Startup Ecosystem Infrastructure
Who is it for?
For organizations that are part of startup ecosystems Universities Advisory & mentoring organizations Incubators Accelerators Co-working spaces Service Providers (consulting, accounting, legal, etc.) Event organizers Startup Competitions Investor networks VC's companies Crowdfunding Other funding providers (loans, grants etc.) Blogs & Media Other facilitators
For what?
To cater tools for their customer and to manage own service processes 1. Startups 2. Entrepreneurs 3. Investors 4. Innovators 5. Mentors 6. Potential team members 7. Researchers 8. Supporters 9. Own organization key people 10. Other entrepreneurial people
How?
By providing the tools for what each party needs to be able to do, enables 1. to map the organizations & users by verticals and startup stages they cater for 2. to map the startups by what stages they are and what progress they have made & are making 3. do it in real time
Why?
To bring efficiency & transparency to shared startup ecosystem(s) via 1. shared tools & single profiles 2. authentic & open, up to date data 3. automated information sharing & distribution 4. automated updates 5. measurability & trackability
Key stages of a Startup - to help map milestones
Growth Vision & Mission MVP Product Market Fit Scale -2-1 0 1 2 3 Time Ideation Concepting Commitment Validation Scaling Establishing Scalable product or service idea for a big enough target market. Some initial business models for how it would make money. One person or only a vague team; no confirmed commitment or no right balance of skills in the team structure yet. Clear and meaningful target with direction for at least 3 years with milestones how to get there, -> 3, 6, 12, 24, 36 months Team of two or three core founding partners with balanced ownership. Can also already have some extended team with lighter commitment (stock options and or cash compensation) Committed and balanced founding team. Able to develop the product or service (Minimum Viable Product) without dependency of uncommitted external resources, or already an initial product or service in place. Existing signed shareholder agreement between founders, with milestones, committed time and money use, for at least 2+ years with vesting. Can demonstrate some user growth and or revenue (initial traction). Continue to attract additional resources (money or sweat equity) for equity or future revenue. Looking for clear market validation (Product Market Fit), to move into scaling. Showing a clear, growing and measurable user and or market traction in a big or rapidly growing target market. Can and wants to scale fast. May have attracted significant funding. Achieved great growth, that can expected to continue. No longer needs to struggle to get resources and can acquire those easily. Continues to grow and often wants to culturally continue behaving like a "startup" for as long as possible. Founders exit or continue business as usual. Startup Key Stages By This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
Comparing the solution with some of the tools used today.
The problems with existing solutions in organizational use
CRM problems Customers
Problems with typical CRM type solutions Primarily developed for sales operations Internal tool, customer have no access manually update all/most information customer information quickly outdated often many additional custom solutions build with excel limited customization options often need for additional tools for; questionnaires, projects, newsletters, customer information, agreements, registrations etc. Social media activities are separated no or limited connectivity to partners Measuring results is difficult or time consuming follow-up requires separate action, customer response at later time is low, resulting limited data
Social Networks problems LinkedIn Facebook etc. No customized tools / duplicate profiles and information Customers
Problems with Social Networks Not really developed for organizational activities Not developed for Startup activities No connections between own partners No access to all data needed No direct connection or difficult to connect to developer of the platform None or very limited options for custom development
Custom solution Customers
Custom solution problems Customers Another
Problems with own custom setup Full development and maintenance cost Develops only by own efforts Can not benefit from others development Difficult to connect to other organizations or systems Hard to get customers to enter and maintain their customer information if if that would be made possible
Ecosystem Infrastructure Solution How did we approached it?
Startup ecosystem and services viewed from two key perspectives 1. Startup entrepreneur & other individual users (Customer) 2. providing services
Customers view A B F?? C E G D? H
s view My?? Customers Other Other Other Other
Ecosystem in reality C A B F H D E G Startup journey
Another Customer Experience Reality in Current Ecosystem Another My Another stomer and process information Another Another mer and process information
Reality of Customer Journeys Customer A A B F C E G D Customer B H
Ecosystem Infrastructure Solution Customers Shared member area A B C D E Shared Infrastructure platform dedicated areas for customers shared member areas s
Ecosystem Customer Journeys Customer A Customer B Customers Shared member area A B C D E
s new view Another My Another
Customer A New Customer Experiences Customer B Another Another Another Another My Another Another Another Another
Benefits Of The Ecosystem Infrastructure solution Single signin and profiles for all users build based on ecosystem approach and around startup life journey, where multiple organizations and individuals contribute to different stages of the startup development Profile information is automatically updated based on various activities and interaction the users and startups perform within the different networks users and organizations manage their own presence, processes and activities in the infrastructure based on their roles users can easily be part of and move between various networks and organization activities with single profile Access to information depends on individual access rights and users own decisions and actions to share information easier to invite and get relevant users to join own network and processes from the ecosystem user can have single or multiple different roles in one or multiple networks