Work the segments in this order. Design-partnership labs come first (rows 0a and 0b): they are the first-phase revenue (page 22). Labs with a rig get the Software deal; labs without one get the Hardware deal. Each row is labelled by how sure we are: [MEASURED] = backed by a committed artifact; [REPORTED] = stated by the plan or a contact, not independently verified; [HYPOTHESIS] = a guess we are testing. Never upgrade a label in anything a prospect reads.
| Rank | Segment | Fit | Why it is where it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0a | Labs that already record holograms → Software Design Partnership (page 22) | High | [HYPOTHESIS] University holography/interferometry groups and biomedical QPI/DHM labs. Pain: home-grown scripts, reproducibility, reviewer/auditor questions. A fixed $10,000 engagement funds the first phase and produces the comparison artifact everything else is waiting on. Named targets in design-partner-targets.csv (sign-in). Work these first, 3 a day. |
| 0b | Labs and QA benches with no rig → Hardware Design Partnership (page 22) | High | [HYPOTHESIS] Teaching labs, core facilities, industrial lab-side QA benches (micro-optics, MEMS, semiconductor surfaces) and biology/materials groups that want 3D surface or thickness measurement. Pain: a $100K+ commercial holographic microscope is out of reach. $25,000, our capture instrument built to order (none shipped yet). Lab-side only. |
| 1 | University labs (ICP1) | Medium | [REPORTED] They own a rig, the product works for them as it stands, and we hold ~82 named, contactable people. Their budget clears a single signature. This is the credibility engine, not the revenue engine. |
| 2 | Open-hardware / DIY sub-segment | High | [REPORTED] Reconstruction from scratch is genuinely hard for them and nobody wrote them a script. They live in public forums, so they are reachable for free (page 18). |
| 3 | Calibration & testing labs (Track 2 test) | Unknown | [HYPOTHESIS] They may hear "our customers ask for measurements we can't do today." We do not know yet — page 19 is the test, by phone, not a campaign. |
| 4 | Micro-optics makers' production lines (ICP2) | High fit, closed | GROUNDWORK ONLY. DO NOT APPROACH. (A lab-side QA bench at a research institute or university is row 0b, not this row.) Industrial readiness gates are not yet met. Keep the list; do not email or call. A failed first approach here costs years. |
| 5 | Semiconductor failure analysis (NEW) | Medium | [HYPOTHESIS] One exploratory call is worth having; it needs none of the industrial gates. No list yet. |
How each segment hears it (the full table is on page 14): biomedical QPI/DHM = reproducibility and continuity, research tooling, never diagnosis; university holography/interferometry = frame + settings → result ID → methods citation; industrial QA = a lab-side comparison against their reference measurement, no in-plant or line-speed promise. Every lab enters the pipeline through the workflow-fit check (page 24).
Everything else (production-line MEMS, inline semi, medical implants, fiber endface, machining, additive, microfluidics, pharma, water) is hold — not this year.
[REPORTED] The pain does not hum in the background; it arrives in bursts:
Those are the moments a lab will try something new. What we honestly offer into that moment is a hosted reconstruction that returns the same answer for the same input and config, with a provenance record anyone can recompute. Note what is not the pitch here: reconstruction quality is not our wedge to this segment — a fifth of the list maintain their own reconstruction software, so quality is their home turf, not a pain.
A design partnership with an industrial QA or metrology lab is a lab-side engagement (Software or Hardware): their frames, or our instrument, stay on the lab bench and results come from the hosted service. It does not need the in-plant gates. A production line that needs the service inside the plant, a line-speed result or a station is still ICP2: log it on page 21, do not sell into it. Production micro-optics makers remain do-not-approach.
Describe this segment, internally and to the operator, only as "industrial readiness gates not yet met." Do not enumerate the specific product defects, do not put defect detail in anything shareable, and do not contact anyone in it. When an industrial inquiry finds you, it goes on page 21, not into a sales conversation.
The semiconductor failure-analysis conversation (rank 5) needs none of the industrial gates and is worth exactly one call to learn from. Treat it as discovery, not a pipeline.
Buyer pages to pair with this page: biomedical QPI · holography labs · industrial QA. Pipeline stages and KPIs: page 00.