Ooomf (later Crew) Pitch Deck Teardown

Executive Summary: The Premium Marketplace Play

Ooomf (which later became Crew) entered a crowded freelance market with a very specific thesis: the 'average' is over. While platforms like Elance and oDesk (now Upwork) were facilitating a race to the bottom on price, Ooomf focused on the high-end creative professional. This teardown examines how they used a minimalist design and aggressive traction metrics to prove that a curated, high-budget marketplace was not only possible but rapidly scaling.

Slides 1-4: The Hook and the Antagonist

Slide 1: Title The deck opens with the Ooomf logo and the tagline 'The future of work.' It identifies Mikael Cho as the founder. The branding is clean and professional, setting the tone for a design-centric product.

Slide 2: The Problem Instead of a bulleted list of grievances, Slide 2 uses a visual representation of the status quo. It shows a job posting for an iOS developer with a 'Fixed Price: $250 or less' and a bidding box where 'Mary' offers to do it for $100. This immediately identifies the 'enemy': low-quality, low-budget bidding wars that devalue professional work.

Slide 3: The Thesis 'Average is over.' This slide serves as a transition, signaling a shift away from the commodity labor market toward something more specialized.

Slide 4: The Solution Ooomf defines itself as 'A premium marketplace of the best mobile & web talent where the talent picks the work.' This is a critical distinction—reversing the power dynamic of the marketplace to attract top-tier developers and designers who usually avoid freelance boards.

Slides 5-6: Proving Product-Market Fit

Slide 5: Traction This is the 'money slide.' It shows a steep upward curve from February 2013 to August 2013. Key figures quoted are '$950,000 in projects in 6 months' and '30% month-to-month growth.' For a seed-stage company, these are exceptionally strong numbers that validate the demand for their specific model.

Slide 6: Quality Metrics To reinforce the 'premium' claim, Slide 6 compares Ooomf's average project budget ($5,000) to the industry average ($500). Citing a '10x' difference is a powerful way to show that they are playing in a different league than their competitors. They also include logos of high-profile companies like Google, Apple, and Path to suggest the caliber of clients or talent they associate with.

Slides 7-10: Product and Efficiency

Slide 7: Step 1 - Pitch Your Inspiration The deck walks through the user experience. The first step involves the client selecting the type of app (iPhone, iPad, Android) and setting an initial budget range ($3,000 to $20,000). This positions the platform for serious development work rather than small tasks.

Slide 8: Step 2 - Automatic Budget Recommendation This slide shows a UI where the platform suggests a tighter budget range (e.g., $13,000 - $17,000) based on 'favorite styles.' This removes the friction of negotiation and price-guessing, a major pain point in traditional freelancing.

Slide 9: Step 3 - The Match The final step in the product flow is 'The single best pro comes to you.' It shows a profile for 'Edward Scherf,' a UI Designer with an Apple Design Award. This emphasizes curation over quantity; the client isn't sorting through 50 bids, they are being matched with one high-quality professional.

Slide 10: Marketplace Liquidity The company doubles down on its efficiency metrics: '99% of projects match within 24 hours.' They also reiterate the 'no bidding, no spam, no price wars' mantra, which serves as their primary value proposition for the talent side of the marketplace.

Slides 11-12: Market and Vision

Slide 11: Market Size The deck uses 'Online Contractor Billings' as its proxy for market size. It shows a jump from $1B in 2012 to $4B in 2014. While these numbers are smaller than the total addressable market (TAM) usually seen in pitch decks today, they were realistic for the nascent 'online work' sector at the time.

Slide 12: Vision The long-term goal is stated as becoming 'The most trusted, collaborative labor marketplace in the world.' It’s a broad, ambitious statement intended to show that they aren't just a niche tool for iOS devs, but a new infrastructure for labor.

Slides 13-14: The Team and Backers

Slide 13: Team The team slide focuses on '15+ years experience working as independent creative professionals.' Specific highlights include:

Mikael: Built the Ooomf blog to 40,000+ readers in 3 months. · Steph: An actuary who started her first profitable business at 16. · Angus: Founded 2 previous startups and graduated university at 19. · Luke: A designer who built a product with 25,000+ monthly downloads.

This is an excellent team slide because it lists concrete achievements rather than just past employer logos.

Slide 14: Investors & Advisors The company lists Real Ventures and BDC as investors. They also highlight Adam McNamara, a founder of a studio acquired by Shopify, as an advisor. This provides the necessary social proof to de-risk the investment for new backers.

Slides 15-18: Case Study and Closing

Slide 15-16: Meet Milan The deck uses a specific case study of 'Milan,' an iOS developer who earned '$15k in one month' through the platform. The quote 'ooomf changed the way I work and with that how I live' adds an emotional layer to the data-heavy deck, showing the impact on the supply side of the marketplace.

Slide 17: The Goal The deck concludes with a bold projection: 'On track to book $100MM in projects by 2015.' This gives investors a clear sense of the scale the founders are aiming for in the near term.

Slide 18: Final Slide A repeat of the title slide with contact information. Simple and consistent.

What Works in This Deck

Extreme Clarity of Position: By Slide 2, you know exactly what Ooomf is against. By Slide 4, you know exactly what they are for. · Growth Velocity: Showing 30% month-over-month growth is the gold standard for a startup pitch. It makes the rest of the deck much easier to believe. · Product Simplicity: Reducing the complex process of hiring a developer to three simple screenshots makes the solution feel inevitable and easy to use. · Supply-Side Focus: Most marketplaces focus only on the customer. Ooomf spends significant time explaining why the talent prefers their platform, which is the harder side of the equation to solve in high-end tech.

What is Missing

The Ask: There is no slide stating how much money they are raising, the valuation, or what the 'use of proceeds' will be. · Revenue Model: While they mention project volume (GMV), they don't explicitly state their take-rate or how they actually make money. · Competitive Landscape: They mention the 'industry average' but don't provide a direct comparison against specific competitors like Toptal or 99designs. · Unit Economics: There is no mention of Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) or Lifetime Value (LTV), which are crucial for understanding the sustainability of that 30% growth.

Founder's Playbook: What to Copy

The 'Anti-Competitor' Slide: Use a visual example of why the current market leader's product is broken for your specific target user. · High-Signal Team Bios: Don't just list where you went to school. List the most impressive thing you built or a metric you moved. · Contrast Metrics: If you are a premium play, show your average order value (AOV) next to the industry average. It justifies your smaller user base by showing higher efficiency. · The 3-Step Product Walkthrough: Even if your software is complex, your pitch deck should make it look like it takes three clicks to get value.