Beyond the Demo: How Arcturus Explains Complex Tech to Non-Technical Buyers

Explaining breakthrough technology to non-technical buyers is often where deep tech companies stumble. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Arcturus CTO Devin Horsman shared their approach to making volumetric video technology accessible to business decision-makers, offering valuable lessons for technical founders facing similar challenges.

The Communication Challenge

For Arcturus, the challenge was twofold: explaining what volumetric video is and conveying why it matters. Their solution? Start with familiar concepts and build from there.

Finding the Right Analogy

When explaining volumetric video, Devin uses a comparison most people understand: traditional 3D movies. “We’ve all seen like, 3D movies where you put on the 3D glasses and because you’ve got the 3D glasses on, the picture sort of pops out at you,” he explains. From there, he highlights the key difference: “What volumetric video is instead of having an image for each frame of the content, you’ve got a full three dimensional scene and you can move your viewpoint anywhere in that scene you want.”

This progression from familiar to novel helps buyers grasp the fundamental concept without getting lost in technical details.

Making It Tangible

To further clarify the concept, Devin uses another relatable comparison: “It’s kind of like being in a piece of interactive theater where you can move around theater set and watch what’s happening from any vantage point.”

When someone suggests a comparison to Google Maps’ street view, he builds on that understanding while highlighting the key difference: “Yeah, it’s kind of like Google Maps, except instead of there being like these particular points, you can see from it’s every point in between.”

Connecting to Business Value

Once the concept is clear, Arcturus focuses on specific use cases that resonate with different industries. “Right now, that’s in marketing activations, that’s in online retail, like fashion retail primarily, and in the production of film and entertainment,” Devin explains.

For film production, they make the value proposition concrete: “Our technology helps solve this problem, and by doing that, it makes the film production much more cost effective.” This direct connection between technical capability and business outcome helps non-technical buyers understand the technology’s potential impact.

Avoiding Technical Rabbit Holes

Notably, Devin stays away from detailed technical explanations unless specifically asked. When discussing their product’s role in the market, he focuses on the problem they solve: “Nobody was addressing post production. So when you want to edit, combine, or in any way modify this captured data, it was something like having a camera or a digital camera without the JPEG or without Photoshop.”

This comparison to familiar tools helps buyers understand the gap Arcturus fills without needing to understand the underlying technology.

The Results

This approach to communication has contributed to significant growth, with a 150% increase in processing volume and 575% increase in end-viewer distribution over the past year. By making their technology comprehensible to non-technical buyers, Arcturus has been able to expand beyond early technical adopters to reach mainstream markets.

Key Takeaways for Technical Founders

The Arcturus approach offers several valuable lessons:

1. Start with familiar concepts before introducing new ones
2. Use analogies that resonate with your audience’s experience
3. Focus on business outcomes rather than technical details
4. Build understanding progressively
5. Connect technical capabilities directly to business value

For deep tech founders, the message is clear: successful technology adoption often depends less on explaining how your technology works, and more on helping buyers understand why it matters to them.