Elevator pitch resources

[Mel Chua]

For Greg: 15 minute Mel reading sprint, summarized.

Purpose of an elevator pitch: "Tell me more." A great elevator pitch 
gets you a meeting.

Examples: http://pitches.techcrunch.com/

Criteria that helps you get meetings:

* Short. <60sec to say, <150 words.
* Easily translateable across audiences and languages.
* Includes as many of the things below as possible. (Yep, in a couple 
sentences.)

Things pitches should have / questions they should answer:

* A hook. (Which I think is what we are trying to develop here.)
* Who introduced you? (If applicable.)
* Who's the user?
* What's the product?
* What does it help the user do?
* Who's the team? Name-droppin' is ok.
* How are you going to make money? (In our case, be financially 
sustainable?)
* Who's the competition? Can you make a comparison metaphor with 
anything well-known? ("We're the Cadillac of macaroni." "Like Facebook 
for harmonica players.")
* What's your differentiator/competitive advantage over said 
competition? (If you don't have competition, something's wrong. Why 
haven't others solved the problem before?)
* What's the immediate action you're taking, and the long-term 
impact/goal you're going to have?
* Where/how can they find out more? (This can be a URL.)
* A request - what do you want? Ask for something.

Rhetorical techniques for catchiness: See 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech, especially

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anadiplosis and 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epanalepsis
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiasmus
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symploce as a combination of 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaphora and 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistrophe
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyptoton

Bibliography:

http://venturehacks.com/articles/elevator-pitch
http://www.businessknowhow.com/money/elevator.htm
http://www.dumblittleman.com/2007/08/how-to-craft-killer-elevator-pitch-that.html
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/may2005/sb2005054_8868_sb037.htm 
(Note: 2005 article, but the author invites readers to "share your 
successful pitches with me via e-mail. I'll gladly tell you what I think 
of the pitch you've crafted." Should we take advantage of this offer? 
Can't hurt.)
http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2006/01/practicing-art-of-pitchcraft.html
http://www.elevatorpitchessentials.com/essays/ElevatorPitch.html
http://www.startupnation.com/pages/contact/elevator_pitch.asp
http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/archive/act_joos1.html
http://www.mit100k.org/epc/epc-resources/
http://www.idonato.com/2008/11/18/the-art-of-the-elevator-pitch-so-what-do-you-do/