The Unseen Architecture of a Winning Pitch
/Alis Exchange
Overview
Sector
Services
Technology used
Audience
Point A Marketing partnered with Alis Exchange, a company revolutionising enterprise AI application development, to craft their pitch deck for the Harvard Business School Alumni New Venture Competition in Paris. Our mission: to distill their sophisticated offering into a narrative that was not just clear, but compelling and resonant for a panel of discerning judges. This piece explores our journey of shaping that story – from deep dives into their business model to the relentless pursuit of clarity, and the surprising lessons learned in the high-stakes presentation arena. It's a look at how we helped transform complexity into a narrative that earned Alis Exchange a finalist spot, and what that process taught us about the power of a story well told.
Our Approach
Ever looked at something truly compelling- a killer presentation, a product that just clicks, and wondered how it got that way? That journey is rarely linear. More often, it’s a winding path, a series of conversations, and a relentless hunt for the ideas that genuinely surprise and resonate.
We recently walked that path with Alis Exchange. They’re a sharp team tackling a big problem: helping enterprises build complex AI-driven applications, fast. The stage? The Harvard Business School Alumni New Venture Competition in Paris. High stakes. Big ideas. Lots of noise.
Our challenge wasn't just to make a slide deck. Any consulting robot can make slides. The real task was to unearth the story of a calibre that makes sophisticated judges lean in, nod, and get it. How do you take something inherently complex, like a full life-cycle enterprise application development platform accelerated by AI, and make it not just understandable, but interesting?
The Hunt for Surprising Clarity
First, we had to get comfortable with being confused ourselves. Alis Exchange does a lot. They merge ‘made-to-fit’ development services with a powerful platform. They’re solving urgent enterprise needs: legacy system paralysis, data integration nightmares, the snail’s pace of regulatory change, and the struggle to actually use AI effectively.
Our early conversations were all about throwing ideas out there, testing them, seeing what sparked. We asked ourselves, and them: What’s the core pain here? What’s the one thing people need to remember? We were looking for those little nuggets of surprise, the insights that make you go, "Ah, that's clever."
We spent hours watching pitch deck roasts from folks like Justin Kan and Garry Tan. Not to copy them, but to absorb the patterns. What makes a story land? What makes it fizzle out? Kan talks about fundraising and recruiting as forms of storytelling. That resonated. This wasn't just about information; it was about persuasion, about connection.
We obsessed over conciseness. Short lines. Snappy phrases. Every image had to earn its place – no "stocky unrelated imagery." We fought to simplify the narrative, to get granular with the problem. The goal was to reduce cognitive load, to make it visually appealing, yes, but more importantly, to make it effortless to grasp. We were trying to find that sweet spot where the design is interesting enough to engage, but also leaves space for the audience's intuition to interact.
From "And Then" to "But & Therefore"
A lot of pitches fall into the "and then... and then..." trap. "We do this, and then we do that, and then here’s another feature." It’s a recipe for boredom. We were aiming for a "but & therefore" structure.
"Enterprises urgently need to digitize, but they're trapped by legacy systems and complexity. Therefore, Alis Exchange offers a solution that accelerates development and embeds compliance from day one."
"Transforming AI into enterprise solutions is hard, but traditional consulting is too slow, low-code struggles, and internal teams lack capacity. Therefore, Alis provides a platform and services to bridge that gap."
This creates a natural tension and release, giving a narrative flow that pulls the audience along.
The deck started to take shape:
- The Problem, Stark and Clear: "Enterprises Urgently Need to Digitise and Automate." No mincing words.
- The Solution, Elegant and Structured: "Alis Exchange helps enterprises build AI-driven, cloud-native applications." The "Ideate, Develop, Manage" framework offered a simple map.
- The Proof, Tangible and Real: "Delivering Differentiating Impact for Clients." Old Mutual, Rezco, Stanlib – real names, real results. "60% Faster project completion." Numbers that mean something. This wasn't about "total users" or vanity metrics; it was about impact, something Justin Kan warns against fudging.
- The Team, Credible and Driven: An "engineering-led team" with serious credentials. This wasn't just a list of names; it was about showing why this team was uniquely equipped to solve this problem – what Garry Tan might call "founder-market fit."
The feedback from Justin Joffe, one of the judges, was a huge validation: "Alis Exchange has been selected as a finalist... Based on your presentation materials and strength of your team and business opportunity..." It felt like we’d found those surprising, interesting threads and woven them into something coherent.
The Surprise of the Live Arena
Then came Paris. The live event. And this is where the learning really kicked into high gear. You can craft what you think is the perfect narrative in a vacuum, but the real test is a live audience, especially one as sharp as HBS judges.
Here’s what surprised us, even after all the prep:
- Radical Simplification Isn't Optional, It's Essential. No matter how smart you think your audience is, you have to make your message crystal clear. Assume nothing. "The people who need to hear this message will understand the problem precisely" is lazy explaining. It’s on you to make it simple. This echoes that design principle of making a product understandable, almost intuitive.
- Lean Into the Hard Questions. GTM strategy? Pricing? These are always tough for early-stage ventures. The temptation is to gloss over them if you’re not 100% certain. What we saw was that it’s better to show your thinking, even if it’s evolving. It demonstrates you’re tackling the hard stuff. Garry Tan advises being candid about challenges. It builds more trust than pretending they don't exist.
Alis Exchange didn’t take the top prize that day, but the insights were invaluable. The pitch deck wasn't just a document for a competition; it became an artefact of their thinking, and a Etool for future conversations.
Crafting Your Own Resonant Narrative
So, what’s the through-line here? It’s that shaping a compelling narrative is an act of discovery. It’s about being relentlessly curious, testing ideas, and having strong opinions, loosely held. It’s about understanding that the most powerful communication often feels simple, but that simplicity is hard-won. It’s about finding those surprising insights that make your audience feel like they’ve discovered something too.
It’s less about a formula and more about a mindset:
- Hunt for the "Interesting" and "Surprising": What will make people lean in?
- Embrace "Confusing" as a Starting Point: If it's confusing to you, it'll be confusing to them. Clarify. Simplify.
- Eliminate the "Boring" and "Repeated": Every element must earn its keep.
This isn't just about pitch decks. It’s about how you explain your work, your ideas, your vision to anyone.
If you’re wrestling with how to tell your own complex story, how to cut through the noise and make a genuine connection, maybe it's time to start your own hunt for surprising clarity. What’s the story you’re trying to tell?
Let's find those "but & therefore" moments that make your narrative click. Let's build something that doesn't just inform, but resonates.
If you’re ready to work with a team that geeks out on this stuff, that believes in the power of a well-told story, and that isn’t afraid to go down the rabbit hole to find the most compelling way to articulate your vision, then let's talk. We’d love to help you prepare for your next big presentation.
