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by skb_ 4996 days ago
Problems that are inherently too complicated to explain in a sentence or two aren't worth solving, at least not for startups.

I think the problem comes in trying to explain something to someone (an investor) without domain knowledge. In order to be succinct, you have to make some assumptions. It's sort of like a mathematical proof. Given a sufficiently complex problem, a shorter proof generally makes more assumptions about the reader's knowledge than a longer one.

Customers will generally understand the problem better, since you are presumably working on one of their pain points. So it's easier to explain a solution to them than to investors who probably don't have those same pain points. It's in an investor's best interest to be more open to longer pitches unless they already understand the domain.

1 comments

Yeah I think this is the best approach. For my one-pager I have a one paragraph explanation, followed by a FAQ. Virtually everyone has the same questions in the same order after hearing the pitch, so it makes it super easy to explain both in person and in writing. I could always rewrite it in a more traditional way, but I think it's actually easiest to read as is.