The Snapr deck is a fascinating artifact from the early era of mobile social media, likely dating to the late 2000s or early 2010s. The product, shown in Slide 2, is a web-based map interface populated with user photos, predating the ubiquity of Instagram's map features. However, the deck lacks the fundamental components of a modern pitch. There is no team slide, no market sizing, and no business model beyond a vague mention that 'eventually your business will need to be a business' (Slide 7). Instead, the presentation focuses on the tactical minutiae of starting up: the $3,200 cost of global…
Key takeaways
- The product is a geo-located photo sharing service visualized through a map interface (Slide 2).
- Development was entirely outsourced to Cactuslab for iPhone and ME&A for Python/Amazon EC2 backend (Slide 3).
- The founders prioritized brand protection early, budgeting $3,200 for trademarks across NZ, Australia, UK, USA, and the Eurozone (Slide 5).
- The deck explicitly notes the difficulty of finding 'social media friendly investors' in New Zealand (Slide 6).
- There is a total absence of a monetization strategy, with the founders admitting the business plan is a future requirement (Slide 7).
- The strategy for US market entry relied on a $130 application to the SXSW Biz-Spark Accelerator (Slide 9).
- The deck suggests using a 'Flash demo' to explain the concept before final development is complete (Slide 8).
- The presentation lacks standard venture metrics, team bios, and a specific financial ask.
The Snapr Teardown: A Checklist Disguised as a Pitch
The Snapr deck is a minimalist, 20-slide presentation (of which 10 are analyzed here) that captures a specific moment in the evolution of social media. It utilizes a high-contrast yellow and white aesthetic with a recurring 'X' motif. However, as a fundraising tool, it is highly unconventional. It ignores almost all standard venture capital requirements—team, market, competition, and financials—in favor of a tactical to-do list for launching a tech product from New Zealand.
Slide 1: Title Slide
The deck opens with the Snapr logo: lowercase white text on a bright yellow background. The 'a' in Snapr is replaced or overlaid with a yellow 'x' inside a white circle. It is a clean, brand-forward start, but lacks a tagline or any indication of what the company does.
Slide 2: Product Mockups
This slide provides the only visual evidence of the product. It shows two browser windows. The left window displays a map of Auckland, NZ, with several photo thumbnails pinned to specific streets (e.g., Union St, Cook St). The right window shows a zoomed-in view of a single photo with a location tag: 'Coromandel, Waikato, New Zealand.' The interface includes a search bar for locations and a 'Go!' button. This confirms Snapr was a geo-social photo sharing app.
Slide 3: Dev Partners
Instead of a team slide, Snapr lists its outsourced development partners. Cactuslab is credited for iPhone development, and ME&A is credited for the backend, specified as 'Python on the Amazon EC2.' For an investor, this is a red flag; it indicates that the core intellectual property and technical execution are not handled in-house.
Slide 4: Registering A Trademark
This slide emphasizes that 'Brand / Naming [is] a key part of our concept.' It argues for the importance of protecting the brand from 'day one.' While true, spending a full slide on the philosophy of trademarking in an early-stage pitch is an inefficient use of a limited window of investor attention.
Slide 5: Trademark Territories
Snapr gets very granular here, listing specific regions and costs. They note that NZ is 'not to[o] expensive,' Australia is complicated by a company called 'Red Snap-R Fencing,' and the USA requires a product in market to complete. They cite an 'approx total of $3200' for worldwide coverage. Including such a small, specific expense in a pitch deck suggests the founders are thinking in terms of thousands of dollars, not millions.
Slide 6: Development Partners (Strategic)
This slide attempts to justify the lack of traditional investors. It claims that having a 'cool service / app' is more valuable to developers than to 'cash investors who would have money tied up in an unprofitable company for 2-3 years.' It also notes that it is 'not easy to find social media friendly investors in NZ.' This comes across as defensive and highlights a lack of alignment with venture capital expectations.
Slide 7: Business Plan
The 'Business Plan' slide is remarkably honest but strategically weak. It states: 'It doesn’t matter how cool you think your service is, eventually your business will need to be a business.' It offers no actual plan, only the observation that investment is necessary to avoid being 'left behind.' This is a statement of the problem, not a solution.
Slide 8: Make a Demo
The founders suggest that a 'Flash demo' can help explain the concept before final development. This dates the deck significantly, as Flash has long been obsolete. The slide reinforces the idea that the product was still in a conceptual or early development phase during the creation of this deck.
Slide 9: South by South West (SXSW)
The go-to-market strategy is centered on the SXSW Interactive Accelerator . The slide notes the application costs '$130 USD' and requires two paragraphs and two links. The blunt closing statement—'they aren’t looking to NZ for ideas'—suggests the founders felt they needed to leave their home market to find success.
Slide 10: Sponsorship
The final slide in this set discusses press and relationships. It claims that 'getting press opens up more doors' and that most major companies have a 'social media person' who will talk to you. Like the rest of the deck, this is general advice rather than a specific, data-driven plan for Snapr’s growth.
What Snapr is Missing
The Team: There is no mention of who is running the company. Investors invest in people, especially at the seed stage. The absence of founders' names, backgrounds, or successes is the deck's greatest flaw. · Market Size (TAM/SAM/SOM): There is no indication of how many people might use this service or how large the photo-sharing market was at the time. · Competition: The deck does not mention Flickr, Foursquare, or the emerging Instagram, all of which were direct or indirect competitors in the geo-social space. · Revenue Model: The deck explicitly defers the 'business' part of the business plan to a later date. · The Ask: There is no clear statement of how much money is being raised or what the milestones for that funding would be.
What Works and What to Copy
Visual Clarity: The deck is not cluttered. Each slide has one clear heading and a few bullet points. The use of a consistent color palette and a simple logo makes it memorable. · Honesty about Constraints: The founders are very clear about the limitations of the New Zealand investment ecosystem at the time. While this might not attract investors, it shows a realistic (if pessimistic) view of their environment. · Product Mockups: Slide 2 does a good job of showing exactly what the product is without needing a long text description. The 'map plus photos' concept is immediately understandable.
Conclusion
The Snapr deck is less a pitch for capital and more a manifesto on the difficulties of starting a social media company in a remote market. By focusing on trademark costs of $3,200 and accelerator application fees of $130, the founders signal that they are operating at a very small scale. For a modern founder, this deck serves as a reminder that tactical checklists belong in an operating plan, while a pitch deck must focus on the grand vision, the massive market opportunity, and the unique team capable of capturing it.
Frequently asked questions
- What exactly was Snapr's product?
- Based on Slide 2, Snapr was a web and mobile platform that plotted user-generated photos onto a geographic map. Users could browse locations to see photos taken in those specific spots. The interface shown is a desktop browser mockup featuring a search bar for locations and a 'Go!' button, with photo thumbnails pinned to a street map of Auckland, New Zealand.
- Who was the team behind Snapr?
- The deck completely omits a team slide. It does not list founders, advisors, or employees. The only entities mentioned are 'Dev Partners' (Slide 3): Cactuslab for iPhone development and ME&A for backend work. This suggests the founders may have been non-technical or were operating as a lean project team without full-time internal engineering staff.
- What was Snapr's business model?
- Snapr did not have a business model at the time of this deck. Slide 7, titled 'Business Plan,' contains a candid admission: 'Eventually your business will need to be a business.' The slide warns that without investment, the company will be left behind, but it offers no plan for revenue, unit economics, or customer acquisition costs.
- How much money was Snapr looking to raise?
- The deck does not include a formal 'Ask' slide. While it mentions specific costs like $3,200 for trademarks (Slide 5) and $130 for an accelerator application (Slide 9), it never states a total funding goal or a valuation. This makes the document feel more like an internal roadmap or a presentation for a small grant rather than a VC pitch.
- What was their go-to-market strategy?
- The strategy was focused on 'getting on the US stage' via the SXSW Interactive Accelerator (Slide 9). The founders believed that press and social media sponsorship (Slide 10) would open doors to relationships with larger companies. There is a clear sentiment that the New Zealand market was insufficient for their ambitions.
