I explore this question in my short, partly visual emails, crafted through my lens as a pitch designer in deep-tech. Join me for insights on effective communication, marketing, design, psychology, and the philosophy of value.
Hard facts or big dreams?
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Crafting the right balance for your pitch can be challenging. One extreme is pure facts People on this extreme pitch like they're in court, trying to make their argument watertight, fearing any gap will damage their credibility. The downside? This approach demands a lot from the listener, who must catch up with all the details. More importantly, it overlooks the core issue: value. Value isn’t directly inferred from facts. I could give you thousands of facts about a chair, and you still might not see its value to you. The other extreme is selling a dream Focusing entirely on value, often at the cost of accuracy. This approach comes off as 'salesy' and lacks credibility because you can't know everyone's dream. Furthermore, value is not communicated directly; it is inferred. If a random caller said they had the product of your dreams, you'd hang up. So, is there a middle ground? Think of your pitch as sharing your vision— I mean that technically. Communicate the future AS YOU SEE IT, with both clear and uncertain aspects. This vision, however incomplete, is what drives YOU to keep investing your finite time and energy. It’s the purest source of truth for whatever value is worth communicating. Compared to that, anything else is guesswork. Yours, Sagi |
What makes people see value in a thing?
I explore this question in my short, partly visual emails, crafted through my lens as a pitch designer in deep-tech. Join me for insights on effective communication, marketing, design, psychology, and the philosophy of value.
Most deep-tech pitches are weak due to confusion about the relationship between facts and narrative.At best, people aren’t sure what a narrative is. At worst, they think facts and narrative are opposites — that narrative is something you use when your facts are lacking. A simple scenarioImagine you meet someone and they treat you kindly. You note it as a fact. You might conclude: “This person is a good person.” Then later, that same person treats you poorly. Another fact. Now you have two...
No one knows what investors are looking for Not even the investors themselves.If they did, the whole process would look very different. Investors would just ask for the specific information, compare the answers, and make decisions quickly. But the investment process in deep-tech is long, iterative, and deeply human.That’s not to say investors aren’t qualified. Seasoned investors absolutely know how to invest to achieve the outcomes they desire - but they can’t give you a formula.Knowing how...
Deep-tech startups are building transformative technologies and care deeply about what they do - yet their ideas often get trapped behind layers of complex communication. A long vacation gave me time to dig into the root causes - and how we can do better. Here are a few short, easy reads from that reflection. The belief before logic manifesto What belief keeps deep-tech professionals from communicating effectively? Read more How clinging to logic is costing you A false belief is draining your...