provided at the Crafting a Fundable Roadmap event, which was put on by SDForum and Pillsbury

1. Developing an Elevator Pitch
That will Hook Investors
Laurie Lumenti Garty
Shai Goldman

2. What is an Elevator Pitch?
From Wikipedia:
• “An elevator pitch (or elevator speech) is an overview
of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name
reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in
the time span of an elevator ride (say, thirty seconds or
100-150 words).
• The term is typically used in the context of an
entrepreneur pitching an idea to a venture capitalist to
receive funding. Venture capitalists often judge the
quality of an idea and team on the basis of the quality of
its elevator pitch, and will ask entrepreneurs for the
elevator pitch to quickly weed out bad ideas.”

3. Why Do You Need One
• Qualifies Who you are
• Clarifies what you are doing
• Helps people decide whether or not to invest
time into you
• Helps Investors weed out ideas
• Grabs attention
• Call to action to spend time with you

4. When Are Elevator Pitches Used?
• Introduction to who you are
– Conversation starter
• Pitching Your Ideas
• Raising Capital
• Selling your Product/Service
• Recruiting talent
• Growing business
• Introducing new concepts/ideas

5. Common Mistakes...
• Too Long/Too Short (should be around 30
Seconds/100-150 words)
• Unclear
• Filled with jargon, buzz phrases and
acronyms
• Focus on wrong or irrelevant information
• Boring

6. The Basics of an Elevator Pitch
• Introduce yourself (name, title, company)
• Description of your product and the Investment
opportunity/problem you are solving
– Include things like stage, size of market, competitive
differentiator, revenues, team, funding requirements
• The Hook – what are the strengths of your investment
opportunity?
• Know your audience – what you would use to hook a
customer is different than an investor
• Call to Action
• What are you looking for and/or are your next steps?

7. What Hooks Investors?
• Focus on qualities that Make your Company
Unique and Stand Out:
– Customer Traction/Revenue
– Rock Star Team
– Key Partnerships
– Competitive Advantage
– Big exit opportunity

8. Words are not Enough...
• Remember to Smile!
• Be Calm
• Don’t talk too fast or too slow – use a steady
pace
• Make Eye Contact
• Be Enthusiastic and Let your Passion Show!
• Don’t pull out a white paper or rely on a Power
Point to tell your story

9. The test..
• Is your pitch short/clear/concise enough?
• Is it easy enough that everyone understands it?
• Does it leave the audience wanting to know
more or to get involved?
• Were there follow up questions?

10. What Next?
• Be Prepared for Follow up Questions
– Who do you compete with?
– Where are you in your development?
– What is your distribution strategy?
– How will you make money?
• Be Prepared for No Response
– What then?

11. Resources for Elevator Pitches
• Your advisors (law firms, bank (SVB!), etc.)
• People in your network
• Vator.tv
• Techcrunch Elevator Pitches
• Events – great place to practice!
• Blogs

12. Getting Started...
1. Describe the pain you are solving
2. Quantify the pain
3. Describe the product/technology
4. Describe the value
5. What are the benefits?
6. Give them a hook!
7. What are you looking for?

13. Sample Format...
• For the quantity of target customers
• who are dissatisfied with current solution/product
• Your company name is a category
• that provides key benefits/problem solving opportunity
• Unlike competitive alternatives, we solve this problem by
key feature/advantage/benefit
• We are stage and have give hook like: world class team
including name, revenues, partnerships, demo....pick your
best selling points!
• Strong closing statement and are currently raising how
much and or round (seed/A)
• and are looking for the profile of investor/VC

14. Thank You!
LAURIE LUMENTI GARTY SHAI GOLDMAN
Deal Team Leader Director
SVB Entrepreneurial Services SVB - Entrepreneurial Services
Group Group
PH: 415.512.4244 MOBILE 408.205.2557
Email: llumenti@svb.com Email: sgoldman@svb.com