🤖 #25: Vivian's Deeptech Insider: Flip Your Story - Turn Clarity Into Cash

Hello and welcome to #25 edition of the fortnightly Vivian’s Deeptech Insider.

If you’ve been following along, you know we’ve been on a journey.

In last issue, Is Your Story So Clear Even the Janitor Gets It?, we laid out how to build an internal alignment loop so your team stays clear, fast, and focused as you grow.

We’ve focused relentlessly on helping you get your internal house in order — aligning your team, tightening your message, and shaping your story around your earliest supporters.

And now, it’s time to flip that work outward.

Because here's the thing: Most founders do this backwards.

They jump ahead to pitch decks, websites, and cold investor emails — without a clear internal narrative. And then they get stuck in the rewrite spiral. Investors “love the idea but want to see more traction.” Messaging gets tweaked weekly. Nothing quite lands.

But you’ve done the hard part already. Now comes the powerful part: turning that clarity into clients, conviction, and credibility.

Today, we move into the final C in our 4Cs Framework: From Communication → Clients. This is the one and only edition focused on Clients, and that’s intentional. Because this phase isn’t about inventing a whole new message — it’s about re-communicating what you’ve already built in a louder, clearer, and more strategic way to the people who need to hear it most: clients, investors, and partners:

1. Complexity → Clarity
   Founders need to translate complex technical problems into business challenges that resonate with non-technical stakeholders. I’ll help you clearly communicate the significance of your solution, making sure everyone understands the problem you’re solving and why it matters.

2. Clarity → Champions
   It’s about more than identifying a problem—it’s about pinpointing your early adopters, refining market positioning, and clearly articulating the problem and customer definition to showcase potential to investors.

3. Champions → Communication
   Deeptech products can be hard to explain. I’ll help translate technical milestones into core features, benefits, and customer impact, ensuring they’re clear and compelling to investors and customers alike.

4. Communication → Clients
   I’ll provide guidance on tracking progress, communicating growth metrics, and updating stakeholders on the product's evolution to demonstrate how scientific advancements translate into tangible value.

Bringing It All Together

Over the last 9 editions, we’ve quietly been building something foundational: your internal story. And not just the surface-level “what do we do?” kind of story — I mean the kind that gets your team aligned, your messaging tight, and your early champions nodding enthusiastically because they get it.

So let’s recap. If you’ve been following along, you’ve now got tools to:

• Align your founding team around what matters most (vision, timing, tech thesis, go-to-market)

• Use the Strategic Canvas to simplify and sharpen how you think about your business in real time

• Map FOMO vs Focus, so you’re saying no to shiny distractions and yes to what drives momentum

• Define user personas and JTBD to anchor your product and positioning in actual buyer pain

• Shape a narrative around customer pain that shows urgency and unlocks investor curiosity

• Build internal roadmaps that make execution visible to both your team and your external stakeholders

And here’s the kicker: most founders do this backwards.

They jump straight to the external stuff — the pitch deck, the website, the investor email — before they’ve built any real internal clarity. Then they find themselves stuck. Rewriting their deck for the tenth time. Tweaking their LinkedIn bio every month. Struggling to explain what they actually do in a way that lands.

They stall. Not because the idea isn’t good — but because the story isn’t clear yet.

But not you.

You’ve done the hard work of getting aligned internally — and now you get to reap the benefits of flipping that clarity outward. Because here’s the mindset shift that changes everything:

When you get this right, you’re not guessing what to say. You’re simply echoing what’s already true — louder, clearer, and to the right people.

So, let’s walk through exactly how to flip that internal clarity outward — into investor decks, sales collateral, PR, and stakeholder updates — without wasting 6–12 months on narrative gymnastics.

Fundraising Pitch Deck

Let’s start with the pitch.

The best decks aren’t clever — they’re clear. They echo the language you’ve already sharpened inside the company. That’s where the Lean Strategy Canvas from Edition #17 comes in. Take out the sections from the canvas and position it into the simple 4Ps framework (described in #7):

• Problem – What’s the burning need in the world right now? What’s broken, and why does it matter?

• People – Who are you solving this for? Be specific. Not “enterprise,” but “mid-market ops leads at food manufacturers.”

• Product – What have you built that solves this? And why now? What are your leading metrics that prove traction (see below)?

• Profit – What’s the scalable business model here? What are the mechanics of commercial growth?

You’re bringing investors into a journey — so you need to keep them updated along the way - it’s about building trust over time. That’s where your internal roadmap and alignment loop (#22 and #24) come back into play. They help you structure your updates around real traction — not just hype.

Here’s a high level sample 8-week investor update cadence (8 weeks before your closing date) I recommend during an active raise. You don’t have to follow it religiously, but the rhythm matters (I dive really deep into the exact email format and structure with my founders):

By the end, investors should feel like they’ve seen your momentum — not heard a sales pitch. That’s the difference.

Sales Pipeline & Messaging

Your sales messaging doesn’t need to be poetic. It needs to land. Again you’re trying to build a narrative arc, to build another relationship, this time with your customers.

This is where you use the JTBD framework, user personas, and problem-first storytelling we explored in Editions #19–21.

Really obsess around being in your customers’ shoes (based on their user personas), what are they thinking, feeling and doing? Use that lens to think about it:

• Start with pain – What’s the functional and emotional “job” the buyer is trying to solve?

• Show what’s changing – Why is this a now problem? What shift in the market, regulation, or tech makes this urgent?

• Position your product – Not as the hero, but as a tool to help your customer win

• Back it with traction – Use early adoption, pilot results, or user quotes to prove it’s working

It’s how your technical story becomes a sales story — one that resonates with real buyers, not just internal champions or pitch audiences. Marketing really is about speaking to the emotions of the pain points experienced by your customers. So the more you’re crystal clear about this, then more your potential clients will come knowing. Where you really turn outbound marketing and turn in into a powerful inbound marketing + sales machine.

That is a whole other layer to sales we haven’t unpacked yet — and I won’t go down that rabbit hole here. It also includes a few other key gaps we’ll come back to in a future bonus drop:

• Sales Psychology & Mindset
  Why people actually buy often has little to do with you or your product — and everything to do with their internal politics, emotional triggers, or the risk they’re trying to mitigate.

• Sales Strategy & Team Structure
  Your business model dictates your sales motion. Enterprise vs. product-led vs. partnership-first? Each demands a different rhythm, team shape, and type of hire.

• Leading Metrics (as mentioned above)

  This part often gets overlooked, especially in early-stage Deeptech & Healthtech where the product is still in development. But even pre-revenue, you need to show signal. Not just activity, but leading indicators that predict traction. A leading indicator is a metric that shows you’re heading in the right direction — even before you’ve hit your major revenue milestones.

  Here are a few examples:

  • Pilot conversion rate – Are people moving from interest to commitment?

  • Time to insight – How quickly can a user get value from your platform?

  • Iteration velocity – How fast are you testing, learning, and shipping improvements?

  • Referral or virality loops – Are early users inviting others?

  • Pipeline quality – Are you attracting the right buyer personas?

  These are the kinds of metrics that make investors lean forward. They tell a story: we’re not just building, we’re learning — and it’s working.

These are big topics, and they deserve a deeper dive. So for now, just know: money likes clarity + pace, so the clearer your messaging is, everything else becomes easier to build around it.

PR & Thought Leadership

Now let’s talk about storytelling at scale.

Your messaging work also feeds your PR and public positioning (aka brand) — but how you tell the story depends on the format.

• If it’s a founder spotlight, lean into your story. What led you here? Why are you the person to solve this? These pieces are often more emotional, so don’t be afraid to share conviction and grit.

• If it’s a product or company piece, lead with a clear point of view. What’s broken in the market? What needs to change? Your opinion should feel like a thesis, not a pitch.

• If it’s thought leadership, plant your flag. Speak as the expert you are. If you’ve done the internal work from previous editions, you’ll already sound sharper than 90% of people out there.

Brand positioning should grow out of your story — not the other way around.

Start with the emotions your product evokes. What do your clients want to feel? Relief? Control? Possibility? Speed? Choose the emotional palette that resonates most deeply with your users — and build around that.

Then ask: what future are you painting for them? What does the world look like after they’ve adopted your solution? What changes? What gets easier? What becomes possible?

That’s your brand — the bridge between pain and possibility.

Ideally, even your product name stems from that future. It should feel like a signal of where you're taking your customer — not just what you’ve built.

Final Word

If you’ve been following this series from Edition #16 onward, you now have a full-stack communication system:

🧠 Internal Clarity
📢 External Conviction
🚀 Consistent Communication

When you do this right, you’re not “selling.” You’re simply reinforcing a story that’s already true — a story your team believes, your early users validate, and your investors trust.

Now, all that’s left is to turn up the volume.

You’ve earned the right to be loud. Let’s make sure it lands.

I’ve got some bonus drops, new programs, and founder spotlights coming your way soon — all drawn from the sharpest lessons I’ve learned from working 1:1 with technical founders like yours.

Stay tuned.

📬 Want to Chat?

I’m speaking with 10 Deeptech & Healthtech CEOs while shaping a new program to help founders gain clarity and momentum to attract capital.

If 2025 is your breakout year, let’s talk.

In exchange for 20 minutes of insight, I’ll offer a free 20-minute 1:1 board advisory session to help you pinpoint your next strategic move.

No pitches. Just honest conversation.

👉 Interested? Book here

Let’s make your company as clear as your vision.

— Vivian

Jobs with Deeptech investors:

• Senior Investment Principal - Partners Capital (VC), San Francisco, USA

• Corporate Venture Capital Director - Hilti Ventures (CVC), San Francisco, USA

• Capital Formation Associate - B Capital (VC), New York, USA

• Research Associate - Upfront Ventures (VC), Santa Monica, USA

• Associate - Greycroft (VC), Los Angeles, USA

If you have gotten value out of Vivian’s Deeptech Insider, please help us grow by sharing it with your friends!