I share 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.
Value ≠ Money
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Ask a founder why their solution is valuable, and the conversation often drifts toward money. I get it. Unlike value, money is objective, tangible, and measurable. But notice the circularity hidden in that reasoning. Here's the thing.. Value and money are not the same thing. If you skip the "why" question, you're effectively saying: "Trust me, lots of people will buy this." Would you invest? Here's an exercise that can improve both your pitch and your own clarity as a founder. Try answering the question, "Why is what you are building valuable?" without mentioning money. No revenue. No market size. No ROI. No valuation. Why should anyone care that this company exists? What changes because it exists? Who benefits? Why is that important? When building a pitch, I would argue that the dollar sign should appear as late as possible. If you can do that, you'll be forced to confront the real source of value. Only once people understand why they should care does it make sense to talk about how that value will eventually be captured. Everything else is downstream. |
Creativity in Deep-Tech
I share 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 are certain words that, as soon as you utter them, investor attention spikes. These words are not what you’d expect. They’re not buzzwords like “artificial intelligence” or “cybersecurity.” Nor are they money words - ARR, traction, or revenue to date. The magic words are: “Imagine you are…” Founders think they need a big story so they build their pitches almost entirely from abstractions and generalizations: The Problem, The market, the unmet need, the solution - trying to extract value...
In the previous newsletter, I shared a talk I gave at Nest Catalyst about investor pitching. That first talk focused on the mindset behind pitching complex ideas. This second talk is more practical. It focuses on how to approach shaping your pitch - through principles and examples. The last five minutes are especially practical: an easy framework to help you craft your narrative. This was quite challenging. After years of doing this work, a lot of it has become intuitive. Breaking it down to...
If you've ever struggled to move people toward a complex new idea, or if you just want to finally understand what it is that I do (like my parents), Or you just feel like watching something interesting … I finally had the opportunity to record a talk I’ve been piecing together for years. I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of scientist-entrepreneurs at Nest Catalyst - a Bay Area program supporting life science founders building companies in the biotech ecosystem. The talk is visual,...