5 Signs of Interesting Deep-Tech Startups
Having burned spent practically a decade of my life in the depths of tech startups, a rather obvious, although dearly missed point is the importance of finding tech endeavors that marry the two holy sides of the quest: the tech side and the organizational side. Sure, a very early-stage startup will not show the most mature organizational layout or IQ, but it can still show the sparks of what it can be a solid org down the road. What are those signs?
A jelled1 core team: The initial bunch must show they are more into it for the sake of pulling it off together than getting rich. A core team that is more interested in the quid is, in my humble opinion, an ambar flag. Affinity between the talent is always a force multiplier.
Leadership who is intellectually restless, regardless of inexperience and/or age. Leaders who read a lot, write a lot, and passionately talk about their ideas but also about growing a healthy organization. Speaking only tech is not enough.
A product mindset: They are not there just to create pure deep tech for the sake of it but to pack it in a way that will be sold, used, and loved.
The team has proven some of their technical hypotheses already and is not in the “we need your money to actually show you” kind of a loop. It’s not vaporware; it could be a cheap rat nest of dev kits, a cheap breadboard, a wireframe, or a crappy mock-up. This shows a prototyping, iterative mindset instead of sitting to wait for the gold coins to fall from the sky.
Absence of dumb, bland engineering practices and no visible adoption of vapid frameworks and tools.
If you stumble upon something like this, you better keep an eye on it.
