With the fall season of cohorts starting, I’m reminded that most founders will be asking of advisors why there is so much emphasis on practicing the elevator pitch.
With founders I advised in the past, I always recommended they succinctly write their entire pitch on one (single-sided) sheet of A4 and no more. It forced them to think enough through the whole business and make sure they could really hone what they were doing. Must admit I had to work hard to follow my own advice!
Couldn’t agree more. The “one sheet” discipline does for a founder what investors wish every pitch deck did; strip out the theater and put the priorities in sequence.
I often find it’s less about the format and more about the forcing function: if you can’t articulate problem & solution as Opportunity or Why (granted, like I said in the article, that's my approach), market, and why YOU in a single page (or 60 seconds), then the 20-slide deck is just a distraction.
Founder Institute has this methodology that I love, when Local Mentors push it properly, that cuts people off at 60 seconds, and then scores them 1, 2, 4, or 5 because no one is allowed to be average. 5 means you'd fund them right now and 1 means terrible, so essentially everyone is a 2 or 4. Over the course of weeks of classes and practice, everyone ratchets up over time to the point that we see 4 and even 5s on nothing more than 60 seconds.
The exercise doesn’t just sharpen a pitch, it reveals whether the founder actually understands the business beyond the buzzwords.
Loved this post - great advice.
With founders I advised in the past, I always recommended they succinctly write their entire pitch on one (single-sided) sheet of A4 and no more. It forced them to think enough through the whole business and make sure they could really hone what they were doing. Must admit I had to work hard to follow my own advice!
Couldn’t agree more. The “one sheet” discipline does for a founder what investors wish every pitch deck did; strip out the theater and put the priorities in sequence.
I often find it’s less about the format and more about the forcing function: if you can’t articulate problem & solution as Opportunity or Why (granted, like I said in the article, that's my approach), market, and why YOU in a single page (or 60 seconds), then the 20-slide deck is just a distraction.
Founder Institute has this methodology that I love, when Local Mentors push it properly, that cuts people off at 60 seconds, and then scores them 1, 2, 4, or 5 because no one is allowed to be average. 5 means you'd fund them right now and 1 means terrible, so essentially everyone is a 2 or 4. Over the course of weeks of classes and practice, everyone ratchets up over time to the point that we see 4 and even 5s on nothing more than 60 seconds.
The exercise doesn’t just sharpen a pitch, it reveals whether the founder actually understands the business beyond the buzzwords.