Most early-stage ideas don't die quickly. They die slowly, quietly eating a founder's savings, months of effort, or a research group's goodwill, before anyone gets a straight answer about whether the idea was ever viable.
Failed ideas aren't failed startups. The founders who come out ahead aren't the ones who never had a weak idea, they're the ones who found out early. This exists to get you that answer fast, honestly, and on your own.
Five questions, called layers, covering roughly eighty percent of what's actually needed to make a confident go or no-go call on a new deep tech idea. Feasibility, use case, defensibility, expansion potential, and lasting advantage, worked through in order, in under an hour. Built for the moment before real commitment, whether that's starting something new, or an existing team deciding whether to back a new product, a new direction, or a pivot.
Drawn from thirty-five years founding, operating, and investing in deep tech companies, not a generic startup checklist. "Deep tech" here covers any company built on hard science or engineering, biotech, climate tech, advanced materials, robotics, and similar.
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The Deep Tech Founder's Framework is a working methodology for building, funding, and exiting deep tech companies, written from thirty-five years as a founder, operator, and investor in the field. This assessment is the first free tool from it. Questions or feedback: hello@deeptechframework.com.