What should I send investors? Part 1: Elevator Pitch.

via VentureHacks/Pmarca

"Summarize the company's business on the back of a business card."

— Sequoia Capital

Summary: An introduction captures an investor's attention, but a great elevator pitch gets a meeting. The major components of the pitch are traction, product, and team.

If you're building an interesting company, people will offer to introduce you to investors—it makes them looks good. In Hollywood, content is king; in Silicon Valley, dealflow is king.

So, what should you send investors? Send an elevator pitch and a deck. We'll cover the elevator pitch in this article.

Get a first meeting with an elevator pitch.

A great elevator pitch is more important than your deck and less important than the "introducer". If you don't have an introduction, the elevator pitch is critical to a cold call.

An introduction sells the investor on reading the elevator pitch, which sells the investor on reading the deck, which sells the investor on taking a meeting. Many investors will just skim the deck and take a meeting if the introduction and elevator pitch are good.

An elevator pitch.

Send a brief email that the introducer can forward with a thumbs-up. I crafted this elevator pitch from Marc Andreessen's job listing for Ning:

Subject: Introducing Ning to Blue Shirt Capital


Hi Nivi,

Thanks for offering to introduce us to Blue Shirt Capital. I've attached a short presentation about our company, Ning.

Briefly, Ning lets you create your own social network for anything. For free. In 2 minutes. It's as easy as starting a blog. Try it at http://ning.com

Ning unlocks the great ideas from people all over the world who want to use this amazing medium in their lives.


We have over 115,000 user-created networks and our page views are growing 10% per week. We previously raised $44M from Legg Mason and others, including myself.


Before Ning, I started Netscape (acquired by AOL for $4.2B) and Opsware (acquired by HP for $1.6B).


I've admired Blue Shirt's investments from afar. We're starting meetings with investors next week and I would love to show Blue Shirt what we're building at Ning.

Best,

Marc Andreessen
xyz@ning.com
415.555.1212

Your email should be no longer than this example (which is already too long).

Dissecting the elevator pitch.

Let's dissect this pitch:

Subject: Introducing Ning to Blue Shirt Capital [A useful subject line!]

Hi Nivi,

Thanks for offering to introduce us to Blue Shirt Capital. [Reiterating the social proof of the introducer.] I've attached a short presentation about our company, Ning. [Did you notice the attachment?]


Briefly, Ning lets you create your own social network for anything. For free. In 2 minutes. [What is the product? What does it help the customer do? Who is the customer?] It's as easy as starting a blog. [What's the metaphor?] Try it at http://ning.com [Link to the product, screencast, or screenshots.]

We built Ning to unlock the great ideas from people all over the world who want to use this amazing medium in their lives. [What's the big problem or opportunity?]

We have over 115,000 user-created networks and our page views are growing 10% per week. [Traction.] We previously raised $44M from Legg Mason and others, including myself. [Social proof and more traction.]

Before Ning, I started Netscape (acquired by AOL for $4.2B) and Opsware (acquired by HP for $1.6B). [Team.]


I've admired Blue Shirt's investments from afar. [Why are you interested in Blue Shirt?] We're starting meetings with investors next week and I would love to show Blue Shirt what we're building at Ning. [Call to action and subtle scarcity.]

Best,

Marc Andreessen
xyz@ning.com [Contact information—how thoughtful.]
415.555.1212

[OVERALL, TEH EMAIL USEZ GOOD GRAMMAR, PUNCTUASHUN, AN CAPITALIZASHUN, AS WELL AS SHORT PARAGRAFS AN SENTENCEZ.]

See David Cowan's excellent Practicing the Art of Pitchcraft for more examples.