Elevator Pitch Template

Do you struggle to pitch your startup simply when you are raising from investors?

This is a template format you can paint by numbers to make an elevator pitch that is not totally rubbish, and have you stuttering.

​This was made by Saba Karim when he worked at TechStars. He writes:

I read and listen to about 120 pitches per week. What I love is that all the ideas and the people behind them are unique – what I don’t love is that everyone has a different pitching format.

Sometimes, I’m yearning for more information, and other times I’m waiting for it to stop. Not because I’m impatient, or a bad person – neither is the investor or the friend you’re pitching – but because we know you’re super passionate and can speak for hours on it, we want to understand the core details so we can learn if we can be helpful as early as possible.

Using this format, your pitch will be 42 seconds. Your pitch will be 8-9 lines and cover the basic information the inestor needs to understand you, the startup, stage, and your ask.

Afterwards, will you share other areas that are of interest to the listener/investor, such as: why you started the company, what you were doing before this, how you and the co-founders met, your long-term vision, go-to-market strategy, competitors, etc.

This is an ok place to start if you need help to get your initial verbal pitch done. But it’s basically an updated version of Startup Madlibs by the Founder Institute.

Elevator pitch outline

1. INTRO

__________ is my Xth startup.

I/we have _____ co-founders and/or ___ people on the team.

The HQ is in __________, and we were founded ___ months ago.

2. OVERVIEW

We’re focused on ____________________ (target audience),

that helps/solves  ____________________ (problem),

by offering a  ____________________ (solution).

3. CLOSING

To date, we’ve had ____________________ (traction)

ie. Revenue, funds raised, users, PoC’s, LOI’s, signups, surveys.

My ask is ____________________.

Notes:

Situational:
If you have time left or if you think it’s relevant, two common additions are:

We are different/better than __________ because of __________. (competition)

The time is now because __________. (market)

Note on traction:
If you’re in the early-stages of building and don’t have any traction:

My past experience/expertise is in __________ which is why we’ll win. (relation)

Example of an elevator pitch

This example is assuming you are Melanie Perkins, cofounder of Canva.

1. INTRO

​Canva is my second startup.

​I am one of two co-founders and have one full-time developer on the team.

​The HQ is in Sydney, Australia, and we were founded two years ago.

​2. OVERVIEW

​We enable people who have no design experience, to create professional designs using expansive pre-made templates.

​Canva has combined a simple-to-use web interface, Adobe InDesign and Google Docs – which will disrupt the desktop publishing industry.

3. CLOSING

​To date, our 3,000 users have been spending an average of $300 a year.

​My ask is $1.5M, that will help us get to 3M users prior to our Series A.