An elevator pitch can make or break your company, and often does. If you cannot articulate the value of your company, product, service, or cause within 60 seconds, you may not get the chance to be heard. An elevator pitch (or 60 second pitch) should be on the tip of your tongue so that at anytime you can sound credible, convincing, and leave your listener with a memorable moment about you and your company.
Below is one of the most creative examples of an elevator pitch I have seen in a long time. In just 53 seconds, they will capture your attention and you won’t look away until the end. Here it is:
I have returned from an amazing trip abroad. I met many wonderful people and had the opportunity to present The Top 10 Mistakes People Make In Presentations And How To Avoid Them several times to a very diverse audience of people from many parts of the world. The most fun part was #8, which is Cultural Unawareness. It’s a hoot and a laugh when people explain how a gesture, a word, a picture, and a reference to food mean one thing in one culture and something completely different in another.
I also just received this note from one of the people who joined me for the presentation I recently gave in Liverpool, England. I thought it would be fun to share it with you…
Dear Nathan,
What a pleasure it was to attend your presentation in Liverpool. We met prior to your presentation, during your presentation, and after. You were kind enough to present me with your book on demo presentations. It was so good I read it in one sitting!! I subsequently read it at a slower pace and what was remarkable was how the contents of your presentation reflected the book contents. I assure you it was a memorable presentation. I was the guy who in our pre-meeting chat explained to you my invention and the difficulty I had in getting people to understand what I was talking about. You came up, within a minute, that wonderful description of a car and space ship analogy. I know this was totally effective because of the audience reaction during the networking after your presentation. Thank you.
We in the UK desparately need your skills. In fact I think the whole of Europe does. I recently sat through a European wide series of business presentations that was abysmal without exception. Nathan, it was a joy attending your presentation, I learned a lot and look forward to developing our relationship.
Very best wishes,
Rodney Jackson
Managing Director
Cojac Limited
My host was Steve Smith from Liverpool Vision. Thank you Steve for assembling a great group of people who participated on every level. I had a really enjoyable time with everyone.
I am just finishing up a gig in Dublin, Ireland working with Enterprise Ireland for the second time. I want to publicly acknowledge my hosts Des, Cathie, and Cian for all of their support and help during these past two days. You are truly wonderful people. The start-up companies you support in your program are lucky to have you. I look forward to the next time we get to work together.
I also want to thank Jonathan Baer, from Threshold Ventures. He came with me to Ireland and delivered a compelling presentation on how to raise money. Being an accomplished Silicon Valley venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur, Jon added real solid value for the attendees by helping them really understand how an investor thinks and how to approach them. Thank you Jon!
With DEMOspring 2010 behind us, everyone is now looking forward to seeing how the experience will continue to pay off. Whether you went to the conference to find investors, get media coverage, attract customers, or just network with really amazing people, it was a huge success. Everyone I spoke with expressed how the quality and caliber of companies assembled by Matt Marshall and the DEMO team were the highest ever and exceeded the expectations of many.
eXaudios was the winner of the $1 Million Media Prize. We worked together remotely from San Francisco to Ramat Gan in Israel for the better part of 6 weeks leading up to the conference. At times, each of the eXaudios team were in different countries when we had practice scheduled. Without fail, Skype kept us together and allowed all of us to connect easily. Each and everyone of the eXaudios team were delightful to work with and I truly hope they see amazing results from all of their effort.
Here’s is their demo reel from the show:
See you next time in the San Francisco Bay Area in September for DEMOfall 2010!
I have reached the end of two full days of dress rehearsals with all of the companies presenting their 6 minutes on stage at DEMOspring 2010 beginning tomorrow. There are a lot of really amazing companies in the line up, so stay tuned for the postings as the conference proceeds. To see a list of the companies presenting, go here: http://demo.com/event/demospring2010/agenda.html#
