F*ck the elevator pitch

I will never forget when I started building my first company in the music industry and I needed to come up with a name for the business. I decided to go with “Northeastern Entertainment Solutions” because I wanted it to sound like a “very legit” company that was not run by a 16 year old high school student… even though it very much was.

The issue is it did not explain what we did at all: did we host weddings? did we do trivia? did we rent equipment? Actually none of the above- we hosted concerts at nightclubs across New England.

The reality is, I am not the only founder that did/does this. Too many founders spend time trying to come up with brand names and “about” sections that are filled with buzzwords that give zero connotations to what the business actually does.

This issue carried into my next startup; Artist Republik but instead of being an issue with the name, it was an issue with the brand statement: “Empowering Independent Music Artists”

The reality is if you asked me “What does artist republik do?” I would have responded by saying “We are a digital network that empowers independent music artists across the world”…. pardon my french to my younger self but what the fuck does that even mean? How do you “Empower”?

and the sad reality is every day when I talk to founders I hear them fall into this same trap. Either with their brand name, their about statement, or with a comparison like “We are the uber of watches.”- wtf does that even mean? how does transportation connect to watches?

The reason that many founders fall into this trap is truthfully because of the age old saying “Fake it till you make it”. We’ve all been there; we have a new idea that we have no idea if it will work or not, we want to show people that we are “legit” and we want to make it seem like our idea is the next best thing. So we fill our brand names and about statements with fluff, buzzwords, and frankly meaningless bullshit that actually hurts your chances of “being taken seriously”.

Lets use the example of a networking event- you meet your dream investor and they say “what do you do?”- you look at them all confidently and say “We are the uber of snack manufacturing, we use proprietary AI technology to create a first of its kind decentralized manufacturing system to tokenize the snack industry”. Instead of being genuinely interested in learning more you did two things

• Lost their attention (we have shorter attention spans then a gold fish- remember that)

• You just unknowingly created yourself a hole to dig out of because rather then starting an engaging conversation the first question the investor will ask you is “So how does that work?” or “What do you mean by that?”

BADDDDDD first start. Rather then starting the conversation with interest your starting with confusion and this is the fastest way to lose attention & support from anyone (customers, investors, etc).

On a recent trip to Chicago I will never forget a quote an investor said to me about my current startup; RestauRent- “I know you’re solving a real problem, so now you just need to convince me that you’re the one to solve it. Which means you’re already 50% ahead of every other startup I talk they have to convince me their even solving a problem.”

And that’s why I say FUCK THE ELEVATOR PITCH- before you even figure out how to pitch your startup in 60 or 90 seconds, you need to figure out how to pitch your startup in one sentence.

Example:

• Artist Republik: We empower independent music artists across the world

• RestauRent: The “OpenTable” for private events

After reading both sentences which one are you intrigued to learn more about vs trying to understand what it even does?

Exactly. See to do this effectively there truly are two pieces to the pie; your name and your statement.

With my first company I got the name completely wrong, whereas with Artist Republik the name nailed it but the about statement missed the mark. Now with RestauRent we were able to successfully nail both.

By nailing both we were able to unlock a powerful growth hack when networking, pitching the company, and overall spreading brand awareness.

1. Name: our name was functional; it gave a clear indication that you might thing this brand has something to do with renting Restaurants

2. Our statement: This gave a clear comparison between a similar product in terms of functionality but clearly indicates the difference between them and us. Opentable does reservations, we do private events, but the core functionality is similar.

This focus on defining these two key pieces unlocked us pretty much every investor we ever pitched, it became the basis of every sales pitch, and even became the basis of many of our marketing tactics because no matter who we were talking to in under 2 seconds they understand what we did in the most simple way possible. Understanding is the first step towards genuine interest.

So how do you apply this to what you’re building?

Step 1: Name

At the end of the day I wish I was the kind of founder who could come up with super creatives names but its not the way my brain works- I come up with functional names. Now not every brand name needs to be functional but it should have a connection to your core business model:

Functional names

• OpenTable: Find open reservations/tables

• TripAdvisor: Explains how its the trusted advisor for your trips

• QuickBooks: handling your “books” quickly

Non Functional but connected names

• Zillow: this comes from the idea of a zillion pillows; i.e your home

• Peloton: comes from the french word for “Platoon” or “Pack” indicating an idea of group workouts which is the basis of their business, not the hardware itself

• Tinder: name for easily combustible kindling hints at sparking connections

All of these names (both functional and unique) both get to the core purpose of giving people an idea of what your business does before you even explain it to them.

Step 2: About Statement

Here’s where most founders fuck up- this is where it’s so easy to get distracted with the buzzwords and trendy statements to come up with something that sounds goods but gives absolutely zero inclination into what the company actually does.

The way that I have found to test your statement is to ask yourself; if you said your statement to your grandma/grandpa would they have a general idea of what you do? If the answer is no then you need to redo it.

The reason I ask “Can you explain it to your grandparent” rather then “explain it to me like im a child” is your not pitching to children- usually your pitching to 25-70 year olds who have life experience, general idea of current main stream technology, and an understanding of how many things work. So don’t try to pitch a child- try to pitch your grandparent.

To the day they passed I don’t think my grandparents ever fully understood what Artist Republik did, but I can tell you they certainly understood what RestauRent did because between the about statement and the company name it was very easy to have a basic understanding of the company (even at 96 years old).

I know every professor, advisor, teacher, etc is going to tell you to hone in on your elevator pitch but before you do that you need to take the time to focus on your about statement and figuring out how to successfully explain your company in under 2 seconds. Once you can do that the rest falls into line by itself.