Six word pitch for tarsnap (http://www.tarsnap.com): Online backups for the truly paranoid.
Longer version: Security is hard. Governments and organized crime are getting increasingly involved in identity theft and corporate espionage. Tarsnap is a backup system designed from the ground up to keep your data out of the hands of the US government (and anyone else who might want to steal it).
I'll be a bit contrarian and say it still needs more work. I think - perhaps the business people you are targetting find themselves nodding when you say "truly paranoid", and "out of the hands of the US government", but... I think you're walking a fine line, where some may look and say "nah, I'm not one of those guys".
You'd probably have to go around asking people to get an idea that's more than just guesswork.
Keep in mind that I'm not aiming for the entire online backup market. I'm aiming for a small (but growing) corner of the market: people who care about security. Really, I'm just playing to my own strengths here -- I can't compete in the "shiny GUI" market, but security is something I'm really good at.
All the same, I'd suggest, for instance, omitting the phrase "the hands of the US government". It's generally found in the context of conversations I don't want to be a part of, and the people that it appeals to will substitute it for "anyone that might want to steal it".
Personally, I'm not worried at all about the U.S. government getting at my stuff. But a company working on security sufficient to keep the NSA from reading my mail has more security than I'll ever need, which is reassuring.
I don't know... I'm not a marketing guy, but I think you could still find a way to play up the high quality of your security without looking a bit... "fringe". The "truly paranoid" bit isn't so bad if you combine it with a different second phrase. However, something else might be even better at evoking a "yeah, I need that" response in more people. To me there's also a bit of contrast: in my mind, the "truly paranoid" aren't going to trust anyone else to do their backups anyway.
Just to let you know, this pitch totally worked for me. As soon as I finished reading your pitch I totally clicked the link to find out more. I hope you release soon. :-)
Is Airbus a company of criminals? They have a perfectly good reason for wanting to keep their data out of the hands of the US government: Every time the US government gets some information about Airbus, Boeing has it the next day.
Sadly, industrial espionage is something which many governments are actively involved in; wanting to make sure that your foreign competitors don't have access to your trade secrets does not make you a criminal.
Isn't it possible to encrypt already and then backup?
Yes, but if you do that, you lose the benefits of snapshotting (performance of incremental backups, convenience of full backups).
I think that misses the point though. From a rational perspective, of course, companies don't want the US government grabbing their private data. But from an emotional impact perspective, which seems to be the idea of a pitch, it makes it sound sketchy.
Possibly more emotive, and catering to the (annoying) zeitgeist would be "[...] designed from the ground up to keep your data out of the hands of hackers and cyber-terrorists [...]"
keep your data out of the hands of hackers and cyber-terrorists
I'm not good at marketing: I'm too honest. I simply can't grossly exaggerate threats like that. Black hats, sure. Cyber terrorists? Not a very real threat.
Sure. But on the other hand, what "security" is about is selling protection from a perceived threat, whether it really exists or not. On the plus-side, in the US these days, "terrorism" has been redefined to "people doing things we don't like". ;-)
what "security" is about is selling protection from a perceived threat, whether it really exists or not
No. As anyone who works in the field can tell you, the first step in any security work is to analyse what threats exist (which involves assessing both opportunity and motive -- if you're the US Air Force, you probably don't consider the NSA to be a threat even if the NSA is able to break into your systems).
But that's my point (and that of several others here -- and really I'm just providing this commentary in hopes that it will help) -- your elevator pitch isn't for anyone who works in the field, it's for your customers and their bosses and investors. I understand that factually you're solving a real problem and noting that in your pitch and that other security experts will understand that too, but if customers / investors read it and immediately think, "nutjob", then it's going to work against you.
Given that I have trouble with dumbing things down for a non-security-literate audience, I think the right solution here is for me to work at educating people -- I'm already planning on doing this, actually, by providing information about all the potential attacks which my code is designed to prevent (and which other code isn't).
That angle may work best. If you can prove to someone they have no pants on while they think they are fully clothed, that is sure to tag the amygdala, and hence attentiveness.
Longer version: Security is hard. Governments and organized crime are getting increasingly involved in identity theft and corporate espionage. Tarsnap is a backup system designed from the ground up to keep your data out of the hands of the US government (and anyone else who might want to steal it).