The Elevator Pitch

Selling an opportunity in 30 – 120 Seconds

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What is an Elevator Pitch?Context of Entrepreneurship

• A business-oriented, purposeful verbal message as fast as a ride in an elevator (30 -120 seconds) in understandable language – even for high-technology ventures

• A concise, carefully planned, and well-practiced “answer” about yourself, your business, your firm, your project etc.

• A situation with an opportunity to sell your company’s identity and set yourself apart from other entrepreneurs

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What is an Elevator Pitch?Business Plan in Context

Elevator Pitch:The problem (need)

you are going to solve (told in 30 seconds),

20 Minute Business Plan Presentation

Leading to an early opportunity to present:

•Your solution, and

•value proposition to future stakeholders

Elevator Pitch: the preliminary to your back-of-the-envelope business plan

Adapted from W. Runge 04/2008

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Elevator Pitch Situations• All conceivable opportunities to initiate

linking stakeholders (investor, backers; “sponsors”, gaketkeepers, decision makers) and entrepreneurs.

• (A startup) searching for financial backing or cooperation partners

• Meeting someone (accidentally or even better, intentionally) at …– Network Partnering-Events – In firms: before /after meetings, in the canteen…– Meeting a “player” in the club, sitting next to you

on the plane, in the lobby of a hotel, …

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You only have one chance to make a first impression!

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Approach

• Give people a “hook” by talking about something that really interests them

• Be succinct, clear and to the point• Focus on one simple message• Make it easy for people to contact you

after the pitch – and provide them with an incentive to seek you out

• For investors: align pitch with their values(e.g, induce expectations of big profits)

Adapted from W. Runge 04/20087

Presenting: The Rule of Three• The “Hook" 

Get their Attention andInterest

• The OpportunityExplain and supportyour point with passion (investors expect energyand dedication from entrepreneurs)

• Should create Desire (“greed or good”)• Must demonstrate your team’s unique

competences to exploit this opportunity.   • The Close

Call to Action AIDA!

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An Elevator Pitch Template• WHAT you do• WHOM you serve (target)• HOW you deliver (proposed solution)• BENEFIT(S) for target user

EXAMPLE (“What are you doing for who, how and why?”):

①"I [WHAT: helping verb]

②[WHO: target market/ideal customer/society] [____1___] [___2___] [___3___] [___4___] • [HOW: deliver what your target wants]• [BENEFIT: key benefit or desired result]"

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Business Plan Template in brief

USP (Unique Selling Proposition) –Sentence #1

For (target customer)who (statement of the need or opportunity),the (product/service name) is a (category) that (statement of benefit).

Sentence #2Unlike (leading competitive alternative),our product (primary source of differentiation)

Sentences #3 and 4And our business model (main features), and will generate (revenues and profits over time)

Ref. Dorf & Byers, p. 250

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Call to Action

• Based on the assigned case, create and present an elevator pitch, derived from the suggested template (see Slide 8)

• 30 (max 45) seconds version, no PPT. One teams will then move to the next step:

• One (max 10 minutes) team to present your business plan to investors: remember you (not your Powerpoint) are the show. (you can start with this, then edit the content down to create the shorter one)

Rules for Thursday:

• The entire pitch is by one person alone.

• Entrants will have 90 seconds to present their idea.

• Props are prohibited: including (but not limited to) Notecards, notes, or models, etc

• No PowerPoint slides or posters, etc.

• At the end of the pitch, each presenter may offer a business card (of normal size).

W. Runge 04/2008 11

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Questions?