Corporations - GrowthX

Commercializing Innovation

Conventional corporate wisdom fails to address the challenges involved in creating markets for disruptive new products: the time required to educate customers and learn how they will use it, the inevitable design modifications to satisfy customers, and the development of a repeatable sales model.

Products are not born market-ready. Companies launching a disruptive product must follow a market development process that unfolds through the give-and-take between the company and its customers.

Market Development

We have adapted our deep expertise in helping hundreds of early stage companies find product-market fit to helping large corporations commercialize innovation.

We operate as your Market Development team, working hand-in-hand with technology and product development teams, and business unit management, to commercialize innovative new products.

Insights for Corporate Innovation

Your Product is not Market Ready…and that’s okay!

CBInsights reported that 78% of corporate innovation focuses on iterating the status quo, rather than on disruptive risks. In our experience, that’s because companies with existing products and recognizable market and mind share mistakenly employ the same processes used to increase existing product revenue when focused on corporate innovation and working to launch a new innovative product. They also turn to emerging managers with a track record of following corporate processes and mitigating risk.

Corporate innovation is messy, new products are not born fully baked and the market response is not predictable. Discontinuous innovation creates true behavioral change and, therefore, requires a different framework – one that positions market development alongside of product development, with team characteristics that reward a growth mindset focused on problems, not products, and embrace ambiguity, a high tolerance for failure and a genuine love of learning.

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“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

CB Insights reported that high-performing companies do less “ad hoc” corporate innovation. They reported that the majority don’t have processes for corporate innovation ideation and development phases. But, as Mike Tyson famously said, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

In our experience, where companies do have a plan for corporate innovation it relies on standard corporate practices with lengthy approval processes and an over-reliance on product marketers, mature-product sales teams and the same general management who are charged with stewardship of existing business lines.

Innovation has nothing to do with the stage of the company; it’s all about the stage of the product.

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Setting corporate innovation objectives is important, but learning must precede revenue.

CB Insights reported that 85% of companies use revenue as a success metric. Setting measurable objectives is important, but using existing-product metrics – such as revenue – to judge the success of corporate innovation virtually guarantees its failure.

Launching a new innovative product is an experiment in search of a business model. Companies must resist the temptation to immediately generate revenue by engaging their existing sales force. Instead, companies should follow a market development framework designed to discover the purpose for which customers will use it and how they will buy it.

Following a market development framework establishes a functioning learning organization to test hypotheses with its customers and iterate based on feedback to find your truth faster about where your proposed product fits in the market (if at all).

Companies that immediately focus on revenue impede (if not prohibit) learning which is the backbone of sustainable innovation, create false expectations which can hurt team morale, and risk missing major growth opportunities by not giving corporate innovation a chance to develop.

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Corporate Traning

At GrowthX Academy, we’re training modern marketers, entrepreneurial sales people and user experience designers to succeed in the innovation economy.

We’ve adapted our professionally developed curriculum to help our clients design and deploy continuous learning programs to attract, develop and retain top innovation talent and close the innovation skills gap.

Innovative Mindset

Launching an innovative new product requires a different set of skills and characteristics then typically held by product marketers, mature-product sales teams and the general management relied on to incrementally grow revenue from existing business lines.

Market Development Framework

Corporate innovation requires people who have been trained to follow a market development framework designed to discover the purpose for which customers will use it and how they will buy it.

In-Person Learning

Our live workshops, on-demand micro-learning modules and ongoing learning programs teach and train employees on growth marketing, entrepreneurial sales, design thinking and user experience design.

68% of employees prefer to learn at work

58% of employees want to learn at their own pace

49% of employees want to learn in the flow of work

Source: LinkedIn 2018 Workplace Learning Report

Effective Open Innovation

We leverage our global startup network and create meaningful engagements and investment opportunities to help our clients explore new technologies and business models, and accelerate new technology development and product innovation.

As leading venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, our GrowthX Capital team is immersed in the largest startup scene globally. We screen thousands of startups annually.

Our startup network is further extended around the world through close relationships with leading early-stage investors, active mentorship at top startup accelerators, and our GrowthX Academy alumni and mentor network.

Interactions With Startups Becoming “Mission Critical”

At an overwhelming 82%, corporations now view interactions with startups as “somewhat important” to “very important”, and 23% indicated that these interactions were “mission critical”. Innovation efforts, it seems, are no longer just nice-to-have programs within corporations.

Corporate Innovation Models Are Still In Their Infancy

While 86% of large organizations view innovation as crucial to their future, most of their current attempts to work with startups to further that objective are early stage, underfunded, and scattershot—such that 25% of corporations aren’t even sure how much they’re spending.

Source: The State of Startup/Corporate Collaboration

Global Network

Our global network of startups compliments our clients’ internal research and development efforts through open innovation.

Bespoke Market Accelerators

Our white-labeled market development accelerator programs encourage entrepreneurship and innovation, and act as a valuable filter to identify the most viable opportunities.

Effective Corporate Venturing

Our venture investing advisory helps our clients effectively deploy corporate venture capital to:

Closely observe new business and revenue models, and spot areas of future growth.
Invest in startups that directly or indirectly stimulate demand for existing product lines.
Refresh the corporate brand and enable it to attract and retain top talent.
Reveal acquisition targets before competitors discover them.

Case Study: From Pivot to Profit

Leading prodiver of consumer, business-to-business, and indistrial digital imaging solutions.

Problem
Develop a proprietary software system for the commercial photography market and customers will use the product “as is” under the products existing constraints.

Discovery
The market wanted to develop custom solutions around the core patented areas of the platform. This required the company to open up the platform via an Application Program Interface (API).

Results
This pivot created a new market opportunity and revenue stream for a legacy hardware business and grew the new customer base 300% in the first year.
Case Study: From Food Ingredients to SAAS

International chemical conglomerate selling to large enterprise clients.

Problem
Build an end-to-end software solution to help current customers research, develop and produce new food products more rapidly

Discovery
Customers want a recommendation engine with turn-key recipes, ingredients and production management based on real-time consumer trends.

Results
Created competetive advantage leading to competitor displacements, upsells and higher revenue per customer. In first year alone, they acquired 12 new SaaS customers.
Case Study: Startup Scouting + Acceleration

Global parts manufacturer in the mobility sector

Problem
Struggling to build, scale and consolidate a corporate venturing practice that regularly attracts relevant startups sufficiently along the path to commercialization.

Discovery
Slow-footed and unfocused processes and rules. Misaligning goals and incentives. Limited visibility into where startups are with commercialization.

Results
Balance sheet fund with clearly defined strategic and financial goals, along with a corporate-branded market accelerator to attract high-performing startups, provide real strategic help to build corporate reputation and efficiently increase “hit rate” for co-development opportunities.