Startup support for grown-ups
The startup world is growing up. There is an all time high in startup success rate often resulting into exits, which means the group of experienced startup founders restarting is growing each year. Many of them value a support system but don’t feel at home at the traditional incubators that focus on newbies. As serial startup founders volunteering as startup coaches ourselves, we asked each other: ‘Could we create something to cater the experienced founder?’
When looking at a year-to-year comparison of both the number of startups worldwide and their global success rate, 2016 shows a percentage of successful startup companies has hit an all time high. New startups are constantly entering competitive markets with both brilliant ideas and cutting-edge technologies. This influx of innovation has created an increasingly welcoming environment for aspiring entrepreneurs — these don’t always fit the stereo type graduated techies-in-a-garage with a brilliant unpolished computer related idea struggling to turn that into a business case for the first time in their lives. There is an exponential increase of digital nomads, intrapreneurs, social entrepreneurs, female venture formulas and many other variations on the traditional startup founders resume. Which is a good thing because the world is in dire need of innovations to help tackle today’s challenges like climate change and the depletion of resources.
Besides getting more diverse, the maturity of the startup scene has also resulted in an increasing rise of serial startup founders, freelance innovators, full-time startup investors, CEO’s for hire and even entire rogue teams tackling today’s challenges and turning them into startup solutions over and over again.
The problem
At this moment, most startup programs are set up around the idea that the startup team they incubate or accelerate has little to no experience, needs to be trained in every single step of starting a business, lack network and have the time to commit full-time to a program on a single location. Add to that, that the startup of tomorrow might be a circular one (which means that they need to co-create a business case with public and corporate partners over a much longer period of time) and the question arises if we need new formats to support these more grown-up startups.
The solution
What would support for an experienced innovator look like? We decided to bring a group of experienced startup founders, coaches and researchers together and see if we could design a different way of supporting individuals, teams, and organisations that are trying to innovate.
Here’s what we found: startup support for grown-up startup founders should…
- be flexible, iterative (agile) and decentralised. In other words: tailored to their needs, schedule, and location;
- treat them as experts in their field. This will help them spend more time on the things they do well and less on the things they don’t;
- foster collaboration by facilitating it with other stakeholders and peers;
- give access to partners outside their own field of expertise that are willing to contribute instead of just give advice;
- maximise their efforts: help reduce the waste of time and money on things they don’t really need. Be effective and fun! If support helps them save time, energy and money they have no problem giving time, energy and money in return.
Designing for the grown-up startup founder with Innovat10n
So we’re aiming for a solution that puts the startup founder in charge, offers them agility in the process and gives them the opportunity to collaborate with peers. We’ve come up with a system that enables tailor made support in a standardised way.
Mix & match
The basic idea is a system of 10 building blocks, the innovat10n elements, that enables us to help the startup founder build their own innovation process. The aim is to provide them with flexible and experienced teammates skilled in one or two building blocks, which can support them when needed. This mix & match process is facilitated by their personal innovation coach that keeps up the pace, plans the innovation process and creates a safe environment for them to innovate in.
Together with the innovation coach the founder mixes and matches innovation elements into a startup journey that fits their idea and facilitates building a business that can make real impact by amplifying their strengths, not their weaknesses.
Innovat10n is never finished
We designed the innovat10n card to look like and old fashioned 10 fare bus ticket. It shows that the startup founder stays in charge of the duration, destination and themes of the journey. They might even take the same bus every day if they want to. The fares themselves are categorised in the 10 most important elements needed for a successful innovation journey. The innovat10n card symbolises that even though you are in charge of your own startup adventure you don’t have to do it alone: it makes sense to ask other experts to help you on this journey.
Are you finished after 10 rides? Most likely not, but they brought your innovation one step or maybe even 10 steps closer to its endgoal. We believe 10 steps should be sufficient to make a full iteration.
How does it work in practice?
For example, if a venture is trying to find the right way to show the positive impact they are making, we’ll co-design the impact indicators with them. Does a venture need to build an MVP (or a RAT) to validate their business case, then we’ll design and build it with them. In case they need to scale the business case, we will focus on marketing and growth.
Just three examples of three different innovat10n elements used to strengthen the innovation power of a venture.
Apart from the innovation coach, who is always there to guide the process and make the right choices in collaboration with the founder, the founder is free to choose the innovat10n elements that they need.
What do you think?
Do you recognise the challenges mentioned above? Would the solution we’ve created work for you? We would love to hear your feedback!
