You’ll meet a number of people who say they help startups. Many of them are great. They’re truly interested, genuinely helpful, and pleased by the chance to assist you.

But be careful.

Entrepreneurs may begin their journeys thinking like techies, not like investors: they love their technology, but they struggle to explain how they’ll build a successful business around it. Following are some things you may be tempted to say to potential investors.

In electrical systems, the goal of impedance matching is to allow maximum power to transfer from source to load. In sales, think of impedance matching as describing what you’re offering in a way that will be well-received by your prospective buyer.

What do platform technologies have in common? The answer is that they have many potential users and uses, but no obvious single customer who stands out as the best buyer. They’re dangerous for an entrepreneur, because they represent general capability rather than focus.

You want to start a company and build it around your technology. There are different paths—different strategies—that can allow you to get to market. By “get to market,” I mean being in a position to sell your technology and receive payment for it from multiple buyers.

If you’re new to commercializing your technology and building a company, there are some frameworks that have been around for a while. In this post, I’ll discuss two of them.