October 4, 2012

ARRGGGGHH I’m sick of Crappy elevator pitches

Business Ideas

0  comments

If you are pitching a startup or business idea to me please use this format:

I / We are

Selling / Designing / Making /Thinking about

[use a verb that indicates what stage you’re at]

A Device / App / Consumer Product / Medical instrument

[use a noun that indicates what your product is and don’t say SOLUTION]

That will allow

Sales VPs of Fortune 500 / Women over 40 / Left handed First Basemen

[use a noun that defines your customer]

To

Drive Faster / Clean up their email faster / Kill bugs cheaper / Travel through time

[use a phrase that explains what the customer can DO with your product that they couldn’t do before.]

 

That’s IT. No Buzzwords, no jargon. If your 8th grader can’t figure out what you do then don’t waste my time with it.

[UPDATE] After reading Brad Feld, I’m willing concede you may need 2 or 3 sentences to do this well, but not more than a paragraph. If it takes longer than that, you haven’t put enough prep time into it. And if you haven’t done that, why should I spend my time listening to you?

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About the author 

John Seiffer

I've been an entrepreneur since we were called Business Owners. I opened my first company in 1979 - the only one that ever lost money. In 1994 I started coaching other business owners dealing with the struggles of growth. In 1998 I became the third President of the International Coach Federation. (That's a story for another day.) Coaching just the owners wasn't enough for some. So I began to do organizational coaching as well. Now I don't have time to work with as many companies as I'd like, so I've packaged my techniques into this Virtual CEO Boot Camp.

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