Rehearse your elevator pitch out loud, cut what does not land, and test it against other speakers in timed live battles.

Try ExpreaHear the difference

Before and after

“The elevator pitch.”

The same voice answers twice. Press play and follow along.

Illustrative voices

The first answer

So, um, we’re building, like, an AI platform that sort of helps, uh, people in a bunch of industries do, um, things faster, and we have some traction, I think, and we’re raising, so, yeah.

Pace
before 155, words a minute.
Fillers
before 5, marked words.
Hedges
before 2, marked phrases.

Measured on these two clips. Pace is words over the clip’s length; pauses are silences of 0.35 seconds or longer. Fillers are marked, hedges underlined. One synthesised voice reads both takes.

Where it goes wrong

Three things to practise, each with its instrument.

  1. 01 / 03

    Structure first.

    Investors follow a shape: problem, answer, proof, ask.

    • Problem, solution, proof, ask, in that order
    • See where your pitch drifts and where it lands
    • Cut it to the length you are given

    One minute

    Sweep the dial Sample

    0:50Ask

    Problem, answer, proof, ask.

  2. 02 / 03

    Delivery that sounds fundable.

    Investors hear certainty before they hear numbers.

    • Fillers flagged on the timeline, hedges highlighted in your own sentences
    • Pace and pauses tuned for the room
    • Energy that lands on the ask

    Hedges per 100 words

    Move across Sample

    Rehearsed
    15%
    Total hedges
    20

    Investors hear certainty before they hear numbers.

  3. 03 / 03

    Pressure-test it live.

    Pitch to a person, against the clock.

    • Pitch-format Live Battles: 30 seconds to prepare, one minute to speak
    • Rounds in the Exprea app: pitch when called up, and the room rates you
    • Practise the hard question after the pitch

    Time to the first word

    Move across Sample

    QuickSlow

    Question 4
    0.9 s
    Average
    2.1 s

    Eight hard questions, one after the other.

Your place on the Path

Start at Level 3: Story.

Five levels, one question each. Open any of them to see what it asks of you.

Level 3 · Start here

Story

Can I be remembered?

The story you tell is the one they repeat to their partner afterwards.

Being remembered. Real moments and real people instead of bullet points, so somebody can retell what you said to a person who was not there.

See the whole Path

Free, about three minutes

Hear yourself the way they will.

A free 3-minute Communication Analysis shows where you stand today.

Start the free analysis

Speech thirds

  • Opening

    0.22

  • Body

    0.55

  • Close

    0.23

Vocabulary diversity

  • Ideal
  • You
  • Average

  • Narrow

  • Varied

Questions

A clear problem, your answer, one piece of proof and a specific ask, delivered calmly in under a minute.

Record it out loud, read the report, change one thing, and record again. Each take shows you what to cut next.

Yes. In a Pitch-format Live Battle you get 30 seconds to prepare and one minute to speak, against another member.

It helps with the talking, not the slides: what you say over the deck and how it sounds.

Take the free Communication Analysis, then record your pitch.

Something else? Every question we get asked, or write to us.

From the blog

Read before the moment.

Career & BusinessPitching Is Storytelling With a DeadlineJoel AsanteWrites on what a voice is worth at workRead more
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