16 strategies for disruptive innovation.
Accelerator, incubator, CVC, acqui-hire, licensing, entrepreneur-in-residence. Each is good at something different, and most corporations reach for the one they have heard of. This is the venturing toolkit set out side by side, so the objective picks the tool.
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59 pages · PDF and online- Sixteen venturing tools, with what each one is actually good at
- The five reasons corporations venture, and which tool serves which
- Three ways a venture can sit with the parent: spin off, spin in, or spin along
There are more ways to venture than most corporations use.
Corporations tend to pick the vehicle they have heard of and work backwards to a reason for it. A hackathon and a corporate venture capital fund are both venturing, and they answer completely different questions.
Pick the tool from the objective, not from what everyone else is running.
Sixteen tools, five reasons, three ways to hold it.
Start with why you are venturing, choose the tool that serves it, then decide how the venture sits with the parent company.
Be clear what you want out of it
- 1SpeedMoving faster than the core business can
- 2New core businessBuilding the next revenue stream, not a side project
- 3A window on the marketSeeing what is coming before it arrives
- 4RiskSpreading it, rather than carrying it internally
- 5CultureChanging how the organisation behaves
Choose the vehicle that serves that reason
- 6Events and shared resourcesThe lightest way into an ecosystem
- 7Hackathons and challenge prizesIdeas and energy, at low commitment
- 8Scouting missionsSomeone whose job is to find what is next
- 9Accelerators and incubatorsBuilding or growing ventures with structure
- 10Corporate venture capitalBacking rather than building
- 11Mergers, acquisitions and acqui-hiresBuying the capability or the team
- 12Entrepreneurs in residenceFounder capability brought inside
- 13University partnershipsResearch with a route to application
- 14Licensing and mentoringValue from what you already own
Decide how it lives with the parent
- 15Spin offOut on its own, with its own structure
- 16Spin inBack into the business as a unit
- 17Spin alongAlongside the core, neither absorbed nor released
Built to choose from, not to browse.
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