This free eBook goes over the 10 slides every startup pitch deck has to include, based on what we learned from analyzing 500+ pitch decks, including those from Airbnb, Uber and Spotify.
Everything you need to raise funding for your startup, including 3,500+ investors, 7 tools, 18 templates and 3 learning resources.
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eShares frames the problem around the operational nightmare of managing cap tables and equity, a pain universally understood by founders and investors. This strategy works because it immediately establishes the need for a specialized solution by focusing on the high cost and complexity of the status quo. Notice that they address multiple pain points, from reporting inefficiencies to the lack of standardized valuation data, which broadens their appeal.
Our Tip: Frame the problem not just as a market gap but as a tangible, costly, and recurring pain for your specific customer persona.
The deck presents eShares as a comprehensive platform, not just a tool, designed to be the central system of record for all company equity. Their value proposition is clarified by their goal to become the standard provider of corporate valuation data, a powerful and defensible position. The choice to offer a free model is a brilliant strategic move to accelerate adoption, build a network effect, and effectively box out competitors.
Our Tip: Position your solution as the definitive platform or standard for its niche, and clearly explain how your product creates a defensible moat over time.
eShares avoids the common mistake of claiming a massive, generic market by precisely targeting private companies in their Series A through D funding stages. This focus demonstrates a deep understanding of their ideal customer and supports a credible go-to-market strategy. The specific goal to “capture 10,000 corporations” makes the opportunity feel concrete and gives investors a clear metric for success.
Our Tip: Validate your market opportunity with a specific, reachable target segment and a quantifiable acquisition goal rather than just citing a large, generic total addressable market.
The company uses a classic freemium model, offering free cap table management to rapidly acquire customers and build a defensible moat. This approach is highly strategic because it turns a core, sticky product into a powerful lead generation engine for their premium subscription services. By getting companies to issue shares on their platform, eShares embeds itself deeply into its customers' operations, making it difficult to switch.
Our Tip: Design your business model to not only generate revenue but also to build a structural competitive advantage, such as a network effect or a proprietary data asset.
eShares masterfully frames cap table management as a universal, high-stakes pain point, making their solution feel inevitable rather than optional. They then position their platform not just as a tool, but as the central system of record for all company equity. Your pitch should define the problem so acutely that your solution becomes the only logical answer, establishing you as the new industry standard.
The freemium model was a strategic weapon designed to build a defensible moat by creating high switching costs and a powerful network effect. By embedding themselves into a company's core operations, they made their platform incredibly sticky and difficult to replace. Design your business model to create a structural competitive advantage that grows stronger with every new customer.
