ADAPTIVE INNOVATION

This book provides a framework for translating ideas from the academic laboratory to commercial ventures. The book is designed for academic researchers (advanced PhD students, post-doctoral fellows, university faculty and staff) who believe their research ideas could be the basis for a commercial venture. The book contains a complete program to create their entrepreneurial ecosystem by enabling scientist entrepreneurs to drive their discoveries to commercial impact. The authors from MIT and SMART have been working with academic researchers in Singapore for over ten years to help them de-risk an idea for an early-stage technology-based venture to prepare them to raise capital and initiate a NewCo. We developed a set of best practices during this work by teaching over 300 scientists, researchers, and postdocs in our Bootcamp for academic researchers and providing them with the tools to be scientist entrepreneurs. These teams have gone on to start over 44 companies. Through our real-time experience in working with academic researchers, supplemented with our personal experience in technology start-ups, we developed the Adaptive Innovation™ Framework. It is a must-read for any researcher, scientist, or engineer in the deep-tech area who wants to drive their discovery to commercial success and achieve societal impact.

Contents:

• Before You Start:
  • Introduction
  • The Necessity of a Mindset Change
  • The Six Steps to Facilitate Mindset Change
  • Establishing a 360° Field of Vision
  • Forming the Team
  • Be Mindful of Your Assumptions
  • Using New Knowledge and Converging Technology
  • Constant Vigilance
• Adaptive Innovation^™ Framework:
  • Introduction
  • The Adaptive Innovation^™ Framework
• Your Technology:
  • Introduction
  • Surveying Your Technology
• Opportunity Matrix and Decisions Matrix:
  • Introduction
  • Opportunity Matrix
  • Developing an Opportunity Matrix
  • Evaluating Your Opportunity Matrix
  • Creating an Opportunity Priority List
  • Technology Centrality
  • The Decision Matrix
• Value Proposition:
  • Introduction
  • Known vs Unknown Market Demand
  • Job to be Done (JTBD)
  • From JTBD to Exponential Benefits
  • From Opportunity Matrix to Value Proposition
  • Understand the Drivers of Technology Step Change
  • Current and Future Scenarios of Your Innovation
  • Value Proposition Design
  • Prepare Your Value Proposition
  • Testing Your Value Proposition
  • Working Backwards from the Customer
  • Component vs Whole Product
• Customer Discovery:
  • How to Implement Customer Discovery
  • Remember: Entrepreneurship is a Contact Sport
  • Structure of the Interview
  • Conducting Customer Interviews
  • Voice of the Customer: What are the Critical Quality Attributes (CQAs)?
  • Guide to Interviewing
• Beachhead Markets and Customers:
  • Introduction
  • Beachhead Market & BUTA
  • From Beachhead Customers to Mainstream
  • Adoption of New Technology
• Do You Have Problem Solution Fit?:
  • Introduction
  • Positioning Your Product Against Competition
  • Competitive Analysis
  • JTBD Feature Comparison Chart
  • Analyzing Barriers to Market Entry
  • Summary
• Target Product Profile:
  • Introduction
  • Target Product Profile
  • Constructing a TPP
  • Use of the TPP across the Product Life Cycle
  • A Case Study in Drafting a TPP
  • Target Product Profile (TPP) Template
  • Linking the TPP to the Development Roadmap
• Development Roadmap for the Pilot Commercial Product:
  • Introduction
  • Executing Your Plan
  • Development Roadmap
  • Product Development Roadmap
  • Value Cycle
  • POC Prototype
  • Commercial Prototype
  • Creating the Product Development Roadmap
• Funding and Resource Planning for Developing the Pilot Commercial Product:
  • Introduction
  • Development Phase (I)
• Advanced Roadmapping:
  • Introduction
  • Regulatory Requirements to Sell Your Product
  • Brief Tutorial of Regulatory Issues
  • Healthcare Product Approval Types
  • Team Expansion
  • Is your Core Team Correct?
  • Entrepreneurs are Builders
  • Beyond Your Core Team, What Other Manpower Expertise is Required
• Beyond the Beachhead Customer:
  • Introduction
  • Expanding Your Market
  • Marketing, Sales and Distribution to the Customer
  • Types of Buyers
  • Place (Sales Channels, Strategic Partnering in Sales)
  • Sales Process Evolution
  • Strategic Partners
  • Interactive Case Study
  • Angiotech Pharmaceuticals
• Business Economic Model:
  • Introduction
  • Value Creation and Value Capture
  • Who is Your Customer? Who Pays?
  • Markets & Market Sizing
  • When to Use Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approach for Market Sizing
  • The Business Value Chain
  • Unit Pricing Analysis (Margin Matters)
  • Revenue Model
  • Developing the Business Economic Model: Laying the Foundations for a Financial Plan
  • Developing a Financial Plan for the Project
  • Financial Plan Development for the Spin-off
  • Cash Flow Analysis
• Is Your Business Viable?:
  • Introduction
  • Mind of the Investor
  • Stage of Investment
  • Valuation (Pre and Post Money)
  • Exit (IPO or Acquisition)
  • Return on Investment (ROI)
  • Let's Determine If Your Proposed Venture Can Attract Investors
• How to Attract Investors:
  • Introduction
  • The Different Types of Investors in Your Ecosystem
  • Investing Domains
  • What Return Do Investors Want
• Preparing Your Pitch Deck for Angel and Seed Investors:
  • Introduction
  • Preparing to Pitch
  • Creating Your Pitch Deck
  • Pitching to the Correct Investor
  • What You Need to Prepare

Readership: Entrepreneurs, managers, academic lecturers, management researchers, undergraduates, and postgraduates interested in entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology management.

Key Features:

• Contains a complete program with case studies, examples, and templates
• Rich content written in a story-telling style
• Shows the lives and case studies of scientist entrepreneurs as they explored their entrepreneurial journey
• Focuses on translating early-stage laboratory to commercial ventures
• Presents the Adaptive Innovation framework evolved in working with over 300 researchers working with over 125 different technologies in both the life and physical sciences