"To be honest...our business will not make money...at least for the first two year...
But if I tell you that our business will make the world cleaner, will make the people happier, will make them prouder of themselves, and ultimately bring millions in revenue, do you still reluctant to put in your money?"
This is the opening speech of my elevator pitch for my business idea in EBPY (European Business Plan) competition. Tried to be catchy to grab the attention of the judge at the first few seconds. The night before, when I was practicing it in front of my wife, I lost the lines several times in the middle of the pitch, which certainly will be embarrassing if the same thing happen on the real stage. Fortunately I somehow managed to memorize the whole script and conveyed the pitch naturally in front of the audiences.
So, what is elevator pitch?
According to Wiki, an elevator pitch is a short summary used to quickly and simply define a person, profession, product, service, organization or event and its value proposition. The name "Elevator Pitch" reflects the idea that it should be possible to deliver the summary in the time span of an elevator ride, or approximately thirty seconds to two minutes.
Ya, the big bosses, the rich guys, and those who can help to start/expand/rescue your business are always busy with little time to talk to you. So, your message need to be very sharp, precise, and "seductive" to stimulate their interest when you "accidentally" meet them in an elevator.
For EBPY competition, the elevator pitch scoring criteria is based on
1) Impact - whether you can grab attention in first 20 seconds
2) Content - idea is clear, superior, addressable target market, existing customer, evidence and traction, quality of the team, money required, exit strategy, likely financial return
3) Delivery - simple and fluent
Quite happy to be selected as one of the top 4 presenters in my cohort, but the judge, a VC criticized the profitability of my business idea. Well, it is true, my business is more on social contribution rather than profit contribution.
Forgot where I heard this from, "Don't care about money making at the first place, when your business are doing good for the society, the money will follow..."
May be I should target an angel, instead of a VC for my business idea...
