A market worth winning.
A problem someone is paid to solve, and buyers who can actually sign.
What we mean by this
Somewhere inside a real company, a named person has this problem on their objectives for the year. That is what turns a problem into a budget. Everything else, however interesting, competes with the things that are actually on someone's list.
The second requirement is that we can find those people. Deeptech markets are usually narrow, and narrow is good. A few hundred named industrial accounts we can list is a far better starting point than a market of millions we would have to advertise into. We would rather work a short list hard than run a funnel.
The third is size per deal. Industrial sales cycles run six to eighteen months and involve engineering, procurement and often a plant manager. That cost is roughly the same whether the contract is worth twenty thousand or two million. If deals are small and one off, the arithmetic does not work for anyone, including you.
None of this requires you to have the right market already. Most companies we speak to have a plausible market and no proof. Finding the beachhead is part of the work we do. What we need is that a defensible one plausibly exists, because we cannot invent demand that is not there.
The qualities we weigh
Someone is paid to solve it
We look for a cost, a yield, a downtime figure or a risk the buyer already measures and already reports on. When your technology moves a number that someone is judged on, the conversation is about proof and timing. When it does not, the conversation is polite, long, and ends nowhere.
The buyers can be named
We should be able to build a real list of target accounts in the first weeks: companies, sites, and the roles inside them who would own this. If a market can only be described in categories and totals, there is nothing to work on Monday morning.
Deals big enough to carry the cycle
The first contract has to justify the months it takes to win, and it has to be repeatable with the next twenty accounts. We are wary of markets where every sale is bespoke engineering with a different specification, because that is a services business wearing a product's clothes.
Room to grow inside the account
The best industrial customers start with one line, one site or one process and expand. We look for that path to be visible from the start. A first order with no second step means starting from zero again every time, and neither of us gets paid for that.
How we test this
We ask you to name ten companies that should buy this and why each one specifically. Then we ask who inside them would sign, and what would have to be true for them to sign this year rather than in three years. The specific answers matter more than the confident ones. Ten real names with weak reasoning is a workable starting point. A market size figure with no names is not.
We also check what has to change outside your control. Some markets are genuinely good but blocked by a certification, a regulation or a customer investment cycle that is years out. That is not a bad company. It is a bad time, and we will usually say so directly rather than take the work.
What a yes looks like
- A named set of companies we can list this weekSpecific accounts and sites, not segments and totals.
- A cost, a yield or a risk the buyer already tracksThe problem is already on someone's objectives, so a budget can appear.
- Deal sizes that pay for an industrial sales cycleThe first contract justifies six to eighteen months of work.
- Room to grow inside an account after the first orderOne line or one site first, then expansion, instead of starting over each time.
What a no looks like
- A market size slide and no namesNothing to act on, and usually a sign the buyer has not been identified yet.
- A problem people find interesting but nobody ownsGood meetings, no budget holder, no decision.
- Buyers who need a regulation to change firstThe timing sits outside everyone's control, so the programme cannot deliver.
- Contracts too small to survive a long cycleThe cost of winning exceeds what winning is worth.
Why this matters for the deal
Our return comes from the revenue that follows and, where we invest our fee, from the equity it converts into. Both depend on this market being able to carry serious contracts, not a series of funded pilots that never convert.
So we are honest early. If we think the market is real but three years away, we say that instead of selling you a programme that cannot work yet. Saying no at the start costs less than both of us discovering it in month nine.