Share Your Vision. Literally.

Finding the right balance in a pitch is hard.

Let’s take a look at the two extreme approaches people tend to take.

Extreme 1 - Pitching Proof

On one side, you have the technically minded founder. They see the pitch as informing the investor of an objective reality.


They think: “If I can just explain my field in enough detail - the science, the technology, the data - then the investor will see the logic and will join the cause.
So they build this massive, detailed, bulletproof case.

It feels logical, but it rests on a false assumption - that such an airtight case for investing exists.
There’s no objective certainty in early-stage investing.
Every time someone finds a gap, the founder patches it with more data, more slides, more evidence - but the pitch only grows more exhausting and harder to follow.


Extreme 2 - Selling a Dream

The other extreme is the opposite: Founders who treat the pitch as a game of persuasion - entirely subjective.
They think it’s about saying whatever will make the investor excited, twisting the story to fit what they imagine the investor wants to hear.

That rests on an equally false assumption - that all investors dream the same dream, and that you know what it is.
They don’t. You don’t.
A pitch built on manufactured excitement feels forced, and investors sense mismatch. It raises more doubt than belief.


The Middle Ground - Sharing a Vision

The mistake both extremes share - just like in politics - is hubris:
The illusion of having the whole picture.

As you might expect, a better approach is a balance between those two extremes.
You’re communicating about an objective reality, but one that is still partly foggy. To bridge that uncertainty, you offer your own values - what matters most in your view of the future.
If those values resonate with the investor, you both recognize there’s a fit.

The way to strike this balance is to approach your pitch as simply sharing your vision - addressing both, what’s clear and what’s still unknown - that’s what makes a pitch feel authentic, defensible, and trustworthy.

Belief Doesn’t Require Completeness

Most founders avoid this because it feels incomplete. They think: “If I admit uncertainty, I’ll sound like I don’t know what I’m doing.” But that’s not how belief works.

Investors don’t expect completeness - they want credibility. You can build belief with a partial picture if it feels ‘true’.

If you’re unsure whether this approach is strong enough, think about yourself.

Why are you working on your startup? You’re committing years of your life to something you can’t fully prove, we all are.
The things that keep us going are always incomplete, still forming, partly in the fog.
What matters is that what you do see is strong enough to pull you forward.

That’s how all humans work.
And that’s exactly what you need to transmit when you pitch.