to believe that there’s a unicorn company around every corner. Let’s be clear here – there’s not. There are 600,000 businesses that launch in the United States each year, but only 600 unicorn startups worldwide. The chance of failure is one hundred times higher than the potential for becoming a unicorn. Many studies estimate that as many as nine out of ten businesses fail within their first several years. 

What causes so many startups to fail? Well, there are many reasons. Some of the top reasons include no market need for the product, a lack of capital, or for 23% of failed startups, the wrong team. Startups can quickly fail if they don’t have the right people in the right positions, lack enough team members to maintain capacity, or even if their team members lack the optimal chemistry. 

Excellent products alone don’t create successful startups. Fast-growing startups are built on a foundation of intangible factors like knowledge, experience, creativity, and skills. There are many benefits that come along with developing a startup team, including: 

1. Financial Contribution: Launching a startup is expensive, and it can take years for a new startup to secure investor funding. Around 75% of startups used their own personal savings during the product development process, and this can be a major burden for a sole founder. With several founders, a team can spread the financial contribution across multiple team members, reducing personal financial strain, and providing more runway for the company. 
2. Knowledge Coverage: Delivering a product or service is only a small part of what it takes to manage a startup. As the startup grows, it will require experience in several areas from marketing and finance to operations and product development. Sole founders are rarely knowledgeable across every one of these areas and must depend on outside consultation in the absence of a team. 
3. Performance: Statistically speaking, teams deliver better performance. Adding a second member doesn’t only duplicate the productivity of the business, but it drives motivation, reduces stress on each member, and allows the startup to grow quicker and with fewer obstacles.

Yes, you can build a startup without a team – but doing so will increase your workload tenfold. Knowing that you need a team is one thing, but knowing which team members you need is the most important part. In the following sections, we will describe five positions you should consider as you build your startup team to put your company on the path towards greatness. 

How To Build The Ultimate Startup Team

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

The chief executive officer (CEO) position is usually the most coveted role in a startup – but that doesn’t make it more important than other roles. 

In a startup, the CEO is the visionary. Depending upon the company, this person may hold the title of Director, Managing Director, or President – but generally, these terms are interchangeable. The individual in this role serves a critical role in the organization, with responsibilities ranging from setting goals and defining strategies to monitoring progress and developing the culture of the entire organization. 

An effective CEO is a big-picture thinker. They manage the organization from the top and set the plans to lead the team toward success. With a focused and powerful vision, they keep the entire team concentrated on the end goal. Their passion is contagious, and their enthusiasm about the future of the business spreads throughout the organization like wildfire. Through their leadership, the CEO sets the organization’s pace; and by keeping a pulse on the market, they constantly seek to identify potential opportunities that the startup can take advantage of. 

It is a misconception to believe that the startup’s founder is the best fit for this position. While it is common, it is not always the case – and you shouldn’t adopt this approach for your startup. Instead, the person who is most qualified to lead the startup from a visionary standpoint should serve in this role. 

What Makes A Good CEO? 

There are three main qualities and attributes you should consider when seeking the right person to serve in this position. These qualities include: 

1. Vision: The Chief Executive Officer should be a visionary – the type of person always five steps ahead and constantly defining the startup’s future. However, they aren’t dreamers, dreaming up new ideas with no reason. Instead, they should know how to analyze markets, identify opportunities, and create new products and services to take advantage of them. Other executives typically focus on their specific department (like marketing or finance), but the CEO can see the big picture well enough to ensure that each department’s efforts move the startup closer to its long-term goals and objectives. 
2. Execution: A good CEO recognizes valuable opportunities, but a great CEO knows how to strategize and execute on new ideas. The right person for your startup’s CEO role can take big ideas, dissect them into SMART goals, determine what tasks are necessary to obtain those goals, and delegate each activity to the right team members to achieve the startup’s vision. 
3. Relationships: CEOs usually serve as the face of the brand, and they need to be exceptional in building relationships with their team and outside parties, including investors, journalists, and partners. To accomplish this, the individual needs to possess reliable communication and interpersonal skills, along with a motivational and persuasive attitude. Even during a crisis, the CEO keeps a cool head – communicating progress to all stakeholders and leading the team through the situation. 

The CEO is the glue that holds all the departments together with a single vision, and they play a crucial role in the startup’s success. However, they can’t build a successful startup alone. While they are looking at the big picture, someone needs to monitor the numbers – and that’s where the Chief Financial Officer comes into play. 

Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Startups shouldn’t overlook the importance of a Chief Financial Officer or Finance Director – their role is critical from the moment a startup spends or earns its first dollar. 

Too often, new businesses choose to omit this role early on, since the startup doesn’t have tremendous sales, revenues, or finances to manage, but this is a mistake. A Chief Financial Officer is more than just an accountant, and managing the company’s books is only a small portion of their job. 

A good CFO ensures that the startup manages every dollar in a healthy way. They build scalable financial systems that support the business as it grows, and they analyze financial data to develop insights about customers, business progress, and new developments. Furthermore, they focus on finding capital sources for the startup and communicating with banks, angel investors, and venture capitalists during the fundraising stages. 

The CFO constantly monitors the startup’s numbers, ensuring that all incoming and outgoing funds are recorded and accounted for. By interpreting the business’s financial performance, they can foresee financial challenges and identify potential opportunities. From financial planning to record-keeping, the Finance Director has a hugely important role that is necessary for every startup.

What Makes a Great Startup CFO? 

You need a great Chief Financial Officer on your team, but what qualities should you look for when hiring one for your team? The most important qualities of a great CFO include: 

1. Deep Financial Knowledge: The most crucial quality of a CFO is having immense knowledge across all facets of startup finances. Succeeding in this role requires more than just being “good with numbers.” An effective Director of Finance has accounting experience, financial aptitude, and a firm understanding of business operations. In the role, they are responsible for recording, analyzing, and reporting financial data – so deep know-how is imperative to proper performance in the role. 
2. Insightful: Examining an organization’s financial data can provide substantial insights into a company’s health and its future trajectory. Financials don’t just tell you where the business is, but it tells you where it is going. Financial evaluation can generate insights regarding how quickly the business is growing, which products customers are most interested in, and whether the business has the optimal pricing strategy. The ideal CFO can interpret the numbers and recommend insights that progress the business, increase revenue, and drive profitability. 
3. Results-Oriented: CFOs should be result-oriented and able to make decisions with the organization’s short- and long-term objectives in mind. Analysis is important, but a great Chief Financial Officer can see beyond the numbers. They can set realistic goals and incorporate the financial strategies to meet them. The optimal team member can work alongside the rest of the executive board, help develop the team’s metrics, and ensure that the startup meets its objectives from a financial perspective. 

Finding the right person for this role will help your startup ensure its financial health and stability. But unfortunately, the Finance Director’s job becomes quite ineffective if the business isn’t making sales or bringing in revenue – and that is why your startup would also benefit from a competent Chief Sales Officer (CSO). 

Chief Sales Officer (CSO) 

The main job of a Chief Sales Officer is to identify sales growth opportunities, meet with potential customers, and close sales. This role can go by many titles, including Head of Sales or Director of Sales. As an executive, this person has several responsibilities, from building sales processes to hiring sales reps and making sales forecasts. 

Chief Sales Officers provide direction and leadership to the sales department and are accountable for the department’s performance and the organization’s ability to achieve its goals and objectives. They identify new sales opportunities, build and implement sales strategies, and maintain relationships with leads and potential customers. 

What Makes an Impactful Chief Sales Officer?

Selling a new product or service is a tough job, and it’s not for everyone. To successfully operate in this role, an individual should possess the following qualities: 

• Experienced: The last thing you want is an inexperienced salesperson standing in front of your prospects and misrepresenting your brand. In sales, experience builds confidence, and confidence is necessary to closing prospects. The person you place in this role should be comfortable identifying potential customers and partners and adept in creating strategies to reach them effectively. It takes a tremendous number of rejections for a salesperson to build up confidence, and you don’t want those rejections happening on your dime – so choose someone who already has a background dealing with clients as a brand representative, establishing new sales plans, and seeing the sales process through to completion. 
• Customer-Centric: A good CSO listens to the customer, asks the right questions to identify their pains and challenges, and implements a personalized approach in their sales strategy. The CSO should know how to discover the issues that customers face and persuade them that the startup’s product makes their lives more comfortable or convenient. As they execute their sales strategy, they will build valuable customer relationships and develop a feedback loop to continuously learn more about the customers’ needs. 
• Communication: In many cases, the CSO will be the point person for potential customers and partners – so you need someone who can clearly and effectively communicate the brand message. They should know how to explain the benefits of the product, express the startup’s value proposition to customers, answer any objections, and push leads from the initial inquiry to purchase. 

If your company relies on sales (and most do), the CSO will prove an integral part of your team. But if your product requires software or development, then someone has to build and maintain it – and that’s where the Chief Technology Officer comes in. 

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Startup teams need someone proficient in technology to build the solution, ensure its quality, and develop new products and features. The Chief Technology Officer, who may also go by the Director of Technology, makes the executive decisions regarding the company’s technology interests. For tech startups, the CTO’s job is to direct the development of the product, oversee its maintenance, and implement new ideas for later product releases. 

Additionally, the CTO is responsible for detailing the startup’s technological vision, developing new strategies for product development, implementing third-party software to help progress the product, overseeing technical projects, and directing the product team. 

How To Choose The Best CTO

Product development is critical to any successful startup. That’s why your team needs someone that understands the intricacies and nuances of creating and building new developments. There are several qualities that you should look for in a candidate when filling this position. 

1. Tech Knowledge: First, your CTO should have a deep knowledge of technology and product development. This person may not be a software or product developer, per say, but they need to know how to manage team members and contractors to build the required technology. Using their knowledge, they should recognize when a new solution is necessary, plot out a development strategy, and identify the technology stack required to build it. A great CTO stays on top of the market and relies on technology to help the organization succeed. 
2. A Designer’s Eye: The CTO should also have a designer’s eye. Coding isn’t enough to develop an app or software product – design is equally important. Design goes beyond layout and color. Great design ensures that the product is easy to use without confusion and easy to operate from a customer standpoint. The ideal candidate understands the importance of design, user experience, and user interface. Furthermore, they ensure that the product’s design aligns with the brand’s character and personality. 
3. Project Manager: Project management is a necessary component of this role. The CTO participates in technical projects daily, especially in a tech startup, so they need to have experience organizing and managing teams. When the board conceptualizes new ideas, the CTO establishes plans to develop and see them through to creation. There are many moving pieces when building new products and features, and your Chief Technology Officer needs to have the experience and skill to manage it all. 

Once you have a great tech person in place, you’ll feel confident knowing that you’re delivering a quality product. But who cares about having a quality product if no one ever hears about it? This is where the next team member comes into play – the Chief Marketing Officer. 

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

Startups need to create a brand presence and generate a buzz in the market – and that requires effective marketing execution. The Chief Marketing Officer, also commonly referred to as the Director of Marketing, develops and executes the go-to-market strategy for new products. The CMO creates the organization’s messaging, monitors marketing performance, and launches market tests. 

A quality CMO can have a dramatic impact on a new startup. Their job is to maximize the organization’s marketing budget and oversee its entire program. They establish the tactics that make prospects aware of the products and nurture them through the marketing funnel until transforming them into leads or customers. Additionally, they implement techniques to transform customers into re-purchasers and encourage them to recommend the startup to their peers. 

Why is the CMO important? We now know that having the wrong startup team is the third most common reason that startups fail. But it’s not the only reason. Of all the startups that fail, 42% fail because there is no market need and 14% fail due to poor marketing (according to CBInsights). The ideal CMO tests the market to ensure that a market demand exists, and they have the insight to implement the right marketing techniques at the right time to drive new interest in the product or service. 

The Must-Have Qualities of a CMO

Hiring the right CMO on your startup team can make or break your business. A bad fit can blow through a startup’s marketing budget quickly with no return on investment – putting them in dire straits. When seeking a CMO, here are the qualities your team should look for: 

1. Robust Marketing Capabilities: The marketing industry changes daily, and your CMO should be familiar with various marketing channels to keep up. For example, TikTok advertising is popular now, but a few years ago, the platform didn’t even exist. The person in this role should understand the big picture of marketing, have knowledge across all of the most effective channels, and have the ability to quickly learn, adapt, and execute new strategies when the opportunity presents itself. 
2. Creative: CMOs should possess a high level of creative brilliance. Marketing is a competitive game. No matter what product your startup is promoting, there’s a competitor out there looking to eat your lunch – literally. A productive CMO has enough creativity to communicate the marketing message effectively, produce or oversee the production of excellent branded content, and explain the benefits of the product in a way that makes customers want to purchase it over competitive products. 
3. Analytical: Effective marketing campaigns are those that are tested and optimized over time. The CMO you bring on board should be data-driven and confident in assessing marketing numbers to gain new insights. To optimize the campaigns, they will run A/B tests on ad copy, try out various types of content, and test different systems and platforms. The right candidate should have the analytical skills to assess the data, decide which channels deserve the most focus, and figure out what changes the campaign needs for maximum optimization. 

With an effective Director of Marketing, your startup should be able to quickly gain a presence in the market and begin nurturing loyal customers. 

How To Find Awesome Startup Team Candidates

With these five members, your startup will vastly improve its likelihood of success. However, finding great candidates isn’t easy, and it can be a tedious, frustrating, but necessary process. 

The first thing you need to do before approaching a candidate is to define exactly what your startup can offer them. People with amazing skills can work for any startup. To get their attention and commitment, you need a startup concept with real potential and the evidence to back it up. For them to commit their time and energy to your product, they need to believe wholeheartedly that they will receive a major return on their investment in the future. 

The traditional way of finding team members consists of networking, attending related events, shaking many hands, and introducing your business to as many people as possible. Post-pandemic, the event market may shift and these networking opportunities could remain limited. Fortunately, the internet exists, and there are many ways you can leverage the internet to find co-founders for your startup. For instance, you can reach out directly to professionals on LinkedIn. The LinkedIn platform is brilliant since you can see the candidate’s qualifications right on their profile. There are also platforms explicitly made for matching co-founders like Founder Dating, and even subreddits for individuals looking to join startup teams. 

Building the right team isn’t easy – but it is necessary. Take your time and find the players you need to create your dream team. Make sure you put the right pieces in your puzzle and that every piece fits into the big picture. When you’ve built the ideal team, investors will look at your startup with more confidence, and with every department managed by a qualified leader, your company will be in the ideal position for growth and success.

The post How To Build A Growth-Oriented Startup Team appeared first on Startup Squared.

Startups use these metrics to understand where they stand in every stage, including acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue. Unfortunately, teams that fail to monitor metrics, or those that monitor the wrong metrics, usually do not know whether they are succeeding or failing. And if they do know which path they are on, they don’t understand why they are on that path. This article will explain the exact pirate metrics you should be using to collect the data you need to grow, scale, and reach success with your startup. 

What Are Pirate Metrics? 

Yes, the name sounds childish, but there’s a reason why “pirate metrics” is the perfect name for this group of data points. If you’ve ever heard a pirate say, “AARRR MATEY!” then you already have a grasp of what these metric categories are. In the case of real pirates, they use the phrase to showcase happiness, joy, or glee. And in business, if you use them right, it will give you the same joyous feelings! 

AARRR is an acronym that stands for: 

• (A) Acquisition: Acquisition refers to how users find your business, what channels they use to find you, and how you introduce your products or services to them. 
• (A) Activation: Activation metrics track how users engage with your brand and how they perceive your brand during their first experience. 
• (R) Retention: Retention tracks how often customers come back to visit your site, repurchase products, or how many times they engage with your brand. 
• (R) Referral: Referral refers to how many people tell others about your brand, product, or service – creating new clients through their networks. 
• (R) Revenue: Revenue metrics track users who make a purchase or participate in some type of monetization event. 

Here’s a quick disclaimer. Some sources will define pirate metrics as AAARRR, including an “awareness” stage. Others will put revenue before referral. However, the original introduction of pirate metrics from Dave McClure of 500 Startups defined the acronym excluding awareness, and it positions revenue as the last category. And for that reason, so will we. 

Monitoring Acquisition Metrics

Before you can bring on a new customer or initiate a sale, you must first make them aware that you exist. Many channels are available that you can leverage to market your product and get in front of potential users or customers. Channels can include social media, blogs, Google Ads, YouTube, or even more traditional marketing techniques like television commercials and billboard advertising. 

Why Track Acquisition? 

Marketing is expensive, and low click-thru rates, high acquisition costs, and lower-than-average conversions can cause you to run through your advertising budget quickly, yielding few results. By tracking acquisition channels and performance, your team can better understand which channels work best and which don’t work at all. In addition, these metrics can help you identify ways to improve the techniques that are performing well, leading to more views, more leads, and more conversions. 

Which Acquisition Metrics Should I Track? 

As you bring in potential customers to the top of the funnel, you can track several metrics to help you adjust and improve your acquisition strategies. While there are many metrics you could monitor, some of the most popular and helpful acquisition metrics include: 

• Impressions: You can’t always access impressions directly – but when you can track them, you should. Impressions showcase how many people viewed one of your ads, whether on Google, Facebook, Twitter, or another platform. By tracking this metric, you can ensure that your ads are optimized and that you are covering the right keywords or audiences to maximize views. 
• Number of Clicks: It’s essential to know how many clicks you are receiving from your campaigns. If you notice that only a few clicks are coming in, you can dial in the cause, which can be numerous things, including your ad description, your selected keywords, and more. 
• Click-Thru Rate: CTR describes the percentage of impressions that turn into clicks. On most platforms, you pay for clicks, not impressions. For that reason, monitoring impressions is not enough. Unfortunately, monitoring clicks alone doesn’t give you the complete picture either – at least, not on its own. Click-Thru Rate tells you how many users view your ad and then click over to your site. Research the average CTR for your industry, and if you fall behind the average, you can make the tweaks necessary to improve the metric and your ad performance. 
• Cost Per Click: It’s satisfying watching traffic come to your site from your ad campaign, but not if your spending on the click costs more than potential revenue from a sale. Some industries are just naturally more competitive and clicks cost more for these sectors. But other times, high costs per click could come from low-quality scores on your ads or because of an unoptimized campaign. 

Utilizing Activation Metrics

The second category in pirate metrics is activation. First impressions are everything, and customers will make immediate judgments about your entire business based upon their first experience. Activating a customer means getting them to reach the “ah-ha moment.” 

The “ah-ha” moment is defined as the moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension. In terms of business, it’s the point where the customer realizes that your product or service is what they need to solve the specific problem they are experiencing. 

Why Track Activation Metrics? 

Acquiring visitors is a significant accomplishment, but it’s a waste if their first experience with your product is negative – or if they are unimpressed with your brand when they happen upon your website. By tracking activation metrics, you can ensure that visitors realize the value of your offering. 

Depending on your business, you can activate a client with several different techniques. For example, a SaaS company might activate a customer by offering a free trial – allowing them to get a hands-on experience with the product. A car dealership activates a customer by getting them behind the wheel; some offer a test drive, and some allow the customer to take the car home for a week. 

The activation stage prepares the customer for purchase. If you aren’t achieving the ideal targets here, you might get users to your site, but they will all click away without even considering a purchase. Inevitably, your overall conversions and sales will grow as you collect metrics and optimize your activation efforts based on the data.

Which Activation Metrics Should I Track? 

Activating customers gets them one step closer to purchase. Activation metrics will allow you to ensure that each visitor has a successful first experience as they engage and interact with your brand. Some of the essential activation metrics to track include: 

• Number of Free Trial Downloads: Some businesses, like SaaS startups, use free trials to activate new users. These companies will track the percentage of visitors that download or request a free trial. Furthermore, this metric could also represent the number of visitors that schedule a consultation or request a demo.
• Number of First Events: Activation could also be a “first event.” For example, the first event for a social media site may be setting up a profile or posting the first status. For a business like Dropbox, activation could be the number of visitors that upload their first file – as they know that once someone uploads one file, it is much more likely that they will continue uploading more. 

Understanding Retention Metrics

According to studies, it can cost five times as much to acquire a new customer when compared to retaining an existing customer. Retention metrics allow you to understand how many customers stick around and why others churn. The goal is to make sure that every user becomes sticky – meaning that they come back to your product frequently or use it consistently. 

Why Retention Metrics? 

Customer retention is a sign of satisfaction. Dissatisfied users will churn quickly, but they can also cause harm by leaving negative feedback and reviews. On the other hand, if you can retain customers for the long term, you will ensure that you are solving their specific problems. These users often become a business’s most loyal brand ambassadors. 

If you don’t understand what causes customers to retain or churn, you can’t make the necessary adjustments to maximize user satisfaction. As you collect and assess these metrics, you will gain insight into what users really want – and once you deliver it, your retention rate will expand drastically. 

Which Retention Metrics Should I Track? 

Retention can differ based on your particular business type. For example, for a SaaS business, retention could be the number of re-subscribers each month. On the other hand, retention may be defined as the rate of return purchases for a product retailer. Here are a few examples of retention metrics: 

• Retention and Churn Rate: Retention and churn are opposites. The term “retention” refers to a measure of the number of customers a company retains over a given period. Churn refers to the rate at which customers end their engagement with a business over a given time. 
• Repeat Purchase Ratio: This metric measures the percentage of customers or users who return in the future for another purchase. The higher the percentage, the more revenue your business will generate. 
• Net Promoter Score: NPS rates the likelihood of a customer recommending a company, product, or service to one of their peers. The rating is given on a 0 to 10 scale, with 0-6 being detractors, 7 and 8 being passives, and 9 and 10 being promoters. 

Measuring Referral Metrics

Referral metrics help you answer the question, “How likely is it that an existing customer will refer someone else to your business?

Referrals are critical to a company since they can help enhance visibility and reduce acquisition costs. As we mentioned, acquiring a new customer through traditional marketing channels is expensive. An acquisition could cost hundreds or thousands of dollars in some industries, like finance or business services. In contrast, it costs the business nothing to bring on a prospect referred by another customer. 

Why Referral Metrics? 

The more referrals you can inspire, the more revenue you will generate. Furthermore, referrals are also a great way to assess customer satisfaction. There is no marketing channel as effective in persuading customers to purchase as a recommendation from their peers.

It is essential to know how many people refer your products to their networks and which channels they use. Understanding why they share, when they share, and who they share with can inspire new efforts for incentivizing brand ambassadorship and increasing your referral potential. 

What Referral Metrics Should I Track? 

To get the most data, you want to track metrics across all the channels where customers review and refer products to their peers – social media, review sites, and more. Some of the essential referral metrics you should track include: 

• Social Shares: Social media is a powerful tool for introducing products to new customers – especially when those products are shared by their closest friends. By encouraging and incentivizing social shares, businesses can increase their visibility with the backing and recommendation of individuals that prospects trust most – peers. 
• Ratings & Reviews: Positive ratings and reviews are another form of referral. Customers can refer products to prospects they don’t know by leaving public ratings on platforms like Google, Facebook, TrustPilot, BBB, etc. The higher your ratings are, the more confident prospects will be that your product will solve their problems sufficiently and successfully. 
• Customer Satisfaction: Only satisfied customers make referrals, and by tracking how satisfied your customers are, you can also predict the likelihood that they will share your product online, tell a friend, or leave a favorable review. 

The Most Important Metrics – Revenue

Revenue is arguably the most critical metric category. Ultimately, none of the other metrics matter much if it doesn’t eventually earn revenue. What’s the point of referrals if they don’t bring more income into the business? 

By knowing how your business earns revenue and understanding its drivers, you can position the startup to focus on its strengths and consistently grow its monthly income. 

Why Revenue Metrics? 

Revenue metrics allow you to assess how much revenue your business generates and how it generates that revenue. Entrepreneurs often see the money coming in and just assume that things are in great shape. And when an unexpected expense comes up, or sales take a shift, these entrepreneurs freeze like a deer in the headlights. When you are fully aware of your revenue metrics each month, you’ll notice if things take a turn for the worse and can address any issues as they arise. 

What Revenue Metrics Should I Track?

To get a big picture idea of revenue, you can track every dollar that comes in – keeping a close eye on monthly recurring (MRR) and annual recurring revenue (ARR). However, there are several other metrics you can track to better understand your business’s revenue position. These metrics include: 

• Average Transaction Revenue: Businesses find it much easier to predict future revenue when they know the average transaction revenue. Furthermore, awareness of this data enables you to ensure that each transaction is profitable and that your customer acquisition rates are low enough to earn positive profit each time a customer makes a purchase. 
• Customer Lifetime Value: We’ve already mentioned how necessary retention is; the longer you keep a customer around, the more revenue you will generate from that customer over time. The duration of that time is the customer lifetime. If you understand the actual value of each customer, you can better gauge how the acquisition of each customer will impact your business’s bottom line – both presently and in the future. 
• Conversion Rates: Another vital factor for revenue is conversion rate. Revenue is directly related to how many customers you can convert. Therefore, you should always track your conversion rates and seek to improve them over time. 

How To Apply Pirate Metrics

The whole goal of pirate metrics is to develop a funnel that helps you understand your customer and business on a granular scale. Collect metrics intentionally – know what information you want to collect, and then decide which metrics are most important to track to give you the essential details about your business. Pirate metrics are crucial to developing a lean startup since you can use them to adapt and further develop your product. They also give you the supporting data that you need to prove your business case in your pitch deck or business plan. 

As always, if you need help writing your business plan, creating your pitch deck, or developing your app – we’d love to hear from you. Contact us today to discuss your startup with one of our expert consultants.

The post How To Improve Business With Pirate Metrics (AARRR) appeared first on Startup Squared.

These days, the legend has disappeared, and you can find unicorns in the pages of any startup or business magazine. In today’s world, the word unicorn is tossed around the startup scene more often than at a Harry Potter conference – and every new startup hopes to one day earn the title. Being referred to as a unicorn startup is a dream by many entrepreneurs, but what does it even mean? 

While there are very few physical commonalities between the mythical unicorn and a unicorn startup, they both share the quality of being rare. Over 627,000 startups launch in the U.S. each year, but there are only 449 total unicorns in the world. 

What does it take for a startup to grow its horn? In this post, we’ll examine what it means to be a unicorn company and explore the essential steps of becoming one. 

What is a Unicorn Startup?

A unicorn startup is a privately-held company with a valuation of more than $1 billion. Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures, coined this term in 2013. When she used the phrase, unicorns were uncommon, and only a small handful of startups even had hopes of reaching this level. 

Not even a decade later, unicorns have become more common. With innovative solutions continually being developed and competition growing between venture capital firms, the valuations of fast-growing startups have become more substantial. Some solutions have reached this level without even generating significant revenue. For this reason, becoming a unicorn is no longer a marker of success; even some fast-growing startups fail over the long term. 

Characteristics of a Unicorn Company

Unicorn companies exist over a variety of industries, built from entrepreneurs of all backgrounds. While there is no formula for becoming a global startup, there are a few qualities that all successful startups share. Some of the most common attributes of a unicorn company include: 

1. Innovative Solution: Companies that reach the top do so because they introduce new innovations that critically disrupt the effectiveness of solutions already on the market. They are first movers that provide products and services that work faster, more effectively, and differently than competitors. Since they are early to market, they are often able to gain the eye of the media and quickly establish brand awareness across their entire market.
2. Rapid Growth: Triumphant startups test and validate their solutions quickly, pivoting until they find their path. Once they identify the right road, they put the pedal to the metal and accelerate quickly. Rapid growth doesn’t necessarily mean that they generate revenue quickly. Instead, they have one or several growth metrics that prove their potential. For some businesses, this means that they build a broad base of millions of free users. Other companies may have above average engagement rates or a high conversion rate. No matter what growth factor makes them unique, all unicorns have an incredibly high metric that outpaces the competition.  
3. Ability to Quickly Monetize: Investors invest because they want to realize a healthy return. The more potential a startup shows for creating massive revenues, the higher it will be valued. Even if a unicorn has not yet monetized its solution, it has an effective monetization plan in place. For example, take a dating app that has attracted a million sign-ups and now has the potential to convert users into paid customers. Although they aren’t currently earning revenue, just having a strong foundation for future monetization drives a much higher startup valuation. 
4. Talented Team: Anyone can ride a horse, but only a master can saddle up a unicorn. When valuing a company, investors look for skillful teams that have experience and display a knowledge of how to launch a startup. While the company may have started with inexperienced founders, they have brought in new members to strengthen their position. Unicorn teams display the ability to scale the solution rapidly and have a vision for the future. Not only are they experienced, but they are also committed and solely-focused on bringing the business to success. 
5. Consumer-Based Solution: Businesses don’t have to be direct-to-consumer to earn a valuation of $1 billion or more, but b2c companies are statistically more likely to become unicorns. There are many extraordinary b2b companies, but those that can generate interest from millions of end consumers are often valued higher. 

Popular Unicorn Companies

There are hundreds of unicorn startups today, spread across many industries. Here are a few notable unicorns that have launched in the last few years, disrupting their markets and growing to a billion-dollar value. 

RobinHood

RobinHood is an app-based stock brokerage that allows users to buy and sell stocks. The company launched in 2014 with the hope of appealing to a demographic of millennials who were increasingly turned off by traditional trading. 

Streamlining the way people invested in stocks, Robinhood was able to grow its user base to over 2 million users in only three years. By 2017, they had already executed $75 billion worth of transactions. Further monetizing, they introduced Robinhood Gold, giving users the ability to borrow money for stocks. In only 36 months after its launch, the company reached a valuation of $1.3 billion, cementing its status as a unicorn startup. 

Instacart

Other grocery delivery apps exist, but Instacart was the first to earn significant market share, gaining an industry-leading position early on. As of 2018, the company was valued at $7.6 billion. 

Instacart, which first launched in San Francisco, grew rapidly to serve more than 15,000 grocery stores with a reach across 70% of the country. By 2018, they had over 50,000 independent shoppers serving over 500,000 grocery customers. 

Airbnb

Airbnb launched in 2008 and quickly overtook the room-booking market. Initially, Airbnb was just a way for the founders to make a few extra bucks to pay their rent that month. They took advantage of an opportunity and offered a sleeping mat in their loft to attendees of an upcoming design conference. After proving that people would pay for these accommodations, they began building the business. 

Today, Airbnb is worth an estimated $38 billion. In only 12 years, the company has completely redefined the market and built its customer-generated listings to over 6 million properties worldwide. 

Casper

Casper launched in 2014 as an online bed-in-a-box supplier. By 2015, they were already gaining steam, and by May of that year, celebrities like Kylie Jenner were posting about the company on their social media pages. Today, only six years later, Casper is worth over a billion dollars, and rumors of a soon-to-come IPO are swirling. 

Even early on, Casper had all the makings of a unicorn company. On the first day their website launched, they sold out of their complete starting inventory. Although they hoped to make $1.8 million within a year, they were able to hit the goal within only two months. By 2018, the company was earning over $400 million per year. 

Lemonade

Lemonade launched in 2015, hoping to disrupt the insurance industry – and they did just that. Using a mobile application and sophisticated algorithms, Lemonade makes the insurance process more efficient than ever. They give insurance quotes in only 90 seconds, and process claims within 3 minutes. Although Lemonade hasn’t yet put a dent in the overall insurance market, they appeal to a niche market of millennials who are purchasing homeowners or renters insurance for the first time. Today, over 75% of their customers are under the age of 35. 

By 2017 (only two years after launch), Lemonade was already serving 425,000 customers, with over $57 million in total annual revenue. During that year, the company’s valuation was over $2 billion. 

How To Become A Unicorn Startup

Here’s the truth – even if you know the exact steps required to reach unicorn status, your chances of actually reaching it are meager. Statistically, the chance of building a company worth $1 billion is only 0.00006%. However, companies that reach this level often follow a specific process. Here are five things companies must achieve on their way to the top: 

1. Solve a MAJOR Problem: Entrepreneurs solve problems, but founders of unicorn startups solve significant challenges for millions of consumers around the world. Standout startups disrupt established industries and create considerable competition for market leaders, some of who have been on the top for decades (such as large hotel chains before Airbnb). By approaching a substantial issue in a new way, they quickly earn market share – even in highly saturated industries. 
2. Pivot Quickly: Many businesses don’t start with the same idea that propels them to unicorn level. Growing a successful startup takes frequent testing, learning, and pivoting. Fast-growing startups test their hypotheses quickly and use those tests to adjust their offering until they find the right solution.  
3. Strengthen the Team: Billion-dollar companies are led by experienced teams who can foresee future opportunities and avoid potential threats. Inexperienced founders must eventually surround themselves with experienced team members who can guide them to make the right decisions as they scale. 
4. Raise Funds: It takes money to fuel billion-dollar growth. Startups that reach this level build strong investor relationships and have constant access to capital. With the right startup, this financial arrangement is mutually beneficial. Investors desire to put their money in fast-growing vehicles where they can earn a high ROI. As they invest more money, their equity percentage rises. When it’s time for an exit, their investment pays off many times over. 
5. Scale Like Crazy: The most essential but most challenging part of becoming a unicorn is scaling like crazy. Unicorn startups are often able to penetrate multiple markets and build brand awareness across the globe. Showcasing the potential for multimarket penetration is extremely valuable to investors. As you generate more users across more markets, the value of your company will increase in parallel. 

The Last Word On Becoming A Unicorn

Here’s the thing about becoming a unicorn, if your only intent is to become a unicorn, you probably never will. Entrepreneurs who take over an industry don’t do so because they are focused on reaching a billion-dollar value; it happens because they are super passionate about providing a new solution that genuinely helps consumers. If you want a significant valuation, solve a big problem for a big number of people. 

The post What Does It Mean to Be A Unicorn Startup Company? appeared first on Startup Squared.

Unfortunately, many app entrepreneurs won’t have a success story to share when all is said and done. App startups fail everyday, and some apps that once had thousands of users now struggle to survive. Developing an app, getting users to download and actually use it, and retaining that position for the long run has proven to be a rather difficult undertaking – too difficult for most. As it seems, what may look like a smooth journey on the pages of your mobile app business plan will probably be quite the bumpy road in actual execution. App success stories aren’t overnight successes, they overcome many hurdles along the way.

Most app ideas will never become an actual app, and most apps will never even have a glimmer of hope in competing with more dominant apps within their industry. Many startup teams who once aspired to be on the list of app success
stories will only become a short story. Ranging from bad app ideas to a lack of commitment, there are several factors that prevent 95% of app entrepreneurs from reaching their app success goals. We recently spoke to several app startup founders about their app success stories to give you some mobile app inspiration and find out what it takes to become an app store success.

Do You Have The Right Idea?

Ask any successful app startup founder (or any entrepreneur for that matter) and they will tell you that app ideas are truly a dime a dozen. However, you need to have a solid app idea in place before you can execute it and introduce it to consumers. Successful apps don’t just ‘exist’, and users don’t download them just because they are in the App Store. Startups that become “app success stories” solve problems and attract users who are facing that specific problem and seeking a solution. There are entrepreneurs making millions from apps because the platforms that they have built solve millions of problems each and every day.

Steven Benson, the founder of Badger Maps, found that a problem existed while working in his industry. Steven told us, “My career has been spent in field sales, and so I understood the challenges faced by field salespeople first hand…”

Some say that success is the result of what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Sometimes, when you prepare yourself enough, the opportunity will find you; instead of the other way around. In the case of Badger Maps, Steven said, “Looking back at it, it was a combination of my role in sales and my industry background with software and mapping that made me well positioned to launch a company and solve the problems of field sales. I was in the right place, at the right time, with the right background to come up with the idea and start the company.”

SportMe founder, Andrew Greenstein, had a similar story of being prepared. With a background in AI and automation, he was able to identify how his expertise would be beneficial to the sporting industry. When we asked about his app idea, he said, “I’ve always believed that technology can play a strong role in helping everyone improve themselves, every day. We started SportMe to apply my technology, AI, and automation experience to participatory sports; choosing marathon training because of its supportive and rapidly growing community.”

There’s an insight here – sometimes the best ideas will come to you when you are most prepared to receive them. The more you know about something, the better prepared you will be able to identify challenges that need a solution and
opportunities where your knowledge can be applied to solve niche issues.

What Will Stop You From Succeeding?

There is one common theme present in all app success stories – overcoming obstacles. Building any business is tough, but app startups have unique challenges that founders must overcome to reach their goals and objectives. Sometimes, overcoming these challenges will require you to be extremely creative and to put yourself in positions that may make you uncomfortable. Just how far will you go to overcome your challenges and become an app success? The founders of Friendz App pushed the limits – and it worked! Here’s an awesome story that co-founder Alessandro Cadoni shared with us:

“At the beginning, everything was a challenge! That is why we spoke with every relevant person in the field. We took part in startup competitions, filled white papers with ideas and improvised ourselves as skilled graphic designers, developers, and salesmen. We improvised and we tried, a lot. Initially, one of the biggest issues was getting the attention of big brands and marketing managers: we didn’t have a track record or a product yet, but we had the
courage to dare and to try every route. Stalking? We tried that too (and it worked!). We stationed in front of the headquarters of big brands, close to the smoking areas, hoping that someone at some point would have left the door
open for us to enter and meet all those people we emailed who never answered back. And finally, the lucky day arrived: we were able to sneak into unknown corridors and nobody ever noticed us or called the security (fortunately). Directly knocking at the doors, we were able to tell managers what we wanted to do and ask them for feedback in order to develop a service that could perfectly answer the needs of their future clients. From that day on, nothing scared us anymore!”

You probably won’t have to stalk anyone during your journey, but you will likely have to shake many hands, deliver your pitch to a million people, convince customers, and complete many other tasks that you may not be used to doing. Will it stop you from reaching your goal and writing your own app success story?

Is Your App Really That Different?

There are far too many ‘copies’ in the App Store today. For every Uber, there are 20 more ride-sharing apps that offer the exact same service but have failed to catch on. Successful app developers approach unmarked territory, they don’t just follow suit because they catch wind of a gold rush. Apps that win big are those that have clear competitive advantages and unique selling propositions that make them significantly different than their competitors – even if the core of their app idea is similar.

No matter what your app solution is or what industry you serve, some type of competition exists. Even if there are no other apps providing the same solution, there’s always some other way that consumers are solving their problem;
although it may be inefficient or ineffective. For Steven Benson, Badger Maps gave sales reps a more streamlined way of completing an inefficient process:

“Since we’ve created a new category of software, meaning that it didn’t exist before we made it, our biggest competitor is our user doing what we do by hand. They’ve been solving the problem that we solve with our app by hand for years,
and our biggest job is letting them know that we can solve it for them. Sales Reps have always had paper maps, lists of where their customers and prospects are, and a paper (and later a computer-based) calendar.

What we did was combine all of these things together and put them on a mobile device to create a mobile solution for Field Sales Reps to be more successful. Field Sales Reps have a very unique workflow because they’re always on the move, so they need mobile solutions more than anyone. As a result, Badger differentiates itself by prioritizing a great mobile experience via iPhone, Android, iPad and tablet – not just a desktop.”

Is Your App Scalable?

Successful apps are able to take their initial momentum and scale it rapidly across their industry. They don’t just work for a handful of people, but they provide a solution that can be adopted by a great proportion of a specific niche market. Most app success stories start small with a handful of testers or early adopters but are able to scale consistently to reach more and more users each and every month.

When Steve Carlton first founded Invitd, only a handful of people downloaded it, but he was able to scale drastically to increase his user base at an exponential rate. Invitd allows event hosts to create an invitation in under 60 seconds and send out invitations via text message. Steve told us, “ The day the app launched in 2014 was a rush, we got a total of 34 downloads! Since day one our mission has been focused on making the process of sending invitations as easy as possible. We have focused on making a great experience for the host and the guest. Just over 3 years later, we surpassed over 250,000 registered users and 5 million invitations sent.”

What Is App Success, Really?

Success in any capacity is never ‘one-size-fits-all’. An app in a niche market might be widely successful with 20,000 users, while a mass-market app may need a million users to be considered a successful app. Some apps may need to
convert 50% of their users into subscribers to reach their definition of success, while others may need 100,000 active users per day to earn enough ad revenue to turn a profit.

Andrew Greenstein of SportMe met a major milestone when, “we reached a six figure revenue and our smart marathon run trainer started ranking as the #2 Marathon Trainer in the Apple App Store.”

For Alessandro Cadoni, the Friends App team found success when, “…in 2017, we consolidated the Italian market, creating a community of nearly 200k users with a Monthly Active Users (MAU) of 27%. Last summer, we organized the ‘Friendz Tour’ – offline meetings with our community in several Italian cities where we had picnics together and spent some afternoons talking about the app, pictures, their life, and their interests. In the last several months, we have been working with more than 120 clients, mostly multinational enterprises (FMCG). We made more than 200 brand campaigns and published more than 2 million photos; earning over a million Euro in revenue.”

App Success Stories – Will You Be Next?

The first step to building a successful app is to define exactly what success means for you, your app, your team, and your business. The second step is to get started. Over 95% of app ideas die within one of these two stages; either the founders never define success and therefore can never reach their unspecified goal, or they define success and realize that it’s a much bigger journey than they are committed to pursuing.

If you’re serious about building a successful app, but confused about where to start, ThinkLions can help. We have worked with dozens of app entrepreneurs to define their ideas, launch minimal viable products, secure app funding and bring their app ideas to reality. Contact us today for a free consultation!

The post App Success Stories: How To Build An Amazing App That Wins appeared first on Startup Squared.

A pitch deck is a critical tool in a startup’s fundraising journey. However, not every pitch deck is equally effective. The best pitch decks strike multi-million deals, while the worst fail to capture investors’ interest.

Searching Google for a pitch deck template isn’t enough to create a successful design. When approaching investors, the goal is to be memorable and effective. Unfortunately, most pitch decks fail in the fundraising process. While they may contain the right slides and information, they don’t stand out.

By studying examples of successful startups that raised millions, you can learn what investors look for in the best pitch decks. In this article, we’ll introduce you to 30 of the best pitch decks we’ve seen over the last few years. Furthermore, we’ll explain why we believe they were successful and what you can learn from them.

1. Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud storage service that lets you save files online and sync them to your devices. The platform makes it simple for users to share files and folders with others without attaching large attachments to an email.

The team introduced the product at Y Combinator’s Demo Day in 2007. Since then, Dropbox has acquired hundreds of millions of customers. The company has also become an example of how to build a startup from the ground up.

The pitch deck showcases Dropbox’s innovative product, explains its traction, and validates its business model. Investors quickly displayed interest, and Dropbox struck its first investor deal shortly after its Demo Day appearance. 

The Pros of Dropbox’s Pitch Deck

Dropbox’s presentation may seem outdated compared to many modern pitch decks. It could use more graphic design, but the information is clear and presented in an easily digestible manner.

The pitch deck explains the ideal situation by describing what things look like “in a perfect world.” In this slide, the deck connects readers to the problem. It helps them visualize what life would look like if they didn’t struggle with digital storage issues.

At the time, consumers weren’t aware that one could have “your files available wherever you are, on any device.” In 2024, this value proposition probably doesn’t seem so unique. However, in 2007, forgetting your USB drive at home led to significant anxiety. Users had no way to access their files without a physical drive.

Ultimately, Dropbox changed how the world stores and shares files, and its pitch deck validates this point.

The Dropbox pitch deck encourages engagement from the viewer by presenting questions like “Why Now?” and “Why Better?” The team identified which questions the audience was likely to ask. Then, the founders used the deck to take the viewer on a journey by answering their questions at the ideal moment.

Dropbox’s slides may seem outdated, but the “no-fluff” approach led them to success. The text is large enough to read, and each slide gets straight to the point. Every word has a purpose, and every sentence is intentional.

Dropbox’s Lifetime Funding

The Dropbox team leveraged its pitch deck to raise a $1.2 million seed round in 2007. The company raised over $1.7 billion in funding over 11 rounds.

2. WeWork

WeWork is an American commercial real estate company that provides flexible shared workspaces for technology startups and other businesses. The company designs and builds physical and virtual shared spaces and offices for companies of all sizes.

WeWork’s reputation has suffered over the years as a result of bad leadership and overfunding. However, its failures don’t take away from its ability to rank in our best pitch decks list. The team produced several pitch decks since its earliest stages. In our opinion, Dropbox’s Series D presentation is the best example of showcasing traction and describing plans.

Why It’s On Our Best Pitch Decks List

Unlike DropBox, WeWork’s pitch deck is design-heavy with a modern aesthetic. The slides follow a predictable theme with a bold title, a short text blurb, and a simple but informative graphic. The color scheme (black and yellow) is consistent across every slide, which makes it visually appealing to the audience.

But when creating our best pitch decks list, graphic design is only one component. It takes skill to present this amount of information without overloading the slide. Yet, WeWork figured out the perfect balance to provide information while peaking the audience’s curiosity.

Instead of “warming up” the audience, the team immediately gets to the meat of the presentation – traction. The Company Overview slide showcases their stats upfront, with impressive metrics that investors would find difficult to ignore. Few investors can look away when a company presents statistics like 109% CAGR and revenues of $121.4 million.

While visual aesthetic is less important than content, WeWork’s design stands out. Every slide draws viewers in with complex information simplified through charts and familiar logos. The team slide is simple and shows authentic images of its founding members. If a picture speaks 1,000 words, it speaks a million in a pitch deck.

A Validated Hypothesis

The pitch deck tells the story of how work is rapidly shifting away from the office. Even before the pandemic, the founders realized that remote working was the future. The deck explains how millennials approach work differently. Unlike past generations, they choose freelance and work-from-home options over the traditional office setting.

By the way, they were right – today, more people work from their homes and shared office spaces than ever before.

WeWork’s technology is a significant part of its offering. Still, the founders only dedicated one slide to its technology. Instead, they focused on showcasing the customer problem and their plans for capitalizing on the emerging market opportunity.

WeWork’s Total Funding

The founders raised $335 million in investor funding with its Series D pitch deck. In total, the company raised $4.45 billion over 11 rounds from 14 investors.

3. Copper Cow Coffee

It can be challenging to make coffee sound exciting when competing for capital against innovative tech startups. The Copper Cow Coffee pitch deck successfully explains how it innovates a stagnant market.

Copper Cow Coffee offers sustainably-sourced, all-natural coffee, sold in a kit that includes coffee and creamers. The company had humble beginnings but has expanded rapidly. Today, it’s products are available in major retail stores, including Whole Foods, Walmart, H-E-B, and Sprouts.

Despite the rapid success, Copper Cow Coffee’s journey began with a simple but impactful 11-slide pitch deck.

Why It’s An Awesome Pitch Deck

Entrepreneurs often overlook simplicity during investor pitches, but Copper Cow Coffee proved that less is more. For comparison’s sake, there are more words in this paragraph than in the company’s entire pitch deck. The team streamlined all the information into simple but powerful statements like “Craft coffee for anyone, anywhere.”

Unlike other decks on this list, the founders didn’t use complex graphs and charts to present information. Instead, they showcased the opportunity in a way that even a kindergarten student could understand. For example, the team used a few words to describe market size, not bar charts and line graphs. With the statement, “32 billion – American Coffee Industry,” anyone could quickly visualize how large the market is.

You could argue that Copper Cow’s pitch deck is too simple and minimal. However, when pitching an idea, you want the audience to pay attention to the presenter, not the slides. Copper Cow’s deck allows the audience to grasp each concept without requiring long text or an explanation.

Did Copper Cow Raise Funding?

Copper Cow Coffee participated in 500 Startups and raised over $1 million in seed funding. In total, the company has generated $11.5 million in investor funding.

4. Purple Go

(Click the image to view Purple Go’s pitch deck)

Purple Go is an iPad-based platform that allows eyewear retailers to streamline online operations. The all-in-one platform automates tasks throughout the sales process, freeing up staff members and maximizing operations efficiency. Although Purple Go serves a niche and uber-targeted audience, startups can learn a few lessons from their pitch deck.

Pitch Deck Highlights

Purple Go utilized a sleek design and approach, telling its story with simple statements and highly-focused slides. While most startup pitch deck templates suggest a Problem Slide, Purple Go decided to forego this recommendation.

Instead, the deck tells a story of how Purple Go’s clients feared the impact of tech-enabled competitors. But, by adopting Purple Go’s mobile-connected stores, they multiplied their revenue by up to 10x.

The pitch deck includes several Solution slides, but they don’t display every feature. Each slide displays a short statement with a visual that explains how the product solves the customer’s problem. Phrases like “Cut Time to Sale in Half” explains the value proposition without using bullet points or paragraphs. The slides focus on the specific functions that heighten the value proposition without wasting space on less impactful features.

The team proves its Traction with a few hard-hitting statistics, such as “Pilot Store – $150k Annual Revenue.” Purple Go gives the audience the “what” of the solution but gives room so the presenter can fill in the blanks.

Did Purple Go Raise Funding?

With this pitch deck, The Purple Go team raised $150,000 in seed funding from 500 Startups.

5. Blue Wire

Blue Wire is an audio-based media company. It hosts more than 120 podcasts with athletes, influencers, and professional sports franchises. The founders recognized that millennials preferred digitized media (like podcasts) over traditional sports radio.

The Blue Wire founders designed a great pitch deck that easily made our best pitch decks list. With only nine slides the company proved a growing need for its solution in the market.

Why Do We Love This Investor Pitch Deck?

This pitch deck successfully displays how sports fans’ habits have shifted from one extreme to another. It explains how television loses 150,000 subscribers monthly, while podcasts have grown by more than 90 million listeners.

The team also proved its future potential by showing the combined follower numbers of its influencers. It also displayed logos from dozens of creators seeking to partner with the company. The deck validates a demand for the solution by showcasing notable statistics. For example, the brand received 2.5 million listens over 11 months and doubled its user base monthly.

The Company Raised HOW MUCH!?

Using this pitch deck, the company raised $150,000 in pre-seed funding. To date, Blue Wire has raised $9.9 million in funding from angel investors and venture capitalists.

6. SnapChat

It seems like Snapchat has been around forever, but it launched just over a decade ago. In 2010, it was just a new social media platform hoping to find its first capital partner. The company had a great concept, a cult-like following, and clear competitive advantages. The company had many positives, but the team still needed a stand-out pitch deck to capture investor attention.

About Snapchat’s Startup Pitch Deck

Founders often use pitch decks to communicate with investors, but they serve other purposes, too. For instance, Snapchat created a sales deck to reach brands with its advertising and marketing services.

The Snapchat pitch deck sacrifices a title slide to get right to the value proposition. It opens with a bold and confident statement, “Snapchat is the best way to reach 13 to 34-year-olds.” This statement immediately draws advertisers’ attention – especially those targeting young millennials. The risk of grabbing viewers’ attention with this approach is that after making the statement, the next slides must prove it.

Snapchat validates its opening statement on the following slide. The team added a message that explains its penetration level for its targeted audience. The slide explains that “More than 60% of 13 to 34-year-old smartphone users are Snapchatters.” Then, it follows up with another intense metric – “2+ billion video views every day on Snapchat.”

Snapchat’s pitch deck provides many lessons that startup founders can learn. First, eliminate the fluff and focus on meaningful statements. Then, use strong statements in your deck that captivate the audience and provide evidence using real data.

The Sales Deck Impact

The sales deck set the foundation for Snapchat’s advertising services. The company now earns more than $2.62 billion in advertising revenue each year.

Snapchat’s sales deck did not influence its fundraising activities. But in case you wondered, the company has raised more than $4.9 billion in investor capital since its inception.

7. Peloton

The home fitness equipment industry continues to reinvent itself with new equipment and products. From ab stimulators to workout video series, there’s always some new brand claiming to help you achieve your dream body.

However, in 2012, Peloton launched as an innovator in the fitness hardware and technology spaces. The company combined traditional fitness equipment with modern tech solutions. Its solution includes internet-connected stationary bikes that enable subscribers to participate in at-home classes through streaming media.

How Peloton Made Our Best Pitch Decks List

The Peloton team knew that its product wasn’t for every person interested in fitness. With a high price tag, Peloton’s customers meet a specific demographic, lifestyle, and income bracket.

The Customer slide outlines Peloton’s ideal customer. These consumers are high net worth, married, and already spending more than $150 per month on fitness. Peloton customers earn a high income and are willing to use their disposable income to achieve their fitness goals.

Peloton’s investor deck shows that the team has deep knowledge of competitors. The team used several slides to explain its competitive advantages over other brands. Statements such as “We are not a gimmicky fitness brand” make a huge impact. The simple sentence puts distance between the brand and those with laughable fitness products (yes, I mean you, Shake Weight).

The pitch deck refutes viewers’ objections immediately and removes the “bad product” stigma often associated with fitness products.

The Venture Capital Raise

Peloton raised $400,000 from investors in the seed round. In a later round, they used their Series A pitch deck to raise $3.5 million. Throughout its lifetime, the company raised $1.9 billion, participated in six acquisitions, and went public (2019).

8. Transferwise

Transferwise (now called Wise) launched in 2010 and emerged as a leader in global payments. Wise, a money transfer platform, allows individuals to send money overseas quickly. The founders realized that millions of people around the world faced high fees for remitting money. By solving this issue for millions of people worldwide, the company earned billions of dollars.

What Stands Out in Wise’s Pitch Deck?

We gave praise to some earlier examples for their minimal approach to text and design. However, we believe Wise has the perfect amount of text for each slide. The deck provides enough information to understand the concept without overloading each slide.

The How It Works slide clarifies how easily users can send money using the platform. In this slide, Wise simplified the remittance process into four steps.

Wise simplified its Competition slide by listing each competitor category and the companies within each group. This approach allows the founders to explain each competitor group during the pitch, instead of comparing each individual company.

How Much Did Wise Raise?

Wise has one of the best seed pitch decks among the unicorn startups of the last decade. With this deck, the company raised $1.3 million in seed funding from IA Ventures and Index Ventures. To date, the company has raised over $1.3 billion from investors.

9. Kickfolio

Kickfolio (now App.io) introduced an innovative tool that allowed iOS applications to run in the browser using HTML5 technology. The technology helps brands promote their applications, find new users, and engage their audience with an interactive application demo.

What Can You Learn From This Pitch Deck?

This pitch deck is an excellent example of how a brand can use visuals to engage viewers with its story. Instead of explaining the solution with bullet points, the team uses product images to demonstrate its functionality. For instance, Kickfolio showcased its traction with a simple but large graph. The team strengthened the slide by explaining user engagement, with a statement that says, “2000+ signups in 6 weeks.”

The company also added real reviews to the pitch deck so investors could see its value proposition in action. By doing so, Kickfolio made it clear how the solution impacts the lives of actual users.

How Much Capital Did They Raise?

With a world-class pitch deck, the founders raised $1.2 million in seed funding from investor partners.

10. Alan

Alan is a unique and innovative digital health insurance platform. The company improves the health insurance process by focusing on the user experience and providing cost-affordable plans. The team established the business in a saturated sector by providing top-level customer service and a competitive product.

Here’s Why We Love This Deck

To be clear, Alan’s pitch deck is more than double the length we’d recommend to our clients. Despite the length, several qualities stand out.

First, the visual presentation is masterful. The design is extensive, but it adds to the presentation instead of taking away from it. Alan’s branding is strong and consistent throughout the deck. It utilizes the brand’s colors and maintains a theme that draws viewers into the presentation.

Alan’s deck begins with an elevator pitch, allowing the audience to understand its product offering immediately. The team also added a slide that explained their purpose for raising Series A funding. With the funding, they plan to expand in Europe and transition into a healthcare platform.

We’ve seen the minimal approach used in several other presentations. Alan definitely did not take this approach. The deck is longer than we recommend, but it gives enough information to stand alone without a presenter. Still, the length of the deck would bore the audience during a live investor pitch.

Alan’s Series A Round

The company raised €23 million during its Series A round. In total, Alan raised over $558.2 million from angel investors and venture capital firms.

11. Castle

Castle is an innovative and process-shifting real estate solution for rental property owners. The company sums up its value proposition with the slogan, “Put your properties on autopilot!”

Ultimately, Castle exists to help owners manage properties without the common landlord headaches. Castle serves a highly specific target market, so the brand may be unfamiliar to you. However, its pitch deck has several shining qualities that any founder can learn from.

What Can You Learn From Castle?

Castle’s presentation is a great example for founders wondering what a great pitch deck looks like. The design is modern and exciting, utilizing a constant theme, graphics, product images, and icons. The icons highlight each point, bringing the viewers’ eyes directly to the most critical points of each slide.

Castle’s format is similar to most pitch deck templates. However, the pitch deck uses this familiar structure to its advantage. The startup immediately showcases the primary customer problem. They present a problem statement that reads, “Rental property owners want to make money without the work of being a landlord.”

Each subsequent slide enhances the overall story and gives the audience another layer of information. The flow leads to a concise elevator pitch – “Automate landlording through software and on-demand labor.”

Castle shows us that the best pitch decks aren’t the ones that present a massive amount of data. Instead, they present the right information at the right time to support the story and capture viewers’ attention.

Did Castle Raise Funding?

Since its inception, Castle has raised $3.3 million in seed funding from angel investors and venture capitalists.

12. Adpushup

Adpushup is a successful startup that streamlines the process of optimizing ad placements. The solution enables publishers to improve ad performance by testing different ad placements, sizes, and types. Adpushup’s pitch deck design is simple, but the information it comprises was critical to the company’s funding success.

What We Like About Adpushup’s Slide Deck

Many entrepreneurs believe revenue is the only attractive metric, but Adpushup proved that other metrics are equally important. For example, the Traction slide validates its rapid growth, using impressions as a metric. This metric enabled them to prove a high demand within the market, even though the business hadn’t earned any revenue.

In addition to describing prospective customers, the deck displays the solution’s impact through existing customer experiences. It includes a case study showing its product’s effectiveness in a real-world scenario. Social proof isn’t just gold for attracting potential customers; it also helps to sell your pitch to investors.

Did Adpushup Raise Seed Money?

Since its inception, Adpushup has raised approximately $632,000 from partnered investors.

13. LinkedIn

(Click the image to view LinkedIn’s pitch deck)

The LinkedIn Series B pitch deck is ancient compared to others on our list. Still, it’s excellent study material for startups looking to develop a compelling investor pitch.

LinkedIn launched during the social media craze, when many new social network platforms entered the market, and competition peaked. However, it took a different approach and focused on a professional audience.

LinkedIn’s deck is overloaded with text and lacks a modern design. Still, it is a fantastic example of how a seed round pitch deck may differ from a later round deck.

LinkedIn’s pitch deck uses a massive amount of text and has an outdated design. However, it is a fantastic example of how a seed round pitch deck may differ from a later round deck.

The Takeaway for Social Media Startups

Seed-round startups should refrain from using as many slides as LinkedIn used in its pitch deck. Brevity is critical to success for early-stage pitch decks. However, in later rounds, more robust decks are often necessary.

By the time it held its Series B round, LinkedIn had grown into serious competitor. Now, the company had several members, proven user engagement, referral metrics, case studies, and a revenue plan. The company had the challenge of presenting this myriad of accomplishments within its deck.

Since LinkedIn already had investors’ attention, it didn’t face the same restraints as a new startup. New startups have to earn the audience’s attention. By the time they have a notable reputation, investors automatically give them their full attention.

LinkedIn’s deck clearly defines its primary focus – establishing its network. Furthermore, it explained why this task is critical to achieving its growth objectives. Successful pitch decks explain how the team will use investor funds to expand the business and scale its success. LinkedIn showed significant traction through the deck, proving that its actual growth outpaced its projected metrics.

How Much Capital Did LinkedIn Raise?

LinkedIn raised $10 million from Greylock Partners during its Series B round. Over its lifetime, LinkedIn raised over $154.8 million in investor funding. The company’s valuation grew to $352.8 million by the time it went public in 2011.

14. Canvas

Canvas provides a business solution that allows corporations and organizations to digitize their paper assets. The solution aims to eliminate paperwork by transitioning business processes through mobile applications.

We selected Canvas as one of the best startup decks because of how it used imagery to draw the audience’s attention.

What Caught Our Eye About This Investor Deck?

Canvas starts its deck with simple visuals explaining how the world has moved from analog to digital. For instance, books changed to eBooks, and CDs transitioned to MP3s. Now, according to Canvas, document storage will shift because of its solution.

In the subsequent slides, the Company describes five massive issues faced by companies with paper-based processes. With this approach, Canvas shows the audience’s specific challenges. Furthermore, it proves the time is right for a new solution to enter the market.

We also appreciate Canvas’s Competitive Landscape slide. Most startups use a table with checkmarks. In contrast, Canvas compares its solution’s approach against competitors. According to the deck, competitors focus on the what, while Canvas focuses on the why.

Canvas Raised How Much!?

Canvas’s pitch deck and investor pitch were successful, and the company raised $24.1 million in investor funding.

15. SickWeather

Sickweather is an app that analyzes data to predict and forecast population health. The app claims to accurately predict illness outbreaks 91% of the time and two weeks before the CDC on average. Sickweather’s sample pitch deck explains the importance of trust and credibility. These factors are especially critical when your clients are some of the most respected brands in the world.

Sidenote: Sickweather became even more relevant after the pandemic. In April 2020, the company launched a COVID-19 scoring feature. This feature made the company a leading predictor of which cities would experience COVID outbreaks.

Sickweather’s Pitch Deck Takeaway

The first thing that caught our attention was the addition of a video on one of the slides. Shorter videos work well during a live pitch, while long videos can help enhance the deck during the introduction stage.

Early in the deck, Sickweather lists previous and existing clients. The mentioned brands are well-known and credible, immediately giving the startup a high level of authority. Furthermore, the team used visual graphs to showcase impressive monthly recurring revenue growth.

Lifetime Capital Raise

Sickweather has raised $2.6 million in investor funding since its inception.

16. Match Box (Tinder)

Match Box is the original name for Tinder, a dating app used by millions of people worldwide. Even with many competitors, Tinder overtook the market by implementing a gaming aspect to its platform. Instead of just adding friends, individuals could swipe left or right to express interest in another user. Match Box’s startup deck is an excellent example of balancing creativity and simplicity to generate investor interest.

What We Like About Match Box’s Pitch Deck

Match Box eventually rebranded to Tinder. Now, Tinder is the most successful dating app in the world. The company’s ability to take over the world started with a well-designed pitch deck.

Match Box’s slides are rather minimal compared to most startup pitch decks. However, it introduces a real-world scenario to explain the problems daters face (fear of rejection). The pitch deck uses each slide to tell a story, and half of the deck simply includes screenshots of the application.

In the pitch deck, Match Box introduces the customer, showcases their challenges, and proves their problem-solution fit.

Finally, the last slide shows a transparent revenue model. Many dating apps struggle to generate revenue. However, in its deck, Match Box showed its process for leveraging its customer base to create several income streams.

Match Box’s Lifetime Funding

In September 2016, Tinder received an investment of $1.4 million. Since then, the company has participated in three separate acquisitions.

17. Airbnb

Today, almost everyone in the nation has used or is familiar with Airbnb. Founded in 2008, Airbnb is a web service that allows people visiting other cities to book rooms from locals.

Airbnb provides a classic marketplace platform that enables renters and travelers to transact. It allows users book a private room or a property, often offering more amenities than a hotel. Property owners act as hosts on the platform, using Airbnb to find renters and earn income from their vacant properties.

With a compelling pitch deck, Airbnb conveyed its advantages against the competition and expressed its unique market position.

The Upside of Airbnb’s Deck

First-time founders often focus all their attention on the presentation’s design and visuals. Unfortunately, while the slides look great, they often lack the essential qualities of a good pitch deck. Over-designing can cause distraction and pull your audiences’ focus to the wrong elements. As Steve Jobs once said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Airbnb’s pitch deck is the perfect representation of effective simplicity. The presentation explains the customer problem, such as the price of hotels. Additionally, it uses real statistics to prove the market potential. It defines the challenge entirely before introducing the company’s product, service, and feature offering.

Airbnb relies on technology to provide its services, but the deck only vaguely mentions the platform itself. One slide explains the technology, but the rest focus on the market and the go-to-market strategy.

The founders represented the solution with only seven words – “Search By City. Review Listings. Book It!” Our team fell in love with this approach.

Entrepreneurs typically spend the entire pitch explaining the product itself. Yet, they don’t spend enough time on the things important to investors, such as the strategy and ROI potential.

Airbnb – A Fundraising Success Story

Before this pitch deck, founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia had no fundraising experience. However, even without expertise, they closed a $600,000 seed round led by Sequoia Capital. In total, Airbnb raised $4.4 billion over several financing rounds.

For more information on what makes this presentation special, see our full breakdown of Airbnb’s pitch deck.

18. TeaLet

Tea is one of the world’s most popular commodities. However, obstacles exist in the supply chain process, slowing down the transfer of goods from farms to individuals. Furthermore, the market relies on middlemen to distribute products, which drives up prices for the final consumer. As a result, tea farmers have to deal with low-profit margins, and consumers can’t access high-quality tea options.

TeaLet exists to streamline the supply chain. The company directly connects tea growers with wholesale buyers and retailers using blockchain technology and a web-based application. As a result, TeaLet has tripled the profits for tea farmers while reducing consumers’ prices for top-quality tea.

TeaLet’s pitch deck enabled the team to achieve its objective of attracting and striking a deal with its first investors.

About TeaLet’s Killer Deck

TeaLet’s pitch deck immediately presents the most important information. The presentation starts by displaying its most vital metric – We’ve sold 100,000 cups of tea in 20+ countries. By quickly showcasing traction, TeaLet’s pitch deck gives the team massive credibility. Furthermore, it grasps the audience’s attention early on in the pitch.

One of our favorite qualities of this pitch deck is the use of hard numbers. The slides use hard numbers to prove the market opportunity. By showcasing market activities (such as acquisitions by similar companies), TeaLet creates FOMO among potential investors.

While content is more important than design, TeaLet’s design theme stands out against many other startup pitch decks. The deck is design-heavy, but the visual adds drama to the message instead of distracting from it.

How Much Funding Did TeaLet Raise?

With a great product and a well-thought pitch deck, TeaLet secured a $240k seed round from angel investors.

19. Moz (SEOmoz)

Moz, formally known as SEOmoz, is a SaaS company that provides a suite of inbound marketing and SEO tools. Gillian Muessig and SEO influencer Rand Fishkin launched Moz in 2004 and transitioned into SEO SaaS software in 2008.

By the end of 2017, Moz served more than 36,000 businesses worldwide. During this period, users crawled more than 168 million URLs and researched over 4.3 million keywords.

Building a leading software solution like Moz is no easy feat. Yet, Moz created an amazing pitch deck that impressed investors and allowed them to secure necessary startup capital.

Why is Moz On Our Best Pitch Decks List?

Rand Fishkin has become the Michael Jackson of SEO. He is well-known as a marketing legend now, but he had to build his legendary status over several years. Moz’s pitch deck explains where the business started and how Rand built the company from inception without outside funding.

Moz used its slides to explain how the founders leveraged free traffic through inbound marketing to build and expand the business. Describing these methods allowed Mox to validate the potential of its software.

This pitch deck is longer than a standard startup pitch deck. However, when the team designed it, Moz had already completed an initial seed funding round and had significant traction. Therefore, in later series rounds, additional slides are often necessary to effectively showcase the growth of the business.

Did Moz Reach Its Funding Objectives?

A strong pitch deck and a validated product allowed Moz to raise $29.1 million over five funding rounds.

20. Front

According to the company Front, it has produced the “first inbox meant for teams.” Using Front, organizations can organize emails, route them to team members, and maximize collaboration. The company launched in 2013 and quickly grew its dominance in the corporate email sector. Today, Front serves over 5,000 businesses and has more than 100 employees.

Explaining Front’s Pitch Deck

The overall aesthetic of startup pitch decks has evolved over the years. Front’s deck comprises elements that you wouldn’t find in older pitch deck examples, like Facebook or LinkedIn.

For example, Front uses a plot graph to showcase how each competitor fits into the landscape. This graphic element is easy on the eyes and makes a complex concept simple. The use of graphics continues with well-placed charts and graphs throughout the deck. Front showcased its traction and growth clearly while maintaining a minimal and clean appearance.

Front’s Fundraising Outcome

Front’s pitch deck enabled the company to reach its funding goals. To date, Front has raised over $79 million in venture funding.

21. Mixpanel

Mixpanel provides a solution that tracks and monitors web and mobile applications. With Mixpanel’s toolset, app owners compare new campaigns with A/B tests, execute user surveys, and build funnels.

The Pros of Mixpanel’s Pitch Deck

The simplicity of this presentation was the element that made us add it to our best pitch decks list. Compared to other pitch decks, it is relatively minimal with a focus on text. However, in a time when most pitch decks are over-designed, Mixpanel’s lack of graphic design stands out.

The founders created a great storyline within the deck that keeps viewers engaged. It begins by clearly stating the market’s problems in a single sentence. Then, it explains the solution with minimal text.

With a dark non-distracting background and white font, the message is clear. Furthermore, it contains singular and focused concepts instead of cluttering the slides with useless visuals.

Mixpanel’s Funding Rounds

The company achieved its financing goals and raised $77 million over five investment rounds.

22. Facebook

If you’re old enough to remember the launch of Facebook, you might recall that it first launched as “thefacebook.” Facebook is a social media platform that Mark Zuckerberg launched in 2004. Over the last 20 years, Facebook has grown to become one of the world’s top-earning companies. The platform has billions of users and an estimated $140 billion valuation.

Pitch Deck Lessons for Social Media Startups

Since Facebook launched in the early 2000s, its pitch deck is now ancient. The startup landscape has significantly changed since Facebook’s early days. Gone are the days when pitch deck slides included entire text paragraphs.

Still, Facebook’s pitch deck accomplished its objectives. It showcased the features, explained the launch strategy, and presented traction. Facebook also added media quotes to validate its impact and showcase its traction.

Facebook’s Fundraising Success

Facebook raised over $1.3 billion before going public in 2012.

23. Buzzfeed

BuzzFeed is an industry-leading internet media, news, and entertainment company that has brought new trends to digital journalism. John Peretti founded Buzzfeed in new York in 2006. It focused on showcasing viral content like articles, lists, videos, and quizzes.

BuzzFeed exploded over its first few years and now hosts several brands, including Nifty, Goodful, As/Is, and Tasty. By 2018, BuzzFeed Video’s YouTube channel had generated more than 13.8 billion views and 17.2 million subscribers.

The Best Aspects of BuzzFeed’s Pitch Deck

BuzzFeed utilized screenshots of the platform throughout the deck, visually engaging viewers and investor audiences. The design strategically visualized important information like revenue and the business model.

In addition, the pitch deck has a strong and attractive Competitor Landscape slide. It shows how the company combines the benefits of the advertising and media sectors.

BuzzFeed’s Lifetime Capital Raise

The BuzzFeed company raised over $496 million and has participated in five acquisitions since its inception.

24. Ooomf (Crew)

Ooomf launched in 2012 as an app discovery platform. After raising $500,000 in a seed round, Ooomf pivoted as a marketplace for digital freelancers.

Ooomf rebranded as Crew, the first marketplace where handpicked creators can work on the projects they love. Ooomf’s marketplace has many clients, including major brands like Apple, Google, Uber, and Dropbox.

Learning From Ooomf’s Pitch Deck

Ooomf made our best pitch decks list because we appreciated its ability to tell a story with minimal text. Each slide is well-designed and suggests a single point of focus. The company used graphics to show the simplicity of creating a project on the platform. It also offers social proof by presenting direct quotes from the platform’s freelancers.

Ooomf’s Fundraising Activity

Ooomf (Crew) raised $9.9 million from 14 investors before participating in an acquisition by Dribbble.

25. Task.ly

Task.ly is a task management tool that helps professionals organize and manage their work lives. The app allows users to track project progress, collaborate with team members, and manage deadlines. The software aims to replace unorganized sticky notes, emails, and tracking docs with one simple-to-use platform.

Task.ly Pitch Deck Lessons

In our opinion, Task.ly’s pitch deck is too long and includes too many slides. With 28 slides, it is more than double the recommended length for startup pitch decks. Fortunately, the team used only a few words on each slide. Therefore, viewers can still flick through the entire deck quickly without spending an excessive amount of time.

Every slide in the pitch deck contains a graphic of some type. Still, every screenshot, image, and icon supports the story and enhances the pitch. Furthermore, the designers condensed the text into short statements – most slide have less than six words.

Lifetime Capital Raise

Task.ly has not released any public funding information. Therefore, we are unsure whether the company raised capital, or how much funding it raised.

26. Pendo

Pendo is a no-code platform that enables businesses to track customer behavior on websites and mobile apps. By leveraging the solution, users can monitor page loads, clicks, focus points, and form submissions. Once the system collects enough data, it draws insights and makes suggestions to improve user engagement.

What Do We Love About Pendo’s Pitch Deck?

As we explained previously, Series B pitch decks are often significantly longer than early-stage ones. By this stage, the business has covered more ground and achieved more milestones. As a result, Series B businesses must represent more information on their slides.

Regarding design, Pendo’s presentation is one of the best pitch decks we’ve come across. Some of the most effective pitch decks lack visual appeal. Still, Pendo squeezed a tremendous amount of information into its slides without compromising the design.

Pendo also used visuals wisely by inserting graphs and charts to display concepts instead of solely relying on text.

Pendo’s Fundraising Success

The team created several decks to raise $108.3 million over seven funding rounds. Furthermore, the company participated in two acquisitions.

27. Coinbase

The Contently solution addresses the three critical elements of content marketing: strategy, platform, and storytellers. The platform streamlines content marketing by combining expert strategy, marketing services, and a global talent network.

Contently now serves over 200 enterprise clients. It also hosts over 140,000 creatives and has paid more than $40 million to its contractors.

Pros of Contently’s Pitch Deck

Contently’s Series B financing deck presents compelling statistics explaining its market product. According to the states, brands often fail to achieve their marketing objectives. The pitch deck uses platform screenshots to showcase its effectiveness and displays client logos to validate its recent traction.

Contently’s Fundraising Activities

With an excellent pitch deck, the founders raised $19.3 million in capital over seven funding rounds.

29. Yaydoo

Yaydoo is a procurement automation platform that allows companies to streamline their purchasing processes. With Yaydoo, businesses can negotiate with several vendors simultaneously and with one click. Furthermore, the platform enables these companies to save on recurring purchases and reduce their team efforts.

Why Do We Love Yaydoo’s Pitch Deck?

Yaydoo effectively got its point across and validated the potential of its solution using only nine slides. The first slide is the most impressive, providing the fine details of the company’s sales over two years. It also displays logos of previous clients to give the brand more credibility. With significant social proof, it is easy to understand the company’s potential and ability to exceed customer expectations.

How Much Did Yaydoo Raise?

Yaydoo succeeded in raising seed funding. However, no public information is available expressing the amount of capital secured.

30. Backstartup

Backstartup’s platform allows startups and SMEs to manage their legal, accounting, and payroll processes. The founders launched Backstartup in Columbia in 2014, and the business now employs over 50 team members.

Lessons From Backstartup’s Pitch Deck

Backstartup’s investor pitch deck is another example of great design. It utilizes pops of colors and strong visuals to engage the audience in the presentation. The founders started the pitch deck by showcasing the projected market size. Subsequently, it explains the product and details the company’s traction.

The Backstartup team only used 11 slides to impress potential investors. Yet, each slide captures the details of the business with a consistent and visually appealing design theme.

Backstartup’s Fundraising History

Backstartup held three funding rounds, raising a total of $905k throughout its lifetime.

Elements of a Fundable Pitch
Deck

Combined with an impressive pitch, a startup pitch deck is essential for successful fundraising. Great ideas with sloppy presentations that leave key questions unanswered usually fail in the fundraising process. To impress investors, brands need a proven idea, a business plan, and a memorable startup pitch deck.

Thousands of startups send their pitch decks to investors every day. In other words, if you seek investor capital, you’ll need to stand out among the competition. Many startups add every detail they can fit in the deck. They describe the number of users, monthly growth, revenue, feature concepts, and more.

However, the best pitch decks provide an organized presentation with a story-like flow. They present the right information, in the optimal order, with supporting visuals that maximize impact.

Pitch decks can help you raise serious capital if done right. Some entrepreneurs utilize pitch deck writers to create the best presentations. But if you’re creating your own deck or using a startup pitch deck template, there are some tips that will help. Check out the infographic below so you can create successful pitch decks worthy of investment.

The post 30 of the Best Pitch Decks That We’ve Ever Seen appeared first on Startup Squared.