A VC - Latest Comments in Elevator Pitches

Re: Elevator Pitches

fredwilson — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 08:01:04 -0000

There is no template. The best advice I can give you is see if you can write
down your idea in three paragraphs or less

Re: Elevator Pitches

fredwilson — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 07:47:58 -0000

i don't really like the cartoon effect. the big value in pitches for us is to see as close a representation of the entrepreneur as is possible

Re: Elevator Pitches

kid mercury — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:27:31 -0000

lol, i know, i'm just joking around. besides i never thought your comments were particularly inflammatory, which is why i got such a kick out of mikey going into crybaby mode over your post a few months back. adding to the humor is of course mikey's hypocrisy, as he doesn't have the spirit of a real journalist.

crunchbase is very nice, i agree. but you know what's going to be really sweet? when adaptiveblue (or someone like them) automates the whole thing and makes it into a slick widget you can take with you anywhere you want.

and while there is no battle, i still declare you the victor. so congratulations!

Re: Elevator Pitches

Dan Weinreb — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:14:44 -0000

What's the benefit of being listed on CrunchBase? I wonder if I should recommend any of our (Common Angels) portfolio companies to list on it, but I think they'd probably first want to know about the costs (I nkow it's free; I mean downsides if any) and benefits. In any case, it looks interesting; thank you for pointing it out.

Re: Elevator Pitches

vatorfan — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:36:08 -0000

http://vator.tv/pitch/browse

Re: Elevator Pitches

vatorfan — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:35:00 -0000

http://vator.tv/pitch/browse

Re: Elevator Pitches

vatorfan — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:30:55 -0000

It's a great idea... I'm glad I thought of it... first :-)

Re: Elevator Pitches

Austin — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:18:11 -0000

two things..... Bring back your friends links ASAP! and second it would be cool to have a wall for your blog where we could post posts like this one!

Re: Elevator Pitches

gregory — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:54:19 -0000

make a pitch for it

Re: Elevator Pitches

jill — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:18:32 -0000

Love seeing these pitches! I am going to practice mine ...just for fun.

Re: Elevator Pitches

Ralph — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:43:38 -0000

Fred,

I'd tell you what would be really handy for me. I have the idea but I need almost a structure or template to bring the idea out. ie what customers will it serve, what is the gap that it fulfils and how are you going to deliver it and make money on it - but with more detail than that.

Do you have a template that I could use to get the idea down on paper?

thanks,

Ralph

Re: Elevator Pitches

Ben — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:33:57 -0000

Fred and everyone else here:

It seems that most web services which target aspects of entrepreneurship (pitching, interaction with VC, etc.) wind up with communities heavy on the web. Naturally this is expected as the internet savvy early adopters of web services tend to be those who build and invest in these businesses. How do we get more biotech, energy, materials science investors/entrepreneurs to use these very useful services? There clearly seems to be a dearth of users outside the web industry (vator.tv shows 624 web 2.0 pitches vs. 15 pitches for biotech, of which most of the biotech ones leverage the web for social networking, advertising, etc.)

Re: Elevator Pitches

Lloyd Fassett — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:59:06 -0000

I think the Disqus/Vator link you want is http://vator.tv/pitch/show/.... I've already had my coffee though, so, well, I think I'll have more.

Re: Elevator Pitches

Erick Schonfeld — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:39:23 -0000

We'd be open to talking about that once we've automated the process for ingesting and Cartoonizing the videos. As long as the pitches are under 60 seconds and fit into our format, we want to get as many as possible from as many different sources.

What do people think about the cartoon effect, btw? We did that to make it more visually interesting than just having a talking head, and to give these pitches a distinct look that would be recognizable no matter where on the Web people see them.

Re: Elevator Pitches

fredwilson — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:31:05 -0000

What do you think of partnering with vator.tv to get their pitches into crunchbase too?

Re: Elevator Pitches

Erick Schonfeld — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:28:12 -0000

Fred,

Ask and ye shall receive. Every video on Elevator Pitches will also be embedded on the company's Crunchbase profile.
Actually, that was always the plan, we just decided to launch before we got to everything on out to-do list.

You can already see these now. For instance check out Songza's profile:

http://www.crunchbase.com/c...

or Meebo's:

http://www.crunchbase.com/c...

Glad you like the site, and please keep the suggestions coming. :)

Re: Elevator Pitches

daryn — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:02:52 -0000

i remember feeling like a fool when i met Daniel at StartupSchool and said "I LOVE Discus (pause...) um, I mean Discuss" -- knowing full well it was discuss but it just came out wrong.

Re: Elevator Pitches

fredwilson — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:59:56 -0000

i agree that they could have partnered with vator on this. maybe they tried. who knows? that's why i mentioned vator in my post so people would know that there is someone already doing this.

but from selfish perspective, i like that there are multiple people out there getting elevator pitches recorded and on the web. it's really helpful to us

Re: Elevator Pitches

fredwilson — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:57:12 -0000

there is nothing stopping you from commenting on this blog, the USV blog, andrew's blog, exchanging messages with us on twitter, and developing an online relationship with us. that is a big time door opener and you've already started doing that. getting your startup into crunchbase and doing a elevator pitch would be a good thing to that would make it easier for us and other investors to quickly get what you are up to.

Re: Elevator Pitches

stone — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:56:23 -0000

Totally agree. They are now competing with the very start-ups they purport to care about. You normally can't have it both ways in life.

Re: Elevator Pitches

Boris Revsin — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:53:51 -0000

Unfortunately it seems like this is an attempt to get yet another place to post advertisements -- that is one of the only reasons I see for NOT merging this with Crunchbase.

Re: Elevator Pitches

lawrence coburn — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:11:45 -0000

I like the idea, but TC should have partnered with with Vator. Vator has enough traction to provide value from day 1. I hate it when everybody tries to build their own solution when there are so many strong web services already out there. The fact that it's the press choosing to compete with the startups its supposed to be covering, makes it even worse. This is like TC deciding to clone Disqus for comments and not mentioning Disqus in the post announcing the service.

Fred, from a business perspective do you really think build your own asset is the best strategy for TC? If so, this is pretty damning for the plethora of cross domain services that are emerging right now.

Re: Elevator Pitches

JPersch — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:08:37 -0000

Fred,

The question I have for you is, "Is this a tool you would use for a first time pitch?"

My problem is I feel segregated in a community that does not have a lot of avenues for me to travel to your front door. When I create a start up the barrier to get in the door is, IMO, much thicker for me since I am located in New Hampshire and have a full time job to pay my bills which leaves little time to travel to hubs to connect.

If this is something that would help me gain entry I would pursue the opportunity.

Re: Elevator Pitches

Jeffrey McManus — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:49:54 -0000

I hate cutesy spellings in product names -- one of the reasons why I never used Delicious. I wonder what kind of tax on the business a name like that represents.

Re: Elevator Pitches

Jeffrey McManus — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:48:21 -0000

The pitch video is a terrific idea.