brisebois blog

at Techcrunch.

A contest. Also, a great way to think through your elevator speech.

What it is, Formulas for composing one, and Do’s and Don’ts.

Related posts:

Vator.tv - online elevator pitches

Real-world elevator pitches

Your elevator speech… the final frontier…

Excellent guide to prepare your elevator speech

Vator.tv? The name came from “elevator,” as in “elevator pitch,” which is used to describe a brief overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. It’s typically delivered in the time span of an elevator ride. However, since our site is also an online marketplace of new ideas, and businesses formed around them, we also think of Vator.tv as a platform for inno-Vators.

Vator.tv is located in San Francisco and Palo Alto. It was launched in June 2007 and is funded by angel investors (vator.tv)

Plenty of real-life cases to analyze and discuss…

Related posts:

Real-world elevator pitches

Your elevator speech… the final frontier…

Excellent guide to prepare your elevator speech

A source of many “real-world” elevator pitches, such as the following:

clipped from advisorgarage.wordpress.com buji is seeking both investors and certified fund-raising professionals in providing/securing a $3 million equity contribution to allow the company to extend its premier poison ivy product line into an expanded portfolio of active-body skin care products, focused on preventing common skin care conditions of active consumers. Market research, consumer trends and intuitive knowledge all reaffirm the business opportunity for establishing the first naturally-based active lifestyle skin care line in the mass market. The company, which was formed in July 2004 and has distribution at Rite Aid, REI and other accounts, is seeking its first equity capital raise. The company, which operates on an outsourcing platform, has been founder funded and financed and is seeking this infusion to expand its product line, grow distribution and fund marketing and operations.

“If information is a jungle, the internet would be the tourist guidebook written by a person who has never been there. A librarian would be the guide who has lived there all his/her life. Sure, the guide book would give you some interesting possible facts about the jungle, but the librarian would get you through that jungle safely, and using the most efficient route while pointing out anything you’d want to know along the way.” (The Distant Librarian)

We all remember the opening lines of our favorite TV shows. Well, idea-sandbox recommends that we find inspiration in them for our elevator speech.

It can be challenging to boil down what you do into a short blurb… For inspiration, I suggest paying attention to the 30-second narrations at the beginning of TV shows.At the start of each episode producers deliver the swift backstory and premise of the show. If this was our first viewing, we would understand what makes the show worth attention.

This is EXACTLY what you need for YOUR elevator pitch… What’s your 30-second blurb? Your backstory that builds awareness of the premise of you (or your project, company, etc…) and lets me know why you’re worth my attention?

An elevator speech is as essential as a business card. You need to be able to say who you are, what you do, what you are interested in doing and how you can be a resource to your listeners. If you donʹt have an elevator speech, people wonʹt know what you really do.

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE- Before writing any part of your elevator speech, research your audience. You will be much more likely to succeed if your elevator speech is clearly targeted at the individuals you are speaking to. Having a ʹgenericʹ elevator pitch is almost certain to fail.

KNOW YOURSELF - Before you can convince anyone of your proposition you need to know exactly what it is. You need to define precisely what you are offering, what problems you can solve and what benefits you bring to a prospective contact or employers.

Answer the following questions:
1. What are your key strengths?
2. What adjectives come to mind to describe you?
3. What is it you are trying to ʹsellʹ or let others know about you?
4. Why are you interested in the company or industry the person represents?

OUTLINE YOUR TALK - start an outline of your material using bullet points. You donʹt need to add any detail at this stage; simply write a few notes to help remind you of what you really want to say. They don’t need to be complete sentences.

You can use the following questions to start your outline:
1. Who am I?
2. What do I offer?
3. What problem is solved?
4. What are the main contributions I can make?
5. What should the listener do as a result of hearing this?

FINALIZE YOUR SPEECH - Now that you have your outline of your material, you can finalize the speech. The key to doing this is to expand on the notes you made by writing out each section in full.

To help you do this, follow these guidelines:
1. Take each note you made and write a sentence about it.
2. Take each of the sentences and connect them together with additional phrases to make them flow.
3. Go through what you have written and change any long words or jargon into everyday language.
4. Go back through the re-written material and cut out unnecessary words.
5. Finalize your speech by making sure it is no more than 90 words long.

(source is a pdf file)