This was a first. My wife offered to let me use her makeup today. I didn’t ask her for it and – for the record – I declined the offer. She thought I needed makeup to look better (younger? healthier?) on camera. I was reshooting my video elevator pitch for our Fundability SnapShot. I was feeling the pressure – especially since my  last video from a couple of weeks ago made me look pasty and sound like Too Much Coffee Man. An investor who saw the choppy video emailed his concern that we were having video server problems. The servers were fine. I had to confess that the jerky video was because the guy on the video was jerky. Makeup wouldn’t have helped.

So I decided to reshoot my video pitch and to use the webcam on my laptop. After all, this is what we tell entrepreneurs to do and we like to eat our own dog food.   It’s clear that an updated video with OK quality is better than broadcast quality with stale information. Think CNN Breaking News vs. The History Channel  Plus we know from our site analytics that SnapShots with videos get 2-3X the views than SnapShots without videos. Smart investors invest in people – the management team - and the CEO video pitch is the quickest way to get a feel for the CEO’s personality. Not everyone can be a Steve Jobs or a Meg Whitman  so be yourself and make sure that your passion and confidence about your business shine through.

Here are my Top 5 Tips for making a good video elevator pitch:

1. Quiet on the set. Close the door. Put your phone on vibrate or better yet leave it in another room. I used my laptop’s built in microphone which was a little fuzzy sounding so I just bought a Logitech USB mic  for next time.
2. Turn on the lights so you don’t look like you’re in the witness protection program. A natural full spectrum light makes a big difference.
3. Even pros can’t do it one take. Break up your pitch into smaller 20-30 second segments which you can easily edit using Windows Movie Maker  or Apple iMovie.
4. Just the facts.  Investors want to know:  Who are you? What’s the problem? The market opportunity? What’s unique? What do you need (capital, partners. etc.)? 2 minutes max.
5. Convert your video to Flash (.flv file). On2 Flix works well. Once you've uploaded the to your Company SnapShot to Fundability you can also send it directly to an investor as a simple link.