Nearby Pitch Deck Teardown: A 2013 Look at Micro-Location

Nearby Pitch Deck Teardown

The Nearby pitch deck, presented at the Startup Underground (SUU) 2013 conference, is a time capsule of early mobile travel technology. At a time when mobile UX was still fragmented, Nearby sought to bridge the gap between discovery and logistics. The deck is structured around a central character, Jamie, who guides the investor through the user journey, the market problem, and the financial opportunity.

Slide 1: Title Slide

The cover slide is minimalist, featuring the company name Nearby Hotels , the conference name Startup Underground 2013 , and the presenter Adam Nemeth . It also includes a timestamp: Thu Apr 04 2013 . A hand-drawn cartoon character, later identified as Jamie, appears on the right, establishing a friendly, non-corporate tone that persists throughout the presentation.

Slide 3: The Problem Statement

Slide 3, titled How is it handled now? , uses a flow diagram to illustrate a common 2013 user frustration. It shows logos for Hotels.com, Booking.com, Hipmunk, and Kayak inside a bracket. An arrow points from these booking engines to Google Maps transit directions . The text for each hotel is centered in a circle, highlighting the repetitive nature of checking transit times for every search result. The mascot Jamie is shown looking frustrated, emphasizing the friction in the current multi-app workflow.

Slide 5: The Solution and UX Flow

Titled Finding a place locally , this slide provides a step-by-step walkthrough of the app's interface. It starts with a user thought bubble: This place scks. Anything good within 10 minutes? The flow shows the user selecting Bars Within 10 minutes . The app then displays a loading screen for Looking up offline place DB & transport . The final screens show a Nearby Walking result (none found) followed by a Nearby Commute result listing 3 bars with star ratings (e.g., Bar A 4.7 ). The final step shows specific transit instructions: Go to... Take bus 7 Get off at... . This slide effectively demonstrates the core value proposition: commute-based discovery.

Slide 7: Geographic Availability

Slide 7, Available for , lists the current and future markets. The service was already live in London and Budapest . New York is listed as coming soon . The slide also makes a bold expansion claim: more than 90 cities after the first year of production run in case of partnership . This suggests that the technology is scalable, provided they can secure the necessary transit and location data partnerships.

Slide 9: Business Model and Financial Projections

Under the heading Where's the money? , the deck explains its participation in the Expedia Affiliate Network . Key figures include:

3.5% : The average hotel commission for affiliates in the network. · 185,000 EUR : Projected income from a single year if 1% of conference travel hotel nights in London were booked through the app. · 223,000 EUR : Total calculated income through commissions in the first full operational year.

The slide also mentions Location Based Mobile Advertising as a secondary revenue source. A cartoon of Jamie sleeping in a bed accompanies these figures, perhaps implying the 'passive' nature of affiliate income once the user is acquired.

Slide 11: Marketing Strategy

Slide 11, How will it be marketed? , shifts focus from general consumers to a B2B2C approach. The founders plan to target conference and exhibition organizers , positioning Nearby as a tool to handle attendee accommodation. They use Vienna as a benchmark, citing more than 500 conferences a year (Source: Vienna Yearbook 2011) and asserting that London likely has more than twice that amount. This is a focused 'wedge' strategy designed to acquire high-intent users at a lower cost than broad search engine marketing.

Slide 13: The Team

The Meet the team.... slide introduces the two human founders and the mascot:

Adam Nemeth (Software Engineer) : Previously a Technical Architect at Ea (Online Travel Industry) and a Developer/UX Designer at Na Locations & Commerce. The redacted names likely refer to Expedia and Nokia, given the context. · Konrad Berenyi (Online Marketing Specialist) : Previously worked at Index , Ringier , and Origo in the online publishing industry. · Jamie (Cartoon Mascot) : Designed by Aniko Szalay .

This slide establishes strong domain expertise, particularly with Nemeth's background in both travel and location services.

Slide 15: The Ask

The final slide, For this we'd need , outlines a two-phase funding roadmap:

1st Phase (Months 1-6) : 55,000 EUR to hire a team, legalize licenses, and acquire map data. · 2nd Phase (Months 6-12) : 175,000 - 200,000 EUR for ad placements and transport data.

In exchange, the founders offer share of ownership for both phases. The mascot Jamie is shown with his pockets turned out, a literal representation of the need for capital.

What Nearby Does Well

Nearby excels at identifying a specific, high-friction user experience problem. In 2013, the 'tab-switching' between a booking site and a map was a genuine pain point for travelers. By focusing on commute time rather than radius , they addressed how people actually navigate cities. The decision to target conference organizers is a smart, niche marketing strategy that avoids a direct, expensive head-on battle with giants like Kayak or TripAdvisor for general search traffic. Furthermore, the team slide demonstrates clear 'founder-market fit,' with direct experience in the exact industries (travel and location data) required to build the product.

What is Missing from the Deck

The deck is missing several critical components that modern investors would expect. First, there is no Competitive Landscape slide. While they mention the booking giants as part of the 'problem,' they don't address other emerging transit-heavy apps of the era like Citymapper. Second, the Unit Economics are vague. While they cite a 3.5% commission, they do not calculate the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) through their conference partner channel. Third, the Technology slide is light on detail; they mention an 'offline database,' but don't explain how they maintain or sync transit data across 90 planned cities, which is a massive technical undertaking. Finally, the Exit Strategy is omitted, leaving investors to wonder if the goal is an acquisition by a larger travel OTA (Online Travel Agency).

Founder's Guide: What to Copy and What to Avoid

Copy the 'User Journey' storytelling. Using a mascot like Jamie to walk through a specific frustration and its solution makes the product's value proposition immediately clear. It transforms a dry technical feature (transit integration) into a relatable benefit. Copy the phased funding approach. By breaking the ask into two 6-month blocks with specific milestones (hiring/licensing vs. scaling/ads), the founders show they have a tactical plan for the capital rather than just asking for a lump sum.

Avoid the '1% of the market' fallacy. Slide 9 calculates revenue based on capturing 1% of London conference travelers. Investors generally dislike this 'top-down' math because it doesn't explain how that 1% is captured. It is better to show a 'bottom-up' model: 'We will partner with 5 conferences, each has 10,000 attendees, we expect a 10% download rate and a 2% booking rate.' Avoid using 'share of ownership' as a placeholder. While you may not want to put a valuation in a deck, you should be specific about the type of instrument (e.g., Convertible Note, SAFE) or the specific goals that the equity will unlock.