IDP at the Center for Strategy and Organization
📌 Key facts
- When: Start anytime. Applications are open!
- How to apply: Send us an e-mail (at the end of this page) with your CV, grade report, and research interest.
- 📌 Key facts
- 💡 Background
- 🦾Who We Are
- 🎯 Goals and Topics
- 🎓 Profile
- ➕ Additional Information
- 📝 How to Apply
- 📬 Contact
💡 Background
Deep tech startups are reshaping industries from quantum computing to fusion and advanced robotics. Unlike typical software ventures, these companies often require years of R&D before reaching the market. Building a successful deep tech company means assembling specialized teams that evolve uniquely: early growth is dominated by technical talent, with commercial functions like sales often added only after critical milestones in product development or regulatory approval. Understanding how and when these teams scale globally provides rare insights into the intersection of science, innovation, and business strategy.
🦾Who We Are
I am a PhD student at the Chair focusing on deep tech entrepreneurship. My educational background is in physics, focusing on particle physics and quantum information theory. I am pursuing my PhD during an educational leave from my work as a consultant for the Boston Consulting Group.
The Chair for Strategy and Organization is focused on research with impact. This means we do not want to repeat old ideas and base our research solely on the research people did 10 years ago. Instead, we are currently researching topics that will shape the future. Topics such as Agile Organizations and Digital Disruption, Blockchain Technology, Creativity and Innovation, Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation, Diversity, Education: Education Technology and Performance Management, HRTech, Leadership, and Teams. We are always early in noticing trends, technologies, strategies, and organizations that shape the future, which has its ups and downs.
🎯 Goals and Topics
Our goal is to build a robust web scraping application that can extract the early team developments of deep-tech ventures. This application should then be applied to build a comprehensive dataset of global deep tech startup teams and track their development over time. Ultimately, this data set will allow us to answer questions as to at what stage companies build up specific functions (product teams, account managers, marketing, sales, business development, etc.)? Is there a blueprint for deep tech startups on how they should ideally develop?
The actual technical approach is open to choice. Ideas include, but are not limited to:
- Startup websites / team pages (incl. Wayback Machine)
- Apollo
🎓 Profile
Students should have a strong academic background and, as usual for an IDP, strong hands-experience with coding and ideally web scraping in Python (e.g., using Selenium). Passion for (deep-tech) entrepreneurship is a bonus but not required.
➕ Additional Information
We have a strong base set of high-quality deep-tech startup data available for students to work with, although additional quantitative data gathering and validation will be expected to enrich the existing dataset.
In some cases, multiple students may be jointly developing the same dataset. Collaboration will be encouraged where feasible.
📝 How to Apply
If you are interested, please contact Philipp Sonnenschein via email (Subject: IDP Application Deep Tech Early Team Scaling - [Name]) by submitting your CV, grade report, and tentative start date.
We're greatly looking forward to hearing more about you!
📬 Contact
Philipp Sonnenschein (Chair for Strategy and Organisation)