Deep Tech Venture Building and "Hit Factories"

Motown founder, Berry Gordy worked at Ford’s Lincoln-Mercury plant and it gave him an idea.

"The factory had this assembly line and I would see the cars start out a bare metal frame and go round a circle. And different stations would put things on there, and they would go out another door a brand new car. I said, my goodness, I could do this with people."

His record label was built on this idea to become a "Hit Factory" that would work like an assembly line to take raw talent and package them up with producers, writers, musicians, choreographers, sales and marketing.

We often start a deep tech venture with just the 'bare metal' - the founding idea and some IP. This is the equivalent of the raw talent when Diana Ross walked into Motown. It is a unique advantage that others will struggle to replicate, but there needs to be more.

Motown would have been very different if Gordy had just given Diana Ross some money and expected her to figure it out.

In deep tech venture building we can't waste time for founders to figure out on their own how to package their technology into a the world class company that will deliver it to the world.

A "Hit Factory" is needed.

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I'm a Partner at Main Sequence, a VC purpose-built to create global companies from scientific ideas with the inventors who imagine them. I build-out-loud here: https://philmorle.substack.com