Id4 Ventures

Founder Tip #1: Be a Tribe Leader, Not a CEO

At the pre-seed stage, ditch the formal CEO title. It carries connotations of being built for delegation, not collaboration, and a corporate structure that simply doesn't exist yet. Instead, call yourself the Tribe Leader 🏕️.

Why the Title Matters at Pre-Seed

The shift in title isn't just semantics; it's a reflection of your true role in a Deep Tech startup's early existence.

If you call yourself CEO (Chief Executive Officer), It implies Authority & Control. Managing a structure built for delegation. Answering to a board.

If you call yourself Tribe Leader, It implies Vision, Culture & Survival. Leading the first 5-10 people through the wilderness of product-market fit.

In the early days, your job isn't to execute on a stable business plan; it's to inspire and sustain a small, dedicated group. Your essential responsibilities are to:

Define the Mission: Give your small team a cause worth fighting for—the singular scientific or engineering problem that defines the company.
Protect the Culture: You are the first and only HR, ensuring intellectual honesty and belief alignment among the earliest believers.
Lead from the Front: You're the one selling, coding, cleaning, and raising the flag. You are the chief maker and chief hustler.

CEO is a title you earn when you scale the machine. Tribe Leader is the title of the Visionary who built the original machine and found the first, most loyal users. Embrace the title that reflects the hands-on, mission-driven reality of building a world-changing company from scratch.

Founder Tip #2: Strategic Revenue Over Vanity Metrics: Optimizing Your Pre-Series A Runway

At Id4 Ventures, we've observed a recurring miscalculation in early-stage Deep Tech: the inclusion of unvalidated revenue in runway estimations. Let's be unequivocal: your pre-Series A runway is for strategic validation, not simply sustaining operations with misaligned sales.

The Distinction: Quality Revenue, Not Just Quantity

For Deep Tech companies, the phase from pre-seed to Series A is fundamentally about de-risking core assumptions and establishing a repeatable value proposition. During this critical period, the quality of your revenue is paramount, far outweighing mere volume.

Strategic Client Selection is an Asset: Your ability to *select* early clients—those who perfectly embody your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and whose pain points precisely inform your product roadmap—is a significant strategic asset. These clients are not just buyers; they are essential feedback loops. This focused engagement dramatically improves product feedback quality, refining your offering with precision and substantially reducing churn pre-Series A.
The Learning Imperative: Pre-Series A, your primary objective is to master serving a specific client segment and to iterate rapidly towards a repeatable sales motion. A heterogeneous client base, acquired without strategic intent, invariably leads to feature creep and a diluted product vision—a direct impediment to a coherent, investable roadmap.

Why Revenue Quantity is a Pre-Series A Distraction

Obsession with maximizing top-line revenue in the short term, rather than focusing on net retention, customer lifetime value, and ICP alignment, is a common pitfall. This often generates "flash-in-the-pan" metrics that fail to impress sophisticated Series A investors.

Validation, Not Just Cash Flow: Early revenue should serve as proof of concept and demand validation within your targeted segment, providing data points for scalability. It should *not* be the sole determinant of your burn rate sustainability.
Fundraising Narrative: A concentrated, high-quality client base provides a far more compelling Series A narrative. It demonstrates market understanding, product stickiness within a key segment, and a clear path to scalable GTM, rather than a scattergun approach.

Your runway is your strategic capital for focused iteration and validation. Deploy it to acquire the *right* clients, learn deeply from them, and prove a repeatable sales cycle. This discipline, not raw revenue, is what unlocks the next stage of Deep Tech funding and builds companies of enduring value.