Tinker and Test

In the world of deep tech venture building and capital, there is so much expansion , unknown-unknowns and noise at the frontier. There are trends, research papers, discoveries, reports, podcasts, and media. While all of these help and keep us informed about technological progress and advancement, I have a personal practice that keeps me abreast and, to some level, in sync with the realities of innovation happening across different fields. I call this TINKER and TEST HOURS.

Every week, I set aside a couple of hours to play with tools, products, and concepts that piqued my interest during my weekly explorations and interactions on the web, and I set in-person catch-ups with people building the technology.

I build a list of these curious tools and new products and dive deep into testing and using them—seeing how they fit into the world. The key question I ask myself when exploring new technologies is : what does this fundamentally and intrinsically enable that wasn’t possible before? This enabling could be for an industry, a market segment, a problem, or a customer.

Sometimes the technologies I want to tinker with end up being physical or deep tech, so I set time with the founders to visit their labs, play with the PoCs, see the builds in action, and study the prototypes to get a deeper understanding of the technology and its value. Translational innovation requires us to envision the possibilities of the technology while having a pragmatic path towards building them as applications.

These tinker and test hours have been hands-on sessions that help me go beyond the technology in question or surface-level ideas that come up ,and dive into what the technology can truly enable for the world in new ways. This helps me build possible use cases through which the technology could diffuse into the world, solve problems, and add socio-economic value.

Understanding the enabling factors inherent in a technology or breakthrough science is one of many parameters and critical lenses to consider while conceptualising, co-building, or investing in breakthroughs aiming to be innovative deep tech ventures.

The true joy of Co-building—and identifying what ventures to back with capital—needs a bit of tinkering and testing.

What have you tinkered and tested of late?