When I was an entrepreneur raising money I tended to make a classic mistake: trying to convey all the amazing things we were doing in great detail. This is a terrible strategy. Why? Because too much detail buries the story of your business and also makes your business seem, well, complex. And investors are afraid of complexity.

Imagine for a moment a pitch that describes in great technical detail creating a custom processor, a custom operating system, a new relationship between hardware producer and distributor, and so on. Now contrast this with Steve Jobs introducing the first iPhone. It tells a story that anyone can follow with essentially zero technical knowledge. Now ask yourself which pitch you would invest in.

Does that mean you shouldn’t be prepared to talk about technical details? Not at all. But you want them pulled from you by the audience instead of pushing them. By the way this is just another example of the less is more principle which applies incredibly broadly to communication and in particular when you are selling something. Whether it is a pitch to VCs, an idea for the team or a sale to a customer: tell a simple story that will get attention, then provide detail when it is asked for.