Creating a pitch deck for an online marketplace startup that is looking for an investment is not simple. Besides the structure of a marketplace pitch deck, certain slides need to be focused on by its creator.
Which slides should be in this focus, which mistakes you should avoid and how a marketplace pitch deck of successful startups looks like, are presented in this article.
Which slides to include in a Marketplace Pitch Deck?
Title
For marketplace pitch decks it is important to make the "theme" of the marketplace clear and understandable on the title slide. Whether you use a background photo with products you want to trade on your marketplace or you decide to include a catchy tagline that describes what you are doing. Also, make sure to include your startup's name and your email address on the title slide. If you already have your font: use it!
Problem
Almost every person uses marketplaces. And almost every marketplace has its USP that solves a problem somebody encountered earlier. The problem that you encountered and want to solve with your marketplace should be presented on the problem slide. Your goal with this slide is to get your investor's attention and to force an "oh yeah, I can understand why he came up with the idea of a marketplace" reaction after seeing this slide. As seen in the graphic above you should include the main reasons that explain the problem you encountered shortly and concisely.
Solution
Now that your potential investors know the problem*s you want to address with your marketplace it is time to present the solution you came up with. The solution is simultaneously the product you are going to build. Impress your investors with mockups of your solution or show demo screenshots if possible. It is always hard to imagine how a marketplace "looks like".
Customer Acquisition
You can convince your investors with this slide of being capable to know where your customers will come from. State in a short way from which channels your customers will come to your website and who your main partners or target partners will be. If you already know your current customer acquisition costs feel free to include this information on this slide.
Traction
The traction you have gained is a testimony of how interested people are in using your marketplace. The best traction slides we have seen so far include social media likes and interaction rate, active users, leads, and the revenue you have already earned.
Team
Your Team is one of the most relevant factors for many investors to make their decision to whether invest in your idea or not. Use the team slide to show your amazing team that is building the marketplace. Make sure to list the key members with at least two facts about them that testify they are the right people to make this startup successful.
Market
This slide is very important. You can now show your investors that you know how big your potential market is. They will then use the information and predict how much money they will generate through an investment in your company! You should keep this slide as simple as possible: you do not have much time to present this slide and it is always easier to understand/read a simple graph that shows the dimension of your market than only reading the numbers. As a consequence, you should use a graph as seen in the upper graphic!
Competition
In 2020 and 2021 a lot of marketplaces could use the "situation" and grow rapidly. Amazons' numbers exploded! Depending on the goods or services offered on the marketplace you have different competitors you are competing with. It is super important to show who these competitors are on this slide. This will show your investors that you know who you are dealing with. Different graphs can be used to show where your startup is placed between your competitors. The most common one is the one shown in the graphic above.
The Ask
This is the time to reveal how much money you are looking for. Building a marketplace can be quite expensive, so do not hold back asking for a larger amount of funds - you can be certain that your potential investors know that it takes a lot of money to build your product.
Contact
The final slide of your pitch deck should include a direct call to action and several contact options that lead investors to take action right away.
Key Questions to answer
It is important to know which questions you should answer with your travel pitch deck. We have analyzed 5+ Marketplace pitch decks and extracted the key takeaways of these decks and rephrased them as questions.
- What is the reason that justifies building your service/product?
- Which are your main KPIs?
- Why are you looking for an investment?
- How can the investors help besides giving money?
- How do you acquire customers for your product?
- What is your pricing and business model?
- What is your traction?
- How big is your churn?
- What is the USP of your marketplace?
- How will the funds be spent?
- What are you going to accomplish with the investment?
Marketplace metrics
- Customer Acquisition Rate
- Leads in Pipeline
- Products on marketplace
- Avg. Time Spent on Website
- CTR of newsletter/email ads
- Conversion rate
- Customer Retention Rate
- Lead to Customer Conversion Rate
- Churn rate
Design Tips
- Use a clear and quickly readable font style
- Make sure to use high-resolution pictures
- Keep the design simple
Example Marketplace Pitch Decks
Twine Pitch Deck
Twine is a marketplace that provides companies with a connection to their network of freelancers.
Twine has raised >$1M in fundings with this pitch deck. The lead investor unfortunately remains unknown.
In total, twine has raised $1.1M in fundings over 7 investment rounds.
Vettery Pitch Deck
Vettery is a data-driven hiring marketplace that accelerates matches between hiring managers and highly qualified candidates for over 4000 companies worldwide.
Vettery's 2016 $9M Series-A funding was the last of 3 funding rounds that accumulated raised a total amount of $11.9M in funds.
Vettery was acquired by The Adecco Group in February 2018 for $100M.
Winnie Pitch Deck
