The best way to pitch an idea that's impossible to explain

Pitching a complex idea? Learn why focusing on the problem—not the solution—is the fastest way to build trust and earn a "yes."

---

Earlier this month, a fascinating marketing experiment took place on the streets of Manhattan Beach.

Robots were seen carrying large digital screens—'BotBoards'—for a company called World ID.

And while the spectacle grabbed attention, it’s the strategy behind it that contains the campaign's most potent and transferable lesson.

The challenge: an unexplainable solution

First, understand World ID’s core challenge. Their "technical reality" is a nightmare to explain: "We provide a decentralized, zero-knowledge proof of personhood protocol."

This is a terrible marketing message. It’s complex, jargon-filled, and requires a huge effort from the audience to understand. The team behind the campaign knew they couldn’t win by explaining their solution.

So they changed the goal entirely.

The strategy: diagnose the problem, don't pitch the solution

This is the single most important takeaway, and it is a playbook designed specifically for situations where you're pitching a solution that is complex, abstract, or requires a leap of faith from your audience. The core strategy is to:

This is a fundamental change in approach.

• The old goal: "I must convince them my solution is the best." This leads down the path of features and specs, which confuses and bores an audience.
• The new goal (the World ID way): "I must convince them that I understand their problem better than anyone else in the room."

When you achieve this, acceptance of your solution becomes the logical, inevitable conclusion.

How they did it: selling the end result—indirectly

So, how did they pull it off? It really came down to two clever moves:

1. By creating a powerful vacuum: First, they dramatized the pain point. They took an invisible frustration—digital bots—and gave it a physical body. This makes the problem so vivid that it creates an intense desire, a vacuum, for a solution. They don't have to show you the beautiful, bot-free internet; they make the current situation so undesirable that your own mind craves the relief.

2. By selling the hero, not the destination: By presenting the problem with such intelligence and wit, the campaign sells you on the competency of World ID itself. The end result you're buying isn't just a "bot-free internet"; it's the promise that this is the company smart enough to get you there.

The audience doesn't think, "I need a decentralized protocol." They think, "Wow, the people behind this really understand the problem."

Wrap-up

The next time you have to pitch a complex idea, resist the urge to explain your solution. Instead, shift your approach. Here’s how:

1. Reframe your goal. Your job isn't to explain your solution. It's to prove you understand the problem better than anyone else. Spend your energy articulating the challenge with surprising clarity and insight.
2. Create a "Botboard moment." Your goal is to make your abstract problem feel real. Don't just talk about it; give your audience a single, powerful experience that they won't forget. Pick one of these tools and get creative:
   • Use a prop: Bring a physical object into the room that symbolizes the problem.
   • Use a vivid analogy: Use a comparison that creates a strong physical image in your audience's mind.
   • Tell a single, concrete story: Make the problem feel human by telling the story of one person it affects.
3. Offer the solution as relief. Once you've earned their trust by mastering the problem, you can introduce your solution. Frame it as the simple, obvious, and logical answer to the very specific diagnosis you just delivered.

Your demonstrated mastery of the problem will earn you the trust to solve it.

​

Until next week,
Meghan
Founder, The Good Deck

​