I explore this question in my short, partly visual emails, crafted through my lens as a creative director in deep-tech. Join me for insights on effective communication, marketing, design, psychology, and the philosophy of value.
The master watchmaker
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18th century Switzerland: A customer comes into a master watchmaker's shop asking to clean a watch he had bought.
As the watchmaker takes the fabulous watch apart, the customer notices an engraving on the back side of one of the balance wheels
"Why did you put something there that no one will ever see?" the costumer asks.
The watchmaker turns around and says, "God can see it."
How did that last line make you feel? What do you think about the quality of the watchmaker's work? The value of his creation? For me, the takeaway isn't about good mechanics or faith - it's about the master's choice of words. His reply wasn't 'fact based' or even 'rational' yet it packed the strongest punch. Here's the thing 'Communication' is not the same thing as 'explanation'. It's about cutting through the complexity, in whatever way that does it best - even if it means that logic has to take the back seat. * The story was told by designer Richard Seymour in his 2011 TED talk 'How beauty feels' - well worth the watch. |
Creativity in Deep-Tech
I explore this question in my short, partly visual emails, crafted through my lens as a creative director in deep-tech. Join me for insights on effective communication, marketing, design, psychology, and the philosophy of value.
There's a way to improve your startup by orders of magnitude in 10 seconds.Here’s what you do:Go to your email signature and add this to your title: CVO, Chief Visionary Officer. (You can keep your CEO title or replace it — I don’t mind.)Boom! You just made your startup more effective and drastically increased your chances of building a great product.By assuming the CVO title, you made something explicit that most startups leave vague: that there is a single source of intent in the system....
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...