I’m not the biggest fan of the 30-second elevator pitch. Although I do believe it has its merits in the art of being concise – to be able to take a complex subject, be it a person or a project, and succinctly describe it for your respective audience, I trust the art of storytelling more.
The elevator pitch is designed to be the appetizer before the entrée, but what I find more valuable is the entrée itself, which, unless you’re at a 20-course Michelin-starred meal, aren’t short. I have rarely seen a deal close on an elevator pitch, much like I haven’t seen or heard of two people become best friends on a “Tell me about yourself.” Elevator pitches, like teaser trailers, are designed to have certain words or phrases click with the one(s) you’re pitching to, and, at some point, becomes too “templated” to connect on an emotional, more-human level. Earlier this month, I recall Robert McKee, one of the most respected screenwriting lecturers out there and a FullBright Scholar, writing about the dichotomy between film and TV in his newsletter, which is analogous to the differential between pitches and an in-depth coffee chat:
“Long-form writers have the power to reveal character complexity and depths of humanity no medium has ever delivered in history.”
Similarly, in my experience, through having a conversation about one’s inflection points in life, I can better understand someone’s depth of character and scars. For example, I love to ask founders: “How did this idea come to be?” Like I alluded to in my piece about my thesis, founders who are obsessed about the idea have a personal vendetta against the problem. They use “I’s” and “we’s”, whereas others who haven’t seen the blood, sweat and tears firsthand would often reference the numbers and speak in large, more abstract scopes. Outside of founders, especially those in fundraising mode, who have practiced knowingly or unwittingly the same responses over and over from meeting with investors, people, who have been in the trenches, often have a less well-rehearsed response to such questions – more scrappy, but much more detailed.
Just the other day, I read a brilliant response to a Quora question on “As a VC, how do you know an entrepreneur has ‘grit’?” that summarizes a quick calculus that differentiates the entrepreneurs from the “wantrapreneurs.” The answer in two words: specificity and compassion – two things which, unfortunately, most elevator pitches don’t cover.
