Create a story before product development – new technology doesn’t sell itself
Liisa Yli-Ojanperä
Communications Consultant
Finland’s innovation landscape is full of potential: quantum computing, cleantech, fintech, material science, biotech and health technology. The technology and expertise are there, yet Finland does not produce world-class stock market success stories. Why?
Most often, the reason is not weak technology, but the fact that too little thought is given to how it is communicated – and often far too late.
Systemic platform. Hybrid model. Scalable ecosystem. Agentic capabilities. Model-based optimization.
When product development is driven primarily by a team of technical experts, the product tends to be described using buzzwords like the above. Meaning gets buried under technical jargon. This does not create demand – it creates questions.
If you only start thinking about marketing and communications once your innovation is finished, you are already too late. If your ambition is to build a world-class success, before any product development begins, you need to consider whose problems the product solves and what kind of story will make it sell.
Start with the world, not with the lab
The key question is not how the technology works, but why it should exist. This is a question worth answering before making a single product development investment. When the story guides product development, the technology does not remain trapped in the research lab.
So you, developer of new technology: before you build even your first prototype, ask yourself these questions:
- What problem does the product solve?
- Who and where are the people with these problems?
- Why is your product the best solution for them?
- How would the product change their lives?
- What broader impacts would these changes have on societies, businesses, the economy, working life, or families?
When product development is guided by questions at this level, your company is far better prepared to answer investors’ questions when it is time to scale up production. A strong foundational story builds a bridge across the so-called “innovation valley of death” from pilots to the threshold of commercialization.
This does not mean that superior technical features should be abandoned or hidden – their time simply comes later. Global interest is not sparked by listing technical complexities; first, a compelling promise is needed. Only then can facts be used to prove that the promise holds true.
Finnish innovations do not need more technology – we know how to handle that part. What they need is a story that makes technology understandable and desirable.
