Stan is an all-in-one management platform for digital content creators. It combines course building, bookings, analytics, commerce, and community building, allowing creators to focus on their content rather than manage a variety of different subscriptions and platforms.
This is not the company’s initial investor pitch, but instead a very rapid and informal investor pitch delivery to influential creators at a conference. The company’s founder delivers four pitches in total, each individually marked by individual sections in the video.
Yes, I would invest in this venture. Stan already has the backing of Venture Capital investment, so it is quite likely that the pitches to influential creators in this video aren’t necessarily for additional funding, but for the perceived legitimacy their investment would bring to the app and its branding. John Hu, the founder, truly demonstrates the spirit of the elevator-pitch in this video as he cold approaches his identified potential investors and delivers his rehearsed spiel before they lose interest and without scaring them off.
This video demonstrates many aspects of a good pitch. He has an engaging story that he bases his pitch around, having dropped out of Stanford to pursue content creation, and developing the app based on his own needs. He emphasizes the problems he faced as a creator – needing to juggle many different services to manage and deliver content – and how his app solves these pain points. Because Stan is already an active product, John is able to share with potential investors current financials, the product’s trajectory, and illustrate how specific features could benefit them in their own content creation and monetization.
Though all the creators express interest, who knows whether any actual investment occurred. Regardless, this is an engaging example of the elevator pitch in action – 4 times in a row. The product’s centralization of creator management in the burgeoning content creator economy and its promising trajectory make it a compelling investment.
Yes, I would invest in this venture. I would have liked to have gotten more demonstrations of the user experience of Stan as a platform, but this is a compelling elevator pitch.
John establishes his CEO credibility by referencing his educational background (attended Stanford Business School) and also his position as a fellow online content creator. He tells a credible, compelling, and clear story about why he started Stan and the pain point he is trying to solve for himself and fellow creators when it comes to monetizing their content. He differentiates his venture from similar products on the market with his “all-in-one” angle. Finally, he clearly shows market readiness given his client base and the amount of revenue he has generated for his clients (10 million+).
My one criticism is that he doesn’t address the potential investor’s question in the first pitch. The first investor was asking how he would make his money back as an investor, but John answered the question as though he investor was asking how he would make his money back as a creator using Stan. However, given the revenue John has generated for his client base as well as for his own company, I am sure there is a path to getting a return on investment.
YES I would invest in this venture.
John is passionate about his product and effectively conveys this to his potential investors. He developed an app called Stan which aims to consolidate content creator tools and reduce costs for influencers. During his pitch, he describes his struggles as an early content creator and how he had to subscribe to numerous tools which cost him almost $500 a month. This inspired him to create Stan, which gives creators access to all the same tools for only $29 a month. In a span of less than two years, Stan has made almost $4 million in revenue and has helped content creators generate over $10 million in revenue. Based on these numbers alone, it would be enticing to invest in this product.
John is the CEO and creator of Stan and demonstrates numerous effective techniques during his pitch. At the beginning of each interaction, he connects to his audience by bringing up a shared background/interest. He establishes his credibility by discussing how he went to Stanford business school and is also an established TikTok creator. Finally, he shows numbers to prove the success of his product and convince investors that it will be a profitable investment.