Last week I introduced this 3-part blog series sharing some of our experiences from investing in deep-tech start-ups over the last 5 years. I discussed some of the common mistakes we have seen companies and investors make (including us!). A second area of lessons-learned I’d like to discuss comes at it from the perspective of tracking success – and identifying that we are making progress. Understanding some of the journey you as a founder or investor are going on – and recognising the milestones along the way – is just as important as avoiding common errors.
This last point is very important – too many deep tech companies essentially are walking around with technology looking for problems to solve. They are offering incremental rather than transformative solutions, speaking to nice to haves on the technology road map, and even the best of them often fall short of addressing real current customer pain in a way that makes a difference to something that person gets measured on. This is the dance – and when you feel you are coming toward the end of it then it’s time to think about the topic of the next blog – building the commercial team.