Champ Suthipongchai is a General Partner at Creative Ventures, a market-driven Deep Tech venture capital firm based in Oakland, CA.
What do Johannes Gutenberg, his printing press and today’s deep founders have in common? A lot more than you might think.
Prior to Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, books were produced by hand on a variety of mediums: Tables, scrolls, parchment, etc. Information was extremely scarce, and knowledge in this form was held by a powerful few.
But Gutenberg changed that world. The printing press expanded literacy and proliferated Christianity by enabling the mass production of The Bible. Almost 600 years later, it would be the platform technology that led to the yellow pages nestled comfortably in our pre-internet explosion memories.
In other words, the printing press was the 15th century’s deep tech. But the game of deep tech has changed drastically since that time. Sure, the next Gutenberg needs the ability to invent, but they also need a few more 21st-century qualities to master the venture capital game. Here are some of those skills I recommend developing:
1. Understand The Market
The large majority of the deep tech founders I have come across possess a technical degree, and about half of them have a Ph.D. co-founder. While deep tech founders almost never lack technical aptitude, few of them possess rivaling market knowledge and commercialization expertise.
To win today’s deep tech game, I think founders must understand the complex problem and ecosystem that underpin their target market. This begins by having a clear understanding of the problem and, more importantly, whose problem it is they are trying to solve.
Since most deep tech companies are B2B in nature, there are multiple stakeholders that founders need to solve for. Take construction and healthcare ecosystems, for example; each construction project has the asset owner, general contractor, subcontractor, engineering consultant and architecture embedded within the decision-making process, whereas healthcare solutions will need buy-in from payers, providers, physicians and pharma, in addition to the FDA.
Deep tech founders must have a deep understanding of how their market operates to identify their specific beachhead correctly. It is almost never the founder with the best technology that wins but the one with the best understanding of how to bring sufficiently good technology to market.
2. Master The Art of Storytelling
Much like anything else, knowledge alone is insufficient. Deep tech is a complicated world, and most people—especially customers and investors—will not give you the light of day to intricately walk through your technologies or business plan.
Nine out of ten times, I see deep tech founders making the mistake of biting off more than customers and investors can chew. Eyes gloss over, ears tune out and the brilliance of these technologies gets lost in lecture-like pitches.
That one out of ten who doesn’t, however, is the one who knows what matters to their audience. They capitalize on their understanding of the market to build a powerful, authentic story that resonates. Their story artfully combines who the founders are and what the company does with why this matters to both the founders and their audience.
3. Embrace Imperfection
An all too common misconception I’ve seen deep tech founders make is that they are only ready to go to market when their products have solved every corner case they can conceive. They want a perfect product they can stamp their name on and consider anything less not ready.
But if a founder cannot learn to live with imperfection, they’re not going to survive. In my experience, it’s a luxury if a founder’s runway gets them to being even half right. Capital is a limiting factor, especially in today’s environment, with rates predicted to stay afloat for several more years.
So, just as customers and investors have learned to live with imperfections and calibrated expectations, deep tech founders need to do the same. If you can find what the customer will tolerate when it comes to imperfection because the benefit of the problems solved is simply too great to walk away from, then you’ve found the right level of imperfection. Deliver that and nothing else. Perfection is a marathon, but a startup is a sprint. Know that difference and thrive.
The Making Of A Modern Deep Tech Founder
Gutenberg’s printing press is a great example of how technology can truly open the doors to widespread change. I believe that modern deep tech founders should seek this level of technical expertise while also working to hone their market understanding, storytelling prowess and capacity to embrace imperfection to thrive in an increasingly complex world that needs these solutions now
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