Thinkbox: The cumulative transitions of the deep tech entrepreneur

Abstract

This paper focuses on the journey of the scientist who becomes an entrepreneur, henceforth the deep tech entrepreneur. Deep tech entrepreneurs are founders of so-called deep tech companies or startups. This essay assumes that a deep tech startup is an organization driven by a scientific discovery that aims to produce technological innovations loaded with high uncertainty regarding results and impacts. Deep tech startups have specificities regarding business maturation time, capital intensity, and uncertainty, which require new or adapted approaches compared with traditional startups (Basilio, Murray & Frolund, 2022).

Deep tech startups’ specificities stem from their constitution and growth, suffering from the challenge of transitioning ecosystems – the transition from the knowledge ecosystem to the entrepreneurial ecosystem and from the latter to the innovation ecosystem. Therefore, to understand deep tech startups, we must focus on unveiling the actions of deep tech entrepreneurs in each of these ecosystems and the transitions between them. In this regard, this essay aims to explain the transitions of deep tech entrepreneurs between different ecosystems. Our argument is based on uncertainty, entrepreneurial judgment, and ecosystem management.