🤖 #28: Vivian's Deeptech Insider: Board-as-a-Service

Hello and welcome to #28 edition of the fortnightly Vivian’s Deeptech Insider.

Let me take you back to my last startup.

I had two exceptional board advisors. They saw what I couldn’t.
Flagged blind spots before they became liabilities.
Opened doors that changed our business models & trajectory.

Their guidance didn’t just help us scale — it helped me grow into the CEO the company needed.

But here’s the thing:
Most founders never get that level of support — unless they’re actively looking for it.
And most don’t know they need one or what to look for.

Executive roles have evolved with the needs of startups — fractional COOs, legal counsels, CTOs are now common. But it got me thinking:

When I first started sitting on boards, the entrepreneur in me couldn’t help but ask:

This is great — but how do I scale this kind of support?
Not just for myself — but for the next wave of technical founders?

Because in deeptech and healthtech, founders face a unique reality:
🧪 Longer timelines
💸 Heavier capital requirements
🌍 Higher-impact outcomes — if the science pulls off

And yet, they’re often left with:

❌ Non-execs who arrive later than needed, and only required at board meetings
❌ Ad-hoc advisors who aren’t embedded enough to make a difference
❌ Accelerators not built for IP-heavy or regulated industries

Still — the need for board-level thinking shows up from day one.
Capital strategy. Positioning. Pilot traction. Exit clarity.
Not just advice, but applied insight that moves the needle.

So I started asking:
What if board-level support worked like a startup product?
Agile. Embedded. Scalable. Practical. High-impact.
Not a formal board seat — but firepower when and where it counts.

🎯 Introducing: Capital Catalyst

A 10-week virtual board-level residency for deeptech and healthtech founder-CEOs

Capital Catalyst gives you what traditional boards and accelerators don’t:
Board-level clarity at founder speed. Strategy you can act on now.

Because capital follows clarity — but you can’t get there if you’re stuck in:

🔁 The chicken-and-egg loop: Investors want data. You need capital to generate it.
✨ Shiny opportunity syndrome: Chasing grants, pilots, one-offs — without repeatable scale.
🧬 The identity shift: From scientist or builder → to capital-attracting CEO.

These aren’t growing pains. They’re inflection points.
And they require board-level thinking before your board is built.

Inside the Capital Catalyst Residency, we’ll tackle:

✅ Exit clarity — Define the kind of company you’re building, and what that means for traction, capital, and team
✅ Distraction filters — Know which pilots and deals derail growth (and which to pursue)
✅ Decision frameworks — Make confident CEO-level decisions under pressure
✅ Momentum metrics — Measure real traction beyond just revenue or burn
✅ Narrative firepower — Turn scientific complexity into a capital-attracting story

This isn’t a course.
It’s not a pitch-deck bootcamp.
And it’s definitely not generic coaching.

It’s Board-as-a-Service — for founders who need depth, speed, and clarity.

🧭 Launching soon. Waitlist members get first access.

👇 Join the Capital Catalyst Priority List here.

I’ll be sharing more soon.

Til next time,
Vivian

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