Most founders think the more they explain, the more convincing they sound.
It's often the opposite.
When you're deep in building something, you eventually fall in love with your product: the features, the architecture, the clever decisions, the elegant way everything fits together.
You've spent months thinking about how it works.
So when it's time to pitch, that's what you talk about.
The problem is nobody cares.
At least, not yet.
Your audience doesn't care how your product works until they understand why it matters to them.
If I don't understand the value, no amount of technical detail will convince me. In fact, that detail may make your pitch harder to understand, harder to remember, and ultimately less persuasive.
And more arguments don't necessarily make a stronger argument.
We tend to assume persuasion is additive:
One good reason is convincing. Five good reasons must be five times as convincing.
But that's not necessarily how people process information.
Research on what's sometimes called the "dilution effect" or "argument strength paradox" suggests that adding weaker arguments alongside strong ones can actually reduce the persuasive impact of the overall message.
Instead of mentally adding every argument together, people can effectively average them.
Your killer argument gets mixed with four mediocre ones, and suddenly the whole thing feels... mediocre.
That's a useful lesson for anyone pitching a product.
Number 1: Why before how.
Before you explain the technology, explain the change.
What becomes easier?
What becomes faster?
What becomes cheaper?
What becomes possible that wasn't possible before?
Give me the value first. Once I want the outcome, I'll become interested in how you make it happen.
Number 2: Jargon is the enemy.
Buzzwords move fast.
AI-powered. Agentic. Next-generation. Proprietary. Intelligent. Scalable. End-to-end.
When impressive-sounding words flash by without connecting to something concrete, your message becomes abstract. Your audience has to work to translate your language into something they actually care about.
Most won't.
The strongest positioning often sounds almost suspiciously simple.
Look at how some of the biggest companies in the world have described their missions:
Google: "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Meta: "to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together."
Apple: "to create technology that empowers people and enriches their lives."
Notice what's missing?
Architecture.
Infrastructure.
Model parameters.
Technical sophistication.
They're describing value.
If a trillion-dollar company doesn't lead with its technology, take note.
This doesn't mean the technology doesn't matter.
It means the order matters.
First make me understand why I should care.
Then, once I care, show me how you do it.
You don't need to explain everything your product can do. You need to explain what changes for the person in front of you.
Maybe it's time saved.
Maybe it's money saved.
Maybe it's removing something painful.
Maybe it's giving people access to something they couldn't reach before.
Maybe it's simply making an annoying part of their day disappear.
Start there.
Then stop talking before your strongest argument gets buried under your fifth-best one.
Great products still need great translation.
Building something valuable is only half the job.
The other half is translating that value into language another human being can understand quickly enough to care.
That's marketing.
That's branding.
That's pitching.
And it's why a mediocre product with a clear story can sometimes outperform a brilliant product nobody understands.
Keep it short.
Keep it simple.
Keep it personal.
Why before how. Value before features. Strongest argument before all the other ones.
For the curious
Lombardi, L., & Madalinski, M. (2024). The paradox of argument strength: How weak arguments undermine the persuasive effects of strong arguments. PLOS ONE.