Developing an Elevator Pitch That will Hook Investors

What is an Elevator Pitch?

From Wikipedia:

“An elevator pitch (or elevator speech) is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (say, thirty seconds or 100-150 words).

The term is typically used in the context of an entrepreneur pitching an idea to a venture capitalist to receive funding. Venture capitalists often judge the quality of an idea and team on the basis of the quality of its elevator pitch, and will ask entrepreneurs for the elevator pitch to quickly weed out bad ideas.”

Why Do You Need One

Qualifies Who you are Clarifies what you are doing Helps people decide whether or not to

invest time into you Helps Investors weed out ideas Grabs attention Call to action to spend time with you

When Are Elevator Pitches Used? Introduction to who you are

Conversation starter Pitching Your Ideas Raising Capital Selling your Product/Service Recruiting talent Growing business Introducing new concepts/ideas

Common Mistakes...

Too Long/Too Short (should be around 30

Seconds/100-150 words) Unclear Filled with jargon, buzz phrases and

acronyms Focus on wrong or irrelevant information Boring

The Basics of an Elevator Pitch

Introduce yourself (name, title, company) Description of your product and the Investment

opportunity/problem you are solving Include things like stage, size of market,

competitive differentiator, revenues, team, funding requirements

• The Hook – what are the strengths of your investment opportunity? Know your audience – what you would use to

hook a customer is different than an investor Call to Action

What are you looking for and/or are your next steps?

What Hooks Investors?

Focus on qualities that Make your Company Unique and Stand Out: Customer Traction/Revenue Rock Star Team Key Partnerships Competitive Advantage Big exit opportunity

Words are not Enough...

Remember to Smile! Be Calm Don’t talk too fast or too slow – use a

steady pace Make Eye Contact Be Enthusiastic and Let your Passion

Show! Don’t pull out a white paper or rely on

a Power Point to tell your story

The test..

Is your pitch short/clear/concise enough?

Is it easy enough that everyone understands it?

Does it leave the audience wanting to know more or to get involved?

Were there follow up questions?

What Next?

Be Prepared for Follow up Questions Who do you compete with? Where are you in your development? What is your distribution strategy? How will you make money?

Be Prepared for No Response What then?

Resources for Elevator Pitches

Your advisors (law firms, bank, etc.) People in your network Vator.tv Techcrunch Elevator Pitches Events – great place to practice! Blogs

Getting Started...

1. Describe the pain you are solving 2. Quantify the pain3. Describe the product/technology 4. Describe the value 5. What are the benefits?6. Give them a hook!7. What are you looking for?

Sample Format... For the quantity of target customers who are dissatisfied with current solution/product Your company name is a category that provides key benefits/problem solving opportunity Unlike competitive alternatives, we solve this problem by key

feature/advantage/benefit We are stage and have give hook like: world class team including

name, revenues, partnerships, demo....pick your best selling points!

Strong closing statement and are currently raising how much and or round (seed/A)

and are looking for the profile of investor/VC