Green Deck

After exiting a health tech startup in June 2017—an online pharmacy and healthcare API business called HealthOS that they'd built with just four co-founders—Ayush Jain and his team knew they wanted to stay close to their core strength: building technology products. But they wanted to shift verticals entirely. The insight came from observing how companies approach decision-making: they pour data and resources into user acquisition and marketing, yet pricing—one of the most powerful levers for profitability—remains guesswork. "Even if one percentage changes, pricing can lead to 10 to 15% increase in net profit," Ayush noted. They decided to build an AI engine that could help companies make data-driven pricing decisions.

The team initially targeted the gaming industry, building a dynamic pricing engine for in-app purchases (virtual swords, cosmetics, etc.). The logic seemed sound: games make millions from players buying virtual items with real money. But the pivot came quickly when they discovered most gaming studios actually make their revenue from ads, not in-app purchases. The incremental value Green Deck offered wasn't compelling enough. They pivoted to e-commerce and retail, which proved to be the "most impactful vertical" they found. By the time they launched publicly in June 2017, they had already shifted focus entirely to fashion brands and online retailers.

Green Deck's initial customer acquisition relied heavily on network effects. Being part of the Tech Stars accelerator program in Berlin gave them warm introductions to companies they wanted to reach. Their go-to-market playbook was simple: offer a small 2-3 week pilot program with minimal commitment or development effort from the prospect, charge a small pilot fee to validate the concept, then outline a path to a full integration. This low-friction pilot model proved effective for a B2B SaaS product where pricing is a sensitive business function that companies are hesitant to outsource.

The company's core insight was understanding their customer's real pain: fashion retailers and e-commerce brands need to reprice nearly daily to stay competitive. One fashion retailer they worked with discovered via Green Deck's insights that when a competitor dropped Adidas sneaker prices by 40%, their daily sales of that SKU plummeted from 40-50 units to 2-3 units. Without real-time intelligence, they would have missed this competitive threat. Green Deck solves this by surfacing the top 10-50 pricing recommendations that need immediate attention rather than forcing teams to analyze thousands of SKUs manually. The platform currently maintains a human-in-the-loop model—providing insights and recommendations that teams manually implement—but with a roadmap toward full automation through rules-based pricing.

By the time of this interview, Green Deck had 4 paying customers, each contributing approximately $2,500/month (averaging around 3,000-4,000 euros per month depending on regions, product count, and data inputs). Total monthly recurring revenue sat at $10,000, and they'd raised $120,000 from Tech Stars and SAP through the accelerator. With only four co-founders and no additional hires, they were still in the very early stages of scaling—running pilots with larger enterprise retailers while narrowing their focus to e-commerce after the gaming pivot. The team was equally split on equity (25/25/25/25) and notably, all four founders were 25 years old and single, allowing them to focus entirely on the business.