Thank you for being with us for the second month of our new blog. In case you missed any posts, here is a recap, beginning with, in chronological order, the lastest installments in our ongoing series on getting technology to market, The Commercialization Ecosystem, which explored startup incubation, the right stuff entrepreneurs need to succeed and other pearls of wisdom.
This is the ninth article in a continuing series that examines the state of the ecosystem necessary to successfully bring technology to market. Based on dozens of interviews with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, business leaders, academics, tech-transfer experts and policy makers, this series looks at what is working and what can be improved in the go-to-market ecosystem in the United States, Canada and Britain. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
There is a German proverb that states, “An old error is always more popular than a new truth.”
This is often evident in the business of getting technology to market, particularly among nascent entrepreneurs and startup management teams who are coming into the process of commercialization well-versed in the engineering of a product but not so much in the fundamentals of business planning, customer engagement and market development.
This is the eighth article in a continuing series that examines the state of the ecosystem necessary to successfully bring technology to market. Based on dozens of interviews with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, business leaders, academics, tech-transfer experts and policy makers, this series looks at what is working and what can be improved in the go-to-market ecosystem in the United States, Canada and Britain. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
“A startup is ultimately … not just about whether an idea or a product works, it is about whether or not you can create a business around it. Whether or not the ecosystem will support it, the customers will buy it, if the channels will support it, and if the manufacturers will actually create it. And because of that, we need to be able to test all these different facets of our business model, and do so quickly.”
This comes from someone Forbes calls “the most powerful woman in startups,” Ann Miura-Ko, co-founding partner with FLOODGATE. In October, she gave a lecture at Stanford University titled “Funding Thunder Lizard Entrepreneurs,” which is filled with so much insight we were tempted to just transcribe the whole damned thing and offer it up as a blog post of its own. However, her talk is available as a conveniently indexed webcast.
This is the next contribution to this blog by Associate Phil Newman, a London-based marketing and commercialization strategist for technology companies. Phil’s post is part of our continuing series about the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market. We welcome your comments.
By Phil Newman
Yield management involves the strategic control of inventory to sell it to the right customer at the right time for the right price. Book your flight to New York two days before you’re due to fly and you’ll get the idea of purchasing at the top end. Rather than considering late booking as a negative, why not apply airline pricing to your business to create demand among early buyers, or early adopters?
Airline pricing is an art that has helped airlines grow revenues and price their services to align with seasonal shifts, Icelandic volcanoes and the vagaries of economic downturns. Robert Crandall, former chairman and CEO of American Airlines, gave yield management its name and defined it as “the single most important technical development in transportation management since we entered deregulation.”
This is the seventh article in a continuing series that examines the state of the ecosystem necessary to successfully bring technology to market. Based on dozens of interviews with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, business leaders, academics, tech-transfer experts and policy makers, this series looks at what is working and what can be improved in the go-to-market ecosystem in the United States, Canada and Britain. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
“Nothing disheartens me more than meeting an entrepreneur in B.C. who says his ambition is to one day conquer the Ontario market,” Anthony Lee, general partner at Altos Ventures and co-founder of the C100, told us in an interview a few months back.
While building a globally competitive company may not be the right objective for everyone, Lee makes a key point. For any venture to succeed, its founders must have a vision that will stretch the boundaries of what they know and challenge what they believe is attainable.
