The elevator pitch as business journalism

Deirdre Bolton

Andrew Kirell of Mediate spoke with Fox Business Network Deirdre Bolton about her show “Rick and Reward,” which features a regular Friday segment called “Elevator Pitch,” which allows an entrepreneur to pitch an idea to Bolton in 30 seconds and then have three judges give critical feedback and vote on whether they’d support the concept.

Here is an excerpt:

How has the transition been from Bloomberg TV to Fox Business Network?
It has been fantastic! I’ve got to say: One of the great things about being at Fox, is that they are really super supportive about all sorts of creative endeavors. They really give full faith and backing, to the extent that when I pitched this regular segment idea called “Elevator Pitch,” I had arguments ready to defend it because I expected pushback as that’s what I’d always dealt with.
But I pitched it and they were, like, “Great. Here’s your team, a facilities person who’ll help you, a security person who will help you.” They all took care of it. Honestly, I have this huge sense of relief and wind in my sails in that whatever good ideas I have, they’re just going to support them. There’s no dragging myself through broken glass to get ideas done here.
Speaking of the “Elevator Pitch” segment, tell us a bit about it. How’d you come up with it?
It’s a classic concept, really, going back to the Don Draper era. When you have 30 seconds, what do you say that’s going to impress your boss? So we have these entrepreneurs give a quick pitch to me in an elevator, and then afterwards three judges — usually angel investors or VCs — give positive or negative feedback and tell the person whether they’d help them out.
It’s an important concept because if you’re running a company, or you need support for an idea, it’s just universally true that you need to have your talking points down. There’s so much more noise today, and so clear communication is more important than ever. I’m very heavily plugged into the New York tech community, and even if you pitch them something and they’re not crazy about your idea, but they’re crazy about you, they might back you because they think you have capability to tell your company’s story well.