I was just going to create a thread with the same title, but since hpenvy was
unsurprisingly pondering this question in November, let's do the 'ol thread bump.
I have been working on my elevator / cafe / cocktail hour pitch for a while.. I seem to be getting across some good information but I want to sharpen my chops in this regard, because we have a lot of people to reach as quickly as possible.
So please let's community crowdsource the killer lines to get our messages across as efficiently as possible.
I was at a cafe today and a young lady asked me what I do for a living...
One of the most common questions I ask in response to this is "do you know about Bitcoin?" And although this is helpful sometimes I'd like to avoid this if possible, since if they haven't then they feel immediately uninformed, and also because well, frankly... droves of people in the day to day world have not heard of Bitcoin... Amazing I know, but we live in a crypto tech bubble and we have to face the facts. If they have heard of bitcoin, they'll say so by the time you've finished your elevator speech.
I usually go with something to the effect of: I'm working on a project to make banks obsolete by allowing ordinary people to control their financial fortunes through a new technology which allows you to store, or send value to anyone in the world in ten seconds. (then if I have a few more seconds I might say) It's a global, decentralized network, which allows you to move your funds between different currencies and earn interest on your savings.
What's your elevator pitch?