The program. 28 steps. 4 gates.
Seven modules. Every step is a deliverable, not a lesson. The founder opens the app and sees what to work on today, what good looks like, and which rooms the answer will not survive. The organization backing them reads the same evidence across every company on the book.
Validate Is this real? · Steps 1–4
01
Validate
Quantum advantage thesis Is there a specific, defensible reason a quantum approach wins here?
02
Validate
Technical feasibility Can this actually be built on hardware that exists or is dated on a public roadmap?
03
Validate
Problem validation Have real people with real budgets confirmed the problem?
04
Validate
Product strategy Gate 1 · Weak quantum-advantage theses drop out before the money is spent.
Gate 1
Market Who pays? · Steps 5–8
05
Market
Target customer Name the buyer. Name the budget line. Name the procurement path.
06
Market
Customer discovery Direct conversations with named buyers, not surveys.
07
Market
Competitive landscape Specific algorithm, specific company, specific outcome.
08
Market
Value proposition canvas Jobs, pains, gains on one page.
Technology Build it. · Steps 9–12
09
Technology
Technology architecture Quantum and classical components, clearly separated.
10
Technology
Hardware selection Which QPU. Which simulator. Why.
11
Technology
Proof of concept Small, end-to-end, runnable.
12
Technology
IP & revenue model Gate 2 · Unsustainable burn cut. A real revenue model on the table.
Gate 2
Business Make the math work. · Steps 13–16
13
Business
Revenue model & BMC Business model canvas with real price points.
14
Business
Financial model Three-year projection a partner will not laugh at.
15
Business
Capital efficiency Dollars in vs. milestones out.
16
Business
Pricing Pilot, production, enterprise. Explicit and defended.
Team Build the team. · Steps 17–19
17
Team
Team & hiring Who is on the bus. Who is missing. Who is leaving.
18
Team
Talent strategy How do you compete with national labs and big tech.
19
Team
Partnerships Hardware vendors, software stacks, research centres, channel.
Go-to-Market Get customers. · Steps 20–23
20
Go-to-Market
Pilot strategy How a pilot becomes a paid contract, not a perpetual pilot.
21
Go-to-Market
Go-to-market motion Founder-led, partner-led, or channel-led. Pick one.
22
Go-to-Market
First paying customer Name the logo. Name the contract value. Name the start date.
23
Go-to-Market
Sales Gate 3 · No paying customer means no Series A.
Gate 3
Operations Sustain and grow. · Steps 24–28
24
Operations
Customer success How you keep the pilot from dying quietly.
25
Operations
Operational discipline Board pack, reporting cadence, forecasting.
26
Operations
Funding & data room Diligence-ready. Not diligence-allergic.
27
Operations
Series A readiness The room in advance of the room.
28
Operations
Kill switch Gate 4 · Ventures that cannot earn the next round are closed honestly, not bled.
Gate 4
Why the gates matter
Four points in the journey where someone has to decide, on record, to keep going. This is the quiet superpower for anyone allocating capital: an agreed place in advance to stop, so that stopping does not require a fight.
Past Gate 1, weak quantum-advantage theses drop out. Past Gate 2, unsustainable burn is cut. Past Gate 3, no paying customer means no Series A. Past Gate 4, the venture is honestly closed — not quietly left to bleed.
How the deliverables work
Every step is a filled-in template, not a prompt to an empty document. Competitor tables. Revenue models. IP strategies. Each field comes with three things:
- A warning — how this field usually goes wrong, and the specific signal that says "come back to this."
- A good-looks standard — what the answer looks like when it is complete, in one paragraph.
- A named example — one real quantum company from the tracked set, with the specific outcome.
109 fields. 81 companies referenced. Zero invented benchmarks, zero hallucinated quotes. The method is what lives inside the fields, not the step numbers.
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