Besides your planned meetings, demonstrations, sales calls, and the sort…you get plenty of random opportunities to run into individuals who may benefit or influence your startup in one form or another.
Have you just held the door open for the Mother of your future investor? Is the person standing in line behind you at the grocery store a Full Stack developer currently looking for her next position? Did you just make it onto the elevator with an ideal user (and product evangelist) about to ride 10 stories up with ya?
Basically, you never know who you may run into that have some sort of influence on your business and can help you grow, improve, and change the world.
For that, your so-called elevator speech needs to be available, along with your story, as well as being open to adapt and change to deliver the message and make sure your value is clearly understood.
If the person is your next user, they have a certain understanding and need; If the person knows a person, then they have a different knowledge base and will require enough to pitch it forward; and it may also not necessarily be a future user or investor but someone creative to brainstorm with, and you need to be ready with a ‘Yes, and’ approach to generate more great ideas with.
The bottom line, just like you never know what will actually hit, you don’t know who you will need to sell to (in one way or another), and must be prepared and in the zone.
And in all reality, this also brings up the point that you should really begin with being a human being first, saying hi, cause you may not have time to make your pitch but you will still have time to make that first impression…and open up for a future pitch.