Lab to Market Leadership with Chris Reichhelm

Dr Jan Goetz never planned to be a CEO. He wanted to be a professor. But when co-founder Professor Mikko Möttönen asked about starting a company, Jan followed his gut.
Seven years later, IQM is Europe's largest quantum computing company, heading towards US public listing, and has just secured €50M from BlackRock.
This is a rare, personal look at the founder CEO journey – not just the company wins, but the internal transitions, the moments of doubt, and how Jan learned to lead whilst staying true to himself.
Jan reveals the journey: spinning out of VTT and Aalto University (April 2018), the four co-founders dividing roles (Mikko stayed in academia, Kuan became CTO, Juha became COO, Jan became CEO), the early decision to sell complete systems not chips, convincing governments to buy 5-qubit machines when engineers questioned it, using the SpaceX analogy to de-risk early sales, and how COVID rescue budgets opened doors.
Finland's EU presidency rotation (July 2019) put IQM in front of Brussels decision-makers. COVID created quantum procurement budgets – Germany allocated €2B. Founders can't plan these things. What matters is being agile enough to see everything as an opportunity.
Jan's advice: Know your strengths. His strength was storytelling – winning grants, pitching vision, being the ‘foreign minister’ of the company. He found others to cover weaknesses. Don't waste time trying to do everything you're not good at.
The vulnerable moment: Lying in bed in Canada, Jan realised he wasn't coping well. He signed up for a marathon that day. Now he runs daily into the woods – no headphones, no phone, just him and his thoughts.
On following your heart: People said he was crazy to choose Finland over Barcelona or US opportunities. But it felt right. Do you follow your plan or follow your heart? Jan followed his gut.
Essential for scientific founders transitioning to CEO.
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Podcast Production: Beauxhaus

Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) are the universal language of Deep Tech – used by NASA, the DoD, VCs, corporations and startups to measure innovation progress. But where did they come from? 
Professor John Mankins co-invented TRLs and wrote the 1995 white paper that gave them to the world. In this Season 2 premiere, he reveals the origin story: from Apollo-era NASA research centres, through Stan Sadin's combination of 'technology readiness' and 'levels' in the mid-1970s, to John adding TRL 8–9 in the late 1980s, to publishing the framework on the early internet in 1995 ('nobody even knew what the internet was'), to a 1997 Government Accountability Office (GAO) briefing that led the Pentagon to adopt TRLs across DoD. 
John explains why TRLs are a 'contact sport', not a calculation tool–you need constant negotiation between technology developers and end users to assess readiness meaningfully. The hardest transition isn't the famous TRL 4–6 'valley of death' – it's TRL 1–2, the spark of innovation itself. He introduces two complementary frameworks: R&D³ (degree of difficulty – how hard to reach the next level) and Technology Need Value (how strategically important the innovation is). Together with TRL, these formed the foundation for managing NASA's $800M+ exploration portfolio. 
His advice for founders at TRL5: validate your market, test for scalability and double-check your foundations before scaling up. Essential listening for anyone navigating lab to market. 
Learn more about Deep Tech Leaders at www.deeptechleaders.com

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Podcast Production: Beauxhaus

Why do 55% of Deep Tech companies fail within five years? Hailey Eustace, founder of Commplicated, argues the answer isn't bad technology - it's bad communication.
Product-market fit failures? That's a listening and messaging problem. Can't raise capital? Your story isn't resonating. Struggling to win customers? Trust breakdown. Can't build the right culture? Your messages aren't landing.
Hailey's unique background as an analyst at Texas's $500M Deep Tech fund before founding the UK's leading Deep Tech comms agency gives her rare insight into why brilliant founders lose millions because they can't explain what they're doing. She's also an active angel investor, Venture Scout at Ada Ventures, and mentor at Founders (Cambridge) and Deeptech Labs.
She reveals the difference between American founders (20%+ budget to comms) and Europeans (resistant to investing), why 'explain it like I'm 5' fails for Deep Tech, and how to develop a core message that works for investors, customers, and your team simultaneously.
Her starting point: Define your one thing for 2026. What single message do you want everyone to know? Build from there.
This episode challenges the assumption that communications is fluffy. It's strategy. It's product. It's everything. And getting it right could be the difference between the 55% that fails and the 45% that survives.
Essential for Deep Tech founders struggling to translate science into business success.
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Podcast Production: Beauxhaus

What's the value of a ridiculously audacious goal if you never reach it? Josh Western, CEO of Space Forge, argues the question misses the point - because the innovations accelerated along the journey often matter more than the destination itself.
Space Forge manufactures advanced semiconductor substrates in microgravity conditions, returns them via reusable satellites, then grows them terrestrially using a ‘sourdough starter’ approach. It's technically audacious, operationally complex, and solves a critical problem: producing higher-purity compound semiconductors for AI, EVs, 5G, and energy infrastructure without Earth's gravitational constraints.
Josh reveals why Space Forge could be five different startups (in-space manufacturing, reentry vehicles, heat shields, landing software, crystal growth), but integration creates the real multiplier. He explains the regulatory nightmare of manufacturing in international waters, why payload economics now matter more than launch costs, and how recruiting for passion beats technical pedigree when no one has ‘10 years experience making semiconductors in space.’
His North Star: making space manufacturing so ubiquitous and boring that people don't realise the chip in their kettle came from orbit. Until then, every innovation along the journey - from sovereign supply chain contributions to regulatory frameworks - creates substantial value independent of the ultimate goal.
Essential listening for Deep Tech founders navigating vertical integration, novel regulatory challenges, and the tension between moonshot ambitions and incremental
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Podcast Production: Beauxhaus

What happens when quantum computing startups can’t wait 15 years for fault tolerance? 
Richard Murray, co-founder and CEO of Orca Computing, reveals how his team chose commercial usefulness over technical idealism - and why that decision drives everything from recruitment to product development.
Operating from a University of Oxford spinout with limited resources compared to Google or IBM, Orca faced a choice: follow the same path but years behind and millions of pounds short, or constrain themselves differently. They chose constraints. Starting with just £1.5 million forced creative decisions - building quantum computers with one light source instead of dozens - that ultimately benefited customers through more practical, deployable systems.
Richard describes the ‘two religions’ of quantum computing: those pursuing billion-pound fault-tolerant systems versus those focused on immediate commercial value. His team deliberately chose the latter, applying quantum to generative AI with measurable results: reduced GPU requirements, lower energy consumption, and potentially more creative AI models capable of generating results beyond training data.
The conversation explores operational realities most quantum companies avoid discussing: the talent gap when no industry exists to recruit from, the cultural shock when physicists encounter commercial constraints, and why ‘comfortable with ambiguity’ matters more than technical brilliance. Richard argues that customers don’t know what they want from quantum - and neither do most vendors - making the shift from vague promises to specific value propositions the defining challenge of the next phase.
His most provocative insight: Goldman Sachs apparently defines ‘quantum advantage’ not as an academic milestone but as when a company invests straight off their balance sheet because they can define the business return. That’s the real test.
Essential listening for Deep Tech founders, investors, and anyone navigating the trade-offs between breakthrough innovation and commercial survival.

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Learn more about Lab to Market Leadership: https://www.deeptechleaders.com

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Podcast Production: Beauxhaus