Storytelling YOUR COMPANY WHY.
Helping deeptech founders and investors tell technical stories to non-technical audiences.
The why always matters.
Latest Work
Investment Committee Member
Interim Leadership, Keynotes and Retreats
Board of Directors and Advisor
Investment Committee Member for Seraphim Space Ventures Fund II.
Current portfolio: Array Labs, Atmos, Auriga, Constellr, Delos, Hubble Network, Privateer, Renoster, Ubotica.
Board of Directors and Advisor
Interim Leadership, Keynotes and Retreats
Board of Directors and Advisor
Non-Executive Director at Opteran Technologies, LTD.
Advisor to Xona Space Systems.
Advisor to Eartheye Space.
Advisor to Hyperspace Challenge, accelerator for US Space Force and Air Force Research Lab.
Startup Space Competition Director
Interim Leadership, Keynotes and Retreats
Interim Leadership, Keynotes and Retreats
Director of the Startup Space Competition at the 2022-2025 Satellite Show in Washington D.C.
2025 Competitors: Coming soon!
Interim Leadership, Keynotes and Retreats
Interim Leadership, Keynotes and Retreats
Interim Leadership, Keynotes and Retreats
Interim leadership for startups in growth or contraction transition and during leadership team rebuilding.
Keynotes and executive retreats focused on strengthening company why through storytelling techniques to ensure strategy plans will be met and exceeded.
Rafferty Jackson I Storyteller I Board Member I Advisor
Rafferty Jackson knows that companies built on a fundamental purpose, the company why, are more likely to scale and succeed, creating better jobs and better products. Helping startups and later stage companies identify, capture, and drive the company why into the enterprise is now her why. Rafferty helps founders, leaders, and investors tell complex deep tech stories to broader non-technical audiences through universal storytelling techniques modified for business pitch and communications formats, all premised on the moral of the story, the "why" of the enterprise. Rafferty also uses her many years of top tier operational experience, like growing and selling Beats by Dr. Dre to Apple for $3B, to guide high growth companies as a Board Member or Advisor.
The First Principles Pitch
The purpose of a business pitch is to convey the moral of your story, the company why, to the audience so they can retell the story. The First Principles Pitch captures the indisputable truth of your business and then uses universal storytelling techniques to ensure the audience will be able to retell your story. With only a 5 minute pitch and an 8 slide pitch deck, your idea will transfer to your audience.
events
September 23, 2024 with Demo Day on October 25, 2024: Mandala Space Ventures 2024 SoCal-UK Space Accelerator
What is better than teaching deeptech storytelling to the UK Space Agency Accelerator presented by Mandala Space Ventures? Seeing the cohort take the stage to pitch at Demo Day at the BR-DGE (DTI/SpaceWERX). 2024 cohort included Agtelligence, Angoka, Lodestar, Lumi, Second Star, Space Solar, SAIF, Universal Atmosphere Processing, and Frontier Space Technologies. It was so great to see Yuri Andersson of Angoka pitch live after meeting him virtually at the 2020 Seraphim Space Accelerator.
Week of October 14, 2024: LA Tech Week
LA Tech Week promised to be meaningful this year for the deeptech ecosystem and it did not disappoint. From MaC Ventures and Seraphim/Generation Space hosting a mixer at the Fairmont, to Techstars Space happy hour, to the SpaceWERX Incubate 2 Accelerate Expo Day at the BR-DGE, what a week. Best part? Private tour of Auriga Space with Winnie Lai (Seraphim Space Ventures Fund II) and early prototype/demo looks at her transformative maglev launch system.
September 29, 2024: Berlin Marathon and Earning the Abbott World Marathon Majors Six Star Medal
Getting that last star in Berlin was the hardest of all the stars because life came fast at me in 2024. Chicago, Boston, New York, London, Tokyo, Berlin and now the much coveted Six Stars Medal gracing my neck. Whoop and phew!
October 2, 2024: Techstars Space Accelerator
Loved meeting and presenting to the 2024 cohort on how to tell their complex story to non-technical audiences: Astron Systems, ATRX, Collimate Space, Cryptosat, Mithril Technologies, Pramatra Space, Pulse Space, reOrbital, SkyServe, Space Rickshaw, Spiral Blue, VXB Aerospace. Thank you to Taofiq Huq and MJ Akter of Spiral Blue for serving up a delicious homemade meal during Techstars Mentor Madness!
June 5-6, 2024: SpaceWERX Sustained Space Maneuver Challenge Definition Workshop
Joined the SpaceWERX Sustained Space Maneuver Challenge Definition Workshop to identify capabilities to enable on-orbit maneuver without regret for US SpaceCom by 2027.
May 24, 2024: The Promise and Trends in Deep Tech at TechconSoCal
Join me in a conversation about the promise and trends of deep tech at TechCon SoCal on Friday, May 24, 2024 with industry experts Ellen Chang, Steve Kiser, Ryan Westerdahl, and Gareth Keane.
May 2, 2024: Doon Insights Mobility Tech in 5D Salon
With the United States Space Force and Air Force looking at rocket delivery for terrestrial applications, should Aerospace be added to Multimodal Mobility? Leading this short conversation with the best and brightest at Howard Chao's Doon Insight salon and looking forward to the conversation.
March 19: 2024 TrustPoint wins Startup Space Competition at SATELLITE
Tough field this year at the Startup Space Competition with TrustPoint taking the top spot. Meet the 2024 Competitors: UNIO Enterprise, PlaneWave Instruments, Arkisys, SpAIce Tech, In Orbit Aerospace, Pale Blue, Little Place Labs, Aldoria (formerly Share My Space), TrustPoint, and Obruta Space.
February 20, 2024: Pitch Practice Week for the 2024 Startup Space Competitors
Pitch Practice for the 2024 Startup Space Competition at SATELLITE 2024 is set and I can't wait to meet Spaice, Arkisys, Pale Blue, In Orbit, Aldoria (formerly Share My Space), TrustPoint, Little Place Labs, UNIO Enterprise, PlaneWave, and Obruta Space Solutions.
January 8, 2024: Opteran Technologies at CES 2024
What a show! We had thousands of visitors at our booth and we loved watching autonomy engineers struggling with LIDAR and variable lighting watch our product demos with their mouths agape. Thank you Jiangxuan Chen for making Opteran shine with the live demo in our booth. Natural Intelligence is solving hard problems and changing the autonomy software landscape.
November 1, 2023: Hyperspace Challenge Partnership Accelerator Networking Event
Presenting and meeting with this year's epic cohort: Phase Four, Dawn Aerospace, Lexset, Magdrive, TRL11, and HEO. The Hyperspace Challenge was created in 2018 by the US Air Force Research Laboratory and CNM Ingenuity, an economic development arm of the Central New Mexico Community College.