How Sirotin Ventures Developed VALUE GAP™ for Space Rising, an Arizona-Based Market-Building Operator for the Space Economy

How do you communicate a complex technical subject like in-orbit data processing to an investor, a customer and a board, when each of them is deciding something different?

That’s exactly what we do at Sirotin Ventures. VALUE GAP™ is a five-step method we developed to turn technical work into a business case that an investor, customer or partner can act on. Our partner Space Rising now offers it as a course, which debuted on April 28, 2026, at the Arizona Space Congress pre-congress program.

It grew out of the research for my report, Strategic Communications for Space 101, which involved more than 50 interviews across the space and defense ecosystem. Technical teams struggled to connect what their technology does to the decisions that determine whether a project gets support.

An investor has to assess risk, and a prospective customer has to understand what would change in their operations. An industry partner needs a reason to commit people, time or resources. A detailed technical explanation can leave all three without an answer.

I wanted to give technical teams a practical way to examine their own messaging.

Working through those questions often shows that a weak pitch needs a business decision clarified before it needs another rewrite.

The decision comes before the presentation

“Investors” is too broad an audience to guide a presentation. A fund evaluating a company’s first commercial deployment has different concerns from one considering an established business. A customer’s technical evaluator may need detailed performance information, while the person approving the purchase also needs to understand implementation costs and operational risk.

Those differences decide which facts belong in the message and how much explanation each one needs. They also change what you ask for: an introduction, a paid pilot and an investment each call for different evidence.

The method rests on one formula: their pain, plus your solution, plus how clearly you connect the two, equals value. Someone can understand what a technology does and still have no reason to pursue it. So when I work through a technical message, I start with two questions: who needs to act, and what are we asking them to do?

How the five steps expose gaps in a technical pitch

Do the steps in order. Until you know who you’re talking to, you can’t choose the right evidence, and without a clear request even an interested listener won’t know how to respond.

One technology, three different decisions

The course, The Art of Communicating Value 101, applies the five steps to one space technology in three situations: raising investment, selling to an operations customer and seeking board approval. Keeping the technology constant makes it easier to see what changes with each audience:

• The investor. They examine the company’s commercial progress, its outstanding risks and what the requested capital would accomplish. A performance claim has to connect to a credible business case.

• The operations customer. They have a requirement their current process doesn’t meet. A faster delivery time matters when it meets that requirement.

• The board. It asks whether an expansion deserves resources and what it would do to existing priorities.

The technology is the same in all three situations. Participants have to work out what information each decision needs, and a new opening slide doesn’t supply it.

Why the listener has to repeat the message

The person who hears your pitch usually has to explain it to colleagues before anything happens. Their version will be shorter than yours, and along the way some details drop out and others change meaning.

The course worksheet asks participants to write the sentence they want someone to use in a meeting they are not attending. They then say it aloud, ask another person to repeat it and revise it based on what changed or disappeared.

I included this exercise because the people who built a technology skip connections that seem obvious to them. They can sound fluent while the listener is still working out why the capability matters.

Hearing your message repeated back shows you what to fix. If the benefit comes through and the request doesn’t, that’s the next revision. I also listen for a claim that comes back stronger than the evidence supports, because that wording will keep traveling.

What we built for Space Rising

For Space Rising, we built the method, the course that teaches it and the course materials: a messaging worksheet and a before-and-after investor-deck exercise organized around 13 essential slide questions. At the first session, held at the Defense Innovation OnRamp Hub: Arizona, participants applied the five steps to their own work. You can watch the debut presentation on YouTube.

We also shaped the offer around the people who book it. University program directors and incubator leads need to know what participants will produce and how the instruction fits their program. Space Rising now offers three formats:

• Introductory webinar. Ninety minutes. Participants receive the messaging worksheet and before-and-after presentation examples.

• Applied workshop. A half day for up to 20 people. Participants leave with a completed worksheet and a draft value proposition for their target audience.

• Semester integration. Each team produces a one-page business case and a revised presentation, and the program compares initial and final work using the same rubric.

Space Rising is booking Spring 2027 with Arizona universities, incubators and capstone programs.

Applying VALUE GAP™ to university and industry connections

With Space Rising, we are now exploring university applications that connect the course to technology-scouting intake. The proposed approach would help a team prepare a clear account of its project for a potential industry partner.

A useful profile explains the capability, its maturity, the evidence behind it and the kind of partner the team needs. Without those details, the recipient has to work them out alone.

This application is still in development. The method, workshop and teaching materials already exist; proposed university pilots and scouting relationships are a next step. The research informed the framework, but it does not establish that taking the course causes a company to secure funding or win customers.

VALUE GAP™ shows the kind of work we do for clients. We took a subject that technical teams found hard to explain and built a method, a course and materials around it.

If your company has a complex technical subject that investors, customers or partners struggle to follow, write to me at angelica@sirotinventures.com and tell me who needs to understand it. We will work out what they need to decide and develop the explanation with you.