Why 55% of Deep Tech Companies Fail: The Communication Problem No One Talks About | Hailey Eustace

Why do 55% of Deep Tech companies fail within five years? Hailey Eustace, founder of Commplicated, argues the answer isn't bad technology - it's bad communication.

Product-market fit failures? That's a listening and messaging problem. Can't raise capital? Your story isn't resonating. Struggling to win customers? Trust breakdown. Can't build the right culture? Your messages aren't landing.

Hailey's unique background as an analyst at Texas's $500M Deep Tech fund before founding the UK's leading Deep Tech comms agency gives her rare insight into why brilliant founders lose millions because they can't explain what they're doing. She's also an active angel investor, Venture Scout at Ada Ventures, and mentor at Founders (Cambridge) and Deeptech Labs.

She reveals the difference between American founders (20%+ budget to comms) and Europeans (resistant to investing), why 'explain it like I'm 5' fails for Deep Tech, and how to develop a core message that works for investors, customers, and your team simultaneously.

Her starting point: Define your one thing for 2026. What single message do you want everyone to know? Build from there.

This episode challenges the assumption that communications is fluffy. It's strategy. It's product. It's everything. And getting it right could be the difference between the 55% that fails and the 45% that survives.

Essential for Deep Tech founders struggling to translate science into business success.

Learn more about Lab to Market Leadership: https://www.deeptechleaders.com

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deeptechleaders

Podcast Production: Beauxhaus

Transcript

Hailey Eustace: [00:00:00] I'll tell them where I always start. And um, that's with your core message. Now, what is people's attention span, even in deep tech is really small. Investors see so many companies every week. Um, customers see so many companies they have other stuff to do. They worry about what they're going to put on for dinner that night with their children.

You know, everyone has a lot of stuff to worry about right now, so. What is the one thing that you want everyone to know about your company and be really, uh, self-critical about this and really honest and get outside of your bubble? And I think it is again, like just start flexing that muscle of what is our strategy?

Does everyone know what it is? What's the one thing that we want people to know about us for the next year? Is it defining the category that we're creating? What is [00:01:00] it? Are we putting a new name on it? Do we fit into this other area? What's going on in the world around us? What's that one thing? Then build from there.

Chris Reichhelm: Welcome to the Lab to Market Leadership podcast. Too many advanced science and engineering companies fail to deliver their innovations from the lab to the market. We are on a mission to change that. My name is Chris Reichhelm, and I'm the founder and CEO of Deep Tech leaders. Each week we speak with some of the world's leading entrepreneurs, investors, corporates, and policy makers about what it takes to succeed on the lab to market journey.

Join us.

55% of all deep tech companies will fail by their fifth birthday. Happy New Year, by the way. Now Deep Tech is a broad church. We accept that. Uh, it is, uh, and, and, [00:02:00] and so there are certain domains within Deep Tech that have higher failure rates than others. Ai, for example, has a 90% failure rate, which is extremely high, uh, areas like energy and, uh, batteries and other industrial platforms, tech, bio, they have very different failure rates.

But if you were to look at all of the failure rates and combine 'em together, average amount, you'd get a failure rate of roughly 55% after five years. Now I'm gonna list. The reasons why or the cited reasons for failure. Okay, I'm reading this by the way, the top 10 most important reasons for failure.

Number one, this won't be a surprise to many of you. Lack of product market fit. Number two, funding constraints and financial mismanagement. Number three, poor management and poor execution. Number four, poor business models. Poor commercial execution. Five, very difficult product [00:03:00] engineering. Number six, misaligned timing in the valley of death.

Number seven, external macro environmental factors. Number eight, strategic or cognitive errors. And number nine, timing. Number 10, competition. Now, I bet if you were to really dig deep into each of those different areas, apart from difficult product engineering. Eight of those areas, most of those areas have to do with some form of communication, either listening or messaging, and aligning our overall actions with what we're saying.

Communication is one of the most critical things we do as any as entrepreneurs, as executives, on behalf of companies. I'm delighted today that to be joined by Hailey Eustace, who is the founder and [00:04:00] CEO of the leading deep tech strategic communications and public relations firm in the UK and Europe. Uh, Hailey set up her business in 2023.

They have already assumed a leading position. They've recently expanded into Northern Europe and they've been very active, particularly in the fields of advanced compute. I wanna speak to Hailey today about just how much deep tech companies really get how important communication is. She's gonna be full of insight.

This is one of those conversations you have to listen to. We haven't had it yet, so I'm not saying this after the fact. You really do need to listen to this one. This is gonna be super important for you. Let's get into it.

Hailey Eustace, thank you so much for joining me.

Hailey Eustace: Thank you so much for having me.

Chris Reichhelm: How in line with my intro just there, how [00:05:00] much does the deep tech industry actually get it? And by it I mean of course the importance of communication.

Hailey Eustace: I think they know there's a problem, but they don't know what to do about it or where to start.

And that's kind of where the major issue is, is that they know they have product market fit problems. They know they have, uh, problems fundraising or getting new customers or retaining talent, but they don't realize that communications could be a major part of all of these issues. So. They kind of are firefighting on a lot of different levels, when actually if they were to think about communications and integrating their vision into all of these different elements from the beginning at the board level, they would solve a lot of issues simultaneously.

But a lot of them just think of it as an afterthought. It's like, oh, we'll, we'll send a press release later once we release that product finally. But by then, it's way too late. [00:06:00] So they need to be really thinking about it in terms of everything that they do.

Chris Reichhelm: Yeah. But the hook, the initial hook to get them to, to, to come to you guys is we're struggling to build a culture or, you know, our fundraising isn't going very well, or no one's paying attention to us in, in our market.

Yeah. It's one of those items. It's not, we have a problem with communication.

Hailey Eustace: Usually, I mean, sometimes they are self-aware enough to say like, we know that we have a problem with this. Um, yeah. And it's usually very technical founders and a lot of the feedback that they're getting is, we don't really understand what you do, or their customers just aren't connecting with the, the product that they're trying to develop.

Um, and so they know, like some of them have kind of isolated that. A lot of times we get it from their investors and they say, the investors will see what they're doing. They're already [00:07:00] invested. So it's not about fundraising necessarily. They just say like, this company is amazing, but they're experiencing a lot of issues.

Can you please help them? Okay. So that, I would say the typical touch point that we have with founders right now.

Chris Reichhelm: Does it often come from the investor, that initial contact, or is it something that I don't know, a founder does or another member of the board does?

Hailey Eustace: It's all of them. Um, yeah, I would say yeah.

Board members are, are a big, um, partner with us because. We'll be working with one company, they'll see what we can do for that company that they're on the board of and say like, can you please do this for these other two companies that I'm a part of? It's been really helpful. And because they're at that strategic board level, they see that broader picture and they see all of the issues that good communications can solve and how it links together.

So I think that's actually a really good example of like, this [00:08:00] does work. It is important. Yes. Um, and same with investors. You know, they see a lot of companies and they've seen what works and what doesn't, and the ones with good communications usually do better. 

Chris Reichhelm: Yeah. So when, you know, kind of walk me through the process a little bit.

When they, when, and ultimately you're dealing with startups here, scale ups, and I'm guessing, I'm assuming most of the time the founders are still in place. Yes. Okay. And what do they think they're getting when they first meet you? You know, what do they think this is going to be about?

Hailey Eustace: Yeah. Um, I think most of them think it's, yeah, a couple of nice media placements, maybe a little bit of LinkedIn posting and.

That's about it, but it's so much more than that. Yeah. You know, it is really going back to the strategy and saying, where do [00:09:00] you wanna be in two years or five years? How much money do you wanna raise? Who are the kind of customers you want? What are the kind of people that you need to hire in order to get there?

Mm-hmm. What's the story that you want to tell over those five years? Because deep tech works on a totally different timescale, so you need to think in those years and kind of like different eras of the company. So we usually start working with founders around the seed or series A stage. And at that point, they're trying to get their first real customers.

They've figured out what their technology is, they're starting to get that product market fit. And it's like, well, you know, for this era of our company, what do we want to be known for? And sometimes they're developing a new category. So that first step is actually just getting people to know what is it we're even developing.

Deep tech is always at the frontier of tech development of the market, and sometimes people haven't even heard of what they're [00:10:00] working on. Yeah. So step one could even be just defining what this technology is and getting people talking about it. And then step two is talking about why do they need it?

And it's not a single press article that's going to do that. You have to really put in that work consistently and think really hard about who are the people and the audiences that you need to, to reach first. The, I'm knowing some of these founders, having worked with many of 'em, I am guessing that many of them find this kind of work somewhat difficult, somewhat challenging.

Um, and I'd love your take on that. You know, the, especially given that most founders are technical, um, most have advanced degrees, generally PhDs, [00:11:00] uh, and, and they're so steeped in their particular area and they're accustomed to dealing with individuals who speak a similar language. To somehow try to make sense of this and articulate this in a way so that the world can understand it, or at least larger pockets of the world, um, is, you know, is, is likely to be a challenge for them.

And, and I wonder how much of that is a challenge, you know, technically for them. How much of a challenge is that emotionally for them? Um, you know, can you, you know, shed some light. On those things. Yeah, it is really, um, I think it's the mental, uh, reframing that's actually the most difficult part of it for a lot of them.

And when we first start working with companies, quite often the scientific founders, um, there's [00:12:00] sort of like the business person and then there's the scientific person. That's sort of the typical setup in a deep tech. And quite often the scientific founder will be completely against hiring someone like us.

And think like, we don't need this. The science speaks for itself. We'll talk about it once we've delivered it and once they start seeing some of the benefits that come with it, they become our biggest supporters. Like they totally, they see the method. They're able to understand how to use their scientific knowledge to be able to communicate better, and they see the results pretty immediately about, oh, now people understand what I'm talking about.

This is so much easier than sending them 500 papers trying to explain what we're trying to do. You know, we have the right talent coming to us, rather than searching in all of these different universities. And it's almost like, you know, the goldfish or [00:13:00] fish in water, they don't realize that they're in water.

But you're not selling to other goldfish, you're selling outside. And once you're able to, to see what's beyond that and think in a different way, it's hard to unsee that. And they're, they're usually very, um, bought in. Once they get into the rhythm of thinking, how do we communicate this? What are the important points?

What's our core message here? Because we can't talk about every single scientific, you know, detail. Yeah. What's the core thing we need and they kind of start seeing the world in a very, through a very different lens, and they see the benefits and then yeah, they just become like huge supporters of it, which is great that it strikes me that that is a very important part of.

The overall maturation of the business, though, [00:14:00] uh, you know, the transformation that it goes through, it. This is not just an extended postdoc or or PhD project. This is a business. If we are here to build a business and. Create solutions that can make the world cleaner, healthier, and more intelligent in some way.

And of course, return capital, uh, and generate value and all those good things that we want businesses to be able to do, then that requires a, a step change in our thinking. And so it's, it, it sounds like from what you're saying, this is, uh, you know, this is an exercise in that forcing Definitely. You know, forcing a, you know, uh, a group of technical individuals, highly gifted individuals, but technical individuals, nevertheless, to step out of their usual framework for thinking and seeing the world and step into someone else's perspective.

Definitely. I mean, [00:15:00] they're not going to be selling only to other scientists in their field, and I'm an investor as well, and I, I call. Companies that only focus on the science, science projects, like that extended postdoc type thing? No, this is not science for science sake. It's to get it into the market, to sell to companies that need it to sell to people who might not be, you know, PhDs in that exact.

Specific niche of the market. Um, you do need to think how can people use this? And actually there's a really great example of a, a founder in Finland, um, and he has no scientific background, but he is working on, um, drug in cancer treatments for pets. And he told his tech team, I need it done. You know, we need 24 hour tests. Results in two weeks or something like that. Mm-hmm. Like we need [00:16:00] it really short, really easy. Make the science fit what the market needs. And I think that's brilliant and you need to constantly, it's a constant feedback loop. You know, you need to think what does the market need and how does our science fit with that?

And then you go back and forth, well that won't work, but how could it work? And part of that is communicating as well. So, you know, thinking. What's our, what's our thing that we're going to be known for? You know, it, it's this constant back and forth and cycle between Yeah. Strategy, the science, the market.

You have to match all of these things together in order to have a successful business rather than that science project. Absolutely. And that, you know, the example you just gave there reminds me of, um, Eric Ries and the kind of agile thinking. You know, the constant back and forth, that iteration. And, uh, and, and starting with the statement or the proposition itself, [00:17:00] I've listened to the market.

We had, we had another guest on our show, mark, uh, who is out in the southwest of England, and he was developing these, uh, these green enabled data center solutions for cooling, big, big data centers and a novel solution. And he talked about something very, very similar. Which was the, starting with the statement and then letting the science and the engineering fill that up.

Because with the statement, if you've done your work properly, you know there's product market fit there. And of course you've gotta then kind of work at setting expectations, which is the challenging bit, and I guess, which we'll come onto, but it's a, it's, you know, as opposed to always starting with the science and trying to then meet the market from the perspective, you know, from the starting point of the science.

Definitely, I mean, I think scientist, founders can kind of fall in love with their science and bringing it into the world and making it the absolute best [00:18:00] version that it can possibly be because they usually are very, um, rigorous and have a lot of integrity and things like that, which is great, but sometimes the market only needs an 80% version of what's possible.

They don't need that extra 20% that'll take you an extra five years to perfect. What does the market need to be really, you know, for it to be valuable and potentially, you know, bring out that extra 20% of what is possible over the next five years funded by that first product release. And I think, you know, they can say like, until it's absolutely perfect, we're not going to do anything and we're not going to release it.

But by that point, you've burned through potentially millions years, maybe someone else releases that. Even a 70% that's now beating you. You know, you need to have, you need to have that dialogue with, um, the world outside of you and to [00:19:00] be really honest with yourself about like, do people care? Do other people care about this?

Yeah, and I think the answer can shock them sometimes. That, yeah, people don't care about that, you know, extra test that will give them a little bit more information about it. They care about that, you know, that real groundbreaking thing that you're working on and giving them as much as you can at this point.

But yeah, I think they, I think the most successful teams. Are able to have that dialogue between the science and the market and the engineers and the business team, and bring it all together. Um, and a lot of that is good communication, right? Like they need to be able to talk to each other and have a shared understanding of what they're trying to achieve in the first place.

That's it. That's it. Now you and I share a common accent, but roughly, roughly a common accent. And, uh, and I know that you started life as an investor, and [00:20:00] so how did you, how did you find your way towards communication and public relations? Yeah, yeah. So I'm originally from Texas. Most people can't tell that from my accent.

Yeah. Um, but I, I was working at, uh, the largest deep tech seed fund in the United States at the time, called the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. It's, um, it was a $500 million fund. It's been closed now, but at the time we invested in companies like SpaceX. Um, that's the reason why, or one of the reasons why they launched in Boca Chica, Texas, is because the emerging tech fund invested in them.

Um, we did, we had a portfolio of 140 companies in deep tech. So everything from, um biotech to clean energy, battery technology. At the time, nanotechnology was the hot new thing. Um, so, you know, these things come and go. That [00:21:00] one didn't go very far. But then SpaceX, you know, we all know SpaceX. Um, but the thing that I saw over and over again as I was an analyst and reviewing the decks before they went to the partners was.

I would have 12 slides on this molecule, but then they wouldn't tell me who their first customers were going to be or how big the market is, and how big this company could get, or give me language that I could easily explain to the partners and say like, this is a really good company because of X, Y, and Z.

And I think a lot of times, um, you know, even if someone, even if there is. A specialist in that particular field in the fund, which to be honest, is fairly rare. You know, they might have a PhD on staff from say, quantum, but the rest of the team doesn't have a PhD in Quantum and they need to be able to have that shared language to have the conversation without [00:22:00] you in the room.

So a lot of founders rely on being able to explain themselves the technology, which is super important, but you also need to enable other people to have that conversation about you in a way. That's easily understandable. And another thing is that it is sophisticated as well. So you know, this isn't, um, this isn't the next Facebook or something like that.

Like, uh, deep tech isn't for your grandma, it's not for a five-year-old. I think that's quite often the advice as well as like, put it into ChatGPT and tell me to explain it to me like I'm a 5-year-old. That doesn't work either, because then it's too general. Where's your mode, what's the, what's the crucial thing I need to know about your business that's going to make sure that you win?

So I think there's that balance between being too technical but also being too general because then you lose that substance and deep tech investors do look for that [00:23:00] substance. So yeah, you need to be able to, to give very intelligent people. The right language to be able to talk about you. That's right.

That's right. But then you, so you moved from an analyst looking at these decks thinking, God, these are lousy. I'm bored to tears. And at some point you decided to say, actually, you know what? I need to do something about this, or I need to help in this way. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think, again, people think that communications is this sort of fluffy afterthought.

Mm-hmm. But actually. I'm sure that really incredible companies lost millions because they didn't do a good job explaining what they were doing. And I just thought this is a real issue and nobody is really thinking about that. I'm the only person I personally know that's gone from investing to communications.

Um, there are some people who have gone from comms to investing, which I think is interesting and we'll see more of it, but. You know, [00:24:00] communications is really hard to do well, and I think it's not given the, uh, respect that it really deserves. And it's a really hard problem to achieve because you have to understand the science and the business and the strategy really well before you can make it easy.

So actually being able to look at, you know, a hundred companies a week like I used to do at the fund and say like, very quickly. What are all of the different things that I'm looking for? Is this a really big market? Is this team really incredible? What's the difference in the science between this and another startup that I'm looking at?

And then be able to communicate that really quickly to the investment committee. Now that's really hard, and I did that over and over. And so using those skills now to help startups to be able to say, you know, this is what investors look for. This is also what the media looks for. Being able to translate some of those [00:25:00] scientific stories to the media is also really important.

But like that process of saying like, what's the core message that I really need to know? And what are the core bits of information that your audience needs? And being able to translate that very quickly and simply and hit that right balance between technical and easy to understand. That's a process I've developed over 15 years now.

Um, and it's really hard. And, um, finding people who are able to help you translate that, um, I think is a very rare skill. What, what in particular is, what skills in particular are, uh, are essential to do this well? I think actually empathy is one, um, which we know scientists might not always be, um, the strongest in that area, [00:26:00] but being able to think, you know, what does this person need to be able to, to understand this?

What does my customer need to be able to understand it? What is their day to day like? What are their pain points? What about this journalist, you know, what do they care about? What can, what can we do to help them and achieve our goals as well as to help them achieve their goals? And actually that's a key part of being able to do this well.

And you know, same for investors, like thinking about they need to return their fund. How can we help them understand how we are their refund, their fund returners? Um, so that's super crucial. And I think also being able to read a massive amount of information and summarize it very quickly and connect the dots together is really important.

Um, you know, [00:27:00] like with AI right now, new news comes out every single day. It was sort of like being, you know, on a high speed train a couple of years ago. It hasn't slowed down that much. Being able to take in that information really quickly, see how we fit into the conversation for some of our clients, that's really hard to do on an ongoing basis, and you have to be really, um, really quick to, to assimilate that outside information and then be able to take still your core message because you're not going to change your company every day, and you shouldn't.

Being able to take that and say like, how does this message and our mission fit into what's happening outside of us? Yep. On these core messages you've referred to a few times, how, how portable are they? So you may have a core message, for example, for investors. How portable is that message for your value chain, [00:28:00] your partners and potential customers, and how portable is that message to your team?

To any other external stakeholders you're trying to satisfy as well? Do you need different messages depending on your audience, or do you have a core that is kind of always the same that you can roll out? How does that work? Yeah, so I, there are different approaches, but my feeling is a hundred percent that you need the same core message and.

Some people will say, well, that's not possible. You know, how could, how could a single core message impact all of the audiences? But it takes a lot of work to get to that core message that resonates with all of these different audiences. But if you're saying one thing to an investor and then you know, your team meets them at an event or, um, you know.

It's a long-term relationship. [00:29:00] They're going to meet them at board meetings or whatever, and they have two completely different understandings of what your company is. That's not a good recipe for success. Everyone needs to have the shared understanding of what you do, why you're doing it. So that they can all work together if it's all separate.

Um, I just, I don't think it works very well. So you can go into different, you know, areas of interest. They're not all going to be interested in the same bits, but they have to have the same shared understanding and language about what the company is doing. And then from there, it's, it's kind of like a foundation.

They all need to have the same foundation, but then they can go into different rooms of the same house. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, the, you mentioned the example you just raised there. You know, if an investor's getting, or a potential customer partner's getting very different, uh, messages from, you know, depending on who they speak to, that can be a [00:30:00] problem.

And I'm, I'm smiling in, uh, in recognition of that. I've had that, I've had that before. Um, and you know, and so I wonder to an extent how. Whether you find there's any kind of correlation between age or maturity and or even culture, or whether it's a male versus female, whether there any other kinds of features or elements that impact someone's ability to, you know, to do this well.

As you're speaking, what's occurring to me is the amount of discipline you need to stay on message. Yeah, I recall. Listen, you know, I recall, uh, watching, uh, old episodes of the West Wing, um, back when we had hope in American politics. Yeah. And, uh, [00:31:00] and you know, and you'd get, uh, you know, you'd get some of the characters, you know, always saying, stay on message.

Here's our message. We're staying on message. And you know how important that is to run governments. It's also very important to run companies. We have to stay on message that requires a huge amount of discipline and kind of self-control. And I wonder whether you see, you know, what observations you have in startup world, even in deep tech companies regarding some of those elements.

Yeah. Um, actually, so when I was working at the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, um, that was part of the Governor's office of Texas. It was a sort of like the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Texas. And, um, the messaging was incredibly important. And if we talked to journalists outside of anything that they were supervising that was immediate firing, immediate.

And I don't recommend anything that drastic necessarily, but you know, it is to be taken very seriously. And I think [00:32:00] some founders are like, oh, you know, we just say whatever comes into our heads. And you know, I think there's a balance to have. Between being, um, spontaneous and natural and no discipline.

And, you know, going back to your previous question about are there any trends or characteristics I see, and I would say no. The only thing is mindset and respect for communications as a tool. So seeing it as an integral part of the company and how it can help them and giving it the importance and prominence and daily attention that it needs, that's the only thing that separates a successful founder from a non-successful founder in this.

And yeah, discipline is so crucial. Okay. You know, making sure that everyone is marching to the same drum is very, very important. So you don't see [00:33:00] any observable difference, let's say, between certain cultures and let me call it out. Are Americans better at this stuff naturally because for whatever reason we may be, are Americans naturally better at some of this stuff than let's say Europeans or Asians, or is everyone kind of, are you saying everyone from what you've observed is roughly similar-ish?

What matters is discipline and practice and respecting what you're doing. Yeah, I think Americans have caught on to this a little bit more than Europeans. I don't really work outside of those two markets, so I can't say, but um, I think Americans have recognized how important this is. So they do put a bit more of an emphasis on this.

So I actually ran a poll a while ago asking American founders versus European founders how much of their budget they allocate to communications and. Interestingly, um, the American founders committed a lot more of their budget, so they committed over 20% to [00:34:00] marketing, um, branding, website, pr, like the whole, the whole thing.

And European founders almost across the board, did not. And, um, one investor I was talking to in America as well was saying that by series A. American founders want to own the market. They kind of go blitzkrieg about it and just try to dominate as quickly as possible. And I think that's a really important mindset is that Europeans kind of wait for it, like a fine wine to develop, but you need to go quickly.

Like this is not, this isn't a game. You need to win. And I think some of the, some of the more. Successful startups that we're seeing in Europe right now, like ElevanLabs have seen that. It's really important that you get your message out there. You dominate the market. You put a lot of emphasis into your branding, communications, uh, you know, thinking about [00:35:00] that aspect of owning the market and doing it quickly while you still can.

You know, if you have time on your side, get it done. If you already have a competitor. How are you going to beat that competitor? Mm-hmm. People aren't just going to naturally choose the superior product. I wish that were the case. It's not. So how are you going to be the one that people choose over the other company?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've, um, so let me offer, uh, let me offer a post I, I wonder. And it'd be good to get your take on this as well if part of the reason why, uh, Europeans and Brits are less, are investing less is has to do with trust. And I wonder if somewhere lodged is, [00:36:00] we don't know if we can do this yet, so we're building to this.

We hope we can. We think it's gonna look like this, but we don't wanna disappoint anyone in case we can't. And, uh, because we think if we assume this position, we're gonna maintain their trust more in, in some way. And, uh, and as opposed to, let's say, a US perspective, which might be much more aggressive on the comms early on.

With a lot of confidence behind that communication, which may give people the view that, okay, these guys look like they can do it. Where the Europeans are, are thinking almost, we're not entirely sure if we can do this yet. Do you see any of that? Does that kind of creep into that? Yeah, I think there's a lot in that question.

Um, so there's a couple of things I would say. One is, um. I think [00:37:00] maybe Americans can be overconfident. I can say it. I am American, so it's fine. I think we can be overconfident and I think we can move too fast sometimes. So there is a balance. Um, you know, you need to be strategic about like, when do we go big?

Because if you go big, you get a lot of interest and then you can't deliver. That is a massive lost opportunity. So you do need to be strategic about when you do this. Um, but I think there is also this European mindset, um, that's different from Americans, and I saw this when I was at the fund in Texas, is that, you know, we would have a couple of, you know, 24 year olds with a laptop and a college degree, but no PhD or anything and be like, we're going to solve cancer.

Give us $10 million. And you know, that's overconfident and obviously we wouldn't. But then I came to the, to the uk, uh, back in 2014. [00:38:00] And the, you know, the talent here is so amazing and they, I would see these, uh, founders who would say, you know, we have a PhD, but, you know, do we need to go back and get another one?

I, I just don't know that I'm ready to start this company yet. And I was just like, please go. Found the company. Do this. So I think there's a lot happening. And I think founders in Europe definitely need to be more confident. I think they need to play to win. And communications is hugely part of that. And I think there is this, it's so different now than it was 10 years ago when I first came.

But there's still a little ways to go about like being aggressive, how quickly can we move? I think the market is just a bit slower here. Um, so just like, you know, okay, we're going to. We're going to set ourselves a really aggressive deadline to deliver in three months, not a year. You know, push yourself to go as fast as possible.

[00:39:00] Don't break things, do it well because deep tech is all about trust and delivering on the science and product and that kind of thing. But do be ambitious. Yeah. Is um, who does this well? Who do you think, are there any people out there who do it or any companies you feel that actually they've got it nailed down?

Yeah, I think there's a few, I'll use, um, European companies as examples. So I think Wayve is fantastic. Um, I really like how they take the science seriously. Autonomous driving and AI is not, people are literally going to be putting their lives into these cars hands. So you need to take the communication of this seriously.

This isn't just, yeah, like a Facebook or an Instagram type thing. Like this is very serious science that in order to succeed, you need to think in five or 10 years because real [00:40:00] people who don't know anything about AI really will be putting their lives into the hands of these autonomous vehicles. So I think Wayve has, it's very clear in their communications that they have that long-term view, uh, and that they bring along the key opinion leaders with them and that they're also attracting really good talent.

Uh, so they just raised a billion from SoftBank and Nvidia and, you know, really big investors. Um, so they're also clearly telling that story well to investors. I think they have that long-term view that this is not just a science project. We are going to be interacting with a lot of different people and they're taking the science very seriously and taking the time to explain it very well.

Um, I would say Nvidia is another one that I just love their communications. I've been following them for the past, I dunno, eight years probably [00:41:00] very closely. And when I was in-house at a startup in Cambridge, an AI startup, we were part of their inception program, and they approached communications in that very strategic way that it runs through everything that they do.

Communications is strategy, is product, is the team, is the technology, everything. And it just works so well. And so when we were part of that. Program that was clearly a very deliberate play on the part of Nvidia as a whole company. To say that we're going to own the AI sector. We know that the startups of today are the customers of tomorrow.

How do we get them integrated into the Nvidia ecosystem? How do we hear that two-way communication. I had, um, our inception program leaders, I had his phone number and we talked on a regular basis. You know, it wasn't, [00:42:00] it wasn't cosplaying caring about startups. It was real. And your audience knows that. And I think they have genuine followings now of some of the biggest AI startups of today because they built those relationships early and they again, played it long term and they thought.

What are the highest impact activities that we can do, and how do we adequately resource them? You know, I think a lot of founders are like, you know, do this all for free, or like, we'll hire a marketing person for £40k a year and that should be enough. It's not, if you really wanna win, you have to properly resource these activities,

Chris Reichhelm: and this has gotta be led from the top

Hailey Eustace: a hundred percent. A hundred percent it won't work if everybody is not pulling together and on the same page. Um. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Again, a lot of, a lot of companies that are not very good at this, think of it as an afterthought, like, we're going to do the real business first and then the [00:43:00] marketing team can do it. Exactly. But you need to have, uh, trusted advisors and people who understand how it all works together, working with you at that early stage.

To be able to say like, this is where we need to go. Where, where do we want to be in three years with our customers? What does the product look like in three years? How are we going to make sure that the right people know about it in the right amount of time? What's the, what's the hiring plan and how are we going to reach those people, and how do we make use of them to reaching those goals that we've planned in three years?

You know, all of these things happen at the board and CEO level. And it doesn't just happen by itself. It takes a lot of work and a lot of attention to do it. Right. But you know, it's the difference between succeeding, as you said at the beginning and not Yeah, it strikes me as fundamental. Well, we know it's fundamental for trust building.

Uh, you know, [00:44:00] communication is, and aligning actions with communication and communication with actions is, is how you build trust. If you are stating one thing and doing another, uh, and you know, that's when you destroy trust. And I think the reason for the high failure rates, uh, even just a long, you know, the high failure rates for normal tech companies are like 90%, five years, they're done 90%, five years.

And I, you know, I, I believe so much of that and probably across all business is because of that mis that fundamental misalignment. Between what someone is hearing and what they're saying, or rather if we reverse it, what someone is saying and what they're doing. And for deep tech in particular, that is just so you know, we're trying to do in deep tech, we're naturally trying to do the most difficult things that can be done from a technology or an engineering perspective in the world.

And so that [00:45:00] communication piece is, is, is fundamental. Definitely. Yeah. And I think, again, it's that feedback loop. Yeah. The more, the more you flex that muscle, the easier it becomes. And everyone just kind of gets used to thinking about, you know, we're setting these technical goals, but what does that mean for, for the product?

Have we talked to our lead customer about this? What do they think? Does it matter? Do they need a different timeline? Um, you know, how are we going to get our tech team bought into this? They loved that other product. Now we're changing strategy. How do we get them to see how crucial this new piece of the puzzle is?

You know, all of these things go together. And so I always see it as this like little loop between communications and strategy. The act of articulating the strategy is communicating, but that helps you see the holes in it. Then once you set the strategy, how do we communicate this? And then you see the [00:46:00] holes again, and it's this.

Yeah. Yeah. It's that feedback loop and that muscle that you just, it becomes second nature and the founders, you know, again, you asked me like, what makes a successful founder and those founders that see that as absolutely second nature and part of their daily life and mindset. Those are the ones that are really, really successful.

Chris Reichhelm: So your, it strikes me listening to, to you that, that your job can be a very personal one too. Uh, my job is similar. I think anyone who works in search is, and you know, we're on the face of it, you build boards and leadership teams for, you know, for companies. Okay, that's a project and, all right, we got someone in, and how personal is it really gonna get?

The discussions that we have. At some point, someone or a number of people [00:47:00] have to acknowledge that the way they're doing things right now isn't working. And at some basic level, I, you know, I'm not good enough here and we have to get someone new. Now, maybe it's not to do with my job, or maybe it's to, but.

You know, let's say I'm running a company and you know, okay, you know, the guy or the gal that I chose to run this project over here, that's not working. And now we need to get someone new. And so there's got to be this openness and I think this vulnerability to acknowledging that I'm not perfect. I can't do it all.

I have to learn new stuff. And I, you know. These are some of the things that we face and, you know, that I see in my job. And interestingly, the young founders see me as the pro, see me as, uh, too old. I'm the man, you know, in that old sixties way. Uh, you know, the older, more experienced individuals are the ones that I formed the bonds with.

The days, the younger [00:48:00] ones tend to be a little bit, uh, more of a challenge for me. But I wonder if you experience something of a similar nature. You know, these jobs and I think. The top level recruitment can be, and this strikes me as very similar. These can be very personal and you've gotta ha and you know, and you know, you may have to act as a sounding board and you may have to question certain things.

You may have to work on things together. Do you find that so much?

Hailey Eustace: So much? Mm-hmm. And yeah, again, I think empathy is a huge part of this as like. I think communications can be really scary actually. You know, going live on the BBC is a terrifying experience. Yeah. So how do you, how do you make sure that the founder feels confident, has the tools that they need to do that, or, you know, going in front of an investment committee or something like that, pitching in front of a huge audience.

These are all really scary things and um. I can't tell you how many times [00:49:00] I've had conversations with really incredibly intelligent, you know, experts in their field and they say like, I just don't feel like I'm good enough to talk about this. I feel like I don't do this well or that well. Who am I to give this advice?

And yeah, I would say a part of my job is just like being a cheerleader. Um, a little bit of a counselor therapist. Um. Being a sounding board and a safe space for those people. I think, um, I'm particularly helpful with being a support to the CEO when they're trying to communicate things to their board as well because, um, you know, I'm that high level, uh, advisor, but I'm also not on their board.

So I think that can be a really nice, safe space for them to explore new ideas and how to communicate it to their board. All of these things are really tough and you need partners to help you with this. [00:50:00] Um, so yeah, I think it's definitely personal and um, the personal element can't really be underestimated and I think all of business.

Yeah, it's people working together. I know some people wish it was just all AI agents, you know, working together at this point, but I don't think that's gonna change.

Chris Reichhelm: No, no, no. I agree with you. I, I, I agree with you. It is still about people and getting people to do stuff and, uh, you know, and working together to, you know, to bring about some, you know, again, a nicer place, A nicer place for us all to live in.

What's wonderful about working in deep tech is that generally people are working to make the world genuinely cleaner, healthier, and more intelligent in some way. Uh, and so, you know, and so that's really nice. It's about, you know, helping them deliver on that. Definitely short of working with complicated, which by the way, all deep tech [00:51:00] companies across the UK and Europe should do.

Um, what are things that people listening to this podcast can do to get started if, you know, if they've been inspired by what you've had to say and they're thinking, yeah, she's right. I need to, we need to get a hold of this. How should they think about this challenge? What should their kind of starting point be as they, as they seek to improve their communications?

Hailey Eustace: Yeah, well. I'll tell them where I always start. And um, that's with your core message. Now, what is people's attention span, even in deep tech is really small. Investors see so many companies every week. Um, customers see so many companies they have other stuff to do. They worry about what they're going to put on for dinner that night [00:52:00] with their children.

You know, everyone has a lot of stuff to worry about right now, so. What is the one thing that you want everyone to know about your company and be really, uh, self-critical about this and really honest and get outside of your bubble? And I think it is again, like just start flexing that muscle of what is our strategy?

Does everyone know what it is? What's the one thing that we want people to know about us for the next year? Is it defining the category that we're creating? What is it? Are we putting a new name on it? Do we fit into this other area? What's going on in the world around us? What's that one thing? And then build from there.

Um, so we always start with like a one, sort of an intention for the year and say like, this is the one thing that we want people to know for this year that will help us achieve our major goal. I think if you try to. [00:53:00] Do too many things at once, it always falls down and everyone today can start with that, you know, defining what's that one thing we want people to know and sort of time boxing it for the next year, and then you can review it after that.

Um, you know, people kind of think that your core message is locked in forever. It's not, it should evolve as your company grows and changes. Um, but yeah, just think about like, what is your 2026 intention for your company now?

Chris Reichhelm: That's wonderful. That's great advice. I'm gonna do that myself. Actually, I need to, as you're talking, I'm like, thank God this is recorded I can use all of these notes myself. Um, Hailey, thank you so much for, for taking the time to join us and, and talk through all of this. I'm, I'm delighted that we are able, we were able to get you on the show. I know that a lot of our listeners are gonna love what you have to say, so thank you so much.

Hailey Eustace: Thank you. Yeah, and I, I really hope that, um, people [00:54:00] come away thinking about the importance of communications and also that you can start doing it today. You don't need someone like Commplicated to work with you. We're always here, of course. Um, but like, just take it seriously, um, because it really could be the difference between success and failure. So, yeah, I hope someone got that message today.

Chris Reichhelm: I'm, I'm sure they will. I'm sure they will. Thank you so much again. Thank you. You've been listening to the Lab to Market Leadership Podcast, brought to you by Deep Tech Leaders. This podcast has been produced by Beauxhaus. You can find out more about us on LinkedIn, Spotify, apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.