A PLAYER'S GUIDE FOR FOUNDERS MAKING THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE. All founders know that deep tech is a different beast, and you have to be a little bit crazy to take it on. You are staring down the impossible and refusing to take no for an answer. If you are 100% certain that you know everything there is to know about TAM, SAM, TRL, TCO, CoGS, RMA, NDA, FMEA, DFM, OEM, CAD, and a whole bunch of other deep tech TLAs, ETLAs, and FLAs — then maybe this book isn't for you. If you're not entirely certain and you're reading this about to run headfirst into the impossible, you should probably get through this book first. Being a deep tech founder means entering an uneven playing field on hard mode. Loving the game is not enough — you must do everything you can to be prepared.
This book will help you. It is the manual that not only tells you what to do, but how to do it. It is also the manual that tells you what not to do, unfortunately all based on personal experience. Which co-founders, what team, which parts, what prototype, which inventors, what manufacturer, what margin, where to find customers, how to sell, when to hire, when to fire, when to pivot, how to find momentum, and most importantly: how not to kill your dream.
Ola Wassvik is a deep tech entrepreneur, inventor, and writer with over 20 years of experience building companies at the edge of what is considered possible. As co-founder and former CTO of FlatFrog, he helped pioneer large-scale interactive display technology. Today, he is the co-founder and CCO of Lightbringer, working at the intersection of AI, patents, and invention intelligence. A Game of Deep Tech distills two decades of hard-earned lessons from building, breaking, and rebuilding deep tech companies.