Deep tech’s blind spot – why brilliant science still loses to bad storytelling
Spin-outs are breaking new ground in labs across the UK. But the founders who successfully win over investors and customers are the ones who can explain what they’ve built simply, says Darren Evans, managing director and founder of The Engine Room.
University-led innovation is nothing new. Incubators, science parks and tech transfer offices have been turning progressive research into groundbreaking companies for decades.
But what feels different now is the momentum. A growing number of universities are putting commercial, go-to-market and activation teams alongside their spin-outs, so that ventures can make a stronger transition from being research-ready to market-ready.
It’s an exciting shift, and the quality of what’s coming out of UK labs is remarkable. Yet I keep seeing the same pattern – a team with genuinely game-changing science and a product that works, but a narrative that nobody outside the lab can follow.
Many of these founders hold PhDs. They’re incredibly bright, and plenty are natural entrepreneurs at heart, even if they’d never describe themselves that way. But most are new to business. They’re also incredibly busy – developing the technology, applying for grants, and pitching to investors, sometimes alongside additional work commitments. Stepping back to ask how the business looks and sounds to the outside world therefore feels like not only a luxury, but an expense.
However, in my experience, this is where brilliant science loses out, all for the sake of storytelling.
The ideal niche focus
Spin-outs often have what we would call the ‘holy grail’ in business – they address one thing, well. You’d be surprised how many organisations struggle with such focus, tempted instead to diversify in the hope that widens their chances of market penetration.
A brilliant solution to a specific, niche challenge that could help a lot of people, is an important foundation. The trouble is that “a lot of people” isn’t a market. Founders know precisely what their technology does, but haven’t always thought about who they’re targeting, what that person cares about, or what will make them act.
That’s not to say the university won’t have done its homework before backing the venture, of course, as rigorous market research is common. But what tends to get less attention is the human side. What does a customer have to change to adopt this? Who has to sign it off? What does it cost them in time, effort or reputation if it goes wrong? Those behavioural barriers will ultimately influence the level of demand likely to exist at launch.
Separate the inventors from the invention
When something has been ‘invented’, it can be hard to tell where the team ends and the product begins. Founders talk about their research group, their methodology and their
expertise, but often the product – where the IP resides – gets lost. To an investor, the risk is that this can sound less like a business and more like a loose network of clever people doing interesting things.
Investors need to see something tangible – exactly what the product is, the benefits, and the growth potential. Conviction in the people behind a venture matters enormously, but it works best when the product is clear enough to stand on its own. When we worked with RunPilot, a University of Sheffield spin-out, much of the early work came down to exactly this – defining the product, its proposition and even its name separately from the research that led to its development.
Watch the buzzwords
Deep tech has its own vocabulary, so it’s easy to default to that.
Terms like “platform”, “ecosystem” or “innovation”, for instance, might feel like shorthand, but they’re overused and in truth say very little. Complex technical jargon is also comfortable territory for the inventors who use this language every day, but if it means little to the people outside the spin-out, take the tech out. The danger, otherwise, is overcomplicating something that could be much simpler to understand.
The goal is to communicate a complex narrative with clarity, without losing credibility. So try to explain what you do without explaining how it works. If the value disappears, there’s still work to be done.
Does AI help or hinder?
AI now makes it possible to produce a logo, a website and a pitch deck in an afternoon. That’s potentially useful, but it also means a lot of early-stage companies look and sound exactly the same – polished, perhaps on the surface, but vague.
As a designer, of course I enjoy the visual progress that comes with developing a brand, but the real work – and the part that even many designers overlook – is the thinking that comes first.
So we always encourage spin-outs to start by focusing on what they stand for, what problem they’re solving, and for who. This discussion usually benefits from a more impartial contributor who understands the brand and commercial side of a business, as well as the founders understand their innovation.
Investors aren’t the only audience
Funding understandably dominates the spin-out conversation, and investors will always want to know the size of the problem, the size of the market and the size of the opportunity. But it’s easy to become obsessed with investment as the only route to growth, and to build every message around the pitch deck. Customers, partners, early hires and grant funders all need to understand the business too, often before investors do, so a clear story serves all of them.
You already understand brand
Scientists can be sceptical about brand and I understand why. It can sound like expensive aesthetics – little more than a logo and colour palette. But most of us make brand decisions every day, even if we don’t realise it. We have our preferred cars and personal gadgets. In the lab, people have their favourite kit and suppliers they trust. Those preferences come from what a product does, but also from how it makes us feel.
So dare I say it, but emotion matters in deep tech too. A buyer at a utility company or an NHS trust is still a person making a judgement about gain and risk. Get the human element right and you create a connection that a specification sheet can’t.
In truth, this challenge isn’t unique to spin-outs. Plenty of established technical businesses get so hooked on features and intricacies that they forget to say why any of it matters.
Keep it simple
It’s perhaps human nature to overcomplicate without realising. And of course, running a business isn’t easy. But building a brand can be simple, even when the technology isn’t.
At its heart, a proposition comes down to four things. I’ve got this great thing. It will solve this problem. Here’s why. And here’s what working together looks like. A great brand wraps all of this up in a compelling and creative way.
If a founder can say those four things clearly, to anyone in the room, the science gets the hearing it deserves.
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