Selling deep tech doesn't look like selling SaaS | Jan Goetz, IQM

We have been building our own chip factory, we have been building our assembly line, our data center.

Jan Gertz is CEO of IQM, Europe's first quantum computing company, which he recently took public in New York and Helsinki. He could have built the chip and sold the company to a US hyperscaler. Investors would have believed that, but instead he chose to build a factory and an entire supply chain around it. If you've ever wondered whether European Deep Tech can win without being acquired, Jan today tells you why he never wanted the exit, how he raised 600 million to do it, and what the dual listing actually buys you.

Join if you don't manage to fundraise the lights go off and you don't want to sacrifice this. I think there are only two ways. Either either you transform yourself alongside with the company all the time, and and this means change and changing yourself and this hurts. It means get getting out of your comfort zone and this always comes with pain. Or you say, Okay, I don't want to take this pain. I'm I'm really kind of this this kind of a person and this is where I'm strong at. But then it means yeah the role needs to change, right?

This is Melanie.

And this is Christian.

You're listening to Follow the Gradient, the weekly podcast with actionable insights about how to build a business while staying sane.

Yan, welcome to Follow the Gradient. Really great to have you here. So, a few weeks ago, IQM announced a 20-qubit deployment to Toyo Corporation in Japan, described as the first enterprise quantum purchase in that market. And when we looked at all the news around you, before that, you deployed something at the Leibniz Supercomputing Center near Munich. You announced plans to go public via spec at 1.8 billion valuation. You raised additional capital from BlackRock and NS funds and moved from co-CEO set up to you as a sole CEO, so many things. But before we get into quantum Europe, IPOs and all of that, maybe take us back to January 1st this year, where because that was actually the day where you were for the first time again like sole CEO, what did that day actually feel like if it was any special? And what was the first decision that you Ma might have taken now that you haven't taken before as a co see.

Yeah, we I think all of these processes they come with a reason. and usually you don't announce these things overnight without thinking about this. So obviously also as a company we have thought very well beforehand like how should we set up the team? also when we decided to go into this co CE setup, there were very clear reasons to do so so that I could focus on on fundraising and that Miko Mikeo CEO could focus on building the business in the background. And he has done so very successfully. And now we have actually a great commercial team with great commercial traction. And from this perspective, it was a clear kind of next step that we create back the clarity of having a single CEO. But it is not so that I see myself kind of as a little king in my kingdom, making decisions just like that. But from a leadership style, I'm I'm very much a person who seeks consensus and has a more democratic approach to things. So it's not so that I went out and say, Okay, no, we have to change everything and and revert to to this and that. I think in the background we have a very stable management team. but what we hope to get out of this is really to create the clarity, especially on this kind of strategic vision and where do we want to bring the company. and I'm I'm very happy, of course, to to be leading now the company since the beginning of

The year. And you mentioned that already, it was also very very like a considerate decision to actually introduce these co-CEO structures. If I'm not mistaken, back in 2024, you introduced a co-CEO structure with MICO. And of course, there is also a reason why we ask this question because from the outside, people can easily misunderstand then that a later move back to a sole CEO can be seen as something that didn't work out. But often, as we know, because you go through a Like s sometimes hyperscaling phase and a lot of things change. Like leadership structures just simply don't fit a certain period of your growth. So, what did that core CEO structure allow your company to do in that phase that would have been maybe harder as an only CEO? You already alluded to it, but maybe you can bring us a little bit more clarity what your actual reasoning behind it was back then to introduce that.

Yeah, so back then we were in a situation that we urgently had to fundraise. And of course, this is a live or die thing for the company. If you don't manage to fundraise the lights go off and you don't want to sacrifice this. So I was basically on the road all the time talking to the investors in the UN and around the world. At the same time, we had huge pressure to build the business and to create commercial traction. And we did see product market fit in the way that first customers were buying our systems. But we didn't have a proper commercial structure in place. so it was clear we we needed someone, and also we we had some other fluctuations in the management team back then, so there was kind of a gap to be filled, and we needed someone that on the ground. and we were super happy. Miko has been a board member since day one of the company. So he has been supporting the management team from his board position. He knew the company extremely well. And he is an entrepreneur by heart. And I think he brought everything we needed to help us through the space, so I could focus. on the fundraising and he could really build up the commercial operations of the company.

And if we take that also now more generally for founders who are thinking about actually co see a setup with a co founder or a senior hire, what in your view are the conditions on the that that like such a setup actually works?

I think what's super important is that the roles and responsibilities are clear. And obviously we gave this quite a lot of thought and even wrote it down and created the structure and it it made total sense. So I was in charge of fundraising, public relations, like all the media and engagement and still the technology function. And he was in charge of operations, finance, commercial. So let's say the org chart was extremely clear. but of course it's in the end it's the way of working and and We all know people that if they think that with a certain topic they might have more success with person A or person B, they will go there no matter what the orcs tells you. It's it's not only creating a clear structure, but it's also then of course the the behavior and and the way of working. And this is obviously challenging because we are all so busy and and we get so many emails and calls and we tend, of course, then to take certain topics even though we might not or we're not supposed to do it just from a responsibility point of view. So This is the weakness of the core CEO setup that people out of misusing the system or that create it creates un unclarity, it creates maybe a little bit of friction in in the processes. But I said looking back, it was clear that the right decision we have really developed the company to a next level. And I would do it again if I had the decision in this particular situation.

Out of curiosity, how did your weeks look like? Like did you have like daily where you and Miko exchanged, or was it more on you completely thrust it and then you just by realizing that certain employees might have asked you certain things that would have been Miko that you then talked, or how did it work?

Yeah, so we had a twice a week kind of a stand up call in the morning, a a short one. Obviously, we were very active on chatting through through WhatsApp or whatever, emails and the like. We also have weekly management meetings and we have actually a also a preparation meeting for this. We did communicate quite frequently, but obviously since I was traveling a lot, also then at some point Miko started traveling to see customers. it it becomes a challenge as I said. So this is clearly the disadvantage of such a system is that you maybe not always hundred percent informed and aligned with each and every decision.

And what was then maybe the point where you then realized, hey, that's actually now it's time to actually move back into the soul CEO or more broadly asked, what are the signs for in general that you then say, Hey, the advantages are now really visible and now a soul CEO position would work better now?

Yeah. So initially we thought maybe this would be a setup for six months or something like that. Basically to to just make sure we get the fundraising done and temporary and and work on the commercial operations and then we we would transition. And in the end it turned out to be two years, which was already way longer than we thought it would be, which shows already that I think it it worked quite well. but then you mentioned already we we also announced to go public and and we talk a lot to investors. we get of course also feedback from within the organization.

Really?

and there it was really about sort of having clarity on on the strategy and and the vision and kind of one narrative. If we now talk talk to the public markets, I think it's super important that there's kind of one narrative being brought out. And then we thought, okay, actually we have achieved everything we wanted. We we did raise the money, we built up the commercial traction and the team and we we announced to go public. So I think basically it also it was an opportunity for for Miku to go in a time of of great success, so to say. And I think that's always the best time to to make a change. If you say, hey, look, everything works well. I'm I'm really proud of what we have achieved. So all the stars aligned and then we said, okay, now it's maybe a good time to kind of go back to the original setup.

And what I would find interesting, and I know that in your particular case, especially because it was temporary and everyone knew that this would change, I think the question might not be a hundred percent accurate, but we often see that for scale ups, like first the co-founders all have the C C level titles, and then at one point it just makes sense that, for example, somebody with a technical background then takes on like a more individual contributor role instead of the CTO and stuff. So you often see these transitions from co-founders that going into other positions. But It also comes often with a lot of friction because we are all human beings and so on. So maybe from your perspective, now going having gone through that, of course, it's a little bit different, but still it seems that the transition went very well. Also back in the like Cosmicos Data as an advisor. Is there anything that you can recommend doing for anyone in such a position where you have your co founders or very close people transitioning into another role that you think helps to make that transition more smooth?

Yeah, if you build a company from the very early phases, then all the way to a scale up and and beyond, I think there are only two ways. Either either you transform yourself alongside with the company all the time, and and this means change and changing yourself and this hurts. It means get getting out of your comfort zone and this always comes with pain. or you say, Okay, I don't want to take this pain. I'm I'm really kind of this this kind of a person and this is where I'm strong at. But then it means yeah the role needs to change, right? otherwise it it will create other frictions and and with your board and investors and and the like. So I think every founder should make this decision for for him or herself that do I want to change myself all the time and and take the pain? Or Do I accept that I'm not this kind of a person and then I take this specialized role? and I think very early on one should kind of get very clear about this because it comes with expectations, and and this is super important. So this would be my advice to think about this your yourself and maybe also talk to people who went through this and what it means. and and then once you're clear with this, I think it's also much easier to communicate, for example, with the board. If you say, Hey, look, I want to try it this way and I'm willing to transform myself, you need to help me. So I have always been working with personal coaches quite a lot. So from from this perspective I think that's that's very important in in the early phases for founders to get clear of.

Yeah, and especially as a co founder team to to have this clear communication and to be very transparent in that. I think that is where often it doesn't work because you have certain expectations, you might not talk about it and but yes, very very important point.

So I'd like to go back to the year 2018. You guys back then spun out of L2 and VTT. you raised 11 million euros in a seed round back then, which was one of the largest in Finland at the time. Now, when you look on your personal journey of the entire fundraising process, like what was your biggest learning or takeaway? What's one thing you usually also see people underestimate in that entire process?

Yeah, so when you raise money early on as a deep tech company and and you come from the scientific side, like in our case, we are a university spin-off, you're very much focused on the science. And sometimes you even fall in love very much with with your science and get blindfolded by this. And I think it's super important for investors to realize that you don't just want to build an kind of another scientific effort outside of the lab and use their their money just to fund the science, but that you want to build a real business. And that you have a product mindset. I think turning technology and science into product, that's that's the key here. And in our case, this is what we we did. in the that hey, there is not yet the market for quantum computers, we're gonna build the market by start selling small prototypes into universities and and research centers. And investors, I think they really love this mindset that that we said, hey. It's very early technology, but we are going to sell it anyways. and we are going to build a real business and and and and a proper company around it and not just create another scientific lab with their money. So I think this was a key learning there that that really has has helped us. Of course, in addition to I mean, you need to have a a strong team and you need to have the technology and all of this. But I think it's a mindset topic in the end. And this is something also here in Europe, I think that we can learn. still from the US. I think in the US people are way stronger in terms of marketing and productization of their ideas, whereas here often we still too much in love with the scientific details of the technology that we develop.

And you've spoken on that and elsewhere as well, that obviously universities are great at fundamental research, but they're not necessarily at scaling machines or products. But when you look back on your own kind of journey to carve that or carve your operations and your team and your IP out of university into an actual a profit driven company, what was the most challenging part for you?

Yeah, so spinning out a company from the university obviously is a quite complex process. if you especially if you bring along people and IP and know-how and and technology and and you need to agree on this and you need at the same time to negotiate with the university while you're negotiating with the investors, and you need to make sure that everything goes aligned and the expectation management is there in terms of valuation, also valuation just of the IP. And obviously you're not really prepared for this as a scientist. As a scientist, you work on your academic projects. And so this is a challenge. And I think at least I haven't heard from a single founder that they said, okay, the spin-out process was so so smooth and so straight. It's always a challenge. And this is because kind of there are different interests, right? The university wants to maximize their stake, the investors want to maximize their stake, and obviously the founders have their interests as well. And I think it's a but it's already a good learning for the rest of the journey because it's always about expectation management, managing the people behind the scenes, so the people behind the investors, be behind your customers and stakeholders. So I think it's a great learning, but I think it's all a challenge and something probably is is wrong if it if it's not at the

What advice you have for founding teams who are just about to embark on that process or are maybe in the midst of it and fighting it?

First of all, I think having a team is is great and align with with the team. not only because you can distribute the work a little bit and and people can focus on their cross strength, but also because you don't go alone through this whole thing. And and sometimes it's really good to also just talk about the challenges and then talk about how you're going to resolve it. so I think that that's always the first thing. Build a t a a founding team, make sure that there's a very strong alignment within the team, cultural fit. Within the team because if things go well, you actually these are your partners for many, many years down the road. so that's that's super important. And then of course, accept the challenges and embrace the challenges. So of course, people you will get hit backs, right? And not everything will be be smooth. So this should be the the expectation from the beginning, but then don't let yourself down from it, but grow. with it and and then celebrate the wins, right? You if you resolve the challenge get together with the team, even if it's a small one, and and and and celebrate it, talk about it, how you solve the situation and and why it was important and what you do next.

And so now in terms of your investors, you've mentioned them a couple of times and managing them is obviously important. Now you have Schwarzgroup, which is a parent organization of Lidl on your cap table. You have Bayern Capital, TC, so pension funds, public investors, a BlackRock managed fund, all of these are part of the story. How do you successfully build and manage such a cap table of sometimes diverse backgrounds that it is long term successful and actually aligned?

Yeah, of course, they don't come at once in the beginning. and I think in Europe we do have the challenge that we have very few really large funds who can kind of carry a company like ours. and and this means you always will end up syndicating and and this means your cap table will grow longer and longer. And this has positive sides and and maybe not so positive sides. So the challenge obviously is that you have to manage a lot of stakeholders. And people think very differently. So let's say an early stage deep tech investor, after a couple of rounds, they cannot invest anymore, anyways. So they feel very much more like a founder and and they get actually emotionally attached to the company. if it kind of becomes successful and they have already with the race for a couple of years, and of course they also feel pressure from their LPs that the whole thing in the end flies and there's a proper exit or any kind of for them to to get the money back. Whereas later stage investors, they're much more financially driven. They are they are thinking a more about okay, how can we kind of build this then from a business of corporate governance, all of those topics. So very different expectations, and you need, of course, to learn managing them along the way. so with the more techy deep tech investors, I think in the very early days you can have very deep discussions often of how you hustle and how you do things and how you build the team, and they often know actually your key employees very well too. Whereas then the later stage was much more formal, and maybe you have a CFO on your side presenting the numbers. So it's a learning curve, and it it it goes back to this topic of trying, right? So also for me, I had to kind of change the way I talk. I the the way I understand how how about the case. and if you don't make the change in yourself, you need to have someone else doing the job obvious and also of course that I have to do everything myself right now we have a proper investor relations team and I have a CFO and and everyone supporting me. But still if it comes to really important topics and and key questions investors want to be directly and then of course I need to make sure that I speak their language.

And I'm aligned with whatever my team has told them before.

And you've you've also said that one of your personal drivers is to prove that Europe can still build globally relevant technologies. So not just research, not just IP, but actually build these independent companies. Maybe can you go deeper on that point? Did that like kind of mission translate into specific business decisions, into hiring, into decisions on relocation? Walk us through that.

Yeah, so this is deep in my kind of values that I think we need to build out of Europe if we want to secure our wealth going forward and if we want to avoid complete dependencies on on others. So I think we don't have a choice if if we want to keep the standard of living that we have today. So we need to build and we need to build technology. and what this means for us is that yeah, we have been building a let's say a proper full stack company since day one. We have been building our own chip factory, we have been building our assembly line, our data center. Of course, an alternative strategy could have been that we say we only focus on on chip and and chip architectures, and we hope that we get integrated maybe into one of the big US tech companies who are building the full stack thing and maybe we get Bought by some of them. This would have been a different strategy. And it's probably also a valid business strategy from this perspective. Probably you can develop a story around this where you say we have critical IP on the chip side, we integrate it into one of the big tech names, and at some point they will buy us. And the investors will probably believe it and you will still get the money. But this was for me at least not satisfying because for me the purpose was never to just create an exit. scenario and and and and become rich or something like this. For me the purpose was really to build a company that can have an impact in the long run and that can be self sustained and and that can at at some point really bring also investments back into Europe. That we don't only have this these stories where tech companies at some point when they need to scale flip to the US impacted the way we have been building the company quite a bit since the very beginning actually.

Now one thing that off that that also surfed us in our research is you you you obviously develop or you deploy full stack on premise hardware. And that is also in the quantum space quite different from some of what the American competitors do. IBM has commercial cloud quantum services. Google has been having that for a while as well. Was that part of what was the strategic argument behind that?

Yeah, I think there are two aspects. One is you need a differentiator, right? You you will not cite people as those if you say, Hey, we're going to do the same thing as the others, but better. because we all know these big tech companies they have so much capital that they can deploy. So you need to differentiate yourself, and this means you need to differentiate yourself on the technology. Which I think we do. We have actually very strong technology on the chip and system side. But also you need to differentiate yourself on the business model if you really want to have an impact. This was one thing. The other thing was that we did start a bit late compared to what was happening in the US. And again, this has advantages and disadvantages. Obviously, it's never good if you're a little bit late to the game because others already have more progress than you are. But actually the advantage is that if you have this past follower strategy, you can take the learnings, right? You don't need to repeat the mistakes of of others. And what happened in the early days in the quantum cloud business was that first systems were deployed in the cloud, but they were not yet there, maybe from a product readiness level where they're supposed to be. And this created then frustration amongst the users because they just saw a system online. With di didn't perform at the level that they were expecting it. and and if you offer it through the cloud, basically anyone around the world can be a customer and you cannot really manage these customers because often you don't even know who they are. Whereas if you sell single system customer very well, you engage in a long kind of sales process and negotiation process, and the teams get together and they work how you deploy the system. So you can do actually a proper Customer management. And this means even if your product is not yet at the highest levels where it's supposed to be, you can manage this. And this is why we thought, hey, maybe it's better if we first go into the deployment of systems and we use the learnings together with our customers to improve the products and bring them to a readiness level where then later on actually they can also serve in the cloud. And now this is what we did. So we improved the products together with our customers.

At some point we said, Okay, now we are at a level where they can actually run basically twenty four seven at at high quality and it's time to go. And then we also started with our own cloud.

And you now announced a few weeks ago or IQM announced plans to go public through a spec merger at an applied valuation of one point eight billion. So I guess two questions. Why now? Why going public now? And why through a spec merger?

Yeah, so for for a company like ours, of course, we are constantly fundraising in a way that we are building technology, we are building infrastructure like a chip factory is is not necessarily the cheapest thing to build. And we raised around summer twenty-five. And obviously then the next thing after closing the round, and maybe you celebrate it a little bit at the success as as I said, then you start thinking, okay, what comes next and and how do you prepare for next thing? Because typically also such a fundraise Can easily take nine to twelve months for for these larger rounds. So you better prepare well in advance. So we sat down together with the team and together with our board as well and thought about okay, what how should we do the next steps? And of course, we have been observing what was happening in the markets. And there were a couple of companies that went public already in this 20 to 21 spec wave. And actually they have been doing quite well. The quantum stocks have been have been doing relatively well. And they have been raising larger amounts of on on the public markets with these ATM offerings. They've been raising billions of dollars. So very strong cash position, which we thought could also be nice for us, even though we just raised, but you you know you can always do do more. And also they've been to drive MA transactions using the relatively strong share price. And we thought, okay, this is also something we would like to do, especially here in Europe. There's so many startups in in quantum. But not all of them scale, but but they still have very strong tech or teams. So we thought, okay, going public actually has quite a lot of advantages. And and then obviously the next thing to the how to do it. And there are basically two routes. Either you do a traditional conventional IPO or you you go spec route, which means you merge with a shell company that's already public. And as so far all quantum companies went public. Through spec, there's actually lots of precedence there, and and it it so far are all good stories, even though specs might not always kind of have only positive reputation. Some of them also, of course, went south. so this was one thing, a very clear structure, and for us it was about deal certainty and deal timing. so if you since it is a merger, it's a very well-defined process, and and the banks and and all the others can just execute it through.

And usually it's also faster than a conventional IPO. And and these were important topics, together with some soft factors. So since you're merging into an existing company, there is already a management team behind this company. and in in our case it's a US entity and we want to be stronger and more present in in the US anyway. So we thought it's also a good thing to to have some more support on the ground there. So this is why in the end we decided to go public in a dual listing. actually so we are going to do Nasdaq New York and Nasdaq Helsinki through a spec merger.

And what was the reasoning behind to do a dual listing? Is that also something that many spec like quantum startups do? Or is this just your European heart?

Yeah, of course, and and I alluded earlier that I think we we have to do more here in Europe. so I think but this is not the decisive factor, right? there needs to be a a good reason also from the business side to this. And it is so that obviously you have very strong capital markets in the US and you don't want to miss out on on them. So the US has to be a part of it. But then again, if you look at our cap table, we have very strong. Also institutional support here from Europe. We have governmental investors on our cap table, we have pension funds on our cap table, we have very strong European family offices on our cap table. And for them, it's actually easier if you if you do a European to to support you going forward. And we thought, okay, we we don't want to miss out the US, but also we don't want to miss out the continued support from our existing institutional investors. And this is why we just take the best of two worlds. Even though it creates maybe a bit of management overhead, in the end we're convinced that it's worth the effort.

Mm-hmm. And maybe that's super naive, but I still want to ask that. Why are not more startups doing a dual listing? Because we always hear this thing of everyone goes to the US, which absolutely makes sense from a capitalist point and from many other things. But if this possibility exists, of course it's more headache and heada overhead and stuff. But is there a real reason I not more are doing this?

That's a good question. Of course, I'm not sitting in the boardrooms of all of these companies where this has been, but obviously there is, let's say, a push from the advisor world, banks and and lawyers. They like the US IPOs. and there's some pull coming from this direction. But maybe it's also again that we don't have enough positive examples. And and we need to talk also more about this. So I of course I don't know how our story will end ultimately. But I do hope that that we can also be an inspiration. And actually, after we announced our case, there was another announcement from a European company from France who also announced going public in it approach. So we do hope that more will follow. And maybe they just need to see a few good examples to take maybe the fear in Europe. Often also we are driven by a fear that things could go wrong. So I hope that we can be a positive sample in in in the future. More will follow.

And now for listeners who are not coming from quantum, and I think many of the podcasts and everything around it is still mostly startup advice for SAS. So we talk a lot about like short sales cycle, self-serve, onboarding, monthly subscriptions, even though this is now changing with AI, but this is another topic. So your role is almost the opposite, like very capital-intensive hardware, public procurement, supercomputing centers, and multi-year deployment commitments. What does selling to the Leibniz Supercomputing Center to Munich teach you that maybe selling software never could and where does the normal startup playbook break? What did you have to learn, maybe or teach yourself because there's maybe not enough learnings out there?

Yeah. I think it's still about execution, right? Sales is a lot about execution. Of course, the sales process is very, very different, but we we still need to execute and and coordinate a very complex environment because it's not only the customer that buys. So within it's more like selling into corporate businesses, right? It's within let's say a supercomputing cell, you have the leadership team, but you also need to make sure you connect with the technical team who actually use the machine. You need to make sure you turn Connect with the infrastructure team who have to build and maintain it. But then they get their budget from ministries, from the government. So you need to make sure you kind of engage at this level. And then you're still, even though it's long cycles, at the end, it's often tight timelines because then they say, okay, now the year comes to an end and we need to spend the budget by by date X, and and then it's about pushing things through and and doing this. So I think. Even though it's a very different way of selling it, build a high performance team, I think, is is key here. And finding out of the box solutions. I think that's always the the case in sales, right? How do you make sure that that the customer buys it even even though it might be hurdles along the way?

Mm-hmm. And one thing that I found super interesting when I was listening to another interview with you on OMR recently is you explained that today's customers are often not like buying quantum because it already makes them money, but because they need to build internal knowledge before the technol technology actually becomes commercially decisive. So how do you sell something where the customer is partly buying a machine, partly buying a learning curve and partly buying strategic re readiness?

Yeah, this industry is somewhat used to it already, which is good. So they have been buying large computers already for many, many years, and and it's a race. there is a list that's called topfive hundred.org, where you see the five hundred most powerful computers on this planet. and when a new l computer is is built, it and enters top of the list, and then all the others kind of move down, and then they say, Okay, we have to make sure we get up again and we need to buy a beer machine. And we are entering this this race. But of course it's never easy to say the future, especially if you start from scratch without history, because it's about trust. These customers they buy into our roadmap and they need to trust that that we are able to deliver. And in the b very beginning we didn't have any track record, right? Nobody knew whether we would even be able to deliver a single system. So we needed to find those kind of believers who said, Okay, this is a great story and I take the risk. and then it actually started to get easier as soon as we had the first deployment. So now we have been selling more than 20 systems around the world. And of course, we have a lot of reference cases that we can take and say, look, we are actually able to deliver. But it's never easy to sell the future. Obviously, you're selling a dream, you're selling a vision. And this means that people need to trust you, your team, your technology that you're able to deliver. And this is what We care a lot about in the way communicate and the way we present the company. It's not creating a another hype thing and a lot of hot air, but it's creating something solid and and creating a stock here that we will deliver.

Mm-hmm. And maybe on that note, because also in our research looked at different voices. So for example, Scott Aronson, one of the most respected theoretical computer scientists, quantum, or like Sabine Hosenfelder, a German theoretical physicist, they were all in one way or the other either s being very critic critical of the overhype in the field or saying that some statements have been exaggerated, but also nature published an editorial warning saying that it could also be like overhyped and there's this word of quantum vinter. Now At the same time, I've also when I saw you speak in interviews, you were very clear, and I think your scientific the scientific approach comes through very clear that you, and you also said it, you only want to tell a story that also where you can also stand behind and still look into the face of other scientists. Whereas we are very used to like the CEOs that are often also exaggerating a little bit, we're coming from an era where it's like fake it till you make it. So how do you actually combine this? Because in the end you wanna be successful, you wanna be big and have this trust, but at the same time there are also voices saying, Hey, maybe it's too early like how do you combine that while still being true to yourself?

Yeah. First of all, I think it's good that there are also critical voices out there, right? Because it needs to be a somehow self-regulated thing. Quantum is so complex, we cannot have, let's say, policymakers yet regulated or or so. So we need to have the community who also then points out if something is just wrong or or too exaggerated. So I think it's good to have these voices there who remind us all the time that hey, this is actually the the scientific truth. But yeah, nevertheless, we need to be able to tell a compelling story. That excites investors, that excites customers. and especially on on the customer side here, I think you can always turn a buck into a feature. So if we say, hey, okay, the but the product is not ready yet, right? We you cannot make money today by using a computer or a quantum computer. but then you can say, hey, but we need you as a customer to develop the product together with us. And you get all the fame actually by right. you want to put your customer on a podium and and say, look, they are so strong, they're a thought leader in in the field. so this is how how we put this that we build open equ e open ecosystems together with our partners, to be together with our customers. And and the reason for them to buy is actually that they can be part of the journey. And they take the learning. They also take of course the IP that they develop and they will grow together with the products that they get from us.

Now, one of our or our theme is how to scale a business from Europe while staying sane. So the kind of a sanity pass is very important. And you you row, you run, you hike in the Alps and in Finland. I think we we read in our research that you also recently completed the District of Marathon in under three hours. So a pretty serious and and impressive time, and certainly a time which you cannot just do on the fly while running every now and then. So like very practically. How do you keep your long term balance between having activities where you can switch off and then having a very serious business running on the other side?

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's really about the balance and making sure you're kind of ensuring the time to also think about other topics. And everyone, of course, has a different ways to to cope with this. From this perspective, I'm actually very disciplined and almost kind of in a military way, following my calendar and my schedule. and I have blockers, for example, in there for for sports and I have an amazing assistant who who helps me kind of dealing with my day-to-day life and make sure that that the way I travel and and the way I structure my days allows for this. So this is my way I'm I'm just religiously following my calendar and then I know if I do this, there's always a a time in the day where I take a break and and I use running really for yeah more meditation purposes. Of course it's also great for your body and and you stay fit and all of this. But for it's really and I try to do it more in in the afternoon because then it's a kind of natural break of the day and you come back and and you have schmeined. but yeah, it requires at least for me, it requires discipline because yeah, I I I I follow it very strictly and it helps me. I try not to work too much on on the weekends. Of course, as a CEO, you're kind of always on. but for example, I'm I'm not going to the offices or anything like this, but then really spend time with my family and I think it's about quality time. It's not so much always about just kind of doing things maybe in a half hearted fashion, but it's really making sure that the little time that you have, you use it in the most beneficial way also for your family and your friends.

Mm-hmm. And in in another interview you also said that sometimes in a startup things are hard after Kippah and infairments are really on the edge. So even if podcasts later make everything sound very smooth and everything is perfect. What was maybe also a moment at IQM where it was generally where you were generally on the edge? And what it's not really about this specific moment, but really what did you learn about yourself as a leader in that moment and what helped you to stay sane and move on?

Yeah, I think it's very much about resilience, right? And how do you deal with tough situations and how do you come back? I think it's just natural that there are ups and downs and and you cannot always be on a high, right? Also that's not not healthy and and you probably will also go crazy then. So that there needs to be ups and downs, but I think the most important thing is that yeah, after after you you come down because I don't know, the the next chip doesn't work or the deal didn't go through or investment didn't come or whatever it is, you find a way to kind of go up again. And that's super important. And this is where you take the learnings in in this space. When you then look back and say, hey, even we went down, now we're we're going up again. And this I think goes back to the team. you you don't want to do this alone. You want to have a team around you in and you share responsibility you share experiences. And and for us, for example, we always had a relatively large management team. I already mentioned I'm more kind of this demo democratic person. So we have around ten people in our management team, which is it's r rather large in in size, but we do things together and and it helps to create the buy in the of the rest of the organization. And then of course also your friends, you you shouldn't forget them. And sometimes it's just good to to call them and talk about something else. So these are for me quite important kind of ways of coming back on the right track.

Mm-hmm. And really grounding yourself, no? Yeah. Yeah.

So we're gonna finish off the conversation with a couple of rapid fire questions. So we're just gonna ask you a short question and you can answer with whatever comes to your mind first. A Finnish habit you'll never give up.

Sona.

The German habit you'll never lose.

Being punctual.

One book every deep tech founder should read.

Hard things about hard things.

Love it. The career advice you'd give to a twenty five year old physicist PhD considering an academic career today.

Follow your heart.

And one thing Europe should stop telling itself about deep tech.

we will fail anyways, but that we will win.

Thank you so much. So I come to the last questi question. for the founders who want to learn more about IQM, follow your work or get in touch, maybe even work for you. What is the best way for them to reach out to you?

Of course, we have a web page also with our career page where we have for job openings. So we're always open to bring the best people into the company and and we have the social media channels of course you you can follow us there.

Yeah, we will all also everything adds to our newsletter. Thank you so much, Jan, for this really nice conversation. I r loved it. I must say I haven't known a lot about quantum and in the research I was like, This is so exciting. So very I was very keen to talk to you. Thanks for taking the time and talk to you soon.

Thank you.

Thank you much. And this was another episode of our Follow the Gradient podcast.

And now we would love to hear from you. How did you like it? What should we improve? Do you have any suggestions, ideas, or dream podcast guests? Please let us know.

you and see you again next week.