The Preeminence of People - Mapping Company Maturity Levels
The scope of Foresight’s programs for entrepreneurs in the cleantech, agtech and industrial innovation sectors means that our EiR’s (“Executives-in-Residence”) mentor companies across a wide range of readiness levels - from the startups in our Launch program to the ‘ready to roll’ companies in our Grow program.
It also means that we understand the importance of people in the overall equation of building a successful cleantech company.
People Bring Technology to Market
Technology can be exciting. It’s easy to get caught up in the value of the technology that a company is bringing to market, what it can do, how it can make an impact and provide something of value to society, especially in the cleantech world that is focused on reducing GHG emissions and cleaning up our environmental mess.
But the technology doesn’t bring itself to market. People bring technology to market - people build companies.
And as an cleantech accelerator, we can only bring clean technologies to market if we have well-developed companies that are capital-ready and mature enough to bring them to market.
Company Maturity Metrics - A Roadmap for Mentoring
- Team
- Problem and Vision
- Value Proposition
- Product
- Market
- Business Model
- Scale
- Exit
“The Company Maturity Metrics allow us to map where the company is in terms of its readiness to provide value. The company itself has to be positioned to add value, not just the technology. This is about making sure the company leaders understand they have to build a robust company.” says Kirk Hamilton, Foresight EiR.
Company maturity provides an objective measure of shareholder value creation - it is a useful tool for mentors to help guide entrepreneurs to focus on what needs to be done to accelerate growth in a capital efficient way.
“Many entrepreneurs don’t understand what it looks like to be ready for funding, and need a ‘map’ to help focus on what they need to do to develop a capital-ready, mature business and business model” says Hamilton.
Not only does the whole cleantech ecosystem benefit when companies mature into capital-readiness state, it benefits Foresight clients (who are working through building and growing their companies) by helping them to:
- Generate entrepreneur self-awareness
- Develop understanding of 8 key attributes of enterprise value creation
- Identifies key milestones for enterprise development, (i.e. value creation beyond just technological development)
- Have a common language for working with EiRs across the Foresight network, and in the global business community
Western Canada - Cleantech Leadership
Western Canada is poised to be a global leader in cleantech. Having the right tools to accelerate and mentor innovative companies is a critical step in creating an innovation economy.
A booming cleantech economy requires successful and highly functioning teams of people that have the resources to build, develop and scale a world-class business. Company Maturity Metrics integrated into a focused and strategic mentoring program moves us toward that goal.
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Foresight has a number of educational and mentoring programs for companies in cleantech, agtech and industrial innovation. Contact us today to learn what it takes to compete and win in emerging markets.
