You’ve got the tech. You’ve got the science. You’ve even got a clever slide deck. But when you pitch, investors still stare back blankly and say:
“I don’t get it.”
It’s not that your technology isn’t brilliant. It’s that your story isn’t landing.
In nascent ecosystems, places without a long history of venture capital and startup exits, this problem shows up repeatedly. Founders lean on their technical knowledge but haven’t been pushed to develop a plan, prove it, and translate it into a clear story grounded in customer empathy. Without that, capital is nearly impossible to attract.
The good news? This is a fixable problem. Solving it doesn’t just help you; it sets the stage for an entire ecosystem to grow.
Why Investors Say “I Don’t Get It”
Let’s be clear: most investors are not engineers. Even in advanced tech hubs, many come from finance, law, or management. In nascent ecosystems, they may come from verticals such as real estate, healthcare services, or manufacturing. They don’t want to hear a technical lecture.
What they need to hear is:
- Who has the hair-on-fire problem?
- How bad is it for them?
- Why now?
- How are you uniquely solving it?
- What early signals prove this matters?
They lose the room when founders skip these points and bury investors under jargon. The issue isn’t intelligence, it’s relevance. Investors don’t invest in code, patents, or algorithms alone. They invest in founders they trust to execute and deliver plausible solutions.
Step 1: Anchor Your Story in the Customer
Technical founders often start with the solution: the algorithm, the device, the platform. But the story has to start earlier with the human being who has the problem.
Ask yourself:
- Who is my archetype customer with a “hair-on-fire” problem?
- What is their life like before my solution?
- How does my solution transform their world?
Everything else follows naturally when you tell the story from the customer’s eyes. Investors lean in not because they understand your tech, but because they know your customer.
Step 2: Build a Simple, Testable Plan
A story without proof is talk. You can gain investor confidence by showing you’ve tested your assumptions.
That doesn’t mean you need $1M in revenue. But it does mean:
- You’ve run customer discovery interviews and can cite real quotes.
- You’ve developed a lean plan based on tested customer empathy.
- You’ve sketched a minimum viable product (MVP) and tested it with actual users.
- You’ve adjusted based on feedback.
In short, you’re not just theorizing, you’re learning directly from the market. A simple, tested plan speaks louder than jargon.
Step 3: Translate Your Plan Into Investor Language
Once you’ve built and tested a plan, your next job is translation. Investors need to see the logic, not the lab notes.
Instead of saying:
“Our AI-driven spectrometer leverages Fourier-transform algorithms to reduce signal noise.”
Say:
“Labs today wait weeks for results that we can deliver in hours, cutting costs by 70% and accelerating decisions.”
The first example flexes technical depth. The second tells a clear story: pain, solution, and value. One confuses, the other convinces.
Step 4: Use Proxies for Traction
In nascent ecosystems, traction is hard. You may not have big sales yet. But you can show proof points that make your plan real:
- Letters of intent from potential customers.
- Pilot projects with local businesses.
- Waitlists or pre-orders.
- Advisors or mentors with credibility in your space.
- Sales trumps everything else.
Each signal reduces doubt and shifts the story from “interesting idea” to “validated opportunity.”
Step 5: Make the Story Visible
If you’re in a smaller market, visibility matters even more. Too many founders stay silent until they have something “perfect.” That’s a mistake.
Investors and community leaders need to see your journey. Post updates. Speak at meetups. Host mini-demo sessions. Share customer stories.
When you can demonstrate momentum building, talk about it, no matter how scrappy, you build a reputation as someone worth paying attention to. The story doesn’t spread by itself. You have to tell it. (Note: Don’t let anyone tell your story before you can demonstrate sustainable momentum.)
Step 6: Practice, Get Feedback, Refine
In advanced ecosystems, founders get polished because they’re constantly pitching. In smaller ones, practice is limited, so founders fumble before real investors.
The fix? Build your own practice loops.
- Join pitch practice sessions.
- Ask mentors to grill your deck.
- Record yourself and watch for confusing points.
- Force yourself to answer, “So what? and Who cares?” after every slide.
- Ask your audience to repeat your story in their own words. If they don’t get it, you’ll know quickly.
Every time you refine, you move from jargon to clarity. That’s how you turn “I don’t get it” into “That makes sense.”
Step 7: Shift from Tech Founder to Storyteller
The hardest shift for technical founders is realizing their genius won’t sell itself. The best founders learn to become storytellers.
That doesn’t mean you fake it. It means you:
- Translate technology into human value.
- Build empathy for your customers.
- Show evidence of demand.
- Craft a narrative that feels inevitable.
You can always bring in a co-founder to help tell the story. But if you don’t learn to anchor your vision in customer reality, you’ll keep hearing the exact words: “I don’t get it.”
Final Word
Raising capital without traction is one of the most improbable moves a founder can make in a nascent ecosystem. But the barrier isn’t just conservative investors; it’s unclear and painful storytelling.
Investors don’t need to understand your code or your equations. They need to believe in the problem, the urgency, and your ability to solve it. That belief only comes when you’ve built, tested, and translated a plan into a clear, empathetic story.
So, if you keep hearing “I don’t get it,” don’t double down on jargon. Step back. Talk to your customers. Build a simple proof. Refine your story.
Because when investors finally say, “Now I get it,” the capital and the ecosystem start to seek you out.