Elevator Pitch
An elevator pitch is the 30 to 60 second verbal summary of a startup's business, used as the cold opening of investor or sales conversations. It's designed to be delivered in the time of an elevator ride with a stranger, with the goal of producing enough interest to earn a follow-up conversation. The name dates to the late 1980s and refers to the apocryphal scenario of catching a hard-to-reach executive in an elevator with a single brief window to make an impression.
The formula that works for most startups: name + category + the specific customer + the specific outcome + the differentiating insight, with The Ask as an optional closer when the audience is an investor. Worked example: "We're Stripe, payment infrastructure for internet businesses. We replace the months of bank integration work with seven lines of code, which is why companies from new startups to Amazon use us instead of building it themselves." That's ~30 seconds, names a concrete customer set (internet businesses), states a specific outcome (months of work replaced with seven lines of code), and signals scale (Amazon uses it). Alternative templates: the comparison pitch ("we're [familiar reference] for [different context]"; "Uber for X" was abused but the structure works), the problem-solution pitch ("for [target customer] who [pain], we are [solution] that [differentiator]"), and the metric pitch ("we've [traction milestone] in [time period] by [unique approach]"). The 60-second cap matters because it forces choice: you cannot fit your full deck into a minute, so you have to decide what the single most-important point is. The test that catches weak elevator pitches: deliver it to a friend, then ask them to repeat it back. If they can't, the pitch hasn't landed.
Ryan's Take
The elevator pitch is harder than the pitch deck because you don't have slides to hide behind. If you can't explain your business clearly in 30 to 60 seconds out loud, you don't understand your business clearly yet. The discipline of writing the elevator pitch is the discipline of deciding what the actual point is, which most founders never quite commit to. The pitch that says "we do many things for many people" is a non-pitch; the pitch that says "we do this specific thing for this specific customer" is the start of an actual business. The elevator pitch is the forcing function. Write it first, before the deck.
What founders get wrong: Trying to fit the whole business into the pitch. The elevator pitch is supposed to make someone want the full pitch, not be the full pitch. If your 60 seconds is exhaustive, you've made the listener feel they've already heard everything; if your 60 seconds is intriguing, you've made them want the next conversation. The goal is curiosity, not completeness.
Related: Pitch Deck · Value Proposition · One-Pager · Executive Summary
FAQ
What is an elevator pitch?
A 30 to 60 second verbal summary of a startup's business, designed to be delivered in the time of an elevator ride, used as the cold opening of any investor conversation, sales meeting, networking introduction, or coffee chat. The goal is producing enough interest to earn a follow-up conversation.
What is the formula for an elevator pitch?
Name + category + the specific customer + the specific outcome + the differentiating insight. Alternative templates: comparison ("X for Y"), problem-solution ("for [target] who [pain], we are [solution] that [differentiator]"), or metric pitch ("we've [traction] in [time period] by [approach]").
How long should an elevator pitch be?
30 to 60 seconds spoken. The cap matters because it forces you to decide what the single most-important point is. A pitch that requires more time is a deck; a pitch that takes under 30 seconds typically isn't specific enough to be memorable. The goal of the 60-second version is curiosity, not completeness.
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