🤖 #37: Vivian's Deeptech Insider: Stop Building Someone Else's Company

Hello and welcome to #37 edition of the fortnightly Vivian's Deeptech Insider.

Ten weeks ago, a founder in our first Capital Catalyst residency was doing what most technical founders do: morphing her pitch for every room she walked into.

VCs wanted to see hockey stick growth? She re-did her financial forecasts to get to $100M ARR. Others wanted scale? She added new markets to her pitch deck.

Halfway through the residency, she'd stopped. And that's when everything accelerated.

She finally closed an 18-month pilot negotiation in week 9 (of our 10 week residency). Secured back-to-back meetings with dream acquirers at a conference where only investors and sponsors could send invites—while her peers got zero access. And made the hardest decision: changing out her technical team before wasting another year building with the wrong people.

Here's what changed. And why it matters for every technical founder reading this.

The Strategic Cost of Constant Adapting

Especially for early stage founders, where everyone seems to have an opinion about what kind of company you should be or build, there’s a lot of noise. When you reshape your story for every stakeholder, you think you're being strategic. Adaptive, even.

You're actually creating three compounding problems:

1. You dilute your positioning in the market

Every time you pitch a different version of your company, you train the market to be confused about what you do.

Confused buyers don't buy. Confused investors don't invest. Confused acquirers don't acquire.

Clarity isn't just about messaging—it's about market positioning. When people can't easily categorise you, they can't easily refer you, fund you, or buy from you.

2. You attract the wrong capital (and the wrong terms)

Here's the pattern I see repeatedly: founders pivot their story to "fit" an investor's thesis. They get the term sheet. Then they spend the next 18 months in board meetings defending a business model they never wanted to build or they end up building two businesses to satisfy everyone and end up burnt out.

The wrong capital is worse than no capital. Because now you're accountable to a strategy that was never yours.

3. You lose strategic decision-making velocity

Every pivot in your narrative creates internal confusion. Your team doesn't know what you're building. Your advisors give conflicting advice. Your board asks why the strategy keeps shifting.

The chameleon CEO spends all their energy managing stakeholder expectations instead of executing strategy.

What Strategic Clarity Actually Creates

One founder told me: "I'm not being a chameleon for different stakeholders anymore. I'm clear on who I am, the business I'm building, and whether it's the right fit—or not."

That clarity created three immediate effects:

Effect 1: Faster deal velocity

When your message is consistent, prospects can make decisions faster. They're not trying to reconcile three different versions of your pitch. They know exactly what you do, who it's for, and whether it's a fit.

Her 18-month pilot negotiation closed in weeks once she stopped adapting the value proposition to every meeting.

Effect 2: Better access to decision-makers

Clear positioning acts as a filter. The wrong people self-select out. The right people lean in.

She gained access to dream acquirers at a conference where her peers—with similar credentials, similar tech—got nothing. The difference? Her message cut through. Theirs blended in.

Effect 3: Confidence to make hard calls

Here's the transformation that matters most: she gained the confidence to change out her technical team.

This is what strategic clarity does—it gives you the conviction to make decisions that hurt in the short term but compound in the long term. Because you're not wondering "what will investors think?" You know what you're building and what it requires.

The Framework: Exit Clarity Drives Everything Else

The methodology that creates this transformation starts with your exit.

Not because you should sell tomorrow. But because knowing where you're going determines every strategic decision between here and there.

Here's how it works:

Step 1: Define your version of success

Not your investors' version. Not what you think you're "supposed" to want. What does success actually look like for you?

• Is it an acquisition by a specific type of buyer?

• Is it building a profitable, sustainable business you control for decades?

• Is it raising big, scaling fast, and creating category dominance?

None of these are wrong. But they require completely different strategies.

Step 2: Work backwards to today

Once you know your destination, you can map the milestones:

• What capabilities does the business need?

• What type of capital enables that path (vs. forces a different one)?

• What team composition do you need?

• What partnerships or customers validate your trajectory?

Step 3: Audit everything through this lens

Now you have a filter for every decision:

• Does this investor's thesis align with our exit strategy?

• Does this customer contract move us toward our version of success?

• Does this team structure support where we're going?

The founders who do this work stop being chameleons. Because they finally know what they're building.

The Peer Effect Nobody Talks About

Here's what surprised me most: the transformation didn't just come from my exit-focused frameworks or my experience.

It also came from peer accountability.

One founder completely changed how he structured his data room because of feedback from a fellow founder. From someone who'd also in the exact journey building out hers.

That level of honest, high-caliber insight in a safe space? That's what actually transforms founders.

When you're surrounded by people solving similar problems—technical founders figuring out commercial strategy, scientists learning to speak board language—you stop feeling like you're the only one who doesn't have it figured out.

You realise everyone is figuring it out. The difference is whether you're doing it alone or with people who can spot your blind spots.

What This Means for Your Board Strategy

If you're recognising yourself in the "constant adapting" pattern or lack of confidence to say “no”, here's what to audit:

Board composition: Are you building a board that reinforces clarity or adds to the confusion? Every board member should share your vision of success—or at least not actively work against it.

Capital strategy: Have you accepted capital from investors who want a different outcome than you do? If yes, how do you navigate that without losing control of your strategy?

Communication discipline: Do you have one clear narrative, or are you maintaining multiple versions depending on the audience?

The strongest technical founders I work with have boring consistency. Same message, every room, every time. It's not exciting. But it compounds.

The Transformation That Matters

Another founder told me she now has genuine confidence in what she's driving, what she's building, and crucially—what she's walking away from.

That last part is everything.

The power to say "no" is the most underrated strategic tool you have as a CEO. But you can't say no if you don't know what you're saying yes to.

Strategic clarity isn't just about attracting the right capital. It's about repelling the wrong capital. The wrong partnerships. The wrong team members. The wrong board members.

Because every "yes" to the wrong thing is a "no" to the right thing.

What's Next

If you're a technical founder in deeptech or healthtech, here's the question to ask yourself:

Do you have one clear answer to "what are you building and why" that stays consistent regardless of who's in the room?

If not, that's your strategic problem. Everything else—slow fundraising, misaligned investors, team confusion, board friction—is just a symptom.

Cohort 2 of Capital Catalyst launches in Q1 2026 for technical founders who are tired of building someone else's company. If that's the transformation you need, the waitlist is open now.

Until next time,
Vivian

P.S. Starting my Mondays with these founders has been the best part of my week. Watching them go from uncertain to unapologetic about their vision never gets old.

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