Startup Pipeline
Funding Driven Timeline
Most startups are driven by technical milestones that must be met to achieve the next round of funding. Tetravela has built a custom approach to allow clients to see the path to successful funding clearly as they develop their product. This page offers a high level view of the approach you can expect when working with us.
1. Proof of Concept Prototypes
Once design and ideation have taken place it is time for a sprint build to a POC (proof of concept). This may or may not be partially or fully functional. This depends on funds immediately available, the scale of the project, the type of fundraising that is anticipated, and the client’s network for fundraising.
2. Content Generation
With the proof of concept, or functional proof of concept, the next step is building a series of presentations and content for fundraising. This may include videos, photos, demonstration units, landing pages, and slide decks. These materials will be used to generate interest on social media, collect emails of interested future customers, and present to VC funds.
3. Seed Funding
Once a startup has a POC and content, the next step will be a round of fundraising. This is typically referred to as “seed funding”. The content generated and the POC will be keys to securing this funding. Tetravela can work closely with founders to ensure the ask in the fundraising round will be an adequate runway to build the feature ramp into a soft market launch. Tetravela can provide different levels of technical specificity depending on investors’ preference. Tetravela can also help their clients break the future roadmap into funding phases in a way that best suits the technical milestones of the project.
4. MVP
Once seed funding is available, a minimum viable product (MVP) must be built. This MVP will be used for market validation, testing, and a soft market launch. Often this product will be the core essence of the concept with a reduced feature set and an accelerated timeline.
5. Pilot Production and Testing
Once the MVP is ready a small fleet will be assembled. These units will be used for testing, refinement, and marketing/content generation.
7. Series A Funding
With the soft market launch complete, and your product in consumers’ hands, it’s time for another round of fundraising. This will likely occur in parallel to gradually growing the customer base. The additional funding will be used for final engineering development (features, software, websites), enhanced tooling, greater variety of product features, and to scale the company and expand into a larger market.
6. Soft Market Launch
Once a final form is ready, a small pilot launch of 25 to 1000 units will be assembled and shipped to a select number of customers. Almost immediately much will be learned about the product, changes that need to be made, and how the customer experience can be improved. It is vital to get to this stage rapidly as engineering assumptions in the design will only get so far. Many projects expire in the “tinkering” phase of engineering, prior to launching. Tetravela’s focus is a rapid launch to gain traction in the market as quickly as possible. Market validation greatly drives success in subsequent funding rounds.
8. Conclusions
Every product, startup, and company will have a different path to market. Some soft launches will not require tooling, or can perhaps get away with prototype tooling for a limited run of units. Other specific technologies will require more upfront capital to accomplish the key features of the product. Tetravela will work with each customer on their projects to ensure their roadmap is tailor made to their specific needs. Different capital constraints and requirements will also change stages, milestones, and other key features of a viable roadmap. Get in touch with us for a more comprehensive discussion of what we can offer you or your company.
Prototypes
Tetravela also helps many customers with subsets of the full startup pipeline. Whether you’re looking to have your first functional prototype/demonstrator unit built, or you need a small test fleet ready for the field. We are able to combine our many engineering services offered to support your design and fabrication needs.
Proof of Concept
Once your project has been defined and agreed upon, and the design of the product is approved, we can establish a functional proof of concept. This may include electronics that provide the key functions of the product, but in a form that is quick to build. Since this sometimes leverages off the shelf components the proof of concept may not fit into the product enclosure. Proof of concept prototypes allow us to test the theory of operation for a product quickly and for a lower cost. It helps verify our ideas will work before building the highly custom fully functional prototype. This round may include several iterations as we work to get performance parameters on target, or provide the right user experience.
Functional Prototype
Ready to experience your design, your idea, your curiosity in real life? Let us help you make that happen. We can help you work out the details, apply practical approaches and technologies, and provide a viable path forward to fabricating your concept.