Markets I already know the buyers in
"Hardware and deep tech" is the umbrella, not a vertical — deep tech is a stage-and-risk descriptor that cuts across all four of these. What they share: long cycles, technical buyers, and engineering that's ahead of the go-to-market.
The four verticals
| Vertical | The GTM problem | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Robotics & Automation | Pilots that never convert, a buyer split between operations and finance, a 9–18 month cycle, and a product that demos better than it explains. | Robotics |
| Aerospace & Defense | Long cycles, cleared conversations, and marketing that has to survive legal review and export control. Public LLMs are often off-limits for the data that matters. | Aerospace & Defense |
| Automotive & Mobility | A supplier sale into programs with model-year clocks: long qualification, few buyers, and a purchasing organization between you and the engineer who wanted you. Dedicated page publishing next month; the work happens inside every track today. | — |
| Advanced Manufacturing & Industrial | A capex sale disguised as a software pitch. The ROI model is the campaign — the CFO buys payback period, not throughput. Dedicated page publishing next month. | — |
And the moat: power electronics & test
Not one of the four launch verticals — it's the market I grew up in. Twenty years inside a company building test and measurement systems for power supply designers, work on the RidleyBox, and a live engagement at Ridley Engineering right now. Design engineers buy from people who can read the topology; this is the vertical where nobody can hand-wave past me, and where the deepest content on this site will keep landing first.
The same spine under every vertical
Whatever the industry, the engagement structure doesn't change: six months, five phases, three tracks, starting with the Teardown. What changes per vertical is the buyer map, the event circuit, the objection patterns — and the language your engineers will actually let you ship.
Bring me your hardest go-to-market problem
Thirty minutes. I'll come with three observations about your market already prepared. No deck.