More and more founders are building tech startups in older, traditionally non-technical industries.
Manufacturing. Accounting. Legal. Healthcare. The list goes on.
This “boring” business boom has been fueled by:
An expansion in entrepreneurship in general, and
AI tools that make building software easier than ever.
Today I want to review a pitch deck for a startup in one of these slower moving industries:
Flowers.
One challenge with building in a specific vertical is that investors are not likely to be familiar with the space. Founders need to educate on the market size, customer pain points, and economics.
That’s why the theme of this review is: Answering the most burning questions upfront.
Don’t assume investors will understand the problem or opportunity, and don’t make them wait for an answer.
In this slide deck, the founders of Adore—a fresh cut flower subscription—do a good job answering the most burning questions upfront.
I’ll go slide-by-slide share my feedback and suggestions. I’ll rate each slide with the following:
✅ = Good, what I want to see
😐 = Ok, needs work
❌ = Missing the mark
Full Disclosure: I was an early investor in Adore and got to know the founders well. I will share the rest of their story at the end of this post.
Pitch Deck Review: Adore — Fresh Cut Flower Subscriptions
✅ Intro and Table of Contents
I’ll evaluate the Cover Slide and Table of Contents together.
The Good: The tagline "Flowers Beyond Occasions" immediately communicates the value proposition and market shift.
The Bad: The outline is extremely dense, listing 17+ items .
Improvement: Consolidate the outline. Investors don't need a list of every sub-bullet; keep it to 5-6 high-level milestones to maintain momentum.
✅ Market Size (The Burning Question)
Based on this slide, the market size is much bigger than I would have guessed. Sharing market size upfront ensures investors don’t discount the pitch outright because they don’t understand the opportunity.
The Good: It identifies a massive "Potential Fresh Cut Market" of $45bn and highlights that 75% of consumers find current options too expensive.
The Bad: The Potential vs Current circles are confusing and rely heavily on a 2017 survey.
Improvement: Clearly define the TAM, SAM, and SOM. Find data to prove the "everyday" trend is growing.
😐 Problems / Solution/ Products
I’ll combine my comments on the Product/Solution and Products slide together.
First, I’m glad the founders shared Market Size before the Problem slide. I prefer seeing Market Size before the Problem statement so I have a sense of scale. This was one of my critiques in the last Pitch Deck breakdown.
The Good: The pricing is the "hook"—$5.99/week is incredibly low compared to the $35+ industry standard.
The Bad: Right now I just see 4 screenshots I don’t understand.
Improvement: The "DIY Experience" solution feels a bit buried under the "Affordable" and "Convenient" headers. Lean harder into the DIY aspect. Show why DIY lowers costs (e.g., lower labor costs for Adore) and how it increases customer "stickiness" through a sense of accomplishment.
This product slide falls flat because I don’t know who is buying a flower subscription. Since I am not the ICP (ideal customer profile), it’s hard for me to imagine who these products are for.
Plus, I still don’t fully understand the business. It is a flower subscription, but how does it work? Are these delivered to anyone I want, or just to my house or office? Do they come in a vase? Do I get to pick the blooms?
For a product/solution page like this, investors need to clearly see:
What is the product
How it works (very high-level)
The benefits for customers
✅ Traction Review (2 slides)
This is a well-designed and compelling slide. They had a lot of active customers from inception to month 5. Early unit economics are promising: CAC and Customer Value figures.
These founders hit on something many founders forget: Customer retention is also part of traction. While I don’t understand the Product Ratio at the top, the subscription length graphic and retention metrics are helpful and encouraging.
The Good: A 96% retention rate and 35% week-over-week growth are great early traction signals.
The Bad: The graph on Slide 6 shows revenue flattening during the last month in which there was a new web launch and price testing.
Improvement: Explicitly explain what was learned during that price testing phase. Did higher prices kill volume? Did lower prices increase LTV?
❌ Business Model (2 Slides)
Combining the two business model slides (I like the first and don’t like the second).
✅ Slide 1
❌ Slide 2
The Good (Slide 8): Providing a transparent unit economic breakdown (Gross Margins of 20%–30%) builds immediate trust with VCs.
The Bad: The delivery cost table on Slide 9 is very complex and difficult to read quickly.
Improvement: Simplify the delivery slide. Instead of a 10x4 table, use a simple chart showing how "Group Dispatch" reduces cost-per-delivery as density increases.
Good rule of thumb for pitch decks: Don’t include complicated tables that need explanation. Include it in the appendix as a back-up slide. As a founder, you may not have time to explain every slide in the pitch deck to an investor. Sometimes you will have to send the pitch deck without context. Your slides need to tell a clear story on their own. This slide confuses.
I included a red X on the business model because there is no go-to-market (GTM) plan. How will Adore find and acquire customers? I’m not saying it needs to be on this slide, but if we are talking Business Model, GTM needs to be part of it.
😐 Future Business Model (2 Slides
Generally, I like to see Founders thinking ahead about their future business model. This is a good and clear slide that could have immediately followed the first business model slide.
Again though, these slides reminds me that I don’t yet know the startup’s GTM strategy. For a low-cost consumer subscription, GTM is critical.
❌ Competitive Advantage
The Good: Identifying as the "First Player" in the everyday market for major US cities is a strong claim.
The Bad: The Technology advantage (AR/VR) feels like "buzzword soup" and isn't backed by the current product.
Improvement: Focus on the logistics moat. If you can deliver flowers for $5.99 profitably while competitors charge $35, that is your tech/ops advantage.
What is ironic is that this slide deck has a great competitive analysis slide… in the Appendix! I would cut Slide 12 and just use the appendix slide.
✅ Team and Investors
The Good: High-pedigree background (Apple, Google, McKinsey, Deloitte) paired with 10+ years of floral industry experience.
The Bad: The slide has too much small text.
Improvement: Use logos for the previous companies (Apple, McKinsey, etc.) to make their credibility pop visually.
Typically, I like to see the TEAM slide earlier in the pitch… because I’m on it. (J/K.) The co-founders are young but have strong early work experience and educational pedigree. Adding experienced angels or advisors add credibility.
✅ Use of Funds
This slide is well designed and informative:
The Good: Clear $600K ask with a 15-18 month runway.
The Bad: 40% of the budget is for Marketing, which might be high for a pre-seed stage where product-market fit is still being refined. Further, the GTM plans are not shared in the pitch. Where is that money going?
Improvement: Detail the "Engineering" spend. If you are building a proprietary dispatch or subscription engine, highlight that as an asset
✅ Thank You / Next Steps
✅ Appendix
General statement on the Appendix content:
I’m glad they include this material. I actually find it more useful than some of the slides in the main deck, particularly the competitive analysis slide.
Also, I am glad the founders share a bit about their future GTM plans, but I’m still left wondering how they are acquiring customers today. Instead of a gallery of marketing ideas, they could have created a prioritized list. What are the first GTM experiments they plan to run?
I also find the Demand & Supply Gap Analysis convincing enough for an early stage startup. As they gained traction, I would expect those numbers to become more concrete with metrics like First-Time Flower Customers.
In Summary: Answer the most burning questions up-front
As a former investor in this startup, I can tell you Adore was a well-conceived business that had real traction. I think this pitch deck reflected some of the strengths of the startup and founding team, but not all of them.
✅ Strengths:
Operating in a surprisingly large market with room to grow — It was smart for the founders to lead with Market Size case because fresh cut flowers is not a well-known market for technology investors. They also make a good case for market expansion.
Good early traction — The team shared both revenue and retention traction which is encouraging to see, even in a small sample size.
Opportunity to improve unit economics — They laid out a clear path to improve gross margins, which makes up for the low margins they share initially
❌ What they missed:
Product and operating model not clearly explained — To an investor not familiar with the business, this slide deck doesn’t clearly explain what the company does or how they do it. The founders focused on their product line but over-complicated the delivery slide (slide 9).
Target customer not explicitly stated — The core pitch deck doesn’t explain who the ideal customer profile is. They go into more detail in the appendix (63% of buyers purchase flowers for themselves, for instance) but this needs to be shared up-front.
No GTM strategy — The founders project aggressive growth (20-30% M-o-M with 40% of new funds going toward marketing) but don’t share how they plan to acquire customers.
One final note on GTM:
This is the second pitch deck review where the founders didn’t share GTM plans. It could be coincidence, but I also know it’s a common challenge for early-stage startups.
For early-stage founders, it’s natural to be uncertain about your GTM plans. That doesn’t mean you should avoid them in your pitch. Share your hypotheses and on-going experiments. Show investors you are actively working to solve the GTM problem. Skipping GTM in your pitch deck looks like avoidance.
What happened to Adore?
Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I was an early investor in Adore. You saw my name and photo on their Teams slide.
I met the founder in November 2020 and was the first check in. They used a version of this slide deck to secure a $3 million term sheet by a VC fund in March 2021 (5 months from incorporation to term sheet). They were set to scale.
But in the 11th hour, Serene had a change of heart. Serene came to the US from China to attend Northwestern.
Once the term sheet was on the table, Serene realized it would mean another 7-10 years in the US building Adore. And she missed her parents in China. Instead of pursuing the startup, she wound it down. She moved back to China by June and joined Alibaba.
I lost 100% of my investment but completely respect the founder’s decision. Building a startup is all-consuming, and if you’re not ready to take it on, it’s better to be honest about it early.
So Adore is a “what-if” story… for now. Maybe this post will inspire another team to take on the challenge.
If you do, ask yourself: What are the most burning questions I need to answer upfront?