Glambook’s $2.5 million seed deck – TechCrunch

There’s round 250,000 hair and wonder professionals working throughout the U.Okay., and Glambook desires to be the sharing economic system platform that takes care of them.

The corporate recently raised $2.5 million at a $12 million valuation, and I managed to speak it into letting me share its pitch deck with you to see how the corporate wove its story to its traders.

We’re on the lookout for extra distinctive pitch decks to tear down, so if you wish to submit your personal, here’s how you can do that. 

Slides on this deck

Glambook raised its funding with a 19-slide deck, they usually agreed to share it with us in full:

1. Cowl slide
2. Downside slide
3. “Unsolved for a cause” — alternative slide
4. Answer slide
5. Worth Proposition slide
6. “Folks love our product” — product validation slide
7. Market slide
8. Addressable market slide
9. Traction slide
10.   “Why Now” — timing slide
11.   Positioning slide
12.   Enterprise Mannequin slide
13.   Go-to-market slide
14.   Street map slide
15.   Social Influence slide
16.   Crew slide
17.   “Right here is our story” — the “why us” slide
18.   Abstract slide
19.   Contact slide

Three issues to like

For an early-stage firm, Glambook has quite a bit going for it — it’s seeing significant traction and operates in an attention-grabbing market. The most important problem the corporate has to beat is convincing traders that this can be a market that’s, certainly, clamoring for a expertise makeover. And it does a reasonably rattling good job.

Listed below are three issues that work notably nicely:

Tractiooooooooooooon

[Slide 9] Traction: when you have it, you’re laughing all the best way to the financial institution. Picture Credit: Glambook

Is your crew terrible? Is your product rubbish? Is your market area of interest? I’m not saying that any of these issues apply to Glambook, however usually, none of it issues when you have traction.

You may counter nearly each query with: “Maybe it’s silly, however have a look at the numbers. It’s working!” Actually, the query turns into why it really works, and if you happen to can maintain it working, even at scale.

For a comparatively small, $2.5 million spherical, having 20,000 prospects throughout 38 international locations is spectacular. (Though I additionally observe that crucial traction metrics — How sticky is it? What number of orders are facilitated? How a lot income is being generated? — are lacking.)

Extra importantly, saying there are subscription gross sales taking place with out together with month-to-month or annual recurring income figures isn’t nice storytelling. I’m impressed by the variety of international locations and the variety of professionals on this slide, however I additionally need to know the variety of shoppers and the worth of the subscriptions. Not together with these figures makes me instantly suspicious.

These are asides, although. The corporate is displaying actual, measurable, vital figures. The takeaway right here is that if your organization has these, present them off with delight. Why? VCs spend money on inherently high-risk companies. Any traction — and any progress — goes a good distance towards displaying that the enterprise is a minimum of partially de-risked.

As I discussed, if you happen to’ve bought traction, you’re doing one thing proper, and that one thing can in all probability be developed into firm a technique or one other.

A rising tide

[Slide 10] A rising tide raises all boat. Picture Credit: Glambook

Glambook makes use of this slide to inform the story of a market in evolution. In 2019, 54% of hairdressing and barbering professionals have been self-employed, and by 2020, that had grown to 60%.

I’d have liked to have a graph pulling this knowledge again additional into the previous for an extended timespan so I might see extra of a development, however there’s one thing highly effective taking place on this market, undoubtedly. The story Glambook is promoting right here is that “Issues are altering, and we’re proper there as they do,” which is the proper place to be for an early-stage startup.

If you happen to can weave macroeconomics and large societal adjustments into your pitch and showcase how you might be benefiting from them, you probably have a winner.

This slide is titled “Why now,” however I believe it walks hand in hand with one other slide, titled “Unsolved for a cause.” I’ll speak extra about that later, however suffice it to say that with this deck, the corporate alerts a few of its largest challenges with out providing a 100% passable reply.

“This market is larger than you’d assume”

[Slide 7] An enormous alternative. Picture Credit: Glambook

A number of the time as a VC, you’ll be pitched corporations in industries and markets you aren’t that acquainted with. I needed to sit with that for a second on this case.

Beauticians, hairdressers and barbers — is that actually a large enough market to construct a enterprise empire round? The U.Okay. has a inhabitants of 67 million or so, so if these numbers are okay, there’s round 1,400 folks per hair and wonder enterprise. That must imply that round 4% of the U.Okay. inhabitants works as beauticians, hairdressers and barbers.

Simply as a intestine examine, that sounds slightly bit excessive to me, however a fast Google search leads to the article the corporate cites on this slide, which seems to confirm those numbers. That’s thrilling, not least as a result of just a few searches additionally don’t determine a transparent market chief on this area. Might Glambook change into that market chief?

The pitch right here is barely unfocused: Glambook is a Berlin-based firm that makes use of quite a lot of U.Okay.-based stats whereas additionally saying it has prospects in 38 international locations (I’ll get to that in only a second as nicely.). The vital a part of this specific slide is illustrating that there’s an enormous market that’s ripe for disruption.

As an investor, that’s the sort of factor that makes me lean ahead and pay further consideration.

In the remainder of this teardown, we’ll check out three issues Glambook might have improved or completed in another way, together with its full pitch deck!