What stood out to me about UberCab’s early pitch deck was how effectively it communicated an opportunity without having much evidence that its solution would work.
The opening slides establish the problem by portraying the taxi industry as outdated, inefficient, and frustrating. Rather than focusing on individual complaints, UberCab argues that the entire system is broken. I think this is clever because it makes the opportunity feel much bigger than simply improving transportation. However, the evidence is mostly industry statistics and observations, not actual customer experiences.
The following slides introduce UberCab as an obvious solution. The founders make it easy to imagine a better alternative, but spend considerably more time explaining what they’re building than proving people need it. This connects to Dan Olsen’s The Lean Product Playbook: a promising solution is not enough without validating that the underlying need is important and underserved.
The market slides strengthen the pitch by showing a large, fragmented industry with room for disruption. However, a large market doesn’t necessarily mean a large opportunity for this particular product. As Lenny Rachitsky emphasizes in his reading on ICPs, identifying who experiences the problem most intensely is essential. UberCab’s initial target customer still feels relatively broad.
If I were an investor, I’d ask: Who is desperate enough for this solution to pay for it? What evidence supports that demand? And can the business operate profitably at scale?
For our Sanity Check, I’d borrow UberCab’s ability to communicate a problem and opportunity simply, but rely more heavily on our interviews. Rather than selling our solution, I want to demonstrate that we’ve identified a specific, underserved problem worth solving.
