Champ Suthipongchai
Contributor
Champ Suthipongchai is a co-founder and general partner at Creative Ventures, a method-driven deep tech VC firm investing in startups that address the impact of increasing labor shortages, rising healthcare costs and the climate crisis.
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In 2018, Shahin Farshchi of Lux Capital and I discussed the rise of alternative proteins over coffee and other then-hot topics. At one point, Shahin asked me what I thought was a rhetorical question:
“Our portfolio companies are amazing as pilots, but they face a challenge moving from pilot to full-scale commercial rollouts. How do your companies move beyond the pilot stage?”
I didn’t have a good answer and found myself deep in thought long after our chat. As a deep tech VC, my portfolio companies are destined to face commercialization challenges as they transition to rolling out in scale from small pilots. This is a big, widespread, industry-specific problem.
But big problems make room for big returns, and while I don’t presume to have a silver bullet solution, I do know three ways deep tech founders can make sure their time in pilot purgatory ends in a rollout:
Define your conversion metric
If you could only pick three customers, and the one you’re talking to doesn’t look like one of them, keep looking.
In my experience, most customers don’t really know what success looks like when using any …
