🤖 #35: Vivian's Deeptech Insider: Stop Saying Yes.

Hello and welcome to #35 edition of the fortnightly Vivian's Deeptech Insider.

Most founders drown in opportunity. The best ones get ruthless about what they ignore.

As part of my exit-focused Board-as-a-Service, one of the biggest shifts I see in the founders I work with is their ability to learn to say no.

Clean, clear, unapologetic nos — to partnerships, features, investors, and opportunities that don't align with their definition of success. These are automatic yeses they would have said two months ago, before they got crystal clear on where they're actually heading.

And here's the thing: this isn't about becoming difficult or close-minded. It's about becoming intentional. It's about understanding that every yes to something that doesn't serve your endgame is actually a no to something that does.

What This Actually Looks Like in Practice

Let me share three examples:

The Product Founder Who Deleted 40% of Their Roadmap

One founder had been building features based on what every potential customer asked for. Their roadmap was a wish list from sales calls — "Can you add this?" "What about that?" They were drowning in feature requests, their dev team was stretched thin, and nothing was getting finished properly.

When we forced them to define their actual buyer and what asset they valued — not their current potential (not actual) users, not the people giving them feedback, but the specific type of customer they needed to dominate their market — everything changed.

We mapped every feature against this buyer profile. We asked: Does this move us closer to owning this specific segment? Does this make us 10x better for this exact customer, or does it make us 10% better for everyone?

They killed 40% of their roadmap. Just deleted it.

The team panicked at first. "But that customer really wanted it!" "But we promised we'd build that!"

Here's what happened next: Their velocity doubled. Their product became coherent. Their positioning became clear - as sometimes less is more. And the customers they actually wanted started noticing because they were no longer trying to be everything to everyone.

The Founder Who Turned Down £500K

Another founder turned down £500K from an investor. Let me be clear — this wasn't a strategic decline from a position of strength. They needed capital. The deal looked perfect on paper. Good terms, smart investor, solid network.

But when we mapped it against where they're actually heading, something didn't fit.

This investor specialised in B2C marketplace businesses. The founder's endgame was a B2B enterprise exit to a strategic acquirer in 5-7 years. The advice they'd get, the connections that mattered, the expertise on the board — none of it aligned.

Taking that money would have meant optimising for marketplace metrics that didn't matter for their exit path. It would have meant quarterly updates focused on the wrong KPIs. It would have meant advice from someone who fundamentally didn't understand their business model.

Was it scary to say no? Absolutely. Did they lose sleep over it? For sure.

But here's what they told me three weeks later: "That decision clarified everything. Now I know exactly what type of investor I'm looking for, and I can articulate why. The conversations I'm having now are completely different."

The Founder Drowning in Advisor Opinions

A third founder had three "strategic advisors" giving conflicting advice every week. One was pushing them toward enterprise deals. Another was convinced they should focus on product-led growth. The third kept telling them to pivot to a different market entirely.

Every Monday, they'd get on calls with these advisors. Every Monday, they'd come away more confused than when they started. They were spending 3-6 hours a week in advisor meetings, and every decision took three times longer because they were trying to reconcile contradictory perspectives.

We helped them see the pattern: none of these advisors was asking about their endgame. They were all giving advice based on their own experience, their own playbook, their own definition of success — not the founder's.

We asked a simple question: "If you achieve exactly what you want to achieve in four years, which of these advisors will have been most useful in getting you there?"

The answer was immediate. One of them. Maybe.

They're now down to one advisor who actually gets it. Someone who's exited a similar business in a similar market to a similar acquirer. Someone whose advice is specific, not generic.

They got 6 hours a week back. More importantly, they got their conviction back.

Why This Is the Hardest Part of Being an Early-Stage Founder

Everything feels important. Everyone has an opinion. Every door looks like opportunity.

When you're building something from nothing, you're conditioned to say yes. Yes to meetings. Yes to pilots. Yes to partnerships. Yes to features. Yes to feedback.

The market rewards hustle. Investors reward optionality. Everyone tells you to "figure it out" and "stay lean" and "be scrappy."

But here's what nobody tells you: Your job isn't to explore every path. It's to choose your path — and protect it fiercely.

Because here's the brutal truth: You don't have time to explore everything. You don't have resources to test every hypothesis. You don't have attention to pursue every opportunity.

Every yes to something that doesn't serve your endgame is taking time, energy, and focus away from something that does.

The Framework We Use in Capital Catalyst

The framework we use in Capital Catalyst isn't complicated:

Step 1: Get crystal clear on what you're building toward — not the vague vision, not the mission statement, but the specific outcome. What does success actually look like for you in X years? What exit option best aligns with your mission - the reason why you started the company in the first place? What metrics matter? What does your team look like?

Step 2: Filter every decision through that lens — Does this partnership move you closer to that outcome? Does this hire? Does this feature? Does this investor? Does this market? If the answer isn't a clear yes, it's a no.

Step 3: Build the discipline to ignore everything else — This is the hardest part. Because "everything else" often looks good. It looks like progress. It looks like opportunity. But it's distraction dressed up as work.

Step 4: Build relationships that matter — Not more relationships. Better relationships. Fewer investors who are actually strategic. Fewer partnerships that actually move the needle.

Sounds simple, right?

It's not.

Because saying no means disappointing people. It means turning down revenue that could keep you alive another quarter. It means walking away from "good" opportunities that every other founder would jump at.

It means admitting that you can't do everything, that you're not building for everyone, that you have a specific vision and you're willing to sacrifice everything that doesn't serve it.

Why Clarity Is Your Competitive Advantage

Here's what I keep telling the cohort: Clarity is a competitive advantage.

When you know exactly where you're going, everything changes:

Fundraising gets easier. Your story is coherent. You're not pitching a vision that could go in twelve different directions. You're not hedging. You're not keeping your options open. You know exactly what you're building, why it matters, and what success looks like. Investors can see themselves in that story — or they can't. Either way, you find out fast.

Hiring gets faster. You attract people aligned to the mission because the mission is specific. You're not selling generic startup excitement. You're selling a clear path to a specific outcome. The right people self-select in. The wrong people self-select out. You stop wasting time convincing people who don't get it.

Execution accelerates. No more second-guessing every decision. No more three-hour debates about whether to pursue this partnership or build that feature. You have a framework. You have criteria. You decide and move on.

Investor updates get sharper. You're reporting progress that actually matters — not vanity metrics, not busy work, but real movement toward your actual goal. Your investors can see the thread. They can see how each quarter builds on the last. They can see you're not just running in circles.

For deeptech and healthtech founders especially, where every decision compounds over years and the path to exit is long and complex, this discipline is everything.

Watching these founders transform how they make decisions — not just what they decide, but how they decide — has been the most rewarding part of this program.

They come in overwhelmed. Drowning in opportunity. Saying yes to everything because they're terrified of missing something important.

They leave focused. Confident. Willing to disappoint people in service of their actual goal.

They're not just running faster anymore.

They're running with purpose.

And here's what's wild: They're actually enjoying it more. Because when you're clear on where you're going and what matters, the day-to-day becomes easier. You're not constantly questioning yourself. You're not constantly wondering if you should be doing something else.

You know what you're building. You know why it matters. You know who it's for.

And everything that doesn't serve that? You let it go.

Can't Wait Until Q1 2026?

I've had interest in running an invite-only (not marketed) Capital Catalyst November cohort for a select few founders who want to identify their end goal and get 1-3 relevant corporate contacts to help boost their traction in the right direction before the new year.

This won't be marketed publicly. It'll be a small group of deeptech and healthtech founders who are serious about building exit-ready companies, not just impressive startups.

If you're interested, please email or get in touch ASAP. Spots are extremely limited.

Otherwise, I’ll see you in a fortnight!

Until next time,
Vivian

P.S Was this forwarded to you? Read past issues and subscribe here.

P.S.S Are we connected on LinkedIn? I’m here.

If you have gotten value out of Vivian’s Deeptech Insider, please help us grow by sharing it with your friends!