Elevator Pitch Template & Example

My consulting clients often struggle to condense their investor pitch down to a few pithy sentences that tell their story in a way most likely to get some attention. See below for my recommended approach. Some of you will notice this template covers all the elements of a startup investor pitch deck. That is no coincidence. Your elevator pitch is the 30–60 second version of your 5–30 minute pitch deck. My recommended template addresses the following key questions:

• Who — Who are you and your customers?
• What — What does your company do?
• Why — Why should anyone care?
• How — How big is your market? How do you make money? How do you acquire customers? How much experience does your team have? How much progress have you made? How much do you need to raise? How will you use the proceeds?

Pro Tip: In a face-to-face conversation, start with the first paragraph (who, what, why) and then pause to see if your opening salvo has sparked any interest. If yes, continue. If not, cut your losses and move on.

Elevator Pitch?Template

Company name?is?solution category. We help?primary customer/user primary customer/user benefit(s). And we help?secondary customer/user secondary customer/user benefit(s). Our competitive advantage is?competitive advantage(s).

We are targeting the?addressable market. We make money by?business model. We acquire customers?customer acquisition strategy. We get a?LTV to CAC multiple?return on our customer acquisition cost. To date,?traction.

Our team has?team advantages. We are seeking?funding ask?which we will use to?use of proceeds.

Elevator Pitch?Example - Short Version

Gleamr?is?“Uber for mobile auto detailers”. We help?consumers get an affordable, professional auto detail wherever they are, whenever they want.?And we help?mobile auto detailer spend less time chasing customers and more time detailing cars. Our competitive advantage is?a 12–18 month time-to-market lead, patent-pending technology, significant traction and an experienced team that has done this before.

Elevator Pitch?Example - Full Version

Gleamr?is?“Uber for mobile auto detailers”. We help?consumers get an affordable, professional auto detail wherever they are, whenever they want.?And we help?mobile auto detailer spend less time chasing customers and more time detailing cars. Our competitive advantage is?a 12–18 month time-to-market lead, patent-pending technology, significant traction and an experienced team that has done this before.

We are targeting?the $12B US market for mobile auto details. We make money?by collecting a 15% transaction fee per detail from auto detailers. We acquire customers?using online marketing campaigns and referral programs. We get a?300%?return on our customer acquisition cost. To date,?we have signed up 1,600 detailers and 16,000 consumers and we’re currently making $162K a month and doubling users and revenue every month.

Our team has?50+ years of relevant industry and technology expertise, and recently built and sold a similar business. We are seeking?$7M in Series A funding?which we will use to?fund the next 2 years of our business plan, achieve profitability and reach $48M in ARR.