Deep-tech is not your average startup playground. You are not launching a new app; you are trying to convince people that something almost science-fiction is commercially viable. Market validation in deep-tech is about answering one brutal question:
“Is anyone actually going to pay for this science project?”
Unlike consumer or SaaS products where you can test and iterate overnight, deep-tech startups are capital-intensive and slow to develop. If you misread your market, you will not only lose time but also burn through significant R&D investment before realising the market does not care.
In deep-tech, you validate before you build, not after. Most DT companies are B2B with very long validation cycles, so validating early is very important since cycles are so long.