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.
Who’s got the best problem?
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A question arrived by LinkedIn, that you might find useful (edited for brevity): Hi Sagi, I’m still an undergrad, but I am already facing a challenge with fundraising for our solar race car initiative. Could you share your most important insight from designing tech investment pitches? Here's the response: You might assume that question is "How can I be sure that this venture will succeed?” (Hence: how do I ensure ROI?) But this is merely a projection of your own mindset. In the investor’s world your venture is one of dozens they see every month, so their primary question is different: "Why is THIS problem worth solving MORE than all the others I could invest in?" At first, this feels counterintuitive. This question has little to do with your domain knowledge or technical expertise. Can you even answer it? Absolutely! But it takes a shift. It might take some practice. But hey, you’ve been a human far longer than you’ve been an engineer. I hope this provokes your thinking in a useful direction. You can also find some free resources on my site that can help: https://www.rechter.co/resources Yours, |
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.
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. Why is my solution valuable? Because it will make money. Why will it make money? Because it does something valuable. That confusion is why so much investor communication feels like noise with little signal. Here's the thing.. Value and money are not the same thing. Value is the...
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...