Tran VC Content Team

Most technical founders wait too long to file a patent. Not because they do not believe in IP. But because timing feels confusing. You have a demo coming up. An investor meeting next week. A conference in a month. A pilot with a big customer soon. And you keep thinking, “I will file after this […]

If you are building in AI, robotics, or deep tech, your product will not stay still. Your code changes. Your model improves. Your robot learns new moves. Your hardware gets smaller, faster, cheaper. And every time the product shifts, your risk shifts too—because what you protected six months ago may not fully cover what you

Open source is everywhere in deep tech. If you build robotics, AI, sensors, edge compute, or anything “hard + smart,” you are almost surely using open source code, open models, open data sets, open firmware, open drivers, or open tools. That is good news. Open source helps small teams move fast. But it also comes

Trade secrets are often the most valuable thing a deep tech team owns in the first two years. Not the pitch deck. Not the logo. Not even the first version of the product. It is the “how.” How your model is trained. How your robot plans motion in messy spaces. How you cut power use

Freedom to Operate—often called “FTO”—is one of those topics most startup founders hear too late. At first, things feel simple. You build fast. You ship. You talk to users. You sign pilots. Your product starts working. Then one day, an investor asks a sharp question: “Have you done an FTO?” Or a big customer’s legal

If you build in AI, robotics, or other deep tech, you are probably sitting on something valuable—even if it still feels rough. A patent can turn that “rough” idea into a real business asset. Not a trophy. Not a vanity thing. An asset that can block copycats, raise your value in a fundraise, and make

Most founders think funding starts with a pitch deck. In real life, it often starts with proof. Not proof that your product is perfect. Not proof that your market is huge. Early checks come when investors feel one thing: this team is building something real, and it will be hard to copy. That “hard to

Most deep tech founders have the same fear about patents: “If I start patent work now, I’ll slow the team down.” That fear makes sense. You have a small team. You have a hard build. Every week matters. And most patent processes feel like a long, heavy project that steals focus from product. But here’s

Most deep tech startups move fast. You hire a friend from grad school. You pull in a contractor to clean up the code. You ask a designer on Upwork to “just make a quick UI.” You bring on a founding engineer and promise equity later. And in all that motion, a quiet problem shows up.

Deep tech founders have a tricky problem. You build something real—new code, new models, new chips, new robots—yet a bigger team can copy the idea faster than you can sell it. A global patent strategy is how you slow that down. It helps you protect what matters, raise with more power, and avoid getting boxed