The first of 2 workshops held at the University of Cambridge, looking at the concept of The Innovation Agency, and commercialising research in general.

1. Cambridge University
Transferable Skill Workshop
Commercialising R&D

2. Welcome & Content
●
Introduction
●
The KED Experience
●
The Innovation Agency
●
Transferable Skills
– Where to start
– What stage is your research at?
– Testing the pitch (gathering intelligence)
– IPR or TTM
– Building a team
●
The Innovation Agency
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

3. Introduction
●
Scientists & Engineers change the world
●
Scientists & Engineers build new technologies
and businesses
●
Even the banking system used engineers and
scientists to “improve” the system
●
Systematically commercialising research has
the potential to make significant, positive
change
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

4. Push – Pull
What - WHY
●
Technology Push
●
Market Pull
●
Pre-conceived ideas about commercialisation
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

5. The KED Experience
Evolving PhD research to
Commercialisation

6. The KED Experience
●
At the beginning, there is nothing but
problems.
– Why do I even want to do something
entrepreneurial?
– What is the product?
– Who is the customer?
– Do I understand the customer and what they
want? (probably not)
– Admin issues?
– More pressing issues, like “How am I going to eat?”
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

7. Better things to think about
●
Why am I doing what I do?
●
Why might other people be interested in what
I'm doing?
●
Why do (or don't) I enjoy research?
●
What do I want from life?
Crucially:
What are the motivations? – the WHYS?
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

8. Attacking the problem
●
Business is a lot like academic research, it is
just a different problem space
●
The right mindset just “clicks” - Like research,
the individual problems can be made easily
tractable.
●
Why is the risk of depending on yourself
greater than that of depending on others?
●
Talk to everyone, all the time.
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

9. KED's solutions so far
●
Knowledge Transfer Secondment
●
Working closely with Ian (and other people
that know what they're doing).
●
Finding several suppliers of ultrasound kit, and
then getting them interested.
●
Turning the research into a tech demo – which
took longer than expected.
●
Short term contract work to keep eating.
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

10. In general
●
Is there any way to draw on the expertise of
others?
●
This is the idea behind The Innovation Agency
– building on the skills and knowledge of those
that have gone before.
●
There is still a need to plant the seed, and
understand the methodology.
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

11. Summary
●
The Why? of doing anything
●
Building a Why? into a suitable How?: posing the question
●
Technologists become entrepreneurs is a big ask. In the
next section we will Introduce The Innovation Agency.
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

12. Explanations of the participants
research
2 examples focussing on WHY

13. The Innovation Agency
A brief introduction

14. WHY?
●
Recognising the need to help Researchers, Inventors
and Innovators to develop their IPR without falling
down the usual traps
●
Based on an audit approach with a experienced and
critical eye on the outcomes of the process
●
Answering the questions partners, investors and
customers will ask
●
Providing a framework to develop an exploitation
route without the need to become an entrepreneur
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

15. But First...... The workshop
Framing the Problem
From Research to Commercialisation

16. Business Background
●
Business is a lot like Engineering, it is just a
different problem space
●
Problem definition is a key part of the path to
building a business
●
The “Team” aspects of a business are
absolutely crucial to the potential success of
the business
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

17. Where to Start
Why to Start
Networking & Funding

18. Lets start with some really
basic questions
●
What stage is the research at?
●
How much effort will it take to get it to a
saleable product/service/licensable solution?
●
Who are your target customers?
●
What is your product worth?
●
Is it protected?
●
Seems like a lot of questions...........
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

19. What Stage is your Research at?
Why to Start
The “Valley of Death”

20. The Funding Gap
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

21. Once the gap is understood
how do you get across?
●
How determined are you?
– What lengths will you go to to get your technology
commercialised?
●
Too late for research funding?
●
Too early for Angels?
●
Too early for VC's?
●
Where else can you go?
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

22. Challenges
●
Valuation
●
Equity
●
Risk/Confidence
●
Problems with taking money from investors
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

23. Equity
a very contentious subject
●
The earlier stage you are the more likely an
investor is to want a controlling share in “your”
company.
●
Why would you give them that?
●
Why wouldn't you give them control?
●
Giving away equity when you don't need to.
●
What about trading future earnings instead?
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

24. Valuation
●
Without sales it it almost impossible to value a
company and/or its IPR.
– There is no formula
– The owner often values far too high
– The investor often values far too low
●
One thing is certain:
no money = no progress
●
You have to decide what you are willing to give
up and to whom.
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

25. Wild Optimism
●
Inventors and Innovators are often wildly
optimistic about their technology, product,
service and how it will change the world.
– Is this a good thing?
– Is this a bad thing?
●
A balanced view is best, thinking around the
problem space is essential to get this.
●
Testing the market is also critical.
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

26. Getting others to
believe in you
●
Evangelising about your technology.
– There are probably few people who will get either
your vision or the capability of your technology
better than you.
– Your challenge is to explain it in sufficiently simple
terms to excite people about what it is, what it can
do and the value in it.
●
OK – so how do you really do this?
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

27. A believable story
A succinct message, elevator pitch, or whatever you want to call it is
important. If that gets people interested then you can expand on the
description. Enthusiasm and Clarity are crucial.
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

28. Testing the pitch
Where? To Whom?

29. Networking
●
How many Networking groups are there in Cambridge?
● General X21 Clean Tech X5 Entrepreneurs X5
Software + Apps Mobile & Wireless
Social Enterprise X1 X2
X12
Women X5 Life Science X1
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

30. Networking
●
How many have you been to?
– Go to find out what networking is all about
– You have to work out how to find contacts and
make relationships
●
Contrary to popular opinion effective
Networking takes time and requires trust
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

31. Networking
working the room
●
WHY are you there?
●
What is the focus of networking?
●
How do you build trust?
– Most people don't know the answer to this!
●
How long will it take to get a lead from
Networking?
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

32. Networking
the long term
●
Selecting the right groups for you
– Number of contacts versus quality
– Referrers
– Finding the best leads
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

33. IPR or Time to Market?
A different viewpoint

34. Everybody wants Patents
●
This is an generally accepted view from
Academia, Investors, Industry Partners.
●
WHY?
– Protection from competition
– Something Tangible to “own” at the point of
failure
– Kudos of filing a patent
●
WHY Protect, does it actually help the
commercialisation efforts?
–
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

35. Everybody want Patents (2)
●
Patents are of little value if you can't sell the
technology
●
Patents are of NO tangible value if you don't
have funds to protect them
●
Patents come into their own when (if) you are
challenged for infringement of someone else's
patents – then a patent is a component for
negotiations
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

36. The Importance of a Team
Why outsiders believe in a Team more
readily than an individual

37. The Importance of a Team
●
Understand your own strengths and
weaknesses
●
Understand your position in a business
– Are you a cornerstone?
– Are you the Visionary?
– Are you the Delivery specialist?
– Are you the Financial specialist?
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

38. Famous Partnerships
●
Hewlett Packard
●
William (Bill) Redington Hewlett
●
Dave Packard
●
Founded: 1939
●
Employees: 349,600
●
Revenue: 127,24 B$
●
Total Assets: 129,51 B$
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

39. Famous Partnerships
●
Microsoft
●
Bill Gates
●
Paul Allen
●
Founded: 1975
●
Employees: 92,000
●
Profit: 23,15 B$
●
Total Assets: 108,07 B$
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

40. Famous Partnerships
●
Apple Inc.
●
Steve Jobs
●
Steve Wozniak
●
Founded: 1976
●
Employees: 60,400
●
Profit: 25.922 B$
●
Total Assets: 116,371 B$
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

41. Famous Partnerships
●
Oracle
●
Larry Ellison
●
Bob Minor
●
Ed Oates
●
Founded: 1977
●
Employees: 111,297
●
Revenue: 35.6 B$
●
Total Assets: 73.5 B$
●
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

42. Famous Partnerships
●
Adobe Systems
●
John Warnock
●
Charles Geschke
●
Founded: 1982
●
Employees: 9,117
●
Profit: 3.8 B$
●
Total Assets: 8.141 B$
●
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

43. Famous Partnerships
●
Yahoo
●
David Filo
●
Jerry Yang
●
Founded: 1995
●
Employees: 14,100
●
Revenue: 4.98 B$
●
Total Assets: 14,78 B$
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

44. Famous Partnerships
●
Google
●
Larry Page
●
Sergey Brin
●
Founded: 1998
●
Employees: 32,467
●
Profit: 9.737 B$
●
Total Assets: 72,574 B$
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

45. The Innovation Agency
......to take Research to Market

46. The next session
●
Business Modelling
●
Building an investment proposition / Funding
from scratch
●
Marketing your company
Cambridge University Transferable Skills

47. Individual follow ups
TIA will take interested researchers
through the whole process

48. Thank you
Talk to us about commercialising your
research
henry.gomersall@theinnovationagency.org
ian.sharp@theinnovationagency.org