By Theo Saville, CEO and Co-founder, CloudNC

There’s a moment in every founder’s journey when someone looks you in the eye - maybe it’s an investor, a journalist, a prospective hire - and asks: “So, what do you do?”

You take a deep breath and launch into your best explanation… only to watch their eyes glaze over. You’ve lost them.

Sound familiar?

I’ve been there. Repeatedly. And over time I’ve learned that how you explain what you do is one of the most underrated skills in your arsenal. If you can’t explain it clearly, you can’t sell it. You can’t fundraise. You can’t build a team. And you certainly can’t inspire anyone.

So, here’s what I’ve learned - through trial, error, and the occasional startup pitch competition that never paid out - about how to explain what you do in a way that actually lands.

The startup pyramid of explanation

At CloudNC, we talk about explanation as a pyramid. It has layers, and you’ve got to build them in the right order. At the top is the most universal, bite-sized, attention-grabbing version of what you do. As you descend, you add detail and tailor for the audience.

But no matter who you’re talking to, the top two layers are non-negotiable: they need to be so simple a teenager - or ideally, a five-year-old - could understand them.

Let me walk you through it.

Layer 1: The one-liner

This is the sentence that lives at the top of your pitch deck, your homepage, your job descriptions. It’s what you say at a party when someone asks what your company does. And it must be:

• Aspirational
• Instantly understandable
• Void of jargon
• Built for humans

CloudNC’s one-liner?
We’re trying to make single-click manufacturing a reality.

That’s it.

It’s ambitious. It’s clean. It sparks curiosity. And it opens the door for a conversation.

If your one-liner doesn’t do all those things, it’s time to rewrite it.

🔍 Great One-Liner Examples

Need some inspiration? Here are examples from companies you know:

• Google – Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
• Microsoft – A computer on every desk and in every home.
• Meta (Facebook) – Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.
• Stripe – Payments infrastructure for the internet.
• Tesla – Accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
• Amazon – Earth’s most customer-centric company.

These aren’t just mission statements. They’re clear, evocative, and immediately position the company in your brain.

Layer 2: The layman’s explanation

Once you’ve hooked someone, they’ll ask: “Tell me more.”

Here’s where you give them the layman’s version. This should still be simple, but you get a bit more room to explain the problem and how you solve it - without drifting into technical territory.

For CloudNC, it might go like this:

Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent cutting blocks of metal into parts for planes, cars, phones, and more using robots called CNC machines. Today, those robots are manually programmed line by line. Our software accelerates that process, maximising factory output and empowering machinists and programmers to deliver more.

This layer should answer three questions:

1. What’s the problem?
2. How big is it?
3. How do you solve it?

Note that I’m still avoiding heavy jargon. No mention of “G-code,” “CAM software,” or “computational geometry.” Just a story a teenager could follow. This is still where most founders fall down - especially technical ones.

What not to do

Here’s how not to explain what CloudNC does:

We make AI-powered software to accelerate G-code generation for CNC machines using high-performance computational geometry.

Cool story, bro.

Unless your audience is made up of manufacturing PhDs, this will kill the conversation. And not just because it’s too complex. You’ve given your listener no reason to care. You’re not making them feel anything. You’re not showing them the impact.

The curse of knowledge is real. Founders often assume their audience knows - or cares - about the underlying mechanics. They don’t. As one of my best friends once said to me mid-pitch when I was practicing for a competition at university:

“Theo, nobody gives a f***. Show me the money.”

That hurt. But he was right.

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Layer 3: tailored explanation

Only after you’ve delivered Layers 1 and 2 do you start tailoring your explanation based on the audience. But here's the trick: don’t jump into this layer without asking questions first.

Before I pitch an investor, I ask them about their fund:

• What return are you aiming for?
• What check sizes do you write?
• What’s your decision-making structure?

Why? Because I’ll speak very differently to a growth-stage investor aiming for a 3x return in 5 years than to a seed-stage fund swinging for 100x. One wants risk; the other wants a spreadsheet.

Same with customers. If I’m speaking to a factory manager, my first question is:

“What’s hurting you right now?”

Maybe they can’t hire enough skilled workers. Maybe their machines are idle. Maybe they’re drowning in quotes.

Once I know the pain, I can map our solution directly to it.

And think about the alternative - say I don’t ask questions and I go in guns blazing about how CAM Assist helps a specific issue (let’s say - turning around quotes), only for the manager to say ‘Actually, we don’t have any issues on that.’ You’ve not only lost their interest and the opportunity to connect - they now think your solution isn’t relevant for them.

It’s pointless pitching if you’re not solving a problem they have. You’ll be trying to help yourself without helping them. Ask questions. Listen deeply. Only then explain.

(One final note here - The Mom Test is a good book on this).

Layer 4: deep expertise

Now, finally, you can nerd out. If you’re speaking to someone technical who’s eager to go deep, then you can explain how your computational geometry engine works, or how your AI model was trained, or what your feedback loop looks like.

But even here: simplicity wins.

Remember, human communication is low bandwidth. Your goal is to transfer a concept from your brain to theirs. Don’t jam the channel with unnecessary noise.

And also remember: there aren’t many people that will tell you that what you’re saying is going right over their head. It's embarrassing and we don't like looking stupid - but if this is what happens, they’ll walk away without a clue what you do.

The role of storytelling

OK - so what if everyone’s following that format - how do you then stand out?

Well, once you know and follow the rules, you can start playing with them - for example, by leading with a story.

“I discovered the problem in a college project, where we were challenged to build a human powered submarine, and get it to a race in America with just 30 weeks for design, fundraising and build. I could get 3D printed parts next day, but the machined parts took eight weeks each! I wanted to know why…”

A story is memorable. It brings people into your world. It helps them feel connected to your mission.

Charisma isn’t magic. It’s clarity.

OK - so you’ve got your layers sorted, and you’ve got your story. How do you deliver it better?

Explain simply.

• Don’t read from slides.
• Don’t use bullet points.
• Use an image instead of text wherever possible.
• If you do use text, use it to state only the simple conclusion the viewer should be taking from that slide.

When I present, most slides areeither a single word or a single graph, that I'll talk over. That’s it. If you force people to flick their attention between what you’re saying and what they’re reading, they’ll lose both.

Speak simply. Present simply. Then people will get it.

Final thoughts: simplicity is the North Star

If a person walks away from a conversation with you, and is able to explain what your company does with clarity and confidence, you've nailed it.

If you’re not being understood, you’re just talking to yourself.

So build your pyramid:

1. The One-Liner – Ambitious, clear, jargon-free.
2. The Layman’s Explanation – Problem, scale, solution. No acronyms.
3. Tailored Deep-Dive – Based on real questions, not assumptions.
4. Expert Mode – Only when invited.

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Always start at the top, and only descend when asked. Because the people who really get it will pull you deeper themselves.

And remember - if a five-year-old can understand what you do, there’s a good chance the investor on the other end of the Zoom call will too.

Want to see CloudNC’s pyramid in action? Here’s how I’d do it:

Layer 1: We’re making single-click manufacturing a reality.
Layer 2: Every year, the world spends hundreds of billions cutting metal, in machines that are still programmed line by line by hand. Our software accelerates this, saving time and money.
Layer 3: Depending on your pain, we help you boost spindle uptime, cut programming time, or reduce reliance on senior machinists.
Layer 4: We built an AI tool that learns optimal toolpaths from thousands of parts, adapting dynamically to your CAM environment.

Easy. Right?

Well… it took me ten years to learn. Hopefully, now it won’t take you quite as long.

[main image: Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash]