UCL Module: 4.(a) Sustainable Entrepreneurship and the route to commercialisation
Steps in the entrepreneur journey. Not just the ‘heroic’ entrepreneur. What is different for sustainability-related entrepreneurs? The kinds of support in the ecosystem. highlight: Real stories.
This short SubStack series gives a weekly key insight from the Masters module I co-teach on 'Innovation and Sustainability in Business'. All those posts are gathered on this page. The Atelier of What's Next WeekNotes continue in parallel.
This week:
Overview of this lecture/chapter.
Steps in the entrepreneur journey.
Not just the ‘heroic’ entrepreneur.
What is different for sustainability-related entrepreneurs?
The kinds of support in the ecosystem.
Highlight: real stories around startups
The Startup CEO 1
The Startup CEO 2
The Startup Chief Product Officer and Chief Operating Officer
The incubator/tech transfer (Global South)
The incubators
The Tech for Good VC Founder
The Climate Deeptech VC Fund founder
The Angel investor and serial entrepreneur
The Agile Innovator
Next week: sustainable finance!
Overview of this lecture/chapter.
This post is on the fourth lecture.
Previous posts covered the overall purpose of the module, the module’s foundational assumptions (the need for transformation; and, how every approach to ‘sustainable business’ is innovation, at some level), the business responses to sustainability crises and, core concepts and issues in innovation economics.
The last post was concerned with how (mostly) large companies go about new product development and managing technology innovation.
In contrast, this post focuses on smaller and newer firms: how do they bring new innovations to market?
Steps in the entrepreneur journey.
A typical way to understand the entrepreneur’s journey is this ‘stylised fact’ of different stages, starting with having an idea and, if successful, going through to selling (‘M&A’=mergers and acquisitions) or going public in an Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Each of the stages in between has its own priorities, and likely sources of sources of funding (listed across the top). These stages are associated with the start-up and Venture Capital (VC) culture of Silicon Valley. Like anything, this approach has weaknesses and shadow-side, from ‘move fast and break things’ to the need for hype and revenue growth (to justify valuations).
In each step, it is important to learn quickly from real experience, as emphasised in practitioner frameworks like Lean Startup. The focus of that learning is different in each step (starting with ‘product-solution’fit, then ‘product-market fit through to how to scale, how to enter new markets and so on).
There are several frameworks for judging the maturity of a start-up, including the NASA Technology Readiness Level.
Not just the ‘heroic’ entrepreneur.
Often entrepreneurs are presented as great heroes. But that underplays the role of a wider innovation ecosystem (see lecture 5 -- forthcoming).
Grubb et al (including Will McDowall, the module lead) argue in ‘On order and complexity in innovations systems’ that there are three pairs co-evolutions which are important to the success of a start up:
1st Pair:
Organisation and supply chain. The core technology and the competence of operations and suppliers.
Customers and standards. The understanding of customers, and the norms they expect.
2nd Pair:
Financing. What funding is available (starting internal, and going wider).
Market regulation. From not known to regulators(and maybe an unintentional barrier) to supportive and enabling regulations.
3rd Pair:
Infrastructures. Whether can piggyback on existing infrastructures, through to a dedicated provision.
Institutions. The groups, from research to trade association, which support the next step.
An individual start up can be have fantastic, heroic founder and a brilliant product, but still fail if customers are not ready, if the financing available cannot match the need, if the market regulation is negative, if the necessary physical infrastructure is not in place, if the trade bodies do not exist to lobby for the relevant rule changes.
What is different for sustainability-related entrepreneurs?
Founding any new business, based on a new technology or insight, is hard, for all the reasons in that last paragraph (customer and supply chain not ready, financing not available, regulations a barrier, incumbent trade bodies opposed).
But our experience is that sustainability-related businesses face extra challenges on top:
Customer markets may not yet exist. (They may rely on governments using policies to create the markets, for instance carbon trading to make a market for avoiding carbon emissions.)
Competing against deeply-embedded incumbents already far along the learning curve.
If part of different economic model (e.g. circular economy), very hard to do piecemeal.
Exposed to changes in regulations and political risk.
Size of the prize for individual company might be smaller than non-sustainable alternatives (make it hard to attract talent.)
The kinds of support in the ecosystem.
There are different kinds of support for a startup entrepreneur, often focussed on: a specific sector or challenge, and/or a specific stages. Some types, with examples, are:
A Venture Builder starts with talented people, sometimes before they even have an idea). Example: Zinc, which says “we select and invest in founders who can impact at scale on the health and/or environment of millions of people, using cutting-edge science and technologies”.
Incubators and accelerators work with early stage businesses. Example: The Greenhouse calls itself “Europe's leading climate innovation accelerator programme”, and is part of Undaunted, a partnership between Imperial College London and the Royal Institution, which is fostering a thriving innovation ecosystem aimed at the climate challenge.
Technology Transfer here refers to spinning a technology out of an academic setting. Social Alpha is an example in India (more below).
The impact investing space has new types of institution, including impact enabler. The Conduit Connect has described itself like that, as it ‘sources and connects the most promising high growth impact investing opportunities to mission aligned investors’.
(Full disclosure, David Bent is an advisor to businesses in both Zinc and The Greenhouse. He also has an investment with the Conduit Connect EIS Fund, which makes up under 5% of his Net Worth.)
Highlight: real stories around startups
These summaries of the lectures tend to focus on the key concepts. There isn’t enough space, or time, to put in the examples and stories we use to bring the concepts to life. (If you want a version with the stories, then tell us that you want us to write a book! We’d be glad of the evidence, for ourselves and for any prospective publisher.)
Over the last few years, the module has been accompanied by a podcast, ‘Innovation for Sustainability’, where David interviews practitioners to give students the grit under the fingernails of real experience (website, Apple, Spotify, elsewhere).
There are 19 episodes live at the time of writing (with 2 more recorded but not released). There have been over 5,000 downloads. (I’ve just realised that I should add a listing at the end of this series of lecture excerpts, with an index of all the episodes.)
Anyway, some of these interviews are with startups or the various parts of the support ecosystem. Here are the most relevant ones, with a little teaser of what we talk about.
The Startup CEO 1
The Startup CEO 2
The Startup Chief Product Officer and Chief Operating Officer
The incubator/tech transfer (Global South)
The incubators
The ‘Tech for Good’ VC Founder
The Climate Deeptech VC Fund founder
The Angel investor and serial entrepreneur
The Agile Innovator
The Startup CEO 1
Chris Bean is Serial Entrepreneur, Technology Developer, and Edmund Hillary Fellow (LinkedIn). He is the CEO and co-founder of REVOLUTION Turbine Technologies (RTT).
RTT is “developing reliable, scalable, and green energy solutions for powering mission-critical equipment in remote locations” as part of “the world’s transition to a sustainable energy future”.
The Startup CEO 2
Kyle Grant is Founder at Oxwash, an on-demand and laundry service made simple and sustainable (LinkedIn).
The Startup Chief Product Officer and Chief Operating Officer
Shama Skinner is an executive, entrepreneur, advisory Board Member and Edmund Hillary Fellow (LinkedIn). She was an early team member of Thinx Inc, the company with sustainable solutions to menstruation and incontinence. Shama had spells as Chief Product Officer, Chief Operating Officer and interim CEO.
The incubator/tech transfer (Global South)
Manoj Kumar (LinkedIn) is co-founder and CEO of Social Alpha, a “multistage innovation curation and venture development platform for science and technology start-ups that aim to address the most critical social, economic and environmental challenges”.
The incubators
Alyssa Gilbert is the Director of Innovation at Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment. She is the boss of the second speaker, Naveed Chaudhry who is Head of The Greenhouse at the Centre for Climate Change Innovation, now known as Undaunted, at Imperial College.
The ‘Tech for Good’ VC Founder
Paul Miller (LinkedIn, personal website) is Managing Partner and CEO of Bethnal Green Ventures, which is “Europe’s leading early-stage tech for good VC”.
Our conversation covers how to run a ‘Tech for Good’ VC, including having a selection process that works, and investing in ambitious, leading-edge companies.
The Climate Deeptech VC Fund founder
Beverley Gower-Jones is the Founder and Managing Partner of the Clean Growth Fund, which” invests in companies with products and services focussed on driving clean growth in the low carbon economy”.
The Angel investor and serial entrepreneur
Adam Parr is an Oxford-based barrister researching law, enterprise, and the environment (website, wikipedia, academic bio). His 30-year career has encompassed finance, law, industry, and sport. Since 2012, Adam has helped build a number of companies as a VC investor and founder.
The Agile Innovator
Chris Gagné is an Enterprise Agile Coach, Meditation Teacher, and Edmund Hillary Fellowship Fellow (LinkedIn). Chris operates through Approach Perfect, as the vehicle for coaching using the agile methods. Previously he has worked for or coached with many Silicon Valley start ups and Fortune 500 companies.
Where we are in the ten lectures
Introduction -- here
0. Situating the module’s perspective:
0.1 The only viable story of the future is transformation. -- here
0.2 Every approach to ‘sustainable business’ is innovation, at some level. – here
1.Business Responses to the Sustainability Crisis – here.
-The recent history of ‘sustainable business’.
-Relating to the academic literature (including stakeholder capitalism).
2.Innovation Economics: Core Concepts and Issues – here.
-What do we mean by innovation.
-Knowledge and intellectual property.
-Learning Processes.
-Technology and product live-cycles
-The diffusion of innovations
3.New Product Development and Managing Technology Innovation – here
-Innovation for sustainability in large and small firms
-Managing technological innovation: Fuzzy front-end, New Product Development and Stage Gates.
-Profiting from innovation
-Open innovation
-Unexpected disruption—and how incumbents get surprised
-Strategic management and innovation: dynamic capabilities
4.(a) Sustainable Entrepreneurship and the route to commercialisation – this post
-Steps in the entrepreneur journey.
-Not just the ‘heroic’ entrepreneur.
-What is different for sustainability-related entrepreneurs?
-The kinds of support in the ecosystem.
Still to come:
4.(b) Sustainable Finance.
5.Innovation (eco)system – beyond the cult of the entrepreneur.
6.Sustainable innovation in a digital age.
7.Sustainability Strategy and Scenario Planning.
8.Transitions and The Bigger Picture.
9.Public Policy for Sustainability-Oriented Innovation.
10.Exploring Innovation and Sustainability through a Case Study.
Appendix: ‘innovation for Sustainability’ podcast episodes