Corporate accelerators in 3 sentences and the hard thing about hard things

This is what happens when you simply lift the ‘accelerator’ model from the investment world and put it into a corporate:

Year 1 – wow amazing look at all these startups
Year 2 – hmmm
Year 3 – er why are we doing this ?

‘Innovation to the side’ doesn’t work. It is innovation theatre at its finest. It’s almost as if it is designed not to ‘infect’ the core of the company.

But getting this right is so damn important. As Venky Balakrishnan at Diageo says “The answer to the innovation paradox — how to bring that innovation from the edge back into our business — is a million dollar question. We ask this every day”

What we need is less of this….

And more of this..

It means leveraging the core assets of both. Unlocking data sets, providing distribution, creating win win deals, finding the people who care in the organisation, solving the real problems.

It is not easy.

But meaningful things are never easy.

Mail alex@thebakery.com if you want some free open advice on the ‘truth of corporate accelerators’ and how you can get the model working for you.