Dual-use tech sounds like an advantage. Two markets. Two budgets. More doors to walk through.

In reality, it's also double the ways to confuse people. Double the ways to look unsafe. Double the ways to get labeled as vaporware.

I'm Zach Ronski. I'm one of the marketing directors at **Fello Agency** in Toronto's Art & Design District. We're a specialized B2B tech branding and marketing agency. We work with companies in AI, robotics, quantum, advanced manufacturing, MedTech, and defense. We've built Fello from the ground up. No VC money. Lean team. Fast execution.

And when I say we "translate complex technologies," I mean commercialization. I mean taking something that's hard to explain and making it easy to buy.

Because your buyer doesn't wake up thinking about your specs. They wake up thinking about risk. Money. Time. Reputation. Safety. Whether they're in a factory, a hospital, or a procurement office.

So let's talk about dual-use marketing the way founders actually need it.

Dual-use tech gives you two markets - and two ways to lose trust

Dual-use is simple on paper. Same core technology, two use cases.

In practice, you're selling into two worlds that don't behave the same at all.

Commercial buyers move when they see speed and ROI. They want to know if you'll make them money or save them money. They want to know if switching to you makes them look smart internally.

Government and defense buyers move when they see safety, reliability, and proof. They're risk-averse for a reason. They're thinking about policy, procurement timelines, compliance, and the human consequence of failure.

Now here's the part founders miss.

If you try to write one "middle-of-the-road" story that kind of speaks to both... you end up speaking to nobody. Your site starts reading like a buffet of buzzwords. Your deck turns into a science fair poster. People bounce.

And in dual-use, bouncing isn't neutral. It's a signal. It says, "This company is unclear." Unclear turns into "unsafe" fast.

I can spot bullshit a mile away. Buyers can too.

"Simplifying" means making money and saving money obvious

Founders hear "simplify" and they think it means dumbing it down. That's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying your story needs to land in the buyer's brain in one pass. No re-reading. No decoding. No glossary.

Every deep tech company I work with has a complicated value prop. A lot of them sell into multiple industries. A lot of them have dual marketing, dual product focus, or two totally different personas.

So where do we start?

We start with value. We look at past deals. We talk to stakeholders across the company. Then we build a story people can repeat.

Because if your buyer can't repeat it to their boss, you don't have a sales story. You have a technical explanation.

And technical explanations don't close deals.

Here's the line I repeat all the time: your website needs to speak business.

That doesn't mean you hide the technical depth. It means you earn the right to get technical. You lead with outcomes. Then you back it up with proof.

Your website needs to speak business (or you stay in the lab)

I separate "technical talk" and "business talk" constantly.

Technical talk is what you say to your team, your PhDs, your engineers, your investors who already understand the space.

Business talk is what you say to the person with a budget and a career on the line.

Deep tech founders love technical talk because it feels safe. It feels precise. It feels like home.

Business talk feels vulnerable. It forces you to commit. It forces you to choose a lane.

So a lot of companies avoid it. Then they wonder why they keep getting treated like a research project.

I'll say it straight: pivot to an ROI narrative or you're gonna stay in the lab. Your choice.

Why your website is doing more selling than your sales team

B2B buyers are doing homework before they ever talk to you. A lot of homework.

Forrester research shared via Saleslion says 74% of B2B buyers do more than half of their purchase research online before contacting a vendor.

That means your website is taking first meetings for you. Your site is doing early-stage objections for you. Your site is setting the tone for trust.

So if your homepage opens with "We leverage advanced AI to revolutionize..." you're already losing. It sounds like everyone else. It sounds like AI generated slop. It sounds like you're hiding.

And if you're dual-use, hiding is deadly.

The first line on your homepage

If you're a dual-use founder, your first line has to do one job: make the outcome obvious.

I don't care if the tech is beautiful. I don't care if the architecture is elegant. The buyer doesn't either, at least not first.

They want to know: what changes after they adopt this?

I say it like this: not how smart the device is, but how much smarter you're going to be. How much time you get back. How much risk you remove. How much money you protect.

Then you earn your next sentence. Then you show proof. Then you let the engineers go deep.

Build two journeys, fast

Dual-use companies need to stop pretending one page can carry two conversations.

It can't.

I've always been of the belief that you have to build a website that starts a journey. When someone lands, they should instantly see where they belong. They should self-select. No digging through menus. No guessing.

Defense and oil is a common mix we see. So is manufacturing plus defense. So is medical plus defense. In our world, we're even building for a confidential dual-use client that blends AgTech livestock tech with defense surveillance. Two audiences. Two buying styles. Two entire sets of objections.

So the homepage needs to respect that reality.

You land. You see two clear paths. You click your world. Now the story is written for you.

That's how you avoid dilution.

What Sphere Tech taught me about multi-ICP storytelling

One of the biggest dual-use-capable clients we've worked with is Sphere Tech. They market to medical devices, they market to military, they market to manufacturing.

That's not one story. That's multiple voices.

For Sphere, we built distinct industry pages so each ICP could land in a place that spoke directly to them. Factories needed one type of language. Medical had a different level of compliance and credibility requirements. Defense had its own approach entirely.

And when we shifted the story away from generic innovation and pushed it into clearer value, lifestyle, and numerical data, their lead generation increased 3x.

That happened because the messaging stopped being "interesting" and started being buyable.

A homepage hierarchy that doesn't collapse

I like simple hierarchies because they force discipline.

For dual-use, I want your site to hit hard visually right away. Visuals are credibility in deep tech. Then I want a tight line that frames why the conversation matters. I place it right after the hero because it forces focus.

Then I want the split. Two paths. Two journeys.

After that, each journey needs proof that matches the buyer's brain. Commercial pages should show ROI metrics and real-world adoption signals. Defense pages should show capability, reliability, and readiness signals.

Then you bring both journeys back into a shared trust layer. Team. Credentials. Press. Partners when you're allowed to show them. Collector pages that make people feel like they know you.

That's the structure. Clean. Fast. Hard to misunderstand.

Defense buyers still buy with emotion (they just call it risk)

There's this idea that defense marketing has to be dry. Functional. Almost boring.

That's not how humans work.

Procurement officers, politicians, generals, primes, unit leaders - they all have different incentives. They all have different fears. They all have different things that get them fired.

So yes, you need technical rigor. You need proof. You need specifics.

You also need a human narrative that matches the stakes. In defense, that narrative often lives around soldier safety, force protection, and threat diffusion. Speed matters because delays cost lives. Reliability matters because failure is unacceptable.

You don't make this stuff up. You find the real truth and you say it clearly.

Founder authenticity beats "mission-led" fluff

I've worked early with an ex-US Marine who started a drone defense company focused on drone disengagement technology. The story wasn't "our algorithm is innovative."

The story was this founder served. He lost people on the battlefield. The mission had weight.

And you don't want to be lying with these things. You just need to find the special insights that are already real.

This is also why I get annoyed with fake missioning. I've seen "space companies" try to sell stock when they haven't even launched a rocket. Or companies trying to sell merch before they have a product. That's poor missioning. That's people playing startup instead of building.

If it looks like bullshit, no one's gonna want to work with it.

Visual trust: renders, lab videos, and the vaporware line

Dual-use marketing lives and dies on credibility.

Your buyers are trained to distrust you. They've been burned before. They've seen "promised the stars" tech that never shipped. They've seen overselling and under delivering.

And the fastest way to lose trust is still the same: oversell, then fail to show reality.

This is why I push so hard on visuals. Professional-level visuals and branding aren't optional when you want million-dollar deals. Poor aesthetics undermine trust immediately. I've seen a client lose a deal with Amazon purely because their brand visuals were poor.

That's not a design critique. That's revenue.

Classified? Pre-product? Use renders on purpose

In defense, you often can't show the thing. Footage gets redacted. Environments are sensitive. Capabilities can't be stated publicly.

So we use high-fidelity 3D renders to simulate performance in air, water, or land. We do it because it's the only way to communicate capability without violating security constraints.

We also used this approach with a confidential Canadian counter-drone defense company. They didn't have a physical product to show. We created 3D product renders and pitch materials that helped them secure funding during the early stages of the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

Renders can be the bridge between "we're building it" and "we're real."

They can also push you into vaporware territory if you're careless.

The rule: pair the future with the present

My rule is simple. Show the render, then ground it.

I've always been a big believer of showing incredible renders. I also think it's incredibly important to show off the team and the accomplishments they have.

When you merge those two things, a lot of magic is about to happen.

So alongside renders, we shoot high-quality lab videos. We show the people. We show the environment. We show the work in progress. We make it obvious there's a real driver behind the car.

This is especially important for pre-product companies. Nord Quantique is a good example of how you build trust before the product is fully "done." For pre-revenue deep tech, we often put weight on the reputation of the scientists and inventors involved. You signal legitimacy through the team, not fantasy timelines.

And yes, we've told clients straight up when they're crossing the line. Sometimes the production looks "too expensive." Sometimes it looks like they're compensating. Technical buyers can sniff that out.

Professional wins. Over-produced can backfire.

Case studies: your fastest credibility asset

If you're selling high-stakes tech, your story needs proof. Proof needs a home.

The single biggest red flag I see on B2B tech websites is the absence of a dedicated case study or testimonial page. When I see that, I assume the company either has no wins, or they're hiding something, or they don't understand enterprise trust.

That's a trust gap you created yourself.

And you're not alone. Research says customer stories work. About 90% of B2B marketers say testimonials and case studies are their most effective content strategy.

It makes sense. Buyers want to see someone like them take the risk and survive.

Tell it from the customer's mouth

When we build case studies, I mandate one thing: the story has to be told from the customer's perspective.

I don't want "we built this feature" language. I don't want the company praising itself. I don't want specs as the lead.

I want the buyer's world. The buyer's pain. The buyer's before-and-after.

When I interview customers for case studies, I dig for the frustrating part. I ask about the mess before your product existed. I literally try to find out what pisses off your clients the most.

Because that's where the emotion is. That's where urgency comes from.

Then we layer in the data. The metrics matter. The numbers matter. They just don't hook people by themselves.

Video is the standard when the deal size is real

Written testimonials are fine when you're small. PDFs are fine when you're early R&D.

The moment you raise a Seed round or close your first real deal, you should start thinking about video. If you're asking clients for high-six-figure contracts, video becomes table stakes. Your marketing has to reflect your price.

At Fello, we also push a "bang for your buck" system. If you spend real money on a video case study - often in the $15 - 20k range - you don't let it live as one asset. You repurpose it into PDFs, blogs, landing page sections, trade show loops, and sales enablement.

One story should feed the entire machine.

Mosaic Manufacturing is a great example of how this works. We used cinematic videos and landing page redesigns to make the value obvious to different segments. We also focused on lifestyle and operations, not just hardware.

Because people don't buy a printer. They buy the feeling of running a better business.

Inbound leads jumped 25% and booked meetings rose 15% within two months. That happened because the narrative became about outcomes.

Long cycles need systems, not random content

Dual-use sales cycles can be brutal. Aerospace and defense can run six months to two years. That's normal.

So you need marketing that stays alive during the wait. You need assets that keep trust warm without spamming people.

This is where most founders fall into chaos. They post sporadically. They write blogs that sound like academic papers. They chase random KPIs they don't even believe in.

I'm not a fan of KPI worship. I'm a fan of clarity and momentum. I'm also a fan of checking the basics. Half the time, companies aren't even looking at Hotjar or Google Analytics. They're flying blind.

Collector pages and "part of the club" energy

I use a highway analogy for this.

You need fast lanes that drive deals, and you need collectors that build loyalty.

Collector pages are your partnership page, mission page, about page, meet-the-team content, behind-the-scenes engineering thought process. These pages aren't meant to close someone tomorrow. They make people feel connected to you.

Rocket Lab USA is a great example of this style. They make clients and the public feel like part of the club. That's brand resonance.

In dual-use, brand resonance is a trust weapon. It helps you skip a level in the sales cycle because people stop doing the "are these guys real?" vetting dance.

Downloads, monthly video updates, and staying warm

One tactic I like a lot in deep tech is valuable content downloads. Brochures. One-pagers. Capability sheets. Anything a buyer can forward internally.

It's simple. You give something valuable, you capture contact info, and you stay in the conversation during long cycles.

For sensitive and confidential sales cycles, I also like monthly video updates instead of generic nurture emails. Team updates. Project progress. Lab footage you're allowed to show. It keeps momentum without over-sharing.

And it keeps the relationship human.

You still need a driver behind the car.

AI makes content cheaper - and more generic

AI tools are everywhere now. They're useful. We use AI-driven research tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT to build industrial matrices and define ICPs.

AI speeds up the boring part.

It doesn't replace the human part.

Because the human part is still the part that closes deals. Especially in dual-use. Older demographics. Long deal cycles. High-stakes decisions.

Also, AI makes everyone sound the same.

I always think of the villain line from The Incredibles: "If everybody's super, then nobody is." That's what happens when everyone publishes the same AI-generated content. Your category turns into grey noise.

And grey noise doesn't build trust.

"AI generated slop" is a trust problem

The biggest risk with AI content isn't that it's inaccurate. The biggest risk is that it's generic.

Founders and VCs brag about building a website in two days with AI. Then they launch something that looks like every other template site on earth. That hurts their reputation. It screams "we didn't take this seriously."

I call it AI generated slop. Buyers feel it immediately.

Dual-use buyers are already skeptical. Generic visuals and vague language confirm their worst assumptions.

Digital trust is now part of marketing

Trust is also getting more formal.

IDC is projecting companies will spend $150 billion on AI-related systems to deliver personalized experiences by 2027. That wave is coming whether you like it or not.

IDC also warns brands risk losing 79% of customer loyalty if they fail to adopt digital trust practices like AI transparency and ethical data handling.

So if you're building dual-use tech, you can't be sloppy with claims. You can't be sloppy with data. You need to be realistic with what you publish and how you frame it.

Overselling kills credibility. It's that simple.

Budget and speed: where founders usually get it wrong

A lot of founders assume marketing budgets are endless. Or they assume marketing is fluff. Both lead to bad decisions.

Here's the reality: budgets are getting tighter across the board.

Gartner's 2024 survey shows B2B marketing budgets averaging 7.7% of company revenue, down from 9.1% in 2023. Pre-pandemic, they were closer to 11%.

And Gartner reports 64% of CMOs don't have the budget to execute their strategy.

So if you're a founder, you don't get to waste money on "cool" marketing. Every dollar needs a job.

Marketing budgets are shrinking, so focus harder

I like spending where it closes trust gaps.

That's why we prioritize things like your website, your core narrative, your proof assets, and your visual system.

The "work that goes behind the art" matters too. Strategy and research are about half the value in a serious rebrand. That's where you figure out what to say, who to say it to, and what proof you need to show.

If you skip that, you end up with a pretty site that still doesn't convert.

The line between professional and suspicious

For Series A companies, I generally tell people a comprehensive rebrand lands somewhere between $50,000 and $150,000. If you're spending significantly over $100,000 at Series A, it can start to look suspicious to technical buyers. They start thinking you're over-branding.

At the same time, you can't show up looking cheap. If you want multi-million dollar contracts, your marketing needs Michelin-star details. Your buyer is judging you on professionalism, not just performance.

We've done a $100,000 visual identity overhaul for a medical aesthetics company for one reason: they had a trust gap. Their engineering was strong, but their visuals weren't matching it. The market wasn't giving them credit.

That's branding as authentication. Believing but not authenticating it is a killer.

Why dual-use costs more (and where it should go)

Dual-use companies often need higher branding budgets than single-market deep tech. You're supporting two tracks: two narratives, two sets of pages, two sets of evidence, often two sales motions.

If you spend more, spend it on clarity and proof. Spend it on the assets that keep you out of vaporware territory. Spend it on visuals that signal capability. Spend it on a website that lets each audience find their path in one click.

And move faster than you think you should. I tell clients all the time: you need product and market 10 times faster than you think you do. VC capital makes companies slow. It removes pressure. Pressure is what creates stories, case studies, and momentum.

Be absolutely obsessed with going to market. Even paying early users can be worth it because the first real story is priceless.

If you don't have a proper CMS, there is no point of even having a website

This part is boring. It's also where a lot of companies quietly die.

If your website is hard to update, your marketing becomes a hostage situation. You can't ship. You can't respond to the market. You can't publish wins fast.

I've seen companies stuck with a legacy backend built by a developer who got terminated. They couldn't publish guest blogs about acquired technologies because nobody could touch the system.

That's insane. And it happens all the time.

I have a benchmark: your team should be able to launch a blog post within three minutes once the content is ready. If you can't, the CMS isn't viable.

This is why we build fully autonomous, editable sites. It's also why an autonomous website for a startup often costs $30,000 to $60,000. The custom templating matters. The system matters.

Speed matters.

How we simplify complex narratives at Fello (the actual process)

People ask for "creative." They want the video. The website. The logo.

That's the output.

The output only works when the system underneath is right.

Our research methodology is sequential. We interview the client's customers first. Then we talk to the sales team. Then marketing. Then leadership. That order matters because it keeps the strategy grounded in reality, not internal politics.

After three to five weeks of research, we get prescriptive. We tell you what the strategy is. We don't run endless committees. We don't let the brand turn into a group project.

That's how we do fast turnarounds. That's how you finish rebrands in two to three months instead of six.

And look, clients don't necessarily always pay for the actual talent of our work. Sometimes they value something else even more. They value the network. They value introductions. Lawyers, financiers, bankers, partners. That's part of why I built the Fello Foundry. Connection matters in deep tech. It moves deals. It moves hiring. It moves funding.

I say "connection" on purpose. Connecting with your team, connecting with users, connecting with partners. You can tell online who cares and who doesn't. Buyers feel it.

A 90-day dual-use reset you can run right now

If your dual-use marketing feels messy, you don't need a hundred tactics. You need a reset that forces clarity.

Start with your 2 1-sentence value props. One for commercial. One for defense. Write them so a business person can repeat them. If you can't, you're still speaking technical talk.

Then build your two journeys on your homepage. Make the split obvious. Put each audience on a track that speaks their language. If you're trying to serve three industries, create three tracks, but only if you can actually resource them. Most teams can't.

Next, build your trust stack. Get your visuals to a professional level. If you're hardware or defense, invest in high-fidelity renders. Pair them with lab videos. Put your team front and center. Show accomplishments. Make it clear you're real.

Then build at least one case study. Even if it's early. Even if it's a pilot. Tell it from the customer's perspective and get the "before" pain. That's where people lean in.

After that, pick one flagship asset to produce and repurpose. A strong video case study or launch film can feed your PDFs, your blogs, your landing pages, your sales deck, and your trade show presence. One asset should carry a quarter.

Then fix your website system so you can move. Build a CMS that your team can actually use. If you can't ship content fast, your go-to-market slows down and you feel it in pipeline.

Finally, measure the right things. Check your analytics. Watch how people move through the journeys. Don't worship KPIs as a buzzword. Use signals that tell you where trust is breaking.

Final thought: create a business, not a research problem

Dual-use companies can win very heavily. You can outmaneuver incumbents. You can open doors that single-market companies never get.

You just don't get to be unclear.

You don't get to oversell.

You don't get to hide behind complexity.

Simplifying your narrative means your buyers can buy it. Your board can back it. Your sales team can sell it. Your next hire can repeat it. Your next customer can trust it.

Create a business, not a research problem.

Frequently Asked Questions

With B2B budgets tightening, where should deep tech startups focus spending?

Stop chasing 'cool' marketing and focus on trust gaps. With budgets dropping to just 7.7% of revenue according to Gartner, every dollar needs a job. Prioritize your core narrative, a professional visual system, and evidence-based assets like case studies. If your foundation looks cheap, you look risky.

How do we market a dual-use product that isn't fully built still?

You must bridge the gap between vision and vaporware. Use high-fidelity 3D renders to show future capability, but strictly pair them with raw lab videos and team footage. This 'future paired with present' approach proves there is a real driver behind the car. Renders alone scream fantasy. Lab footage signals legitimacy.

Can we use a single pitch deck for both government and commercial buyers?

Absolutely not. This dilution kills deals. Commercial buyers move on speed and ROI. Defense buyers obsess over safety, compliance, and risk mitigation. If you try to tell one 'middle-of-the-road' story, you speak to nobody. Build two distinct narrative tracks or you will remain a confused science project in the eyes of both.

How do we keep defense prospects warm during long sales cycles?

Stop sending generic nurture emails. Provide high-value 'collector' content - capability sheets, technical downloads, or monthly video updates showing lab progress. Since 74% of buyers research online before contacting vendors (Source), your content must answer their objections while you wait.

Is branding just 'fluff' for a Series A technical company?

No. Professionalism is authentication. If your engineering is world-class but your visuals look amateur, the market assumes your tech is risky. A polished identity (typically in the $50k - $150k range) validates your IP. It signals to investors and buyers that you have graduated from a research experiment to a scalable enterprise.