Elevator pitching – the good, bad and ugly

Last night’s VC Taskforce Elevator Pitch Roundtable was quite the eye opener.  

10 CEOs each get up and present their elevator pitch in 90 seconds.  A panel of 5 VCs then spent 5 min in Q&A, followed by a 2 min critique and scoring from 1-5.  The rest of us – around 50 people total – are just fly’s on the wall.  

Two clear groups emerged: the obscure but competent idea, and the arrogant bastards.  In this group, we had  3 to 6.  Twice as many arrogant bastards.  Both the decent and the TERRIBLE pitches were really useful for me, and I pulled out a few points for any elevator pitch.  They may seem obvious, but apparently 66% of people don’t grok em, so here they are:

1. Start off with what you do.  Hi, my company is X, and we do Y.  Right up front.  Don’t set things up.  Don’t make excuses.  Don’t joke.  Don’t try and ask questions to “connect” with your audience.  Just say what you do.  NO ONE did this. Not one. At least 50% of the pitches the VC’s needed to ask during the Q&A, “Just what is it exactly?”. The rest it emerged, but it was like pulling teeth!  
2. Explain what job people hire you to solve.  Put another way, why should we care, and why does the user care?  You probably think this is obvious, and maybe 5% of the time it is, but you’re the expert, no one else is, so dumb it down.  
3. Make no assumptions.  OK, this should possibly be #1.  One guy spent the entire 90 seconds talking about “this”.  He even pointed to a physical device.  I thought it was a cell phone when he flashed it.  So 90 seconds he’s talking about bringing wireless to cell phones, and I’m thinking he’s a complete idiot.  Turns out “this” is actually a video camera.  And no one today has a wifi enabled video camera.  Ohhh….!  A bad idea still, but at least I know what he’s talking about now.  Don’t assume anyone understands the opportunity.  Don’t assume the market is clear.  It’s a hard line to balance, you don’t want to explain the basics that they get.  Understand the audience.
4. Never get defensive.  Ever.  Ever.  Ever.  If you’re getting questions, it’s a good thing!  Answer them.  SOB #1 last night immediatly assumed that the VCs were idiots, didn’t get what he was pitching, and responded to one very valid question about the company name by proudly stating that his previous company sold for $XXX million dollars.  Followed by explaining why he knew things the VCs didn’t, but couldn’t explain them.  He got all 1s. 
5. An elevator pitch doesn’t include financials, sales plan, etc.  The point is get em hooked so they can ask for more info.  What is the idea/product, the opportunity, and the problem you’re solving.  That’s it.  5 of the presenters wasted 30+ seconds talking about various internal details.

Some other random notes of interest:

• One of the VCs was concerned about a 3 year break-even.  Thought it was too long by far.  Someone, please show me what % of VC funded companies break even in 3 years, let alone 2 or less.  I’d guess it’s vanishingly small.
• One presenter dressed in jeans a t-shirt and sneakers.  Turns out, he had one of the best pitches, if not the best.  But in my mind, that initial disconnect on clothing mattered.  He overcame it admirably, but why start at a disadvantage?
• If I were a VC, there wasn’t one single idea that was interesting to invest in.