The MBET Experience

The University of Waterloo – Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Program

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The Value of An Elevator Pitch

January 12th, 2007 · No Comments

One thing I have learned this year is that being able to clearly and succinctly explain a business concept is a valuable skill that takes some work. A great way to practice this is the 90-second “Elevator Pitch”. We had to develop one of these during the fall semester for class, now it’s time to put our skills to the test in the Ignition $1K Pitch Competition, part of the LaunchPad $50k Business Plan contest.

My classmate James and I have (what we think is) a great business idea. We have interest from potential customers, and decided to enter the pitch contest. We spent almost the entire evening tonight working on our pitch – first whittling down the content to fit things into 90 seconds, then fine-tuning until it flowed smoothly.

The true value in doing this is that it really forced us to quickly and clearly articulate our product, value proposition and business model in a short period of time. I highly recommend that anyone thinking of starting a business work on their elevator pitch – it’s a great exercise that forces you to flesh out the core elements of your business!!

Check back in a couple days and I’ll let you know how things turn out for us! Hopefully we’ll have one of the $1000 dollar prices to put towards our startup funding!!

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