As the founder of a startup, a large portion of your time is spent pitching — to investors, to potential employees, to your friends and family when they start wondering if you’re really just unemployed — you’re constantly tasked with explaining and validating your business idea to others. There are numerous articles written on best practices for pitching (I strongly suggest all entrepreneurs read everything by Naval and Nivi over on Venturehacks), but in this post I will focus on one specific process for perfecting your pitch: A/B Testing.
A/B testing has become a favorite tool for iterating on consumer web products, but I’ve found it incredibly useful for improving how I convey my business idea. When HeartThis was still at the ideation stage, I was often reluctant to discuss the idea. Not because I didn’t believe in its potential, but because I knew that I wasn’t able to convey the full concept in a concise and engaging way. If you find yourself in a similar situation, don’t fall into the trap of trying to independently come up with “the perfect pitch.” Do the exact opposite. Discuss your ideas openly and as frequently as possible while having a process for systematically improving your pitch. Here’s how to do it:
1. Write down an exhaustive description of your business. Feel free to go into as much detail as you like.
2. Based on your description, identify the key 2 or 3 components that make your business unique.
3. Come up with 3 elevator pitches for describing your business that touch upon the points identified in step 2. These should be no longer than 2 to 3 sentences and should be as different from each other as possible. For example, one could draw a parallel between a company in another industry, one could focus on your team, and one could position you against direct competitors.
4. Start using your new elevator pitches. Talk to as many people as possible and rotate through your different versions making note of how people respond.
Typically, you will quickly find that one version of your story clicks with people much more so than the others and starts to be your go-to pitch. Based on that learning, repeat steps 3 and 4 until you end up with an impactful pitch that immediately captures your audience’s interest. You may also find that different versions of your pitch resonate with different groups (ex. investors vs potential customers), so you can begin developing a specific pitch for each audience. This strategy is also helpful because in order to get enough data points you’ll be forced to do a lot of pitching, and like most things in life, when it comes to pitching practice makes perfect.