Slidebean Case Study: Sparkcharge

"When I go about designing a pitch deck, I think it should be cinematic," Joshua Aviv explained. He's the CEO and founder of Sparkcharge, a company that raised $7 million after working with Slidebean. "It should take people on this journey through your business and what you're trying to present, and it should do it in a way that keeps them interested."

To accomplish this, Fred (one of our team experts) jumped in to help them improve the content and story they were telling with accurate suggestions. 

"I demand perfection, you know? Because that's what an investor, a partner, or a sales opportunity will see. So, every little detail matters", he added. Aviv took great pride in his pitch decks. He created all the company's pitch decks but faced a technical challenge. "I used PowerPoint, and I would spend weeks crafting every detail." 

The software was labor-intensive, and every update required extra effort. Adding something as simple as text distorted the entire pitch deck. After fine tuning all the details, the additional step was to export the files into a PDF.

"It was just a headache," Aviv added. "So, we needed a tool that would allow us to make iterations quickly, but also have one location where we knew the pitch deck lived." That tool would be Slidebean. 

"The pitch deck is crucial; it's the first thing that an investor asks for," Aviv explained. "By going with Slidebean, we were able to captivate and create a very cinematic and visually appealing pitch deck for investors."

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Sparkcharge wants to solve one big problem with EVs.

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are now the latest craze in transportation, with sales increasing 83% from 2020 to 2021, but they face one big problem. EVs take longer to charge their batteries than gasoline or diesel-powered vehicles. Plus, access to charging stations is still lagging behind as infrastructure has been slow to catch up. 

So, for EV drivers, there's always a risk of running out of electricity before reaching the next charging point, and Aviv wanted to change this. 

"We're creating the world's first mobile, intelligent on-demand EV charging network," Aviv explained. "We believe that EV owners should be able to have their cars charged anytime and anywhere they want."

To accomplish this goal, Sparkcharge has developed two core technology pieces. The first is a mobile app called Currently. With the push of a button, an EV owner can have range delivered to them, regardless of the location. Then, staff will charge the vehicle using the company's second core product, the Roadie. 

The Roadie is a portable charging device that allows Sparkcharge to deliver range. This mobile charging station can provide 120 kW of energy without connecting to the grid. So, in one hour, an EV owner can have enough charge on their vehicle for 50 to 100 miles of range. 

The finished pitch deck 

We're thrilled to show you the finished results. As you can see, here is the original design and our finished version. 

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Reaching out to investors

Once Sparkcharge had the pitch deck they needed, it was time to reach out to their desired investors (try the Slidebean Investor Finder). Again, the pitch deck became the conversation starter and helped Aviv and his company speed through fundraising. Then, as conditions changed, the pitch deck became even more critical. 

"With COVID, everything has been virtual," Aviv explained. "Now, more than ever, the need to present and share your screen, and have that presentation ready to go, has been crucial."

Investors turned their attention to Sparkcharge. From its foundation to 2020, the company raised $4.3 million. The pace didn't slow down as, in November 2021, Sparkcharged raised its biggest round yet, with $7.3 million. 

Sparkcharge also created several partnerships with big names such as Allstate and Spiffy and big investors such as Mark Cuban. As a result, the company has operated in San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Dallas. Currently, it's on pace to deliver 100,000 miles of rage soon. As for the pitch deck, Josh Aviv has plans to keep improving. 

"We did a pitch deck design which we were very happy with, and then, we did a pitch deck touch-up," Aviv commented. "We'll probably do another touch-up towards the end of this year to keep it up to date. 

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We help companies like Sparkcharge, and yours, pitch with confidence. Learn more about pitch deck consulting services here.

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Roy Bailey created the perfect idea for sports fans: a social platform where they can find people like them through their common passion. USports is the one-stop shop for local sports fans. It’s a mobile app that allows fans to connect through their love for one team, sport, or city. 

The founder came up with the idea as an avid sports fan who noticed there wasn’t an easy way to engage with other fans. While other social media platforms have groups, these can still feel rigid and lack a sense of connection. However, once he came up with the idea, he ran into a challenge that was beyond finding fans. 

Sports fans are an ideal audience for startups. The coming years show no signs of slowing down, with viewership growing steadily since 2020, and while this market is promising, it comes with many questions, which Bailey wanted to answer, but he needed guidance.

Slidebean’s financial model workshop provided valuable lessons for USports

The startup progressed in developing the core idea and with every step, Bailey understood he needed some direction. Much of the uncertainty revolved around USports distinctiveness, and that’s where the Slidebean financial model workshop came into play. 

“One of the super unique aspects of the concept is that it’s a true social networking site but with geofencing,” Bailey explained. Geofencing is when apps restrain the audience to a specific territory, so they can better understand how it works and improve their operability.  “That was really tricky to do because your business model has to be pretty robust and creative.” 

That’s when he found Slidebean’s videos on financial modeling. While these were of great help, he still wanted to learn more.

“It was just so foreign to me. It was challenging, plus we had a peculiar business model”, he explained. At this time, Bailey discovered Slidebean’s financial model workshop, and he decided to take it, which ended up being a decision he greatly valued. 

“I had to understand the analytics, such as growth rate, the time spent on the app, your CPM, churn, ad, and subscription revenue,” he added. “So the fact that Slidebean could help me understand these terms, and walk me through them, was the difference between me getting possibly funded or not.”

This knowledge helped Bailey with the core idea for USports. Now, it’s time for USports to revolutionize how sports fans interact. 

How USports plans to revolutionize the sports fandom

“We’re bringing very passionate people together through the umbrella of sports and make meaningful connections from there,” Bailey explained. The idea boils down to solving an essential dilemma for sports fans: where to find the rest of them. 

The founder uses himself as an example. If he landed in a city and wanted to find a bar to watch a Detroit Lions game, it was practically impossible to know which venue would have it on. Plus, finding fans to share the experience with was a challenge. This situation applies to football and soccer, hockey, and more. It seemed logical to create an app to solve this.  

“Wouldn’t it be cool if there was an app that you could use to find those venues, and those people?” He started working on the idea, and the more he figured out the app, the more interesting it got, and so did the challenges. Finally, it became clear to the USports team that they had to start small. That’s where geofencing comes into play. 

“Through the first nine or ten months, we will be only in Charleston, South Carolina. From then, it’ll be incubated growth,” Bailey explained. This means expanding from city to city instead of an all-out expansion. This method will allow USports to finetune its financial model while using Slidebean’s tools as guidance, such as templates and lessons. 

Slidebean’s financial model became a vital tool for USports

USports geofencing traits, and incubated growth, presented a series of demanding challenges that needed to be sorted out before reaching out to investors. “USports really tested the limits of Slidebean’s financial model template,” he smiled. “So, I wanted that huge, overwhelming template to make sense. I wanted to be able to speak to it, and understand it, while also being an industry standard.”

Even if it seemed intimidating to understand the financial model, Bailey was eager and excited to learn, both as a founder and on a personal level. So, it was of great help when he started Slidebean’s financial model workshop, and he saw that the content was easy to digest. 

“The Loom videos were great because I could listen to them on my AirPods while on a morning run. This would help me learn how to speak articulately to metrics”, Roy highlighted. 

The learning didn’t stop there, as the calls were also crucial. “Being able to work with Caya and Sandra was exciting. It’s the kind of mentorship that has a commitment to doing it the right way, that will also work in the long term. They help you understand the financial model, but also help you quit early. They tell you: we want to help show you that this [startup idea] isn't gonna work. That’s great because you need somebody to tell this to you”, Bailey added. Although this wasn’t the case for USports, these hard lessons are valuable for startups. As for USports, once the startup understood the financial model, it gained the confidence to expand beyond Charleston and across the globe.

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Superpeer is a company that wants to make communications easier for everyone in a time when connectivity is vital. This platform allows people to stream live to an audience, create and sell courses, and hold one-on-one video calls. It’s face-to-face when face-to-face isn’t possible. 

Potential partners get information to help them understand the Superpeer platform before they come on board. One key component is a 10-slide deck that aids in successfully navigating the platform, but it needed improvement.

“The layout was very wordy,” Superpeer Content Manager Casey Rock explained. “Without a lot of chunking or visuals for aid. The CEO, Devrim Yasar, who has experience with pitch decks, suggested a redesign.” 

So, Superpeer reached out to Slidebean with two goals in mind. The first was to merge their brand guidelines and website design into the document. The second was to keep all the essential information in the text-heavy slides while making them appealing and easy to read. 

As for Slidebean, working with Superpeer went beyond a 10-slide deck. As Superpeer users, Slidebean knew firsthand the versatility and power this platform had. So, this challenge went both ways. 

Matching website design and brand guidelines with creativity

Superpeer wanted to instill the brand guidelines and the website design into the ten-slide package, which can sometimes be a challenge. Lucía Barrantes, Project Manager at Slidebean, explains that it’s frequent to find a customer with brand guidelines and a website design that don’t match. She also added that Superpeer’s approach proved invaluable for the project. 

“The customer had a clear idea, and we also had full liberty on how to do it. That was one of the coolest things about this project - they allowed us 100% creative freedom”. Such creative freedom was essential as the project presented one big challenge. 

“Our pitch deck references are clean and have little text. So, the customers see them and want the same. Sometimes, it’s hard to translate something with too much content into a minimalist design. This job had a lot of information and text, so it was a big challenge.”

Getting the point across to prospective partners was essential – as it impacts Superpeer’s partnership success. So, for Barrantes, it would still cause a significant impact, even being a smaller project. 

Here's how Slidebean uses Superpeer

Simplicity and elegance were the results of a successful project.

For Superpeer, this redesign helped improve on one thing: simplicity. Plus, the interaction between the company and Slidebean was one of the highlights. 

“It was easy, painless, and the final product was great!” Casey Rock underline. “I didn’t even need to request any revisions, which is always a great sign!”
“It made it easier to provide important information to those who are interested in working with us,” Rock explained. The finished product helped the company have a new perspective for other projects. “Seeing the difference between the original deck and the revamped deck from Slidebean gave me some pointers on what to consider for future decks in terms of layout and design.”

As for Slidebean, the experience was also a success as it not only received approval in the first version, but as a result,  Superpeer ordered a second set of products. All the while, the design team successfully overcame the initial challenge. 

“We managed to merge both the brand guidelines and the website and still maintain that ideal pitch deck look,” Lucía explained about the finished product. “Secondly, I love that the deck does have a lot of text and is still attractive.” 

Here’s the final result:

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We help companies like Superpeer, and yours, present with outstanding designs. Learn more about presentation design services here.