IVS’ pitch competition LAUNCHPAD was founded in 2007 with the intent to give startups a platform that could catapult their businesses to success, and since then, about 400 startups have stood on the LAUNCHPAD stage. Among them, some all-stars have emerged, such as WealthNavi, MoneyForward, Crowdworks, Wantedly, and Bengo4 — many of which are now part of our portfolio. One such all-star is none other than software company, freee K.K, which listed on the Mothers Section of Tokyo Stock Exchange on December 17, 2019.

This article is the second of its series, where the first one took a look at the deck that freee used to win IVS LAUNCHPAD 2013. This time, with ecbo’s assistance and permission, we are sharing with the public the presentation materials that they used to win IVS LAUNCHPAD in 2017. “Ecbo Cloak”, provided by ecbo, allows users to temporarily rent storage space for their bags and luggage at shops and restaurants.

Our comments: The first slide should use as few words as possible to describe the basics of the product. It might be helpful to think of matters in terms of less is more. While ecbo allows users to store luggage in all kinds of spaces, they summarize it by just saying “stores” to keep it concise. They’re careful not to be too wordy, because you want to keep the attention of the audience.

Our comments: Instead of describing the pain point with words, ecbo used full size photos for great visual impact, while also demonstrating how bad the current situation is.

Our comments:While having data from research companies and consulting firms is great, many numbers address market needs that have already been fulfilled. However, this slide is great in demonstrating the deficit in the market that the product can fulfill, which isn’t a typical statistic. This slide does a great job in demonstrating the the necessity of the service introduced in this presentation.

Our comments: When founders use diagrams like the above to illustrate their company’s business model, there can sometimes be too many arrows and things to look at. It’s important to use as few arrows and points of focus as possible in order to create something can be easily comprehended within a matter of seconds, as this slide does so effectively.

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