Dear all,

After supporting the scale-up journey of N26 from startup to unicorn, I captured 99 practices for scale-up leaders in The Builders Guide to the Tech Galaxy, together with my co-author Thomas Klugkist.

Now, almost two years into building Deep Tech Momentum, I revisited some of these practices and tested them against the reality of a 0-to-1 phase.

Looking back, these ten currently help us most on the journey from launchpad to orbit.

On North Star

1. Start with Why Now

In 2011, at an IBM event, engineers demonstrated a machine answering complex questions faster than any human. The system had just defeated the best players on the quiz show Jeopardy!. It was called IBM Watson. The audience watched in amazement. But the world was not yet ready. More than a decade later, in 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT. The technology had matured, the interface was simple, and suddenly, millions of people used AI daily. Great startups accelerate the inflection points of their era. Europe’s defence budgets are rising due to the war in Ukraine. Electrification creates bottlenecks in charging infrastructure. Renewable energy requires better storage systems. The key question: Are you building for the turning points of your time?

2. Know the Category You Will Lead

Who was the third person to cross the Atlantic by plane? Almost nobody remembers. Yet many know Amelia Earhart—not as the third person, but as the first woman to do so. If you cannot be first, define the category you can dominate. Great leaders choose categories big enough to matter but focused enough to win. “Global leader in visual robot programming for manufacturing” is far clearer than simply “robotics software company.” Be crystal clear about your category. For us, it is building Europe’s No.1 deep tech innovation marketplace, unlocking 10,000 corporate-startup contracts and €100 billion in venture capital by 2030.

On Best Team

3. Never Lower the Hiring Bar

“Great is repelled by good.” One of the biggest mistakes startups make is lowering the hiring bar under operational pressure. Exceptional people attract other exceptional people. Good hires are not good enough. Landing the right candidate often takes dozens—sometimes more than 100 interviews. Use every channel: networks, direct outreach, LinkedIn, and headhunters. Early on, it is far better to hire two or three exceptional people than a larger group of average ones.

4. Be Generous with ESOP — but Backload It

To attract exceptional talent, leaders must offer real ownership. A smaller slice of a large pie beats a large slice of a tiny pie. Generous ESOP packages help win great people early. Backloaded vesting aligns long-term commitment. Our structure: 10% / 20% / 30% / 40% over four years for founders and team. One of the best people decisions we made.

On Productivity

5. OKRs Matter More Than You Think

Many leaders think OKRs are unnecessary in early-stage startups. Our experience: the opposite. Used well, they create clarity and alignment. Leaders define ambitious objectives. The team defines measurable key results. Quarterly OKRs plus three to four strategy off-sites per year to refine annual OKRs work well for us.

6. Daily Performance Check-ins for Critical Tasks

On critical tasks, daily performance transparency on a per-person level makes the difference between drifting and executing.

What did you achieve yesterday? What will you achieve today? Daily check-ins with personal accountability are not popular—but extremely effective.

7. Monday Commitments

Every early-stage startup benefits from a weekly rhythm. Our Monday meeting takes about 45 minutes. Quick personal check-in, one highlight and one rollover from last week, then each person commits to two or three measurable KPIs. Focus on output, not activity. “Confirm ten corporate buyers” beats “work on a presentation.”

8. Appreciation Routines

High-performance teams easily forget appreciation. That’s why we run a weekly Friday shout-out ritual. Everyone recognises at least one colleague. “My shout-out goes to Rita for drafting the best outbound campaign we’ve done so far.” Small ritual. Huge energy boost for the team.

9. In-Office Beats Everything

“We operate as a remote team and offer flexibility about where people work.” This may attract talent, but it often kills productivity. Research by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research finds that fully remote work creates a roughly a 10% productivity drop compared with fully in-office work, mainly because communication, mentoring and collaboration become harder. We have seen this, too. For young teams still building trust and experience, in-office beats everything.

Finally

10. Work in Founder Mode

“Hire great people and get out of their way.” Sounds nice. Rarely works in early-stage startups. When resources are scarce, leaders must stay close to the source of value creation and shape the details. What large organisations call micromanagement can be the difference between success and failure. The iPhone or the cars of Tesla would not exist without leaders obsessed with details. Founder Mode also means something else: inject courage, not fear. Teams act boldly, ask for forgiveness rather than permission and constantly strive for mastery.

These ten practices helped us move Deep Tech Momentum from launchpad to mesosphere. 

To a week of bold building,

Martin

➔ Tokamak Energy operates one of Europe’s most advanced private fusion programs and a dedicated HTS commercialisation arm.

➔ Located near the ITER industrial cluster, the company is embedded in Europe’s most advanced fusion supply network.

➔ Its technology platform also enables high-pressure materials testing, creating near-term commercial optionality.

➔ Transatlantic positioning with a base in the San Francisco Bay Area.

➔ Strategic partnership with Siemens Energy anchors its industrial integration pathway.

Fusion energy is moving from scientific aspiration to industrial strategy. Private capital has accelerated, ignition milestones have been achieved, and multiple technological pathways are competing for commercial viability. 

The Future Trends Forum Report “Energía de Fusión” (2025), published by the Fundación Innovación Bankinter, gives a good impression of fusion’s technological maturity. It also takes a look at capital formation and industrial implications.

For corporate decision-makers and Deep Tech founders, this is less a science update than a signal about where the next multi-decade industrial platform could emerge.

Here are the five most important takeaways:

DTM100 is Europe’s No.1 Deep Tech pitch competition — bringing together Europe’s Top 100 Deep Tech founders to pitch live in front of a jury of tier-1 corporate leaders and investors.

Throughout the summit, we will host 7 semifinals, one for each key Deep Tech market: Space, Defence, Energy, Advanced Materials, High-Performance Computing, Robotics & Manufacturing and AI (cross-cutting across all sectors).

Qualification Criteria: To be eligible, startups must operate within one of the seven markets listed above, have raised less than €5M in total funding, and be headquartered in the EU or UK.

➕Join Europe’s Most Powerful Deep Tech Marketplace

When you step onto the DTM stage, you enter an ecosystem designed to convert visibility into capital:

Evaluation happens on a batch-by-batch basis and is expected to conclude quickly. Earlier participation increases your likelihood of being selected.

➔ Submit your application here.

While European startups like Proxima Fusion map out the power plants of the 2030s, the continent encounters another truth: inventing the technology is only half the battle. Getting steel in the ground and connecting it to the grid requires navigating a maze of fragmented regulations.

If you are tracking the gap between Deep Tech innovation and physical infrastructure, that is exactly the bottleneck explored in the book Abundance: How We Build a Better Future.

Journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson examine a frustrating paradox: we have the capital and the scientific brilliance to solve our biggest challenges, yet ambitious infrastructure projects are routinely stonewalled, delayed, or run wildly over budget.

While their focus is squarely on the United States, their diagnosis of why developed nations struggle to build is universally relevant. They argue that our inability to scale infrastructure is a policy failure. Rules designed in the 1970s to ensure public accountability have inadvertently created a system where it is too difficult, slow, and expensive to act.

To realise the promise of capital-intensive technologies, we need a governance model that prioritises finishing projects over endlessly reviewing them. Abundance offers a sharp, data-driven blueprint for clearing that administrative backlog.

You can read Bill Gates' notes on the book; it was also shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year.

We have a copy for your bookshelf.

➔ To enter the draw, reply “ABUNDANCE”.

Last Week’s Winners: Congratulations to Marius Klages, Chiara Castelli, Alvaro-Miguel Cabrera, Vincent Clot, Kriss Osmanis, and Nikolaus von Taysen on winning a mentoring session with Rasmus Rothe. We will put the group in touch in the coming days.