One-Sentence Startup Pitch

For all of you out there who want to start a hostel (or any other business) and need to convince other people to get on board, here is a good exercise. TechCrunch ran a contest last year asking aspiring companies to come up with their best One-Sentence Startup Pitch.

The format looked like this:

My company, (company name), is developing (a defined offering) to help (a target audience) (solve a problem) (with secret sauce).

…what we wanted from your one-sentence pitch is to learn what your company name is, truly understand what it is that you’re building, who you’re going to sell or offer it to, what specific problem you’re trying to solve, and how your solution makes you unique.

To avoid at all times: vagueness (“we’re building a platform for SMBs who want to sell more stuff by using our software”), meaningless buzzwords (“we’re developing a post-PC, people-centric mobile app”) and empty, irrelevant words such as ‘innovative’, ‘revolutionary’, ‘award-winning’, ‘amazing’, ‘premier’, ‘fantastic’, ‘patent-pending’, ‘next-generation’ and the like.

The winning submissions had nothing to do with hostels, but you can read them here if you’re interested.

One of the judges gave the following advice for anyone looking to construct their own pitch:

1. Follow the format, plain and simple. Communicate your idea, not your creative writing.

2. Avoid buzzwords, like "CRM," and superlatives, like "fantastic." Use adjectives minimally, as well. Never say that you are the "first" or the "only."

3. Be very clear and simple about what you are developing: a website, a mobile application, a software product, etc. People wrote many confusing things, like a "network," a "model," a "revolutionary hiring tool," an "intelligent system," an "algorithm," etc.

4. Keep it short. Cut out every word that is necessary. Some "sentences" were over 100 words long. Your target should be 30 words.

5. Check your grammar. There were frequent grammatical mistakes, which made the pitch hard to understand and hard to read.

6. Don't forget the sauce. It was not clear how many of the pitches were better or different from the many other businesses doing the same thing.

Before you head out to a meeting with your banker/investor/sweetheart’s family think about how you would describe your plan in one sentence. For those of you who already have your business up and running, can you describe what you do in the same one-sentence format? It is not always an easy thing to do. Please post your pitches here.