Example of a Series A extension deck: The $5 million GoodBuy Gear deck
They grow so fast. Babies, toddlers, and kids will grow out of everything you get for them, maybe long before they run out. So what do you do with cots, car seats, strollers and toys?
That’s where GoodBuy Gear comes in: It’s like eBay, except it’s a kid’s secondhand item.
“Parents in the United States spend $87 billion on baby and children’s gear each year, and most of these products are rarely used. In fact, 83% of inventory in our marketplace is never or barely used before being listed for resale—that’s the huge opportunity GoodBuy Gear was founded to solve,” said the company’s CEO and co-founder, Kristin Langenfeld, in a press release.
The company raised $6 million Series A in October 2020 and added a $5 million extension this May. The company also raised a debt line of $3 million, which puts the total fund raised at around $14 million. For this Teardown Pitch Deck, we’re looking at the deck the company used to upgrade its $5 million Series A extension.
We’re looking for more unique pitch decks to destroy, so if you’d like to submit your own, here’s how to do it.
Slides on this deck
GoodBuy Gear ups the extension round with a 14-slide deck. The version we have has slightly edited slides outlining the economics of the unit (AOV, revenue, margin, etc.). Here’s the slide:
Closing slide Problem slide Problem slide 2 Market interstitial slide Market slide Market differentiation slide Solution slide Traction slide Value proposition slide Market dynamic slide How it works Growth metrics slide Fund usage slide Closing Slide + Mission
Three things to love
The GoodBuy Gear deck isn’t without its challenges, but there’s plenty to like, including some offbeat choices that really work for the team.
Closes on a high note
I’ve often argued that last impressions matter, and the GoodBuy Gear closing slide does an elegant job:
[Slide 14] World’s softest mic drop: It’s how you cover a slide deck. Image Credit: GoodBuy Gear
Many pitch decks start with missions, but GoodBuy Gear immediately crashes into the story with its problem slides. I’m not mad, because it works fine.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pitch deck end with a mission. Anyway, it works well here, pulling together the narrative with a powerful, “Hey, this is why we are here.”
Very cool, and well done.
Why not just use eBay?
When I first heard about this company, I wondered why there was a market for this stuff. Obviously, I don’t have kids, because I should have seen this one coming. GoodBuy Gear handles the question tastefully without even mentioning its competitors:
[Slide 6] Why not just use eBay? Well, it turns out there’s a good reason. Image Credit: GoodBuy Gear
Narrating this part of the story with customer testimonials is smart — it conveys the ‘why’ message.
GoodBuy Gear’s business model differs from its counterparts: It checks the quality of products and ensures that they are clean and of high quality. Busy parents don’t have time to go to the post office, dealing with returns, so this service takes a lot of the hassle out of it. Telling this part of the story through customer testimonials is smart. As much as I hate this white-on-light-blue wall of text, it gets the “why” of the message.
The deck doesn’t go into the “how to”, which I think would be useful to get people fully onboard, but the company’s “How it works” page has a pretty decent explanation:
GoodBuy Equipment “how it works” page. on his website explains things better than the deck, tbh. Image Credit: GoodBuy Gear
Up and to the right
I don’t usually include edited slides, but storytelling is storytelling, and GoodBuy Gear does a great job of explaining why it works so well:
[Slide 12] Even without the axis labels, this is an excellent slide. Image Credit: GoodBuy Gear
The company paints a very rosy picture here: It is trending towards $100 million in revenues in five years and has a clear growth trajectory, healthy market dynamics and exponential revenue growth.
It feels a bit odd to be showing 2023 numbers. The company upped this renewal round in May, meaning it only has data at most 40% this year. It’s just good practice to show the projected numbers a different color from the actual numbers to highlight the difference.
However, if the company can live up to its projections, that’s onto something, and investors agreed to a $5 million round.
In the rest of this breakdown, we’ll look at three things GoodBuy Gear could improve or do differently, along with the full pitch deck.
Three things that could be fixed
Hal No. The 1 thing that frustrates me about this deck isn’t what’s there – it’s mostly pretty good. That’s all that was left. Some omissions are outright suspicious and they will trigger some pretty big warnings if you are an investor.
The problem here is this: The company raised Series A in 2020 and has returned three years later to raise almost the same amount of money again. As an investor, the first question that comes out of my mouth is, “So, what happened?” followed by, “How will it be different this time?” and “Reassure me that you are a founder I can trust.”
Okay, I’m not going to say it harshly, but you better believe that investors will be curious.
