Shaping Time to Market: Temporal Agency in Deep Tech Commercialization

Bart Clarysse
ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Abstract:

Deep tech ventures are widely assumed to face long and largely exogenous time-to-market due to scientific complexity, capital intensity, and ecosystem dependence. Yet ventures developing similar technologies often reach the market on markedly different timelines. We address this puzzle by theorizing how deep tech ventures make time-to-market an endogenous outcome of strategic action. Drawing on a longitudinal, comparative study of 15 university spin-offs commercializing science-based technologies, we develop a process theory of temporal agency—ventures’ purposive efforts to shape the temporal structure through which progress is evaluated and resources are mobilized. Our analysis shows that founders actively govern time-to-market through three interrelated mechanisms: redefining progress by constructing milestones that render uncertain advancement legible; re-sequencing commercialization activities to manage commitment and optionality over time; and switching temporal regimes (“clocks”) by reallocating accountability across investors, customers, and strategic partners. These mechanisms combine to produce distinct commercialization trajectories characterized by different pacing logics, scope outcomes, and patterns of value capture. By reconceptualizing time-to-market as an object of strategic action rather than a technological constraint, this study contributes to strategic entrepreneurship research on commercialization under uncertainty. We integrate insights from organizational temporality, market search, and entrepreneurial finance, and show how ventures strategically work on time to remain credible, fundable, and viable in ecosystem-dependent settings.

Bart Clarysse is an academic entrepreneur and researcher based at ETH Zurich’s D-MTEC department, with prior academic experience at Imperial College London. His research focuses on technology entrepreneurship, examining the social interactions and cognitive factors that influence entrepreneurial decision-making, as well as corporate venturing dynamics. Beyond academia, he brings substantial industry experience from digital start-ups, corporate venturing initiatives, and consulting projects. He has established significant collaborative partnerships with leading organizations including Bosch, Bühler, the European Commission, KLM, EDF Energy, UBS, and Swisscom, demonstrating his ability to bridge academic research with practical business applications in both established corporations and entrepreneurial ventures.

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