🔓 How to Pick Tech That's Ready for Launch
A cheatsheet for founders looking to assess tech readiness
In a hurry? Jump to the end for a quick cheatsheet with key questions for the tech transfer office and lead researcher, designed to gauge the readiness of their tech.
For a leisurely Sunday read, complete with cool sci-fi art, join me as we break down of how tech transfer offices and researchers think and communicate about their own tech readiness to begin with. This is a really useful methodology for you to learn in order to better communicate with researchers and tech transfer offices. Time to introduce: Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). Originally from NASA's control room, TRLs might sound complex, but they're surprisingly simple and incredibly useful.
The Birth of TRL
Our story begins in the 1970s with NASA, where the TRL system was born thanks to a researcher named Stan Sadin. It was a simpler time for tech, but the challenges of space exploration demanded a practical method to assess and communicate the maturity of technologies being developed. Initially featuring 7 stages, much like grades in school, this system helps measure a technology's development stage. Over time, the system was formalized and ended up with 9 stages in total.
By the 2000s, many companies across industries, the U.S. Department of Defense, and European agencies widely adopted TRLs, highlighting their universal appeal. By 2013, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) codified TRLs with the publication of ISO 16290:2013, cementing its value across various sectors.
TRLs: A Scale for Innovation
At its core, the TRL scale is beautifully simple, consisting of 9 levels that track the journey of a technology from concept ("Eureka!") to being market-ready ("We have liftoff!"). Here's a bird's-eye view:
TRL 1-3: The early stages where the basic principles are observed, and the concept begins to take shape. This is often where the researchers are going from a basic understanding of a scientific phenomenon at TRL 1 through the initial ideas of ways it can be turned into a practical application.
TRL 1: Imagine you're playing with LEGO blocks. At first, you're just looking at them, figuring out how they can stick together. That's TRL 1, where scientists just discovered something new, like "Hey, these two things create energy when we put them together!"
TRL 2: Now, you start thinking, "What can I build with these?" Maybe a car or a spaceship? You're not building it yet; you're just imagining the cool things you can make. This is where scientists have a rough idea of what they could do with their discovery but haven't tried making anything yet.
TRL 3: Finally, you decide, "I'm going to try building a car with these blocks." You're not sure how it'll turn out, but you're ready to start experimenting. This is where scientists begin to test their ideas to see if they can make something useful for the real world. They're exploring how to turn their cool discovery into something we can actually use.
TRL 4-6: This is where things get real, with validation in lab environments and increasing proof-of-concept in relevant settings.
TRL 7-9: The home stretch, involving system prototype demonstrations in operational environments and, finally, the technology's successful deployment.
This progression isn't just academic and doesn’t just happen in a lab, there’s often a lot of back and forth with industry to validate the concept in real-world settings and think through how it can be integrated into deployed systems.
For a founder looking to license patented technology, the sweet spot often lies within the TRL 4-6 range. At these stages, the technology has progressed beyond theoretical basics and has been validated in a lab setting, indicating a degree of feasibility and potential for further development. Licensing IP at this stage allows you to tap into technologies that have shown promise but require entrepreneurial initiative to navigate towards commercial viability.
Navigating the Challenges
The leap from a controlled lab setting to the chaotic real world (especially around TRL 6-7) is where many promising innovations face their toughest tests. Yet, this is also where the magic happens, as ideas evolve into impactful, real-world solutions. Ultimately, good innovations need to adapt to market demands and this can only happen when you start commercializing the IP around the innovation.
Some criticism of TRLs suggests they may oversimplify the complexity of bringing technology to market. This criticism is valid when there’s an expectation that the technology will just work and take off in real world settings because it works in the lab. The world of tech is littered with cases where the better technology didn’t win because of other market forces (better marketing strategies, distribution advantages, etc.).
One of my favorite books about the topic of how tech companies win is called the 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy by by Hamilton Wright Helmer because it specifically points out different moats that can be built around a business, and surprise, better technology is only one of them. This is where you as a founder come in to help make this technology a reality.
Where is TRL heading?
My high level hypothesis, and you probably know by now I hold an exponential view of the progress of technology, is that we will need ways to speed up the progress through the TRL phases. Right now, it can take years to jump from one step to the next but I suspect we’re going to start seeing a seriously rapid uptick in TRL 1 to 3 progress (months instead of years) which means the bottleneck is going to be around 4 to 6 because that’s when technlogy bumps into humanity (or more likely bureacracy and convoluted incentive systems in society) and that’s where we’ll need more founders to jump in and help push the tech developed from TRL 6 to 9 where we can really see the impact of the new tech in the real world.
Cheatsheet for Founders: What do I ask to understand how ready a tech is for commercialization?
Here are some helpful questions that are worth asking the lead researcher in a lab and the tech transfer office to help you evaluate how ready the technology is to be commercialized:
How does our approach compare to other solutions currently being developed in academic or commercial labs? Are there alternative methods or technologies aiming to solve the same problem, and how do we stand out?
PS. there’s always multiple ways to solve a problem and, ideally, you have already scoped out competing researchers in other labs working on solving the same problem using a different approach, this is a great way to build confidence with the lead researcher. I’ll do a separate write-up in the future on this topic. Subscribe below to get notified.
What are the key technical risks or challenges you foresee in scaling this technology from a lab environment to commercial application? Is there an existing manufacturing supplychain or process we can tap or are we building net new factories?
Do you have all the lab equipment required for further development? What is required from an equipment standpoint for the next development milestone? What’s the cost involved?
Can you provide an estimate of the costs associated with scaling this technology from a prototype to a commercially viable product? What are the major cost drivers?
Are there any post-docs or graduate students involved in this project who might be interested in joining our startup, either on a full-time or part-time basis?
What is your availability and interest in providing ongoing advisory support to the startup? Are there any conditions or constraints we should be aware of?
For Tech Transfer Office: How does the university's tech transfer office typically handle equity allocation for startups licensing university technology? What incentives are in place for researchers to contribute to the success of the startup?
I am collaborating on a piece to go over this in more detail, subscribe below to get notified.
For Tech Transfer Office: Are there any university programs or funds specifically designed to provide financing or support for startups spinning out of university research? How can we apply or qualify for such support?
I hope you enjoyed this piece on TRLs, I’m looking forward to writing more detailed pieces to answer key questions founders have about IP licensing, are there any questions that you have that you’d like me to answer? Share in the comments below.
🎨 About the artist
Ralph McQuarrie, known for his work in the 1970s, Ralph McQuarrie's illustrations have been adapted to the big screen in films like Star Wars.