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.
Is your product beautiful?
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"This picture is beautiful." These things seem unrelated, yet they all share the descriptor 'beautiful.' Why? "Pretty" is surface-level—something that looks good but lacks substance. When we call something beautiful, we recognize excellence in context. Philosopher Denis Dutton, drawing on Darwin, says that beauty signals something done well, even if we can't always articulate why. Why am I telling you this? We create things of massive complexity. Whether it’s a new technology, a software product or even an investor pitch, we are limited in our capacity to make all the decisions rationally and objectively. When you aim for beauty, you're really aiming to make the thing the best it can be. Beauty isn’t just an outcome—it’s a guide. A compass that helps us create solutions that not only function but resonate. Yours, |
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...