Elevator Pitch to Investors

Subject: Introducing Ning to Blue Shirt Capital [A useful subject line!]

Hi Nivi,

Thanks for offering to introduce us to Blue Shirt Capital. [Reiterating the social proof of the

introducer.] I've attached a short presentation about our company, Ning. [Did you see the attachment?]

Briefly, Ning lets you create your own social network for anything. For free. In 2 minutes. [What is the product? What does it help the customer do? Who is the customer?] It's as easy as starting a blog. Try it at http://blogger.com [Link to the product, screencast, or screenshots.]

Ning unlocks the great ideas from people all over the world who want to use this amazing medium in their lives. [What's the big problem or opportunity?]

We have over 115,000 user-created networks and our page views are growing 10% per week. [Traction.] We previously raised $44M from Legg Mason and others, including myself. [Social proof and more traction.]

Before Ning, I started Netscape (acquired by AOL for $4.2B) and Opsware (acquired by HP for $1.6B). [Team.]

I've admired Blue Shirt's investments from afar. [Why are you interested in Blue Shirt?] We're starting meetings with investors next week and I would love to show Blue Shirt what we're building at Ning. [Call to action and subtle scarcity.]

Best,

Marc Andreessen

xyz@blogger.com 

415.555.1212