Pitch Deck Teardown: Queerie’s $300K pre-seed deck

Queerie is a relationship app aimed particularly at LGBTQIA+ people. It’s a really early-stage firm that’s elevating simply $300,000 — a spherical dimension that usually falls into the “friends and family” class.

Courting is a fiercely aggressive area, and there’s been a good quantity of M&A exercise over time, so I used to be desperate to take a more in-depth look.

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Slides on this deck

Queerie shared its full, unredacted, 13-slide pitch deck with TechCrunch.

1. Cowl slide
2. Cowl slide half 2
3. Mission slide
4. Downside slide
5. Answer slide
6. Market dimension slide
7. The way it works slide
8. Traction slide
9. Competitors slide
10.  Staff slide
11.  Ask and Use of Funds slide
12.  6-year (!) financials
13.  Contact slide

A few issues to like about Queerie’s pitch deck

The very first thing that struck me about Queerie’s deck is that it feels contemporary and enjoyable. Using language and graphics is clear, easy and interesting. An incredible place to begin for a shopper model!

Lead with the mission

[Slide 3] I like a very good rallying cry. Picture Credit: Queerie

When you’re making an attempt to make the world a greater place, you’re in all probability going to draw mission-aligned buyers. So why not spell out your mission entrance and middle? It’s a robust storytelling approach that’s effectively executed within the Queerie deck.

Speak about a hard-hitting drawback

[Slide 4] That’s actually an issue value fixing. Picture Credit: Queerie

This drawback slide gave me pause: It stood as a reminder that in a whole lot of locations, isolation and psychological well being challenges are rife in queer areas.

The corporate is positioning itself much less as a relationship app and extra as an answer for loneliness. Whether or not buyers will purchase it and whether or not this app is the fitting answer to the issues the corporate identifies are separate questions. What is definite, nevertheless, is that the issue Queerie outlines is one value fixing.

4 issues that Queerie might have improved

I actually need Queerie to exist, so it pains me to see that the best way the corporate is pitching makes it primarily unfundable.

Is that this the fitting crew?

I see at the least one relationship app pitched each month, which is sensible: Courting and discovering the fitting associate(s) is a vital a part of many individuals’s lives, and it looks as if such a simple factor to do higher than what’s presently on the market. The upshot is that many of those startups have founders with a lot of expertise within the relationship world.

[Slide 10] Whats up Quuties. Picture Credit: Queerie

However the place are the ladies? For an organization that’s constructing an “inclusivity-designed platform,” that looks as if a little bit of an oversight.

There’s some fascinating expertise right here, however the general public appear nearly too senior for this startup. I do know that’s a uncommon factor to complain about, however one of many CTOs has been a website reliability engineer at Google for 18 years. That’s a really specialised job, and whereas scaling an app like Queerie goes to be essential, I’m discovering myself doubting how a lot overlap there may be between scaling Google’s infrastructure and scaling a website like Queerie.

General, from studying the crew’s LinkedIn profiles and what’s on this slide, I discover myself concluding that they could have the ability to construct a very good, well-functioning app with an amazing consumer expertise — however that isn’t sufficient to construct a profitable firm. There’s a big hole on the gross sales and advertising facet, and there’s not a whole lot of startup expertise throughout the crew both. If this slide might add a seasoned marketeer with shopper advertising app expertise, I believe the crew could be extra plausible proper out of the gate.

That is simply describing a relationship app

I actually don’t perceive what this slide is making an attempt to perform:

[Slide 7] Sure, that’s a relationship app. Picture Credit: Queerie

This slide is a little bit of a waste. It doesn’t present any of the key sauce for why Queerie goes to achieve success the place others have failed; there’s nothing new or progressive right here.

Slides in a pitch deck ought to assist an investor resolve to speculate. If somebody reads the slide and it’s more likely to be impartial (and even detrimental), it’s greatest ignored.

That’s not traction

[Slide 8] This isn’t actually displaying traction. Picture Credit: Queerie

The corporate says it has a “closed version of the mobile app,” however this 13-slide deck doesn’t embrace a single screenshot of the app. The corporate says it has 95 beta testers, which is nice, however that isn’t actually “traction.” Traction could be how these beta testers are interacting with the platform. Are they paying? What are the DAU/MAU (every day/month-to-month energetic customers) stats?

I’m scripting this on March 31, which is the final day of Q1 2024, so I’m confused why the corporate says it surveyed 3,000 folks in Q2 of 2024? The corporate additionally says it’s planning to develop the preliminary consumer base with “strong growth” in Q3, however then says it’s launching the app in June, which is in Q2. This isn’t an enormous deal, however it’s a little complicated.

Essentially not enterprise scale

This slide, which describes how shortly the corporate desires to develop, raises some pink flags.

[Slide 12] This isn’t a startup. Picture Credit: Queerie

After the primary 12 months, the corporate is just planning to spend $40,000 per 12 months on app improvement. That doesn’t even get a half-decent part-time developer. For an organization that’s a tech startup, that’s a terrifying oversight: Is the corporate not planning to proceed to develop its apps?

The expansion right here is manner, manner too sluggish. Elsewhere within the deck the corporate says it’s going to purchase 1,000 customers within the first half of 2024, however then it’s going to hit 20,000 month-to-month energetic customers by the tip of the 12 months. Then all of a sudden the expansion drops to “merely” doubling in 2025, and doubling once more in 2026. For a hypergrowth early-stage startup, these numbers are terrible. Startups usually wish to be rising 10% week-over-week within the early levels. When you begin with 1,000 customers, after a 12 months of 10% week-on-week progress, try to be at round 130,000 customers:

10% week-on-week progress with a 1,000 consumer foundation seems like this. Picture Credit: TechCrunch / Haje Kamps

Even worse, nevertheless, with the present six-year financials, Queerie is planning on doing just below $10 million of income in 2029. That’s fairly dismal and signifies that the founders don’t have a very aggressive progress plan in place. Its personal numbers present that it solely expects about 15% of its clients to be paying $8 per thirty days.

Elsewhere within the deck, the corporate says, “Our mobile app will allow us to expand to more cities as we raise more capital,” which is superior, however the monetary overview doesn’t present extra fundraising taking place within the enterprise, so it’s unclear when or how a lot the corporate is planning to boost.

In a nutshell, this slide reveals that Queerie may very well be a reasonably profitable life-style enterprise, however I concern that no buyers would go anyplace close to this as an funding; it’s too unambitious, and it reveals that the corporate’s founders don’t perceive what is predicted of them as startup founders.

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