When Seconds Matter: The One-Minute Pitch and the Dominance of Value Proposition

The trend in entrepreneurship and startup activities has been shifting in the last decades. Concepts such as lean startup, customer development, and business model canvas, were introduced to the world of entrepreneurship and shorter pitches replaced long business plans.

The one-minute pitch has been increasingly used among investors and in business competition events, however, many technopreneurs have still problem presenting their business idea in such a short time. They believe that the innovation and the complexity of the business idea make it hard for them to cover the whole story in a minute. This misconception is due to the lack of market and customer orientation in many technoproneurs.

 Keep the Complexity Inside

The major part of the one-minute pitch is the value proposition through which the entrepreneur describes a problem that will be solved by a specific solution; hence, entrepreneurs should focus on solving a problem with their products or services. This solution to the problem is the value that should be delivered to the specific customers. Consequently, entrepreneurs should be organized enough to pitch their value proposition in less than a minutes.

It is essential to keep the pitch as simple as possible so that everyone with any technical knowledge or experience can understand it easily.  Delivering the value to the customer is something that all investors want to hear about. Therefore, your pitch to investors should be the same as it is to a customer and you should sell your products or services to both.

The one-minute pitch encompasses four important elements: the problem, whose problem, the solution, and whose solution.

  • The Problem: In the beginning of the pitch you have to describe the problem, presenting the gap or the problems to audiences.
  • Whose Problem: You also have to present whose problem you’re going to solve, which means you figured out your customer segments.
  • The Solution: the solution part of the pitch involves the value that you are going to deliver to the customer. This solution should be presented in the simplest way so that everyone can understand it. Therefore, no technical or complex features should be presented in the solution. Keep it as simple as you can.
  • Whose Solution: you also have to present your team and how you deliver the solution to the customers.Your differences from substitute solutions are critical and should be well structured in such a short time.

 The Benefits of the One-Minute Pitch

The time constraint of the one-minute pitch has some benefits for entrepreneurs that can help them figure out their problems and ameliorate their business model.

First of all, as the business ideas may be complicated, entrepreneurs learn to present their business idea in simpler way so that people could understand it better. There is a hidden challenge for technopreneurs, as they should avoid presenting the technical part of their business in the one-minute pitch.

I have recently been involved in a tech firm that had to deal with dozens of management and organization issues. As the first step to dig into the business and its cross-functions, I asked for the product information and marketing materials of the company. Although the product was supposed to target the mass market, the marketing material was totally technical. The value proposition of the company was presented in some equations and technical charts and figures. They neither presented a problem, nor did they mention any solution. There was a big pain that the company’s products could solve, nonetheless, this was not mentioned in the company’s brochures and marketing materials. That was the first reason behind the lack of growth and why the company had no logical trend in its sales growth in the last five years. Had they prepared a one-minute pitch, they would have recognized these problems and could jump-start their growth earlier.

Besides exploring the value proposition and delivering it to the customers, the one-minute pitch helps entrepreneurs find out their own business model and optimize it. When entrepreneurs are forced to make their business idea presentation in such a tight time, they will recognize the issues that occur in their business model and make the necessary changes in their business model.

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