How to Sell your Deep Tech: A Founder’s Guide

Hi!

Welcome to Sparksense's Newsletter! Every month, I personally bring you insights to fuel your sales strategies, drive business growth, and succeed on your entrepreneurial journey. My focus is clear: to equip you with actionable takeaways.

This time, I want to talk about a question that comes up a lot in deep tech: How do you actually sell this stuff?

You’ve built great tech. You’ve solved a real problem. But when it’s time to sell, things suddenly feel... messy. So in this edition, I’ll walk you through the basics: how to set up your sales team, build trust, run great first meetings, track your pipeline, and scale globally.

Let’s make sales feel a little less mysterious, and a lot more doable.

Is your Sales team organized to scale?

“The lack of market is by far the number one reason for startup failure.” It’s a big topic that you can read more about in our guide The Customer is Back. But the message is simple: your startup doesn’t need more talks. It needs more buyers.

So how do you get there? As the founder, you need to organize sales like a real function. This means setting a clear goal: are you looking for proof-of-concepts, recurring customers, or global expansion? Then make sure your leads meet three criteria: they are the decision-maker, they have interest, and they have a budget.

At the beginning, you as the CEO are often the best salesperson. You're close to both the product and the market. But as you grow, roles start to shift:

• A Business Development Rep (BDR) helps you find new leads.

• An Account Executive (AE) focuses on closing deals.

• A Sales Engineer supports technical detail.

• Later, you’ll add Customer Success and Partner Managers.

The sales team brings insights that shape your roadmap, pricing, and positioning. That’s why you should structure it early on, even if it’s just one person wearing all the hats.

Is it trust or technique that wins deals?

This looks like the easy way out to some entrepreneurs. But here's the catch: Business education is not enough. To sell tech, you need tech sales professionals who truly understand and communicate your product's value to the right audience. Also you need to ensure you stay in touch with customers, gather market intelligence.

Trust is the foundation of every good sales conversation. But trust doesn’t happen by accident. It comes from preparation, process, and the way you lead the conversation.

That’s where good sales techniques come in. If you want to build trust faster and secure the first call with your prospect, check out our Startup Guide. It covers the frameworks and methods deep tech startups should use to win early customers.

Make your first sales call a success.

When you use the techniques to finally land that first meeting, it’s tempting to start presenting. Don’t.

The best first calls feel more like a conversation than a presentation. You’re not there to impress. You’re there to learn.

Ask questions. Listen for pain points. Try to understand what really matters to them. Only then should you talk about your product—and even then, only the parts that solve their problem.

Here’s what we’ve seen work over and over:

If you want to know more, check out our full Sales Deck Guide—it’s built from years of real sales calls with deep tech teams across Europe and North America.

How to track your leads to closing? 

Sales doesn’t end with the call—it starts there. If you don’t track leads, follow-ups, and deals, you lose business. A simple CRM like HubSpot, Pipedrive, or Zoho CRM keeps your pipeline clear and your next steps obvious.

Use the CRM to:

• Keep your pipeline organized and visible

• Track every lead, deal, and follow-up in one place

• Give your team shared access to the latest deal info

• Stay on top of next steps

Also it’s not just about tracking. You also need the right people in that pipeline. The goal isn’t just to send emails—it’s to connect with the people who matter and can give real feedback on your product. It is about the right balance between inbound and outbound activities. Read our Inbound & Outbound Startup Guide to see what that balance looks like in practice.

Listen about how to scale your Deep Tech globally.

In our latest Sparksense Sales Talk, we sat down with the founder of Wise Integration to talk about how to build a global sales process to scale deep tech.

Since 2020, Wise Integration has rapidly scaled its digital GaN technology across North America, Asia, and Europe.  Listen to the episode to see what you can learn from their journey.

Implement Apple’s 5 Steps to deliver Customer Service excellence.

Do you think sales always have to be complicated? Apple uses a 5-step formula in every store. It works because it’s simple, human, and focused on trust.

You can adapt the same framework to your deep tech sales process:

Even without a physical store, you can apply this mindset to every sales interaction. Lead with curiosity. Educate, don’t push. Make every conversation feel valuable—even if there’s no sale right away.

Read more about Apple’s sales method

Spectricity Drives Global Sensor Integration with Sparksense

Spectricity is a Belgium-based fabless company pioneering CMOS spectral sensing solutions designed for high-volume production in health monitoring, environmental sensing, and smart home devices. Founded in 2018 and backed by venture capital, Spectricity is a Spin-off from imec.

Global sales team in action: Spectricity partners with Sparksense to tackle non-mobile applications and align messaging with key OEM partners. Sales roles and go-to-market strategy are aligned to turn complex technology into scalable sales opportunities across industries.

Are you looking to grow into demanding deep tech markets? Let’s discuss your industry requirements and speed up your market adoption. Reach out to uncover new growth opportunities with Sparksense.

Tap into hidden market opportunities in … Industrial Tech for Everyday Life

Are you struggling to gain traction or compete with industry giants? We help startups find hidden market opportunities by connecting them with second-tier players that hold untapped potential.

Do you want to have access to more decision makers? Let’s work together  to identify the Hidden Champions that need YOUR STARTUP’s solution.

Want to know more about Sparksense? Discover our services and packages here. Additionally, we offer free valuable insights and strategies to boost your Sales. Download our comprehensive Business Development Guide ebook. Let’s talk to find out how we can help take your sales to the next level. Book a call with me today!

Thank you for reading! If you have any questions please feel free to email me directly.

Sincerely,

Hervé Flutto,

Managing Director and Founder of Sparksense

About Sparksense

With 150 global clients supported over the last 6 years, Sparksense is the trusted Sales Team for B2B Tech Startups. With a smarter outreach, Sparksense’s team of over 30+ advisors has ignited sales for hardware and software solutions across Europe, North America and Asia – thanks to its robust, proven business development skills and relevant market access to decision makers across key industries.

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