Each second there are thousands of information trying to get through to a human brain. You face a hard competition the moment you talk about your business to an investor. Having the perfect pitch on your mind makes it easier for you to stay calm and present yourself. In an interview Dirk Lehmann summarizes the most important tips for your elevator pitch.
The Art of the Elevator Pitch
Please describe the MedTech Summer School as an elevator pitch.
Dirk: The MedTech school provides a lot of workshops and information for MedTech startups to solve the problem that most of the innovation in medicine is not properly happening and doesn’t get to the market. They’re providing a program to solve that problem in the future.
What is the aim of an elevator pitch?
Dirk: Overall it’s about getting in touch with people, giving them a rough idea what your business is about and also intriguing them to ask questions to get the conversation started. Usually you would not tell someone all about your business, when you first approach him. You just want to give him a rough idea, so they know if it makes sense to talk with you and to go into a deeper conversation. So it’s about intriguing, fascinating, building that relationship and getting the talk started.
How should a pitch be structured?
Dirk: A simple structure you can go for and that is totally fine for the beginning is to start with a problem, add why we provide solution XYZ and why we do a certain thing. With those three elements you’ve covered the most relevant part of your business. You’ve talked about who your product is for, what a problem your customers are facing and what the solution is that you’re providing to them. That gives the person a really good idea of what your startup is about.
If you give just three pieces of advice to the teams, what will you tell them?
Dirk: My first advice is: Work on your elevator pitch! Make sure that you have a clear and crisp one sentence. So each investor immediately gets an idea what are you guys about, what are you going to go for in the future. The second advice that I would give is not to put too much pressure on yourselves. Just think about the fact that this is about building a relationship. You want to give them a first introduction to your company, maybe have a little longer conversation, then keep in touchThat’s actually the third advice. If you talk with any investor for a little bit of a longer time, invite him to have another chat! Keep in touch with them! Thank them afterwards for their time! Send them a separate email and thank them for the advice they might have given you! Try to keep that relationship going, because one day maybe you’ll be in the stage when you actually become interesting for an investor.
Thank you very much for your time!