An elevator pitch is a brief, persuasive speech that you use to spark interest in a project, idea, or product

An elevator pitch is a brief, persuasive speech that you use to spark interest in a project, idea, or product.  It gets its name because it should last no longer than a short elevator ride of 20 to 30 seconds.  Imagine you had a fantastic idea and just happened to run into Mark Cuban in an elevator.  How would you use that brief time to capture his interest and get him to invest in you?  When spreading the word about your business or asking people for money, it’s important to have a pitch that succinctly tells potential investors or partners what you’re doing and why they should join you.  

This assignment has TWO PARTS:

PART I: Analyze Pitches 

For the first part of this assignment, you will analyze four Elevator Pitches.  When investors are considering investing money in businesses, they listen to many pitches. Now it’s your turn to be an investor!  

1. Create a document with the table shown below (you can copy and paste the table).
2. Watch the four pitches listed in the table and then fill in the middle 2 columns to evaluate each pitch. Explain what each pitch did well and how they could improve.
3. Pretend you have $20,000 to invest. Once you’ve watched all the pitches, decide which businesses you will invest in. Complete the last column of the table by indicating how much you want to invest in each business. You may invest in 1 business, or multiple businesses and split the money up however you’d like.
4. In 1-2 paragraphs, under the table, explain your rationale for how you decided to invest.

PART II: Create an Elevator Pitch

For the second part of this assignment, you will come up with a product or service that you feel would solve a problem or be a unique product/service in today's marketplace.  Create a 30 second video or a 3-4 slide PowerPoint Presentation that you would use to explain and pitch your idea to a possible investor.

Be clear and concise in your presentation and make sure to include these six points:

• Your name
• The name of product or idea
• What need the product or idea meets
• Your audience or type of consumers 
• How your idea/product/service is unique from competitors
• A closing call to action

 Submit your Part 1 document (with table and 1-2 paragraphs) AND your Part 2 video or PowerPoint presentation to this assignment dropbox by the due date.