5 Winning Rules For Your Elevator Pitch
Every founder must have a ready elevator pitch that can be shared with a potential investor or partner in a matter of minutes. This is exponentially more effective than a business card that rarely has any useful information and is unlikely to help the person remember who gave it. There is no template for a perfect elevator pitch, but there are several important rules to keep in mind.
Clear Pitch Structure
There are plenty of templates for an elevator pitch but they all come down to this: you have a minute to expose three key insights: the problem, its solution, and commercial prospects. Compose a short introduction such as: “Hi! I’m the founder of ABC project,” and then talk about the significance of your startup for the market, the country, or the whole world. Explain what problem it solves, mention a successful case (if you have one) — but don’t spend all your time on this. Make sure to talk about the mutual profit (for the project and the investor) if the partnership takes off. If you need specific sums, speak out.
Keep in mind, however, that the result of an elevator pitch is not an offer “to sign a contract right here and now.” If the pitch went well, such short presentation usually leads to an investor’s invitation to meet again and discuss the project in detail. So, don’t expound on your business plan, growth strategy, possible options if the projects suddenly proves to be loss-making, and other details. If the investor is interested, they’ll ask for this information at the follow-up meeting.
Prioritizing
The majority of people have an attention span of 10 seconds, and this number keeps falling with each year. This means that you only have this short span of time to engage your counterpart. Otherwise, you minute-long speech will fall on deaf ears. This is why you should put the emphasis on the right things — and don’t keep the most important points until the final moments of your pitch. The investor will either interrupt you or stop listening altogether. Engage them from the get-go: introduce yourself and start with the problem. There’s no need to share all of your achievements or the story of your long and winding road to the startup’s idea.
Out-of-the-box Solutions
You don’t have to follow the “greeting-problem-solution-profit” template — there are other options as well. For example, use the personal backstory approach: “I was confronted with a certain problem and resolved it with the help of my own product. It turned out that there are 1.2 million other people on the market unable to deal with this difficulty, and they received our project really well. Today, it’s being used by X people…” There’s a problem, there’s a solution, there’s a clear understanding of profit — but the approach is not stereotypical. Or, you can latch on to something in your counterpart — their recent interview or speech, their position on certain issues — if your startup has any relation to that, of course.
Elevator pitch improvisation can be effective, but it has to be well-prepared. Otherwise you risk getting flustered and speaking incoherently — and that definitely won’t interest any investor. Therefore, if you want to depart from the standard “greeting-problem-solution-profit” template, rehearse. Ideally, try to test your pitch on someone you know who has no connection to your startup.
Speak Naturally
An effective pitch is both about “what” you say and “how” you say it. First, write your text in simple sentences using conversational style — there should be no complex sentences, verbal adverb phrases and lead-ins. An investor might be able to read such text, but they are unlikely to hear it out. Read every one of your pitches with a timer. You must stay within your allotted time — without twisting your tongue in the process. Make sure that when read aloud, the text is clear, simple and easy to understand.
Second, rehearse your speech in front of the mirror — and don’t rush it. Imagine yourself sharing an interesting piece of news with a friend. Don’t try to speak at 300 words a minute. It’s highly likely that the investor will interrupt you during the first 10 seconds because it’s difficult to even listen to such speech, much less make any sense of it. And don’t forget to check your performance in front of the mirror for excessive facial expressions or too-frequently used voice emphasis.
Deep Analysis of Investor or Company
A common mistake is to prepare one elevator pitch for all the investors, venture funds or partners that you plan to approach. Every person absorbs information differently, and everyone has their triggers, interests, wishes and goals.
Let’s imagine that three hypothetical investors want to invest in a startup that manufactures electric cars. One will do it because he really cares for the environment, the other — because he needs as many innovative projects in the portfolio as possible, while the third likes the young and energetic founders who want to transform the world.
To engage each of these investors, they have to hear a pitch that pushes their hot buttons. It’s unlikely that it can be done with a single universal text. The foundation is the same (introduction, essence of the project, profit), but the emphasis should be different for each specific person.
Therefore, before writing your speech, conduct a deep analysis of the chosen investor or company to determine what interests them, what startups they finance, what other companies they work with. Watch a video with this person to study their style of speech and try to adapt to it.
