5 Critical Go-to-Market Lessons from Building a Deep Tech Company

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Arcturus CTO Devin Horsman shared invaluable insights from scaling a volumetric video infrastructure company. His experience offers crucial lessons for technical founders navigating the complex journey from breakthrough innovation to market adoption.

1. When Early Distribution Partnerships Fail, Own the Customer Relationship

Initial go-to-market strategies often seem logical but can mask fundamental flaws. Arcturus started by partnering with capture stages as their primary distribution channel, but quickly discovered a critical weakness. “These early capture stages had much more technical know-how and much more understanding of what our value prop was than the later stages,” Devin explains. Their solution? “We worked to overcome this in a couple of ways. One is to sort of sit on top of the capture stage so folks would come to us instead as a complete solution and we’d bundle the capture as sort of a subcontract to the overall project.”

2. Break Down Technical-Business Silos Early

In deep tech companies, traditional organizational boundaries can become major obstacles. “With a company like ours, where the technology is so bleeding edge, there almost necessarily has to be more of a mind meld happening between the units of the company that are more business oriented and the ones which are more technology oriented,” Devin notes. This integration isn’t just about collaboration – it’s about creating a shared understanding of value creation throughout the organization.

3. Build Feedback Loops Into Your Culture

The ability to gather and act on feedback becomes crucial when pushing technical boundaries. Devin emphasizes that feedback will emerge one way or another – the key is ensuring it comes through productive channels. “Things like if you hear somebody provide feedback or critical feedback to you and then start dismissing it immediately, or holding that over someone’s head… it’s really just realizing that feedback will come to you one way or the other.”

4. Create Mini Product Managers Throughout Your Organization

Success in deep tech requires more than just technical excellence. As Devin explains, “You want to have a mini product manager in everybody in the company… You want them to understand what is it that our customer needs, what is it that we’re offering as a value prop and how can what I do in my day to day contribute most effectively to that?” This approach ensures that technical decisions are always grounded in market reality.

5. Don’t Let Technical Fascination Override Market Focus

Perhaps the most crucial lesson for technical founders is avoiding the trap of pure technical focus. “I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t just stick your head in the sand and make the thing that you think is cool, hoping that everybody else wants to use it,” Devin reflects. Instead, success requires “generating collating and monitoring insights from all these different places – the market, your customers, the things that your team is saying internally as the core experts.”

For Arcturus, these principles have driven significant growth, with a 150% increase in processing volume and 575% increase in end-viewer distribution over the past year. Their experience demonstrates that in deep tech, success often depends not just on technical innovation, but on creating organizational structures that can effectively bridge the gap between breakthrough technology and market adoption.

The journey from technical innovation to market success requires more than just great technology – it demands a holistic approach that aligns technical capabilities with market needs. For technical founders pushing into new markets, these lessons offer a roadmap for avoiding common pitfalls and building organizations capable of both technical excellence and market success.