Ready to build your own Founder-Led Growth engine? Book a Strategy Call
Frontlines.io | Where B2B Founders Talk GTM.
Strategic Communications Advisory For Visionary Founders
Actionable
Takeaways
Master Multi-Audience Storytelling Without Losing Technical Credibility:
Deep tech marketing requires seamlessly translating between government ministers reading newspapers and post-doctoral physicists reading Nature magazine. The same core story must resonate whether presented as accessible business narrative or detailed technical formulas. This isn't about dumbing down content - it's about maintaining authenticity across vastly different knowledge levels and interests.
Embrace Long Adoption Curves as Strategic Advantages:
Unlike consumer tech seeking immediate product-market fit, deep tech operates on decade-long development cycles. This extended timeline allows for building relationships, educating markets, and establishing thought leadership before competitors can meaningfully enter. Use the pre-market phase to become the definitive voice in your category rather than rushing to premature commercialization.
Leverage Government Funding as Market Validation, Not Dependency:
Government investment in emerging tech often signals future commercial potential rather than creating market distortion. Agencies like DARPA, Department of Energy, and NASA historically funded technologies that became massive commercial markets (Internet, semiconductors, GPS). Position government partnerships as validation of long-term commercial viability while building toward eventual market independence.
Build Challenger Brands Through Execution, Not Just Attitude:
True challenger positioning isn't about being obnoxious or attention-seeking - it's about having a distinct point of view and executing on it ruthlessly. Whether attacking monopolies with guerrilla tactics or opening unprecedented live venues, challenger brands win through consistent delivery on their unique vision, not just contrarian messaging.
Focus on Universal Problem-Solving Over Vertical Market Selection:
Deep tech companies often solve fundamental technical challenges that enable entire industries rather than targeting specific use cases. Position your technology as essential infrastructure (like Nvidia for AI or Qualcomm for mobile) rather than competing for individual application markets. This creates larger addressable markets and more defensible positioning.
Use Technical Complexity as Competitive Moat:
The hardest problems in human knowledge create the highest barriers to entry. Rather than simplifying away your technical differentiation, embrace complexity as your competitive advantage. Competitors like Google, IBM, and Microsoft may have resources, but they also have conflicting priorities - focused startups can often out-execute on specific technical challenges.
Conversation
Highlights
In this episode of The Marketing Front Lines, we speak with Glenn Manoff, CMO of Riverlane, a Cambridge University spin-out developing quantum error correction technology. Riverlane is positioning itself to become the “Nvidia of quantum computing” by solving one of the industry’s most critical technical challenges – preventing quantum computers from becoming unreliable as they scale. With quantum computers potentially 3-10 years away from practical utility, Glenn shares how to market transformational technology that doesn’t fully exist yet to audiences ranging from government ministers to post-doctoral physicists.
Topics Discussed:
- Building the Challenger Brand Mindset Across Career Transitions: Glenn’s journey from international business journalist covering telecom deregulation to CMO demonstrates how challenger brand thinking transcends industries. Starting with Esprit Telecom’s guerrilla marketing tactics against European telecom monopolies, then evolving to O2’s sophisticated consumer lifestyle brand that opened venues and targeted previously untouchable communities – the core principle remains consistent: having courage of convictions and ruthless execution on a distinct point of view.
- Marketing Technology That Doesn’t Exist to Customers Who Don’t Exist: Quantum computers can theoretically solve problems that would be impossible even if every computer on Earth were connected together, but current devices can’t yet outperform classical supercomputers. Riverlane’s quantum error correction technology processes terabytes of data per second to infer errors on quantum bits in superposition without destroying the quantum state – a problem as complex as it sounds. The marketing challenge involves exciting investors, governments, and talent about technology that may not reach full maturity for another decade.
- Navigating Dual Customer Markets in Emerging Tech: Riverlane targets two primary markets: quantum computing companies who need error correction to scale their systems, and governments investing in quantum for sovereign defense interests and economic growth potential. The revenue split is expected to shift from government-dominated funding today to approximately 50/50 by 2030, becoming fully commercial in the 2030s as the first practical quantum applications emerge around 2028-2029.
Recommended Founder
Interviews
Christian Stein
CEO & Co-Founder of Threedy
Christian Stein, CEO & Co-Founder of Threedy: $11.5M Raised to Power the Future of Industrial 3D Computing Infrastructure
Mike Conover
CEO & Co-Founder of Brightwave
Mike Conover, CEO & Co-Founder of Brightwave: $6M Raised to Build the Future of AI-Powered Investment Research
Jorge Penalva
CEO & Co-Founder of Lang AI
Jorge Penalva, CEO of Lang.ai: $40 Million+ Raised to Build the Customer Experience Operations Category
Suman Kanuganti
How Personal AI scales enterprise contracts by selling to COOs and business users first | Suman Kanuganti ($16M Raised)
Justin McCallon
CEO and Co-Founder of Callidus Legal AI
How Callidus scaled Google ads from 3 to 40 leads per day | Justin McCallon
Harry Xu
CEO and Co-Founder of Breeze ML
Harry Xu, CEO and Co-Founder of Breeze ML: $4.6 Million Raised to Create the Future of AI Governance
Nilo Rahmani
CEO & Co-Founder of Thoras AI
Nilo Rahmani, CEO & Co-Founder of Thoras AI: $6.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of AI-Powered Infrastructure Optimization
Jonathan Dambrot
CEO and Founder of Cranium
Jonathan Dambrot, CEO and Founder at Cranium: $32 Million Raised to Power the Future of AI Security
Daniele Grassi
CEO of Axyon AI
Daniele Grassi, CEO of Axyon AI: $5.5 Million Raised to Power the Future of Financial Markets with AI
Douwe Kiela
CEO and Co-Founder of Contextual AI
Douwe Kiela, CEO and Co-Founder of Contextual AI: $20 Million Raised to Build the Future of Enterprise Language Models
Alex Sambvani
CEO & Co-Founder of Slang AI
Alex Sambvani, CEO & Co-Founder of Slang AI: $20 Million Raised to Power the Future of Voice AI for Restaurants
Malte Pietsch
CTO & Co-Founder of Deepset
Malte Pietsch, CTO & Co-Founder of Deepset: $45 Million Raised to Build the Future of LLMs
Sumanyu Sharma
CEO & Founder of Hamming AI
How Hamming AI accidentally created a new category by focusing on customer problems instead of category creation | Sumanyu Sharma ($3.8M Raised)
Ashley Montanaro
CEO and Co-Founder of Phasecraft
Ashley Montanaro, CEO & Co-Founder of Phasecraft: $22 Million Raised to Build the Future of Quantum Software
Phillip Liu
CEO of Trustero
Phillip Liu, CEO of Trustero: $8 Million Raised to Build the Future of Compliance AI
Matt Theurer
CEO & Co-Founder of HyperSpectral
Matt Theurer, CEO & Co-Founder of HyperSpectral: $8.5 Million Raised to Power the Future of AI-Powered Spectral Intelligence
Chandini Jain
CEO & Co-Founder of Auquan
Chandini Jain, CEO & Co-Founder of Auquan: $8 Million Raised to Transform Financial Intelligence Through AI
Sud Bhatija
Co-Founder & COO of Spot AI
Sud, Co-Founder & COO of Spot AI: $93 Million Raised to Build Video AI Agents for the Physical World
Ryan Sevey
CEO of Mantium
Ryan Sevey, CEO of Mantium: $12 Million Raised to Help Teams Deploy and Monitor their AI Process Automations
Patricia Thaine
Co-Founder & CEO of Private AI
Patricia Thaine, Co-Founder & CEO of Private AI: Over $11 Million Raised to Help Organizations Anonymize PII to Achieve Regulatory Compliance
Sauraj Gambhir
Co-Founder of Prior Labs
Sauraj Gambhir, Co-Founder of Prior Labs: $9 Million Raised to Build Foundation Models for Structured Data
Barbara Lewis
CMO of Coactive AI
The Siebel vs Salesforce Truth Every B2B Marketer Should Know
Krishna Gade
CEO & Founder of Fiddler
Krishna Gade, CEO & Founder of Fiddler: $68 Million Raised to Build the Future of AI Observability
Vahan Petrosyan
CEO & Co-Founder of SuperAnnotate
Vahan Petrosyan, CEO & Co-Founder of SuperAnnotate: $53 Million Raised to Build the Future of AI Training Data Infrastructure
Deon Nicholas
CEO & Co-Founder of Forethought
Deon Nicholas, CEO & Co-Founder of Forethought: $92 Million Raised to Power the Future of Customer Support with AI
Alex Levin
CEO & Co-Founder of Regal AI
Alex Levin, CEO & Co-Founder of Regal AI: $82 Million Raised to Transform Customer Communication with Voice AI
Davit Baghdasaryan
Co-Founder and CEO of Krisp
Davit Baghdasaryan, Co-Founder and CEO of Krisp: $19 Million Raised to Build the Voice Productivity Category
Jonathan Schneider
CEO and Co-Founder of Moderne
Jonathan Schneider, CEO & Co-Founder of Moderne: $20 Million Raised to Build the Future of Code Remediation
Tony Zhang
Founder & CEO of Tera AI
Tony Zhang, Founder & CEO of Tera AI: $8M Raised to Build the Future of Robotics Operating Systems
Amr Awadallah
CEO & Founder of Vectara
Amr Awadallah, CEO & Founder of Vectara: $53 Million Raised to Build the RAG-as-a-Service Category
Deirdre Mahon
VP of Marketing of super{set}
Why Marketing Beats Sales Hiring at AI Startups
Roger Luo
Founder & Managing Partner of Embedding VC
Funding the Future: Roger Luo, Managing Partner at Embedding VC
William Gaviria Rojas
Field CTO & Co-Founder of CoactiveAI
William Gaviria Rojas, Field CTO & Co-Founder of CoactiveAI: $44 Million Raised to Build the Future of Multimodal AI Applications
Rick Bentley
Founder of Cloudastructure
Rick Bentley, Founder of Cloudastructure: $57 Million Raised to Build the Future of AI Video Surveillance
Gabriel Bayomi Tinoco Kalejaiye
CEO and Co-Founder of Openlayer
Gabriel Bayomi, CEO and Co-Founder of Openlayer: $4.8 Million Raised to Power the Future of Machine Learning Testing
Johannes Peeters
Co-Founder & CEO of VoxelSensors
Johannes Peeters, Co-Founder & CEO of VoxelSensors: $7 Million Raised to Build the Future of Spatial Computing
Alan Cowen
CEO and Founder of Hume AI
Alan Cowen, CEO and Founder of Hume AI: Over $17 Million Raised to Measure and Improve How Technology Affects Human Emotion
Sercan Esen
CEO & Co-Founder of Intenseye
Sercan Esen, CEO & Co-Founder of Intenseye: $93 Million Raised to Transform Workplace Safety Through AI-Powered Computer Vision
James O’Brien
Co-Founder & COO of Ducky AI
James O’Brien, Co-Founder & COO of Ducky: $2.7 Million Raised to Build Internal Data Search for LLMs
Anand Gopalan
CEO and Co-Founder of Vayu Robotics
Anand Gopalan, CEO & Co-Founder of Vayu Robotics: $12.7 Million Raised to Build the Next Wave of Robotics Solutions
David DeWolf
CEO & President of Knownwell
David DeWolf, CEO & President of Knownwell: $2 Million Raised to Build the Future of Commercial Intelligence
David Plon
CEO & Co-Founder of Portrait Analytics
David Plon, CEO & Co-Founder of Portrait Analytics: $10M Raised to Build an AI-Powered Thought Partner for Institutional Investors
Anand Kulkarni
CEO of Crowdbotics
Anand Kulkarni, CEO of Crowdbotics: $58 Million Raised to Power the Future of Rapid Application Development
Kostas Pardalis
Co-Founder & CEO of Typedef
Why Typedef starts go-to-market activities during the design partner phase instead of after | Kostas Pardalis ($5.5M Raised)
Rich Taylor
Vice President of Seek AI
Rich Taylor, VP of Marketing at Seek AI: $10.5 Million Raised to Transform Data Analysis with Generative AI
Richard Potter
Co-Founder and CEO of Peak
Richard Potter, Co-Founder and CEO at Peak: $118 Million Raised to Power the Future of AI-Enabled Businesses
Inna Sela
CEO & Founder of illumex
Inna Tokarev Sela, CEO & Founder of illumex: $13 Million Raised to Power the Future of Enterprise LLM Deployments
Ofer Ronen
CEO & Co-Founder of Tomato.ai
Ofer Ronen, CEO & Co-Founder of Tomato.ai: $12 Million Raised to Build the Accent Softening Category
Adi Bathla
CEO & Co-Founder of Revv
Adi Bathla, CEO & Co-Founder of Revv: $33 Million Raised to Power the Future of Auto Repair
Jonathan Corbin
CEO & Co-Founder of Maven AGI
Jonathan Corbin, CEO and Co-Founder of Maven AGI: $28 Million Raised to Build the Future of Customer Experience
Darko Vukovic
CEO & Founder of PolyAPI
Darko Vukovic, CEO & Founder of PolyAPI: $5 Million Raised to Transform Enterprise Middleware Through Native Code Developm
Jorge Torres
CEO and Co-Founder of MindsDB
Jorge Torres, CEO and Co-Founder of MindsDB: $50 Million Raised to Enable Developers to Integrate Machine Learning into Applications
Meryem Arik
CEO & Co-Founder of Titan ML
Meryem Arik, CEO and Co-Founder of TitanML: $2.8 Million Raised to Revolutionize LLM Deployment
Alon Talmor
CEO & Founder of Ask-AI
Alon Talmor, CEO & Founder of Ask-AI: $20 Million Raised to Power the Future of Enterprise AI
Tom Trowbridge
Co-Founder of Fluence Labs
Tom Trowbridge, co-founder of Fluence Labs: $9 Million Raised to Build the Future of Decentralized P2P Computing
Jayashree Rajan
CMO of Nexla
From Engineer to CMO — Lessons From Jayashree Rajan’s Journey
Jason Corso
Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer of Voxel 51
Jason Corso, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer of Voxel 51: $15.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Developer Tools for Machine Learning
Aron Kirschen
CEO of SEMRON
Aron Kirschen, CEO of SEMRON: $7.3M Raised to Build Ultra-Efficient 3D AI Chips
Behnam Bastani
CEO & Founder of OpenInfer
How OpenInfer discovered unexpected government traction by focusing on data ownership pain points | Behnam Bastani
Joe Witt
CEO & Co-Founder of Datavolo
Joe Witt, CEO & Co-Founder of Datavolo: $21 Million Raised to Unlock the Potential of Unstructured Data for AI
David Reger
CEO of NEURA Robotics
David Reger, CEO of NEURA Robotics: €185M Raised to Power the Future of Cognitive Robotics
Krish Ramineni
CEO of Fireflies
Krish Ramineni, CEO of Fireflies: $19 Million Raised to Build the Future of AI Meeting Assistants
Don Gossen
CEO & Founder of Nevermined
How Nevermined coined “AI commerce” in 2023 to create category language before market adoption | Don Gossen
Damien Garot
Stellar of Stellar
Damien Garot, CEO & Co-Founder of Stellar: $9.3M Raised to Build the Future of Reliable Internet Connectivity for Autonomous Vehicles
Linda Watkins
SVP of Marketing of Edge Impulse
The Founder Whisperer: A Marketing Leader’s Guide to Technical CEOs
Ravin Thambapillai
CEO and Co-Founder of Credal
Ravin Thambapillai, CEO and Co-Founder of Credal: $5 Million Raised to Build the Future of AI Security
Nikola Borisov
CEO & Co-Founder of Deep Infra
Nikola Borisov, CEO & Co-Founder of Deep Infra: $9 Million Raised to Build the Future of AI Model Hosting
Tanay Kothari
CEO and Co-Founder of Wispr Flow
How Wispr Flow manufactured viral moments by personally onboarding 500 users on Google Meet | Tanay Kothari ($56M Raised)
Bob van Luijt
CEO and Co-Founder of Weaviate
Bob van Luijt, CEO and Co-Founder of Weaviate: Over $67 Million Raised to Power the Future of Vector Databases
Jeong-Suh Choi
CEO of Bobidi
Jeong-Suh Choi, CEO Bobidi: Nearly $6 Million raised to Deliver Better, More Inclusive AI Solutions for Developers
Igor Jablokov
Chairman of Pryon
Igor Jablokov, Chairman of Pryon: $50+ Million Raised to Build the Future of Enterprise Knowledge Management
Ryan Alshak
CEO & Founder of Laurel
Ryan Alshak, CEO & Founder of Laurel: $55.7 Million Raised to Build the Future of Gen AI for Timekeeping