Elevator pitch examples
Each one is under 150 words and timed at a normal speaking pace. The people and companies are made up; the structure is what to copy.
-
Startup founder to an investor
36 sec · 84 wordsI'm Priya, co-founder of Ledgerline. Finance teams at mid-size companies spend the first week of every month closing the books by hand, matching thousands of transactions in spreadsheets. Ledgerline connects to their bank and accounting software and matches 95% of those transactions automatically, so the close takes two days instead of seven. We launched in March, 40 companies pay us, and revenue has grown 20% a month. We're raising a $2M seed to hire our first two salespeople. Could I send you our deck?
Why it works: Problem, product, one traction number, the round, and an ask for the next step.
-
Founder at a demo day
31 sec · 73 wordsRemember the last time you moved? You probably called a moving company the night before and paid whatever they asked. Packd gets you three fixed-price quotes in ten minutes, from movers rated by real customers. Since launching in Austin in June, we've booked 1,200 moves, and customers saved $340 on average. Next we open in Dallas and Houston. We're raising $1.5M, and we'd love to talk to anyone who has backed a marketplace.
Why it works: A room of strangers: open on a moment everyone has lived, then the numbers.
-
Sales: meeting a prospect
27 sec · 63 wordsI work with operations leaders at logistics companies who are losing drivers faster than they can hire them. We built a scheduling tool that lets drivers swap shifts from their phones, and customers like Northway Freight cut driver turnover by a third in six months. I'm not sure it fits your team yet, so I'd rather ask: how are you handling scheduling today?
Why it works: Name who you help and the result, then hand the conversation over with a question.
-
Job interview: "Tell me about yourself"
30 sec · 70 wordsI'm a product marketer with five years in B2B software, most recently at a payments company where I led the launch of our invoicing product. That launch brought in 2,000 new customers in its first quarter, and it showed me how much I like working where product and sales meet. Now I want to own positioning for a product from launch to scale, which is exactly what this role does.
Why it works: Present, past, future: what you do now, one result that proves it, and why this role.
-
Career changer
30 sec · 70 wordsI spent eight years as a high school science teacher, which means I've explained hard ideas to tough audiences every day. Two years ago I started building lesson tools in my spare time. Then I finished a UX design certificate and redesigned our district's parent portal, which cut support calls in half. Now I'm moving into UX full time, and I'm looking for a team that builds products for learners.
Why it works: Turn the old job into an asset, then show you have already started the new one.
-
Student or new graduate
29 sec · 68 wordsI'm a senior studying economics at Ohio State, graduating in May. Last summer I interned on the pricing team at a regional grocery chain, where I built a model that flags products priced below cost, and the team still uses it every week. I'm looking for an analyst role working on real pricing or operations problems. What does the first year look like for analysts on your team?
Why it works: One real thing you built or did beats a list of courses. End on a question.
-
Freelancer at a networking event
29 sec · 68 wordsI help small software companies turn their website into a source of leads. Most of my clients have a great product and a homepage that explains it to engineers instead of buyers. I rewrite the site around what customers actually search for, and my last three clients doubled their demo requests within a quarter. If you know a founder who's frustrated with their website, I'd love an introduction.
Why it works: Make it easy to refer you: who you help, the result, and exactly who to send your way.
-
Pitching a project to your boss
32 sec · 75 wordsOur support team answers the same twelve questions in about 40% of all tickets. I want to spend six weeks building a help center that answers those twelve properly, with search inside the app. When I did this at my last company, ticket volume fell by a quarter, which here would give the team back about 200 hours a month. I need one engineer for those six weeks. Can we decide at Thursday's planning meeting?
Why it works: The cost of the problem, the fix, what it needs, and when you want a decision.
-
Nonprofit asking for support
29 sec · 67 wordsOne in five kids in our county finishes third grade unable to read at grade level. Read Forward pairs each of them with a trained volunteer tutor for 30 minutes, twice a week. Last year, 78% of our students were reading at grade level by June. A gift of $600 covers a tutor for one child for a full school year. Would you consider sponsoring one reader?
Why it works: One person helped, one result, and a gift with a concrete price.
-
Small business owner
27 sec · 63 wordsWe're a family bakery in Portland that makes sourdough the slow way: fermented for 36 hours, with flour from a farm in the Willamette Valley. We already supply twelve cafés across the city, and we're looking for two or three more neighborhood shops that care where their bread comes from. Can I drop off a loaf for your team to try this week?
Why it works: What makes you different, who already buys, and an offer they can take this week.
-
Engineer or technical role
27 sec · 64 wordsI'm a backend engineer who works on systems that have to stay up when traffic spikes. At my current company I rebuilt the checkout service so it handled Black Friday at ten times normal load with no outage, the first year that ever happened. I'm looking for teams working on reliability at scale. What's the hardest infrastructure problem your team is on right now?
Why it works: One hard problem you solved, measured, and a question about theirs.
The elevator pitch formula
- 1
Who you help, and their problem
Start with them, not you. A specific person with a specific pain makes the listener lean in.
- 2
What you do about it
One sentence, in words a friend outside your industry would understand.
- 3
Proof
One number or result. Customers, growth, money saved, time cut. One is memorable; three is a blur.
- 4
Why you
Optional, when it is your edge: the experience or insight others don't have.
- 5
The ask
Exactly what you want next: a meeting, an introduction, a decision, or a question that starts a conversation.
The shortest elevator pitches are one sentence
The first slide of a great pitch deck is the elevator pitch with everything else removed. Airbnb's is from its original 2009 deck; the rest open our rebuilds of famous decks.
Build your elevator pitch
Write one sentence for each step. It stays in your browser.
The deck prompt turns your pitch into a five-slide deck. Paste it into ChatGPT or Codex with the Pitch Unfairly plugin.
Elevator pitch mistakes
- Opening with your title. "I'm a senior consultant at..." tells the listener nothing they care about yet. Open on their problem.
- Jargon. If a friend outside your industry couldn't repeat it, rewrite it.
- Three numbers instead of one. Pick the proof that matters most to this listener.
- No ask. A pitch with no next step is a story. Say what you want.
- One pitch for everyone. Keep the middle, and change the first line and the ask for each listener.
- Reciting it. Know the beats, not the script, and stop talking when you have made the ask.
Elevator pitch questions
How long should an elevator pitch be?
30 to 60 seconds, which is about 70 to 140 words at a normal speaking pace of around 140 words a minute. Most of the examples on this page run 30 to 45 seconds. Shorter is better if it still ends with an ask.
How do you start an elevator pitch?
With the listener's world, not your title. Name who you help and the problem they have, or open on a moment they have lived. Your name and role can come in a short clause, but they shouldn't be the hook.
What is an elevator pitch in a job interview?
Your answer to "tell me about yourself": what you do now, one result that proves you are good at it, and why this role is the next step. Keep it under a minute and leave your full history for the questions that follow.
How do you end an elevator pitch?
With one clear ask: a meeting, an introduction, a decision by a date, or a question that hands the conversation to the other person. A pitch that ends on "so, yeah" wastes everything before it.
What is the difference between an elevator pitch and a pitch deck?
The elevator pitch is the spoken version that earns the meeting. The pitch deck is what you send and present once you have it. Your deck's first slide should be your elevator pitch in one sentence.
Should you memorize your elevator pitch?
Know the beats, not the words. Memorize the problem, the proof number and the ask, then say the rest naturally. Change the first line for each listener: an investor, a hiring manager and a customer care about different things.
Turn your pitch into a deck
Type your site. Pitch Unfairly builds a short deck in ChatGPT, in your brand, with your elevator pitch as the first slide, and gives you a link to send.