Hunt
Perhaps the biggest difference between a corporate business leader and an entrepreneur is the focus on learning. Entrepreneurs hunt differently. The primary focus is not the size of the potential market, but the ability to access an initial niche and develop a strong foundation from which to grow profitably while learning at an incredible rate. It’s this desire to learn and the acceptance of “what I don’t know” that often separates the two. When we combine them, the potential is enormous. Innobrix helps us all hunt with a learning focus.
Collaborate
None of us are good at everything. And no one firm, no matter how large or small, has a higher probability of success than a combination of many partners with a common goal. Understanding how to focus this collaboration, and facilitate it’s development continues to be a key challenge when working between start ups and corporates. The balance between the big vision and traction on tangible near term outcomes plays a critical role in the development of a sustainable collaboration. Innobrix facilitates this balance and ongoing dialogue.
Pivot
If you haven’t noticed, startups pivot much better than corporates, and there’s a good reason for it. Startups are almost always cash starved. The access to cash that large companies have is both a huge asset and a disabling liability when competing on the open market. Knowing when and how much cash to infuse in support ot a startup endeavor is a critic skill for corporates that want to foster internal start up growth. Innobrix has a long track record of helping intrapreneurs and their sponsors understand how best to strike this balance.
Scale
With a healthy foundation of customer acquisition and a good understanding of Cost to Serve, scaling the business and demonstrating the corresponding change in SG&A as a % of sales is the next milestone. The key deliverable here is a demonstrated ability to scale with modest increases in Cost to Acquire, Cost to Serve and Cost to Retain. Scaling is not just about adding more customers, it’s about changing the cost structure. While the details and focus change, the business fundamentals do not. Innobrix has been doing this for years, across more than a dozen industries and with over 40 large corporations.
