“Hard Tech” Startups

One of the things we focus on at Daily is building network infrastructure that, if we do it right, differentiates us from our competitors and is hard to copy. This puts us into a category that one of our investors, Root Ventures, calls “hard tech.”

All startups are hard. So this is a term of art rather than a general description, and Root means it in a very specific way. Hard tech startups are startups that need to de-risk engineering unknowns as they grow, and relatedly need to think about their go-to-market in the context of hitting engineering milestones that are as important as, and in parallel with, doing the product-oriented and customer-oriented experimentation that all startups do.

Lee Edwards is a partner at Root and he’s on our board of directors. Lee was on the Software Engineering Daily Podcast recently, and part of the conversation covered how Lee thinks about “hard tech” investing. I’m a big fan of the Software Engineering Daily podcast and of Lee, and if you’re interested in hearing a thoughtful investor talk about engineering-driven startups. I recommend the February 23rd episode with Lee.

Today’s music is “The Gift That Keeps on Giving” from the exquisite 2017 Ron Miles album “I Am A Man”. Bill Frisell, Brian Blade, Thomas Morgan, and Jason Moran.