The elevator pitch, those few sentences which convey your company across to potential customers and investors. Do you have it right? Can you explain what your product does in language that is simple, yet presents the unique value of your product? You may think that you already have your elevator pitch perfected, but even if it is, test it, refine it, and make it better. The pitch will dictate whether you get some love in an elevator, or just get shot down. This elevator pitch guide will ensure the former.
So what is it? Wikipedia defines the elevator pitch as “An elevator pitch or elevator speech is a short persuasive speech about a person, an organization or group, or an idea for a product, service, or project. An elevator pitch is often a part of a marketing communications, brand, or public relations program. Good elevator pitches are succinct and compelling to their target audience. The name reflects the idea that an elevator pitch should be possible to deliver in the time span of an elevator ride, approximately thirty seconds to two minutes.”
Let’s leave the two minutes aside, and focus on the 30 seconds. The typical interest span of an adult human is eight seconds, so if you don’t get their attention in those first 8 seconds, or let’s shorten it to even 5 seconds, chances are you’ve lost your audience. So.
Be succinct. Keep your opener to a sentence, at max two. This sentence should convey 1. What you do 2. What you need, and if you can, 3. Who you are.
“Hi, I’m Jacek a founder at Ludlow. Ludlow helps small teams almost seamlessly create and send newsletters with almost no input, saving hours monthly for marketers. Would you mind introducing me to someone at Codecademy, I think they could really use it, I love their content but it’s so sporadic.”
What did we do here. 1. Introduction, you know who I am. 2. What we do, and 3. What we need.
Have a hook. Let’s face it, we’re always being pitched something and it can get a bit frustrating, and we tune out.
A hook is something that grasps your audience’s attention. In this case your audience can be a group of people or one person. And your hook should be adjusted for them. Meaning, if you’re pitching to an investor your hook will differ than if you’re pitching to a potential client. The hook is basically the value that you give the other party. What do we mean.
The pitch continues:
“Aside from new feature emails I’d love to get tips from the team on how I can make myself a better developer.” this hook is targeted at someone who has a relationship with Codecademy. I provide them a reason to reach out to their contact, “make better content”.
“You know, in fact I don’t get newsletters from Flybridge, I’m sure you guys share all sorts of interesting content internally, it’d be great so read some of that.”
Here the hook is adjusted for the investor. I’m not pitching them my company, I’m pitching them value that they can get out of my product, I want them to try it.
It’s all about you. For the next few seconds the world really is revolving around you, so knock the audience dead. Why should they listen to you? Who are you that you know your subject matter? Can they confide in you, and recommend you? Be sure to answer these questions.
The pitch continuities:
“As former CMO of a growth stage company, and as a partner at SWARM, I know first hand how difficult is can be to build brand when you’re working on 20,000 other things. This is why we built Ludlow, for ourselves, and it’s already led to a few projects for our digital agency.”
You. 1. Establish authority by knowing your subject matter and market, and 2. Show how whatever you’re pitching has already led to something good for someone.
Seal the deal. If you and other party are really in an elevator, chances are your 30 seconds are up, or almost up. In speed dating, probably the same. If you’re taking part in a pitch contest and have five minutes, let’s hope you brought slides. But for the sake of argument we’re in an elevator.
The pitch concludes:
“What do you think? Can I get that intro to Codecademy’s CMO? And I’d love for you to try it as well, I can swing by sometime next week and show you guys how Ludlow works. It’ll take 15 minutes.”
Obviously, there may be cultural differences in the way you approach people and where, but get this message across nonetheless. Set up a meeting, a phone call, a chat, what have you, and when you go meet whoever it was you were pitching to, bring materials, you’ll now have time to elaborate on your product.
Rinse and Repeat. There’s a reason we have a saying that goes practice makes perfect. Practice, do it in front of a mirror, on camera, record yourself, time yourself. Remember, don’t be over anxious, test it out on colleagues and friends. Take feedback, rework and repeat the process again until it’s solid as a rock.
Do this, and you’ll be pitching like a pro in no time, and just for fun, let’s see what the whole pitch looks like.
“Hi, I’m Jacek a partner at Ludlow. Ludlow helps small teams almost seamlessly create and send newsletters with almost no input, saving hours monthly for marketers. Would you mind introducing me to someone at Codecademy, I think they could really use it, I love their content but it’s so sporadic. Aside from new feature emails I’d love to get tips from the team on how I can make myself a better developer. As former CMO of a growth stage company, and as a partner at SWARM, I know first hand how difficult is can be to build brand when you’re working on 20,000 other things. This is why we built Ludlow, for ourselves, and it’s already led to a few projects for our digital agency. What do you think? Can I get that intro to Codecademy’s CMO? And I’d love for you to try it as well, I can swing by sometime next week and show you guys how Ludlow works. It’ll take 15 minutes”
Meaning back to the drawing board on this one, and it sounded a bit off. But for the sake of exercise it was written along with this article.
And that’s that. As a bonus, stay far far far away from getting into technical details with your audience, we’ve covered it before, and we’ll say it again. The most important thing is to get your message across concisely.
Whether you’re a new entrepreneur who wants an idea made into an app, an established venture looking for product support, or a senior VP of marketing at a fortune 500 seeking a new vendor, there are five key factors you should take into consideration when looking for a digital agency.
The age-old adage “you get what you pay for” mostly holds true with digital agencies as with most businesses. However, cost should not be your primary qualifying factor—it should be reputation.
There’s psychology that goes into closing a deal, and most senior accounts folks will have this down to a science. They’ll quickly identify your physical and emotional cues, and adjust the conversation as needed to close the deal. This is perfectly fine, however sometimes the sales team is not on par with the execution.
Meaning, you may be paying a premium for a sub par product. In order to safeguard yourself from poor product, design, or development resources, reach out to the agency’s former clients, and extensively use the things they have built. Do this both on your own accord, and ask the agency for references. If you find issues with the UX for example, ask why that is the case. It may be something the client implemented after the relationship ended, or the agency won’t have a good answer. In that case, move on.
Regardless of your company size, if the agency isn’t willing to share their designs, documents, code with you while you’re on project. Run. This not only indicates an agency that may be willing to hide things from you, but they may also use your inability to access the work you’ve paid for as leverage down the line to get more money out of you, or strong-hand you into retaining the client-agency relationship. An agency should protect itself contractually, not by withholding work you’ve already paid for.
An agency should also adapt to you, if for example you already use Jira for your project software management, but the agency uses Trello, they should adapt to your workflow.
It’s not unusual for agencies to subcontract work, but have them be open about it. If you’re paying for onshore development services, make sure those developers are actually on-shore, or local to your region.
Even if an agency isn’t sub-contracting, they may be offshoring work to a subsidiary or foreign arm. Always ask where your work is being executed, and by whom, ask to meet the developers. You’re getting into a multi-month relationship with these folks and will be working alongside each other.
You’re hiring an agency because you may not have those skills in house, or you’re looking for an outside vendor to take on extra work; at the end, you’re hiring people for their unique talent, knowledge and skill set.
If you’ve never built a mobile app before, make sure to take in the advice the agency is giving before adding a feature that you really want but everyone else is fighting you to keep it out. They’re experts, they have your best interests in mind. At the end, you have the final word, but you hired the agency for their knowledge and expertise.
If you’re a PM at a fortune 500, work with the agency, they’re there to be your support and make you look better. Talk to your accounts lead, or PM and make sure to voice any concerns you may have, deadlines you’ll need to meet, or pressure you’re getting from the higher ups.
This is a relationship business, and the goal of an agency is to give you results. Always!
The happiest clients are always the ones who are the most involved. While there is going to be a schedule when you’ll meet with your agency, this is a bare minimum. If you’re asked for feedback give it, if you want to come in and work alongside the devs for a day, do so. But most importantly, the agency should understand your stakeholders, and ensure that the needs of everyone along the value chain are being satisfied.
While agency folks are experts at what they do, they may not have the industry specific or niche knowledge that you do, which is why it’s incredibly important for you to communicate this to them along with what goals you have and what KPIs you’re going to be tracking.
Many folks will try and sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, be wary of those.
Check out more of our thoughts on the industry here.
When deciding to venture down the road of entrepreneurship, many people will tell you that you need to define a problem, attack the problem, and of course provide a solution in order to develop a viable product. Killer products should do more than solve problems.
I hear proponents of the problem identification approach transfer advice all too often to wide eyed wannabe entrepreneurs. Quite frankly, I wish they’d stop.
Why? Two reasons. Some of the most innovative products (and mind you not all) don’t solve problems, they provide value instead; they satisfy a latent need. By looking first at problem identification you limit yourself to the scope of what’s already out there. This effectively blocks you from making something completely new, unique and phenomenal. Think Hyperloop.
Don’t buy it? Fine, let’s look at a product examples.
Example numero uno, and only uno cause this is gonna be a quick one: Twitter.
Let me ask you a question. Was there a deep-rooted underlying need to broadcast 140 characters in February 2006 via non-text message means? The answer is no, and the longer answer is nope!
Proponents of the problem ideology will claim that it was solving a communication issue, that people were writing too much on blogs, and it needed to be less. Truth is, you can make a case for anything, i.e. read this Quora Link, it’s short. But the honest truth (and unless Evan Williams tells me otherwise) is that they just built some cool shit.
Why did it work? Because it was riddled with the V word. Value. There was massive value in broadcasting a message that limited you to the character limit in a SMS, but on the web (this is after all pre iPhone revolution).
What was that value? Unclear at launch, but people have a fun way of bringing about ingenuity and discovering excellent uses for awesome things. Now, Twitter is a news reader, a conversation medium, a broadcast network, a popularity contest, etc. It’s also a dynamic and robust platform that provides tantamount value to masses of individuals. Even if it’s stock price shows otherwise.
But what if Twitter & Co. was devised initially as a solution to a problem? What if it were devised as say a “social news reader” – problem, your friends and you have similar interests, and the web has loads of blogs, how do you find out about the blogs your friends read? You make a website that lets people share the blogs they read via social means. Lame.
It’s extraordinarily limited in scope. Products that are typically engineered to resolve an issue will do just that, they may have sustainable business models, they may even be profitable, but they’re never going to be game changers.
Since we’re on the topic of Twitter, I reckon we ought to look as well at Snapchat, it too didn’t really do anything but send short videos between users and has since grown into a phenomenal means of delivering ads and content to Snake People (Snake People) and is worth about 20 billion to boot.
Whereas on the other side of the spectrum you have something like a Google+, it was phenomenally engineered to fill the gap between Facebook and Twitter, case in deck that shows exactly how Google+ was contrived and positioned.
And as for what it does, it does well (or poorly depending depending what you’re studying), it fits into this strangely ambiguous space, between the interest and social layers. But it just misses something, and that something is – it’s not organic, it’s a platform that was engineered to fill a void in the market (or to get Google into the social game), but it was never built with “cool shit” in mind, the product is just too analytically devised, and it will never have the scope or reach or ingenuity of a Twitter or Snapchat, because even Google’s billions in cash just can’t buy that certain Je ne sais quoi.
If you’re interested in hearing more of our industry thoughts, check them out here.
Experienced entrepreneurs know very well ways that they can avoid common pitfalls in new product and company development. This however is often not the case with young and budding entrepreneurs. Here are just a few ways to sink via common startup pitfalls, and what you can do you to avoid them.
Having a poorly defined value proposition will cause you headache after headache when looking at, and presenting your business model. You have to know who you are targeting, what you’re offering, and why they would want to use your product or service. Who is your customer?
No matter what you think you will not underpin the world in a year (or even a few), you will not have an annual run rate of $20,000,000 by end of year two.
Your customers are your lifeblood, if they are unhappy your bottom line will suffer, if they are happy, they’ll be repeat buyers, and even help market your product. Simple as that.
Unsavory marketing practices, overly creative accounting, being unfair to your employees are just some of the things that will in the end ruin your business, don’t do them.
Sure, you may have a product that could cure cancer, end world hunger, and fly humans to the moon, but if no one knows about it, no one will use it. Market it, and market it effectively. Set the right KPIs for your business, and track them.
Meaning, poor cash management. You may have $250,000 that you received in the form Friends and Family, and you think it’s great so you pay a premium for services that could otherwise be outsourced, delivered in a more cost effective way, and get everyone brand new Mac Pros to write e-mails on. Not a good idea, cash is king, save it.
Timing is everything, think about the market, the economy, the sector you’re in, where is it now, where will it be in 3 months, 6, a year or two out. You don’t have to change the world today, and remember launching today may lead to failure, just like launching too late may lead to failure as well.
Think you can do everything yourself? You can’t. Involve others. Even if you’ve decided to start alone, bring in friends, talk to your network, and see if people will help you out. You don’t have to give them an equity stake in the beginning see how you work together. If you work well, you may want to ask them to come on board with you.
Good ideas scale well, multi million ideas scale at their core. How big can your product realistically get? Who is your customer, and how can fast can you grow without compromising service.
Talk, and share your idea with people you trust, friends, family, colleagues, these people are inevitable to the success of your business, you don’t know everything, and collaboration can more often than not fix problems before they arise.
Doubt is natural, you will have ups and downs, this is completely natural, but if you doubt your idea within the first month, or three of your startup career. Chances are you’ll become disheartened quite early on and quit. Save yourself the trouble and thoroughly analyze your concept before taking the plunge.
Can you think of something else? Let us know, and good luck!
Today we present you with 25 quotes regarding entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs, some hit home, some are inspirational and some are funny, but they’re all relevant! These are quotes for entrepreneurs, from entrepreneurs:
– Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Enterprises
– J. Paul Getty, Former oil tycoon and once the richest man in America
– Thomas Edison, inventor and scientist
– Vidal Sassoon, entrepreneur
– Peter Drucker
– Robert T. Kiyosaki, author, entrepreneur, investor
– Mark Twain, author
– Steve Jobs, Apple Inc., the line he used to lure John Sculley as Apple’s CEO
– Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft Corporation
– Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop
– Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Enterprises
– Walt Disney
– Mario Andretti
– David Ogilvy
– Adam Osborne
– Michael Gerber, author, entrepreneur
– Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries
– Mahatma Gandhi, political and spiritual leader
– Lisa M. Amos
– Steve Jobs, Apple Inc.
– Lakshmi Mittal
– John D. Rockefeller
– Ross Perot
– Natalie Clifford Barney
– William Shakespeare, author
Check out more of our thoughts here!