Module 5: ELEVATOR PITCH  

SHOW PASSION AND COMPETENCE

 Passion is the driving force in entrepreneurs. You must
IS ROUGHLY AROUND 1-2 MINUTES SPEECH GEARED prove that you have the experience, industry knowledge,
TO CONVINCE SOMEONE ABOUT A PRODUCT OR business skills, technical know-how, all that it takes, to
COMPANY turn the idea into a success story.
WHAT’S INSIDE A GOOD PITCH?
WHAT TO AVOID
The Problem
GO INTO DETAILS
 Why you chose to pursue the Start Up
 Avoid too many technical details or numbers that the
Business Model listeners may find boring or non-related. Instead, be short
 Target Market and precise and link your data and statistics to the
 Financial Projection value your business idea delivers.
 Closest Competitors
 Resources needed from Investors  OVERSELL IT
 Marketing, Cost and Revenue  Presenting it like a game-changer may be too early. The
more realistic the pitch is, the higher the chance for
The Hook success. Overselling the benefits of your product may
 User Story leave an impression of a dreamlike product.

The Solution  IGNORE COMPETITORS

 Value Proposition  The more you know your market, the better. Presenting a
 Product or Service that your Startup offers clear differentiation in comparison to your competitors
will help clearly communicate why your service, product
Close
or idea is superior.
 Future Plans
 Team Composition
DON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR MONEY
 Tagline
 Talk about realistic figures that match your startup needs.
OPENERS Don’t ask for a really big number, unless you really need
1. Relate the topic to the audience it. But also don’t ask for too little, as it could be
2. State the importance of your topic interpreted as lack of knowledge about your business and
3. Startle the audience market.
4. Arouse the curiosity of the audience
5. Question the audience IGNORE KEY RISKS
6. Begin with a quotation  Identify the key risks your business will face. If you
7. Tell a story. present a clear strategy for how to handle the identified
risks upfront, it leaves an impression that you are
WHAT TO DO  prepared for the challenges ahead.

TELL A STORY In the article “17 Storytelling Tips for Startups", Alexis

 Captivate the audience by including an interesting Niki outlines the 17 most useful storytelling tips founders can
personal story to get the attention of the investors. The employ when creating their startup pitches, drawn from an
story should convey the value of what you do, why you event featuring Founder Institute Mentor Tyler Crowley.
do it, and why anyone should care. According to Tyler, integrating a story into your pitch not only
makes you more memorable but more personal as well. For, at
 KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE the end of the day, investors are more likely to invest in the
 Explore your audience. To make the most of it, do some person pitching rather than the idea being pitched.
research on the investors that you are pitching to and
adapt your strategy accordingly. 1. The audience doesn’t remember data, especially not
when they’ve just been presented with a lot of it. Keep
KEEP IT SIMPLE your introduction short and get right to the meat of your
 Keep it short and concrete. Too much information may pitch.
have the opposite effect and leave the audience confused 2. The audience does remember stories because stories
and overwhelmed. speak to the visual and emotional parts of our brains.
3. Make your audience feel the WOW moment - the
 HAVE DATA TO BACK YOUR CLAIMS moment when your audience gets your product when they
 Whatever you say must be supported by numbers or feel the same thing you feel about it.
data. Add testimonials, research data, surveys, statistics, 4. Help your audience experience this WOW moment
anything you need to prove the viability of the product. through two key characters: the hero and the antagonist.
 Tip: Make one character a male and the other a female so Prototyping is essential in resolving usability issues prior to
you can refer to them using “he” and “she” without the launch of a product or design. It reveals areas that may
confusing your listeners. need improvement, some of the reasons why prototyping is
5. Introduce your hero or heroine in a dramatic fashion, important to include:
as this is the moment to grab your audience’s attention
and prevent them from checking their cell phones. o Inexpensive: It is cheaper to change a product early in
6. Build the drama by showing us your character’s the development phase than it is after completion.
problem. It’s imperative that you clearly identify what o Limits failure: adjust earlier in the process and avoid
your character is up against and what the worst-case errors.
scenario is. o Saves time: During prototyping, it is possible to identify
7. Cast your product in the role of the vehicle that helps unnecessary elements, thus creating time to polish the
your hero. Explain how “he” uses your product to final design based on what is required.
impress “her” and improve his life. o Efficient feedback, and improved and increased user
8. Start and close with your elevator pitch. Book-ending
involvement: Prototyping requires user involvement and
your pitch with your elevator pitch sets the stage for your
allows the user to interact with a working model of the
audience’s expectations.
project. 
9. Avoid using “I,” “you,” or “we” in your pitches, as this
o A better understanding of the intended
will lend objectivity to your presentation.
design/product: Provides a strong visualization of the
10. Avoid hypotheticals such as “can” and
design, thus creating an understanding of the look and
“could” because it opens up too many possibilities,
feel of the final product. 
which may be confusing to audiences. Be sure to tell your
 Allows designers to think about their solutions as
stories in the present or simple past tense.
tangible products rather than abstract ideas.
11. The story can communicate important information in
 Encourages learning from failing, as failures are
an elegant way, so look for opportunities to slip in any
quick and cheap
data your audience needs to know.
 Promotes excitement and risk as less time and
12. If you must give figures, avoid big numbers. For
money is invested into bad ideas.
example, ditch “300,000 parents think taking their child
to the dentist is like pulling teeth” and use“Two out of
five moms say taking their kids to the dentist is like TYPES OF PROTOTYPING
pulling teeth.”
13. Your story needs to have a happy ending. Audiences 1. LOW-FIDELITY PROTOTYPING. Can be considered
want the emotional satisfaction of seeing your product the more basic. The model created might be incomplete or
help your “hero” overcome their obstacle. only incorporate a few of the features that the end product
would have. Low-fidelity prototypes quite often won’t be
14. Don’t try to memorize your story, but remember these made of the same material as the finished product,
key elements: Character intro, Problem, Struggle and instead, they’ll be made of wood, paper, or plastic. These
solution, and Happy ending. prototypes are cheaply and easily made or simply just
15. Create variations of your story for different audiences visualizations of the end product.
and different lengths, and try to anticipate the questions
LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPES
you might get during your presentation. If you can,
integrate the answers into your story for longer pitches, or
save the answers for the Q&A for shorter pitches. EXAMPLES PROS CONS
16. Keep testing your stories by telling them to anyone
who will listen, and keep refining them until you’ve • Quick • not realistic
• Storyboarding •Cheap •prototypes that lack
achieved the desired emotional reaction. • Sketching • Can change the look or feel of
17. Finally, study storytelling in action by watching videos • Wizard of Oz them very the product may
and attending pitch and startup events. quickly lack validity
•may not be
Module 6: PROTOTYPING •Disposable appropriate for what
you are creating for
“If a picture is worth 1000 words, a prototype is worth 1000 •may remove
control from the
meetings.” - IDEO
users as the designer
According to Wikipedia, "A prototype is an early sample, would probably
have to explain
model, or release of a product built to test a concept or certain parts.
process. A prototype is a working model used to test a design
solution and is typically constructed or created during a design 2. HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPING
and build challenge. In real life, prototypes help determine
design solutions' effectiveness before the final product or High-fidelity prototypes look much closer to the end result.
system is produced. An example of a high-fidelity prototype could be a 3D
plastic model that has moving parts and allows the users to
IMPORTANCE OF PROTOTYPING feel the function of the product. This would be considered
 high fidelity rather than low fidelity because this would give the best is when you simulate the physical environment of
the user a closer experience of the end product than let’s say, the user. You can use props, use audio simulations such
a block of wood. As for software prototypes, a depiction of as music and use objects around your workplace to bring
the product made in Sketch or Adobe Illustrator would be more realism into the scene.
considered high fidelity rather than a storyboard.
6. PHYSICAL MODELS. These are high-fidelity
prototypes. Physical models can be made out of a wide
HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPES range of materials, such as paper, cardboard, clay, or
foam, and can be in a range of sizes. The purpose of the
PROS CONS physical model is to go a step further than a sketch and
bring the two-dimensional into the three-dimensional.
• more engaging for the user • they take longer to produce This brings all the detail forward and brings a sense of
• users are more likely to navigate • because of the realistic realness. This allows for much stronger user testing as it
the product alone without needing a aspects- users will be more can spark discussion about the form factor of the solution.
step-by-step explanation from the prone to asking questions about
designer characteristics that you don’t 7. WIZARD OF OZ PROTOTYPES. Are illusory-based
• the closer the prototype is to the need to observe as they won’t prototypes. What this means is that the functions are
finished product the more be in the final product (e.g. faked in order to save time and expenses but to give the
confidence the designer can have as color) same effect as a finished product. For example, if testing
to how users will react to the final • after spending so much time
product on the prototype, designers
software with users, the designer would hit computer-
• stakeholders can instantly see the tend to want to not implement driven responses when the tester hit certain touch points.
end product and will be able to changes that users mention due Here the designer is mimicking what the final product
judge more detailed aspects of the to a lack of time. would do but is actually controlling it as it hasn’t yet been
final article finalized.

NINE WAYS TO PROTOTYPE 8. USER-DRIVEN PROTOTYPES. Instead of building a

prototype to test on users – designers will ask users to
1. SKETCHES AND DIAGRAMS. Sketching diagrams, create something within set constraints. During this
mind maps, or the structure of your ideas can really help process designers can see what their users prioritize and
others to get a well-rounded idea of what you aim to how their minds work, which gives them lots of insight
achieve. With sketching, you can draw out the various into the assumptions the designers themselves could’ve
touch points that affect a user’s journey and you can also made. Designers can use user-driven prototypes to gain
detail what processes happen when different touch points empathy with users or to fine-tune certain details of the
are pressed. product once they have an idea in place.

2. PAPER INTERFACES. Are made using multiple sheets 9. DIGITAL PROTOTYPE is the following stage after the
of paper and sketching movable elements and interactive paper prototype. You can start by digitizing it and then
features on different sheets to create a more in-depth look. work on the digital version. This is the moment where
Digital products like mobile apps, websites, and screen- you need to think about each possible interaction.
based products often require a number of prototypes in
the run-up to the final design. Paper interfaces are handy 5 Digital Tools to Prototype
in the beginning as they are incredibly malleable. With
paper interfaces, you can replace different sheets of paper,  AdobeXD  is a vector-based tool developed and
sketch over previous ideas or cut out elements and move published by Adobe Inc for designing and prototyping
them around the prototype. user experiences for web and mobile apps. It’s an all-
in-one solution for UX/UI Designers suitable for
3. STORYBOARDS. Storyboarding is a technique derived
beginners and professional users. (XD Starter Plan |
from the film industry and allows you a quick and cheap
Free)
way of walking stakeholders and users through a product.
 Material.io. Google Material Design is an adaptable
Think of storyboarding as creating a comic strip. It should
system of guidelines, components, and tools that
tell the story of how your idea would happen in real life.
supports the best practices of user interface design.
4. LEGO PROTOTYPES. You can use lego to simulate a Backed by open-source code, it streamlines
user’s journey all the way through to creating rough collaboration between designers and developers and
prototypes of products. helps teams quickly build beautiful products. (Free)
 MarvelApp. An all-in-one platform to create digital
5. ROLE-PLAYING. It allows your design team to explore products. Wireframe, design, and prototype your idea,
the system you are targeting physically. Role-playing by from low-to-high fidelity, with this intuitive
re-enacting scenes and situations you are attempting to tool. (Starter Version | Free – Pro Version from
improve can help the team to get a better understanding of 12$/month)
what is working and what isn’t. Role-playing also works  Proto.io. Is a prototyping platform that enhances the
wonders for reflecting on the product as you can design process by creating realistic, interactive,
remember experiences more vividly when you physically shareable prototypes without code that can be viewed
experience them. Role-playing can take many forms but on a mobile device. (15-day free trial)
  Figma.  Is the tool to go to if you need UX and
wireframing designs, user flows, and website mockups.
Figma is a cloud-based design tool that is similar
to Sketch in functionality and features, but with big
differences that make Figma better for team
collaboration.

 “They slow us down to speed us up. By taking the

time to prototype our ideas, we avoid costly
mistakes such as becoming too complex too early
and sticking with a weak idea for too long.”  TIM
BROWN