I am developing a platform to help people explain and develop their ideas. Yet explaining the platform itself has been a struggle.
There have been plenty of rewrites of the AKOS website page. Each time, I have been trying to get closer to something I can see in my mind, but haven’t quite managed to put into words that connect with someone encountering it for the first time.
That has been frustrating. It has also made the problem I want AKOS to help with feel very personal.
I tend to explain things from the inside. By the time I start talking, I have already thought through the starting point and moved on to the possibilities. I assume a level of understanding that the person listening has had no opportunity to develop.
Then another possibility occurs to me, and I follow it. Keeping the explanation on course can be difficult when my mind is already exploring where the idea might go next.
What feels connected in my head can become abstract to someone else. I want them to have a clear picture, but I haven’t always given them a way into it.
During the website revisions, some of our wording had become rather corporate. It described AKOS, yet when I read it, I didn’t feel personally connected to it. We weren’t speaking directly enough to the people I hope it will help: bioeconomy founders and Impact Funders.
I am not a corporate person. I am someone who wants to help make a difference.
The explanation started to feel closer when I put myself in the audience’s shoes. What would someone arriving with an idea need to understand? What would make them recognise their own situation? And what would an Impact Funder need to see to decide whether an opportunity deserved a closer look?
Those questions brought me back to my own difficulty: turning what I can see into something another person can understand.
One of the things I love about the direction we are taking with Vision Studio is the ability to turn an idea into an image. I want to be able to describe the problem I see, explain my proposed solution, and have something tangible to examine and refine.
An image gives me something to point to. It can help connect an unfamiliar concept to something recognisable in the real world.
But I also want questions. Thoughtful questions that follow what I am trying to describe, help me fill the gaps and let me reconsider my assumptions without feeling judged for an unfinished idea.
That is the experience I want us to build: a way to develop a clear brief while gaining a deeper understanding of the concept itself. From that understanding, a short explanation—or an elevator pitch—should become easier to produce.
Clarity is only the beginning, though. The idea still needs serious assessment.
For an Impact Funder, I would want that brief to make it easier to understand the opportunity, its intended impact and whether it fits their goals. I would want them to see that I had taken the work seriously and was realistic about the journey ahead.
As development progresses, that means making the commercial, technical and impact evidence visible, alongside the uncertainties, experiments and next steps. The Commercial, Technical and Impact Due Diligence outputs and Pilot Plan are important parts of that intended journey.
Transparency matters deeply to me. A funder should be able to see what has been learned, what remains an assumption and what needs proving. My commitment to an idea cannot substitute for evidence, and AKOS cannot guarantee that it will succeed.
What I hope it can do is help people give an idea a fair, disciplined assessment and make better decisions about how to proceed.
I am still learning how to explain AKOS. The rewrites have shown me how easily I can lose sight of the person I am trying to reach. They have also helped me understand more clearly the experience I want another founder to have.
If you struggle to explain an idea, I would like to hear from you. Where does the explanation become difficult? What would help someone else see what you see?
You don’t need a polished pitch to begin that conversation. An idea can be considered, refined and iterated into something ready for serious assessment. Helping people take that step is a very personal reason for me to keep building AKOS.