This was the deck used by Jared Morgenstern, Eddie Lim, and Eoin Matthews when communicating with investors and potential acquirers in 2004. This deck was created before Facebook.com launched in February 2004 and Facebook is absent from the list of competitors. In 2004, Jared Morgenstern, a recent Harvard computer science graduate, met Mark Zuckerberg and they discussed many of the commerce and word of mouth advertising concepts in this deck at Finagle Bagel in Harvard Square and a potential partnership (that never closed) with Metails signing up local businesses to be part of the nascent TheFacebook.com network. After Metails.com was acquired by Buy.com, Jared Morgenstern ended up becoming Facebook's 3rd designer in 2006, and launched many of the companies monetization, engagement, and growth products, including Virtual Gifts, Facebook Marketplace, the Friend Finder, Social Ads (EMU), and the Like Button. Eddie Lim and Eoin Matthews co-founded the home equity platform Point in 2014.
2. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 2
Metails Overview
1. Marketers are in Trouble
– Trends Point to a Solution
– Use Effective Offline Tactics Online
1. The Metails Word-of-Mouse™ Solution
– Provide Value to Users, Retailers, and Marketers
– Target Gen-Y Which Spends Most $$$ Online
– Buy-Thru-Friends™ Provides Loyalty, Marketer Framework
1. Total Revenue Opportunity Surpasses 4B in 2007
– Increase Sales for Partner Retailers
– Increase Marketing Effectiveness for Businesses
1. Social Networks and E-Commerce Sites Lack User Embraced Framework
to Compete
– Existing Social Networks are Purposeless
– Existing E-Commerce Sites Cannot offer Retailer Independence
1. Metails.com Successes and Planned Growth
2. Metails Management and Advisory Team Provides Industry Expertise,
Vision, and Execution
3. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 3
Marketers are in Trouble
1. More ads, less conversion
– Although the number of online advertisements increased 50% in the last
year, conversion rates have plummeted by over 40% and continue to drop.
1. Consumer distrust of ads is growing
– Consumer trust in online advertising has dropped more than 25% in the
last 5 years for the youth market, ages 12-17.
– 65% of individuals claim they are bombarded with too many messages online
and 61% believe the volume is out of control .
1. Online influencers are not being harnessed
– Marketers are increasingly turning to guerilla marketing and word-of-mouth
strategies in the offline world:
• BzzAgent’s offline campaigns have over 50,000 members.
• Proctor and Gamble’s Tremor has over 300,000 teenage members.
– But marketers are overlooking the even more active online influential
population:
• 82% of influentials have Internet access, compared to 54% of the general
population.
• 10% of the US population are influentials, while 26% of the online teen audience
are considered influentials - this group spends 28% more online than the
average teen.
• Online influencers typically forward advice to an average of 12 people, compared
to an average of 3 people in an offline environment.
4. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 4
Trends Point to a Solution:
1. Online spending is growing
– Online retail spending is expanding at 20% per year.
– By 2010, about 13%, or $150B, of money spent on general merchandise will be spent
online.
– Gen-Y (age 13-25) currently spends 15% of total expenditure online.
1. Affiliate marketing is flourishing
– Affiliate marketing was the source of $14 billion worth of online sales in 2002; this figure is
expected to reach $25 billion in 2005.
– More than 20% of online sales come from the affiliate channel - the largest share of
margin contribution comes from affiliate marketing.
1. Aquisitive consumers want trusted shopping content
– Consumer magazines such as Lucky and Cargo have over 1 million subscribers who are
paying for a magazine that focuses entirely on shopping advice.
– 70% of individuals say they would be interested in products or services that would help
them avoid marketing pitches.
1. Online social networks are here
– More than 10M Gen-Y Americans are using social networks on a daily basis.
– Social networks generate 1.5M page views per month for every 10,000 users.
1. Word-of-mouth trumps all other forms of advertising
– 67% of U.S. consumer-goods sales are now influenced by word of mouth.
– More than half of Americans are always looking for new products to try and almost
75% recommend new products to friends and family.
5. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 5
Use Effective Offline Tactics Online
1. Let users freely interact with brands and products
– Don’t ignore product and brand affinities, use them to create
communities of discussion and similar users.
– Enable users to evaluate products and services in an environment
surrounded by peers.
1. Provide a rich communications platform for users
– 84% of influentials have visited product/service opinions sites in the
past year but 72% question reviews from unfamiliar sources.
– Give users the tools to connect with the people they find (reviews,
reactions, messages, etc).
– Allow the user to express herself with galleries, lists, and blogs.
1. Enable users to buy in an objective environment
– Offer users the ability to participate in transactions freely and in
complete agreement with their style choices by offering multiple
retailers and product types.
6. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 6
Metails Word-of-Mouse™ Concept
Social Networking
•Create personal profile
•Share photo galleries
•Publish blogs
•Intuitive and compelling
networking environment
•Join brand-centric
communities called Raves
Products/Brands
•Share personal purchasing
history and product
recommendations
•Product catalog comes from
products imported by Metailers
•Raves nominated by other
Metailers
+ + Buy-Thru-Friends
•Buy-Thru-Friends™ viral
e-commerce platform
•Peer Rewards loyalty
program
•Earn reward when friends
buy though you
7. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 7
Metails Value Channel
Gen-Y
Consumers
MarketersOnline Retailers
Provide behavioral
market research
Channel consumer
attention
Deliver purchase
ready consumers
Convert affiliate expense
into repeat business
Provide sharing and
fun opinion forum
Deliver trustworthy
product advice
8. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 8
Gen-Y Target Spends Most Online
Online Spending
(billions)
Source: Jupiter Research, October 2001
0
4
8
12
16
2003 2004 2005 2006
College
Teens
Kids
Gen-Y
Total
Weekly Exposure to Media
(Teens and Young Adults)
Harris Interactive and Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU)
0
4
8
12
16
20
Internet (excluding
e-mail)
Watching TV Listening to Radio Talking on Phone Reading (excluding
school)
•buys music, games, books, fashion and
portable electronics
•is brand-aware and opinionated
•is cynical about advertising and marketing
•gives her opinions to friends and peers
•secretly considers herself to be a trendsetter
These consumers represent the best possible
audience for a Shopping Social Network.
•between 13 and 25 years old
•is an e-fluential/influential
•spends 10-16 hours online/ week
•has a large network of friends
•spends (15%) $400-$1000 online each year
9. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 9
Buy-Thru-Friends™
User Value
• Reward your friends for their good taste
and product recommendations
• Earn rewards when your friends buy
through you
• Know the person behind the opinion about
the product and get better advice
• View products and brands in context of
who has actually purchased or used them
Retailer Value
• Customers become sales team to their
entire social network
• Acquire new customers via their influential
friends
• Increase customer loyalty by rewarding
those who influence their friends
• Commission/rewards structure can fit into
existing affiliate marketing programs
• Convert affiliate expenses into repeat
business
10. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 10
Buy-Thru-Friends™ Opportunity
green = 2007
purple = 2004 Shopping Social
Network Market Size =
$1.35B
$4.35B
2004
2007
x
x
x
=
=
=
Number of
Online
Shoppers
Dollars Spent
Online Per
Consumer
$450
$777
>90M
150M Retail Dollars
Spent Online
Per Year
% Buys
Influenced
by WOM
67%
75%
$41B
$116B
WOM Online
Influenced
Yearly Sales
Ave. Rate of
Commission
$27B
$87B
5%
5%
11. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 11
User Brand/Product Affinities Create
Powerful Framework for Marketers
1. Profile building is a never-ending marketing survey
– the join process involves selecting 10 favorite brands, called “raves”
and products – these are visible to your social network
– users collect products and raves throughout the site, either by
searching, browsing other users, or taking fun quizzes
– all raves are user nominated, Metails approved, and then built by users
1. Users view brands, products, and services as content
– users eagerly consume the limited supply of new raves and products
launched every day, trying to be the first to add new items
– users pay attention to raves and products as they browse each other
and the site as a way to meet similar people and bolster their own
profiles
1. Brands and products are points of interaction
– users check out their similarity to other users based on their raves and
products
– users discuss raves and products in forums
– users buy-thru-friends
12. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 12
Featured Raves and Products
Featured Raves: 8 raves
randomly cycle per day on the
home page. Pay-per-click
bidding system.
Rave-of-the-Day: Information
co-written by the Metails writers
and the marketer. Pay-per-click
pricing whether user clicks on
external or internal links.
Combination of a bidding
system plus awards positioning
at Metails’ discretion.
Featured Products: 8 products
randomly cycle per day on the
home page. Pay-per-click
bidding system for retailers to
be the default retailer for these
items.
All of the above may be
targeted according to a
marketers behavioral
strategy using Metails data.
13. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 13
Contextual Pay-for-Performance
Paid Search & Browse: Offer
bidding system for marketers to buy
placement in Metails product and rave
search and browse results.
14. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 14
Behavioral Market Research
Targeted reports based on
multiple metrics analyzing
attitudes, opinions, and
trends that affect businesses:
Buzzmetrics, a New York based
marketing firm, spiders freely
available discussion forums in an
attempt to provide reports on
clients’ key products, issues, and
competitors . Buzzmetrics sells
market research to clients for
about $1,000 - $10,000 per
month, scouring about 50
different public online sources.
Metails will be able to perform
this much more thoroughly and
on a much larger scale and will
sell reports to marketers once
the Metails user base has
achieved the appropriate scale.
15. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 15
Limited Banner Placement
Available Ad placements:
1. 300x68 Above Fold
Half Banner
($3.00 CPM)
2. 120x600 Below Fold
Skyscraper ($3.00 CPM)
3. 160x600 Below Fold Super-
Skyscraper
($3.50 CPM)
Effective CPM for
Comparable Websites:
$0.35-$0.68
Note: limited banner presence,
as long as it does not detract
from the user experience, can
serve as a supplemental source
of revenue.
16. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 16
User-Acquisition & Growth
1. Viral Marketing
– Boot Camp
• Introduce users to features
• Invite friends and earn $5 towards first reward
– Metails-2-Go
• Feature of Metails where user can chooses Raves and Products to “take with them”
• User can use this in alternate social-networking site or Blog site
– Metails is personal “rewards center” for user
• Reach audience of established social networks
• Reach audience through IM clients and personal websites
• Future: reach audience through mobile phones
1. Organic growth through users inviting friends (15%/month)
2. Target audience of Gen-Y through partnerships with online and in-print
media companies
3. Retailer newsletters promoting Buy-Thru-Friends™ to customers
4. Guerilla marketing targeting Gen-Y audience
17. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 17
1. 6000 registered users in first 4 months
2. 75,000+ images uploaded by 60% of users
3. 5000 blog entries by 25% of users
4. 750,000 page views per month
5. Time spent online rivals TV for most active users
6. Average visit length is 40+ pages
7. 5000+ products imported
8. Rave building community effectively turns user base
into a workforce
9. Metails-2-Go launched
10.Agreements with major Gen-Y retailers
Successes To Date
18. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 18
Competitor Snapshots
1. Friendster.com
– Strengths:
• 7 million users
• First mover, brand is nearly synonymous with social networks
– Weaknesses:
• 18+, leisure based, poor returns per user, chaotic technology
1. Myspace.com
– Strengths:
• Traffic growing more rapidly than any social net
• Targeted musical underground audience
– Weaknesses:
• 18+, overwhelming advertising, focus is emerging bands and dating
1. Amazon.com
– Strengths:
• 50M+ users, great brand, high customer satisfaction
– Weaknesses:
• No retailer independence; users cannot get full view of product world
• geographically targeted, not age group targeted
19. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 19
Competitive Advantage
1. Proprietary Independent Approach to Shopping
– Word-of-Mouse™ and Buy-thru-Friends™ enable users to validate products and services
and to purchase and earn rewards unrestricted by the style or brand implications of a
particular retailer. Metails’ intellectual property interests are represented by Willmer, Cutler,
Pickering, Hale & Dorr and these features are the subject of numerous patent claims.
1. First Mover and Retailer Relationship
– Metails will leverage its first mover position to become the dominant consumer brand for
word-of-mouth shopping with your friends. Metails is fortifying this position with exclusive
retailer relationships with top 500 e-commerce sites.
1. Business Model First, Growth Second
– The Metails interface is designed from scratch to support its business model which is fueled
by a consumer desire to find out about trends and products from friends and peers. This
has enabled the successful brand positioning of Metails as a Shopping Social Network. The
Shopping Social Network concept represents a carefully planned method for monetizing
users that will scale with growth. This is not the route taken by most social networks that
are struggling because they try to monetize users after audience explosion has occurred.
1. Strong Visionary Team and Harvard Affiliation
20. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 20
Metails Quarterly User Growth
• Growth
extrapolated
based on
currently
observed
rates of 15%
growth per
month rising
to a max of
30% during
holiday
season ’05,
followed by a
diminishing
rate of return
that drops
monthly
growth to 5%
by Q4 ’06.
Total Users 2004-2006
0
1,000,000
2,000,000
3,000,000
4,000,000
5,000,000
6,000,000
Jul-
04
Aug-
04
Sep-
04
Oct-
04
Nov-
04
Dec-
04
Jan-
05
Feb-
05
Mar-
05
Apr-
05
May-
05
Jun-
05
Jul-
05
Aug-
05
Sep-
05
Oct-
05
Nov-
05
Dec-
05
Jan-
06
Feb-
06
Mar-
06
Apr-
06
May-
06
Jun-
06
Jul-
06
Aug-
06
Sep-
06
Oct-
06
Nov-
06
Dec-
06
24. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 24
Management Team
• Jared Morgenstern – President and CEO
While in college, Jared and Eddie co-founded NetSymbiosis, the web consulting firm that built Harvard’s
current campus wide voting software, UCVote.web, which is currently licensed to Harvard University’s
Undergraduate Council. Jared was selected as a finalist in the Harvard Entrepreneurial Contest twice and was
subsequently admitted to the Harvard Business Leadership Program in 2002. Jared graduated from Harvard
College in 2003 with a Magna Cum Laude Degree in Computer Science and a Masters Degree in Computer
Science. He has worked for Amazon.com in the Digital Media Group where he designed an Amazon branded
media delivery unit in his spare time that the company later supported. He recently left Digital Self
Corporation where he was the Product Manager for Digital Self’s flagship enterprise software product,
ExpertSeek, which had a price point of $250,000.
• Eddie Lim – Vice President and CTO
Eddie has worked at BEA Systems on the WebLogic Workshop team as a developer and program manager for
the ISV Control and Extensibility Activities where he was responsible for managing the technology effort for
the product API. Eddie has also worked at Digital Self Corporation where he was responsible for search
optimization and search index integrity. Eddie graduated from Harvard College in 2002 with a Magna Cum
Laude Degree in Computer Science.
• Eoin Matthews – VP of Business Development
Eoin Matthews is responsible for the company’s retailer partnerships and go-to-market strategy. He has over
7 years of experience selling to Fortune 500 firms. Eoin Matthews was the Director of Business Development
for Digital Self Corporation. In this capacity, Eoin built a $3M sales pipeline and secured the company’s initial
clients among the world’s top law firms. Before Digital Self, Eoin led North American technical sales/consulting
for a leading quality management systems software firm, QSET Inc. Eoin also founded a digital advertising
company, Bromat Media, which provided DVD bonus features/advertising solutions to top-tier game
publishers including Eidos Interactive, Konami and Namco. Eoin graduated from National University of Ireland,
Galway 1999 with 1st Class Honors in Mechanical Engineering.
25. 1/21/2004 Metails, Inc.
Confidential Document 25
Board of Advisors
• David Godes - Marketing Strategy Advisor
David Godes is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School. His research focuses on incentives and
compensation issues, particularly as they relate to salespeople. Professor Godes has authored many
foundational papers on the causal impact of word-of-mouth and sales. Professor Godes is specifically
interested in the marketing impact of fashions, trends and word-of-mouth.
• Professor John D.C. Little – Operations Strategy Advisor
Professor Little is an Institute Professor and Chair at MIT Sloan School of Management. For more than 5
decades, Professor Little has been publishing seminal papers in marketing, operations research, and
decision support systems. He is known for Little’s Law, a queuing formula that he proved, and he is
considered to be a pioneer in marketing science.
• Marc Fireman – Interactive Marketing Advisor
Global Director of Interactive Marketing, Reebok International. Marc Fireman is the senior executive at
Reebok responsible for the company’s branding, marketing and advertising efforts. He has architected the
company’s integrated multi-channel approach to advertising- a process which gave birth to the character
Terry Tate who made his first appearance during the 3rd quarter of 2003 Super Bowl.