Investor Deck — Narrative Outline

"This is Piqki. Premium press-on nails — DTC, innovation-first. We're raising a $500K SAFE at a $5M cap. About $200K is already in. I'm looking for the remaining $300K from people who understand what it takes to build a category-defining brand."

"The problem isn't that women don't want press-ons. $738M in global sales tells you demand exists. The problem is that the experience of using them still feels like a workaround. Sizing is a guessing game. Application takes 20 minutes and requires YouTube tutorials. The brands dominating the category are either mass-market and ugly, or boutique and inconsistent. Nobody has built the definitive press-on brand for high-standard people."

"The market is validated. $738M globally, growing to $1.1B by 2030. Two major acquisitions in the last 18 months — Olive & June at $240M and Chillhouse just acquired by Kiss in January. The category is maturing fast. What hasn't happened yet is a DTC-native brand with real innovation at the core. That's the opening."

"Piqki solves the press-on problem from the inside out. Not a new colorway — a better system. Two PiqWheels per pack, 32 nails arranged by size, so you're not hunting through a bag or settling for close enough. Precision fit. 60% gross margin. A $50 price point that holds because the product justifies it. This is what the category has been missing."

"The first innovation is the PiqWheel. Nails on a wheel, organized by size — you find your size once and you never guess again. That's the product we're launching in May. The second innovation is the application device — currently in development, patent being filed this July. If we get the device right, we cut application from 20 minutes to 2–3 minutes. That's the moat. When you own the fit problem and the time problem, you own the category."

"The model is clean. $50 AOV, 60% gross margin, $30 per order before customer acquisition. Everything else reduces to one question: what does it cost to acquire a customer? Base case is $25 — that's achievable with solid UGC creative on Meta. At $25 CAC, we're profitable in year one with a May launch. The April test answers that question before we scale."

"Go-to-market is sequential and testable. April is the test — $8–10K on Meta, 5–8 creative concepts, real CAC data before any scaling decision. May is launch. The spend level in May is determined by April's results, not by a projection. We don't scale past $50K/month until the unit economics are confirmed. That discipline is what makes this model trustworthy."

"This isn't a deck about an idea. The infrastructure is built. Patent in progress. Brand system designed. Tech stack live. 22 creators identified and ready for seeding. Marketing plan documented end-to-end — PR targets, retail strategy, email flows, creative testing rules. $200K already raised from investors who ran the numbers. We're 10 weeks from launch, not 10 months from a prototype."

"Three scenarios. One variable. At $25 CAC — the base case — we're profitable in 2026 on a May launch with an 8-month selling window. At $18, it's a significantly better business. At $35, it's survivable but not fundable growth. April tells us which world we're in. We spend $8–10K, we get real CAC data, and we scale from there. The financial model is clean and the assumptions are documented — you can stress-test any of it."

"The category has four archetypes. Mass-market and cheap — Kiss dominates that. Boutique and inconsistent — Chillhouse, now absorbed by Kiss. High-reach, low-differentiation — Glamnetic and Olive & June. And then there's the open position: high price, high innovation, DTC-native, built to last. Nobody owns it. Piqki does. The Chillhouse acquisition in January is the most recent proof that strategic buyers want elevated and can't build it themselves."

"Why now is three things. The Chillhouse acquisition just removed the most credible premium DTC competitor — that brand is now a Kiss acquisition target managing a portfolio, not a scrappy DTC builder. Paid social is still winnable for brands that understand creative. And the IP clock is running — provisional patent by July, which means we need commercial activity before we file. This is not a 'launch when we're ready' situation. May is the date."

"One founder — finance and ops background, not a former beauty influencer. I've been Head of Finance at a Series B hardware company. I've built and sold companies before. I know what the model needs to look like and where it breaks. I'm not guessing at CAC — I've modeled three scenarios with documented assumptions and a testing gate before any scaling decision. The team is lean by design, not by accident."

"The ask is $500K total, YC Standard SAFE, $5M cap, no discount. $200K is already in the round. I'm looking for the remaining $300K. The capital's job is two things: fund the April test that validates unit economics, and provide runway security so we don't have to make desperate decisions if scale takes a month longer than projected. The financial model is documented. The assumptions are transparent. This is a bet on the CAC number."

"This starts as a DTC press-on brand. It ends as the nail system. The device is the pivot — if we get that right, we're not competing for the $738M press-on market, we're expanding the category. The DTC business funds the development. The patent protects the moat. And the strategic acquirer landscape is already primed — Kiss just bought Chillhouse to get brand equity it couldn't build. We're building a more defensible version of that."