Raising $300k to build a marketplace with no clear revenue model

+ 350 startup pitch decks.  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

🎉 Hey Failories! It's Nico here.

This week, we launched a collection of 350 pitch decks, published two new interviews (with a failed and a successful startup founder), and curated some resources for entrepreneurs. Let's start!

news & interviews 📢

💰 +350 startup pitch decks. During the last months, we've been collecting hundreds of startup pitch decks in an Airtable. Today, we're finally making them public on Failory. Here's the link.

There's a lot to be learned from these startup's fundraising efforts. Some of them are, nowadays, unicorns; some others have shut down. But all of their pitch decks have clever copywriting strategies, design hacks, and data presentation techniques that can be stolen and applied on your business.

💀 Raising $300k for a marketplace with no clear revenue model. Matthew was the brain behind Adproval, a marketplace that allowed bloggers to monetize their websites and content. This was in 2011, when the term "influencer" didn't even exist yet.

He raised around $300k in funds and grew the business to only $200/mo. Consulting proved to be a better monetization strategy, as it brought them $200k, but it was not enough to justify keep running the business so they eventually decided to shut it down. Here's their failure story.

 ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

🎨 Building a design agency from scratch to 7 figures. This is the case study of Flexy, a UX/UI agency co-founded by Garik that is currently aiming to achieve $2M ARR within its second year of operations.

They've mainly grown through organic acquisition channels, such as Dribbble, Clutch and cold outreach. Here's their growth journey.

👻 Google Cemetery, in case you missed it. Last week we launched Failory's Google Cemetery, a page in which we list all of Google's dead products and analyze why have they failed. Here's the link in case you missed it.

what I'm reading 👀

12 levers to achieve course-market fit. A huge guide on how to make better decisions related to your course pricing, length, student count, etc.

The Cooperation Economy. A few weeks ago I shared an article that talked about the "Great Online Game". This one is about the winning strategy on this online game, which is Cooperation.

Deep-dive into Klarna, the highest-valued private fintech company in Europe ($31B).

--

That's all! I hope you've enjoyed this week's interviews and resources.

Let me know if there's anything I can help you with.

--

Refer 3 friends to Failory's newsletter and you'll get access to our premium monthly emails, in which we deeply analyze one startup failure.

Refer 8 and I'll give you a free copy of our Product-Market Fit eBook.

Refer 15 and you'll get access to our monthly giveaways of startup resources.

Right now you have 0 referrals.

You can share the newsletter on Twitter, LinkedIn or via Email.

Or copy and paste your referral link yourself: https://sparklp.co/257297dc

Older messages

Google Cemetery: Learn from Google's +100 biggest failures

Thursday, June 3, 2021

+ interviews with a failed and a successful startup founder. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

From a Failing Referral SaaS to $25k MRR Fully Bootstrapped

Thursday, May 27, 2021

GrowSurf's story + the launch of my new startup, Scouth. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

💰 Growing a luggage storage startup to $15k/mo

Thursday, May 20, 2021

Bounce's pivoting and growth story. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

💀 Raised €250k but failed to find PMF

Friday, May 14, 2021

The failure story of HelloTyro, which went from raising €250k to bankruptcy. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

🚀 Scaling an AI Writing SaaS to $90k MRR in 8 Months

Thursday, May 6, 2021

The failure story of Pactero, which aimed to simplify managing ISAs. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

You Might Also Like

The problem with VC: Reason #384

Friday, April 26, 2024

We have brunch with HelixNano cofounder Carina Namih, Isomer enters secondaries market and the startups mitigating AI's impact on the climate. View in browser Notion flagship logo final Good

SaaSHub Weekly - Apr 25

Thursday, April 25, 2024

SaaSHub Weekly - Apr 25 Featured and useful products 12 Foot Ladder logo 12 Foot Ladder Prepend 12ft.io/ to the URL of any paywalled page, and we'll try our best to remove the paywall and get you

Editor’s Brief: The Robotics Renaissance

Thursday, April 25, 2024

Why we're entering into an automation supercycle. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏

Converso, Mood Board AI, For Future, Editor.do, and AI Chat

Thursday, April 25, 2024

Help solve humanity's existential risks with your talent/money/time BetaList BetaList Daily Win a $100 Amazon gift card? Fill out this one-question survey about domain names. Marc Converso AI

Partnering with Dropzone: Automating Security Operations with AI

Thursday, April 25, 2024

Tomasz Tunguz Venture Capitalist If you were forwarded this newsletter, and you'd like to receive it in the future, subscribe here.​ ​Partnering with Dropzone: Automating Security Operations with

if I were starting over today…

Thursday, April 25, 2024

Read time: 1 min, 20 sec A lot of people ask me: “Pat, what would you do if you were starting all over today?” Most of the time, I think they're looking for a quick fix. (hint: there's no such

Free ecomm coaching from multi-7-figure founders >

Thursday, April 25, 2024

Sign up for foundr+ to learn more > , Here at Foundr, we believe that taking initiative should ALWAYS be rewarded. That's why YOU, as a summit attendee, will get to join an exclusive 4-week

[SaaS Club] The Long Road to Building a Scalable Enterprise SaaS

Thursday, April 25, 2024

Hey Reader Let's connect on LinkedIn! Follow me to stay in touch! Here's a quick round up of what's been going on at SaaS Club: 🎧 Podcast SightCall: The Long Road to Building a Scalable

📂 Virality can be engineered even if it’s not inherent to the product

Thursday, April 25, 2024

​ ​ ​ ​ Today's newsletter is proudly supported by Videodeck 🎉 One of the most common questions I've gotten in the last year is: "How do we get started with video marketing?" So I

My #1 regret in life

Thursday, April 25, 2024

This email is from THIS podcast - Spotify - iTunes HAPPY THURSDAY! I'm hosting a private office hour at 12pm CT on April 26th for people on this email list ONLY. If you wanna hang out and ask me