Queerie is a dating app aimed specifically at LGBTQIA+ people. It's an early-stage company that's raising just $300,000, a ballpark figure that typically falls into the “friends and family” category.
Dating is a hugely competitive space and there has been a lot of merger and acquisition activity over the years, so I was eager to take a closer look.
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Slides on this platform
Queerie shared his full, unedited, 13-slide presentation with TechCrunch.
- Cover slide
- Cover slide part 2
- Mission Slide
- Problem slide
- Solution Slide
- Market Size Slide
- How slide works
- Traction slip
- competition slide
- team slide
- Application and use of funds slide
- 6 year finances (!)
- Contact slide
A couple of things I love about Queerie's presentation
The first thing that struck me about the Queerie deck is that it feels fresh and fun. The use of language and graphics is clean, simple and attractive. A great starting point for a consumer brand!
Lead with the mission
(Slide 3) I love a good battle cry. Image credits: Strange
If you are trying to make the world a better place, you are probably It will attract investors aligned with its mission. So why not spell out what your mission is front and center? It's a powerful narrative technique that is well executed in the Queerie deck.
Talk about a serious problem
(Slide 4) That is certainly a problem worth solving. Image credits: Strange
This problematic slide made me think: it served as a reminder that, in many places, isolation and mental health issues are rife in queer spaces.
The company is positioning itself less as a dating app and more as a solution for loneliness. Whether investors will buy it and whether this app is the right solution to the problems the company identifies are different questions. What is certain, however, is that the problem Queerie describes is worth solving.
Four things Queerie could have improved
I really want Queerie to exist, so it pains me to see that the way the company is launching makes it essentially impossible to fund.
Is this the correct team?
I see at least one dating app launched every month, which makes sense: dating and finding the right partner(s) is an important part of many people's lives, and it seems like a very easy thing to do of doing. better than what currently exists. The result is that many of these new companies have founders with a batch of experience in the dating world.
(Slide 10) Hello Quuties. Image credits: Strange
But where are the women? For a company that is building a “platform designed for inclusion,” that seems a bit of an oversight.
There is an interesting experience here, but most people seem almost also senior for this startup. I know it's weird to complain about that, but one of the CTOs has been a site reliability engineer at Google for 18 years. That's a very specialized job, and while scaling an app like Queerie will be important, I find myself questioning how much overlap there is between scaling Google's infrastructure and scaling a site like Queerie.
Overall, reading the team's LinkedIn profiles and what's on this slide, I come to the conclusion that they could build a really good, well-functioning app with a great user experience, but that's not enough to build one. Successful company. . There is a big gap on the sales and marketing side, and there isn't much startup experience across the team either. If this slide could add an experienced marketer with experience in consumer marketing applications, I think the team would be more credible from the start.
This only describes a dating app.
I really don't understand what this slide is trying to achieve:
(Slide 7) Yes, it's a dating app. Image credits: Strange
This slide is a waste. It shows none of the secret of why Queerie will succeed where others have failed; There is nothing new or innovative here.
Slides in a presentation deck should help an investor decide to invest. If someone reads the slide and is likely to be neutral (or even negative), it is best to skip it.
that's not traction
(Slide 8) This really shows no traction. Image credits: queer
The company says it has a “closed version of the mobile app,” but this 13-slide deck doesn't include a single screenshot of the app. The company says it has 95 beta testers, which is great, but that's not really “traction.” Traction would be the way these beta testers interact with the platform. Are they paying? What are the DAU/MAU (daily/monthly active users) statistics?
I'm writing this on March 31, which is the last day of the first quarter of 2024, so I'm not confused why the company says it surveyed 3,000 people in the second quarter of 2024. The company also says it plans to increase the base initial user base with “strong growth” in the third quarter, but then says it will launch the app in June, which is the second quarter. This isn't a big deal, but it is a little confusing.
Fundamentally not on a risk scale
This slide, which describes how quickly the company wants to grow, raises some red flags.
(Slide 12) This is not a startup. Image credits: Strange
After the first year, the company only plans to spend $40,000 a year on app development. That doesn't even get you a half-decent part-time developer. For a company that's a tech startup, that's a scary oversight: Doesn't the company plan to continue developing its apps?
Growth here is too slow. Elsewhere on the platform, the company says it will acquire 1,000 users in the first half of 2024, but will then reach 20,000 monthly active users by the end of the year. Then, suddenly, growth drops to “merely” doubling in 2025 and doubling again in 2026. For an early-stage hypergrowth startup, those numbers are terrible. Startups typically want to grow 10% week over week in the early stages. If you start with 1,000 users, after a year of 10% weekly growth, you should have around 130,000 users:
10% week-over-week growth with 1000 users looks like this. Image credits: TechCrunch / Haje Kamps
Worse yet, however, on current six-year financials, Queerie plans to make just under $10 million in revenue in 2029. That's pretty depressing and indicates that the founders don't have a particularly aggressive growth plan in place. Its own figures show that it only expects about 15% of its customers to pay $8 a month.
Elsewhere in the presentation, the company says, “Our mobile app will allow us to expand to more cities as we raise more capital,” which is awesome, but the financial description doesn't show any more funds being raised in the business, so it is not clear. when or how much the company plans to raise.
In a nutshell, this slide shows that Queerie could be a fairly successful lifestyle business, but I'm afraid no investor would approach this as an investment; is too unambitious and shows that the company founders do not understand what is expected of them as startup founders.
The complete presentation
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