Go-to-market consulting for industrial deep-tech: market first, then the sales team.
For IoT platform companies, industrial-tech scale-ups, startups and their investors. First we work out which industrial customer has the problem, who buys there and how a pilot becomes a framework agreement. Then, if you want, I build the sales organisation as Interim Head of Sales or GTM and hand it over.
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Where deals get stuck: security and procurement.Illustration · AI-generated
Situations
From the platform to the first industrial customer.
For companies that sell, or want to sell, to industrial customers, and for the investors behind them.
You sell an IoT platform
Go-to-market, sales, product management, use cases and the business model for a platform business whose customers are manufacturers, down to the Cyber Resilience Act evidence those customers ask for. Whoever sells it as a cloud service has had to enable switching to another provider in the contract since 12 September 2025, and from 12 January 2027 may charge nothing for it, custom-built services aside (Data Act); that belongs in the pricing model. As Business Owner of the Bosch IoT Suite, I was accountable for exactly that.
EntryGo-to-market audit or Interim Head of Sales, GTM or Product
Deals stall in procurement and security
The technology works, but sales cycles drag on for no visible reason, and prices are renegotiated on every deal.
EntryGo-to-market audit, then Interim Head of Sales or GTM
No paying industrial customer yet
For early startups, one question comes before any sales plan: which customer is the product built for first, and what will they pay for it?
EntryGo-to-market audit including interviews with prospective customers, then Fractional Head of Go-to-Market
Entering German industry
Teams from Greece, the US or elsewhere that want to sell to German and European manufacturers: how buying works there, which evidence is demanded and who becomes the first reference customer.
EntryGo-to-market audit, then Interim Head of Sales or GTM
Investors with an industrial or deep-tech portfolio
Commercial and tech due diligence before the investment, portfolio support after it, for several portfolio companies through one contact if you want.
EntryAudit as due diligence or board advisor
Before sales scales
Six questions to settle before the next sales hire.
Growing a sales team helps only once these questions are answered. The go-to-market audit settles them for your company, in writing and with priorities.
MarketWhich customer has the problem, and who buys there?
Use case and valueWhich use case gets the first contract signed, and what is it worth to the customer?
From pilot to contractWhat does the customer measure the pilot by, and who approves and signs: the business unit, procurement, security, legal?
Price and business modelWhat does the customer pay for what, what does the product earn after the sale, and who may grant discounts?
Sales motionIs the path from first call to close documented and repeatable by others?
Team and leadershipWho leads sales, who else is needed, and who takes over after an interim mandate?
The buying table
What stands between pilot and framework agreement.
The pilot is often paid for by a plant or an innovation budget, the framework agreement is signed by central purchasing. In between lie checks that hardly any sales plan allows for.
Supplier onboarding
Registration in the supplier portal, a code of conduct, a self-assessment and audit rights, before a new supplier can be awarded a contract.
Information security
In automotive TISAX, elsewhere mostly ISO 27001; a TISAX label is valid for three years. For products on the shop floor, customers increasingly ask for IEC 62443, for example 4-1 for the development process and 4-2 for the components.
NIS2
Since 6 December 2025, an estimated 29,500 entities in Germany have had to take measures for supply-chain security, including their relationships with direct suppliers and service providers (§ 30(2) no. 4 BSIG). Suppliers receive it as questionnaires and contract clauses.
Cyber Resilience Act
From 11 December 2027, manufacturers must exercise due diligence when integrating third-party components so that they do not compromise the product’s cybersecurity (Article 13(5)). Whoever supplies software, modules or a platform gets asked about it.
Works council
If a solution can monitor the performance or behaviour of employees, the works council has a say (§ 87(1) no. 6 BetrVG). That touches many IoT and AI projects on the shop floor.
Payment terms
Payment terms of more than 60 days are valid only if expressly agreed and not grossly unfair to the supplier (§ 271a BGB); in the customer’s purchasing terms, anything over 30 days is presumed unreasonably long (§ 308 no. 1a BGB). Agreed terms average 32.5 days, yet 81% of companies report late payments, and in automotive receivables stay open for 72 days on average (Coface 2025). For a startup, that is cash.
Offering 03 · Go-to-Market
From the audit to the handover.
I use pipeline tools and agents where they measurably help. With industrial customers, deals still close between people who trust each other.
Four formats, each with a result.
The next step is always optional.
Go-to-market audit
Entry · 4 weeks · fixed fee
What it isThe six questions for your company: customer interviews, pipeline and deal review, a pricing benchmark against comparable platform businesses. For early startups, interviews with prospective industrial customers instead of a pipeline review; for investors, as commercial due diligence.
ResultA written memo with prioritised recommendations, a kickoff and a closing workshop; optionally a briefing for the board or investors.
Fractional Head of Go-to-Market
Retainer · 2–8 days a month
What it isPart-time ownership of go-to-market for companies that do not yet need a full-time head of sales: market and use case, pricing, pipeline review and the first enterprise deals through procurement and security.
ResultA sales path your team can repeat, and the point at which a permanent hire pays off.
Interim Head of Sales, GTM, Pre-Sales or Product
Interim · 3–9 months
What it isIn a line role: building the sales motion and the pre-sales team, C-level champion relationships, pricing discipline, and for platform companies product management, use cases and the roadmap.
ResultA team that keeps working without me, and a permanent successor with a documented handover.
Board advisor
Retainer
What it isQuarterly sparring on the sales motion, pricing and growth for founders, boards and investors, across several portfolio companies if you want.
ResultDecisions on market, price and team that are prepared at board level rather than made inside a deal.
Business Owner of the Bosch IoT Suite: from internal platform to commercial enterprise offering, with full P&L responsibility for the third-party business.
~40 FTE
GTM, pre-sales, partners
Accountability for go-to-market, solutions architecture, pre-sales and partner management.
25 years
platform sales across industries
Industrial platform sales across industries such as automotive, manufacturing, energy and building technology: the playbook for those accounts, and why procurement and security stall deals.
“Kai is in the top five of ecosystem builders globally. He connects people, products, ideas and technical architectures. He creates flow in meetings and events — a talent that becomes more and more important in the age of AI, in which the latter can take over some skills but never personality.”
RvK
Rob van Kranenburg
Founder, IoT Day · Vice Chair, IEEE 6G WG
LinkedIn · May 2026
“I have worked with Kai for many years, even before he became my customer (and partner). Kai has the unique talent of knowing technology in depth, while understanding business priorities, building communities and being a human that everyone wants to work with. This is a unique and rare combination in the tech world. Kai is a great leader to work with for IoT, AI and across verticals. He is curious and learning fast by being hands on. Hope to continue working with him for more years.”
DS
Dimitrios Spiliopoulos
Worldwide Lead Smart Machines (IoT & Physical AI) · AWS
LinkedIn · May 2026
What people usually ask.
We already have a head of sales. What do you do differently?
Your head of sales knows your product. I know the table where it gets decided: since 2001 I have been part of selling industrial platforms, at ProSyst as product manager from pre-sales to close, at Bosch as Business Owner accountable for third-party revenue; I negotiated deals through to signature myself. I know which checks these deals stall at.
Isn’t this just classic sales consulting?
The difference is the industry and the delivery. I work only for companies that sell connected products, platforms or industrial technology, and on an interim mandate I take a line role rather than advising from the side.
We have no paying industrial customer yet. Is this too early?
No. Then the go-to-market audit runs interviews with prospective customers instead of a pipeline review.
We come from abroad. How do we reach German industrial customers?
Through a first reference customer, and through the checks every industrial customer asks for, the first one included: supplier onboarding, information security, NIS2 clauses in the contract. I work from Gevelsberg and Athens, in German and English.
How is the fee structured?
Day rate or fixed fee as the base. On mandates where I own the sales motion myself, part of it can move into a success-based component or advisor equity, so I take a share of the risk. I offer that only where I can move the outcome. The reverse also holds: no company I am invested in that way enters a selection process I run in an advisory mandate. The same goes for due diligence and go-to-market: before a mandate starts, you hear which companies in your market I work for or hold a stake in.
Do you work with investors?
Yes. Due diligence runs on your deal timetable: the red flags first, then a memo your investment committee can use. Commercial DD on market, pipeline and pricing; tech DD down to the firmware. After the deal, interim mandates. For several portfolio companies: an audit per company, then board advisor across all of them. What repeats across the portfolio becomes visible earlier that way.
Confidential, no obligation.
Let’s have a conversation.
The introductory call is confidential, with no obligation.
