What if we could fund innovation and inspire social good without needing entrepreneurs?
From vaccines to wireless communications, Innovators have changed the world. They are key to our ability to create, adapt and be competitive — and they are critical to our economic vitality.
Here’s the problem: Many of our innovators are forced to take valuable time and resources away from innovating to commercialize their ideas. This requires entrepreneurial acumen, which many innovators simply don’t have. It’s a big roadblock on the critical innovation path.
The Old Way
Siloed Teams + Venture Capital + Education + Mentoring + Finance/Engineer Lead
The New Way
Public Holding Company + (Tri-Sector Leadership + Venture Builder + Data Lab + Chief Entrepreneur)
An Aha Moment
An entrepreneur is “a person who leads scalable businesses from scratch.” Unfortunately, real entrepreneurs are few and far between because it’s a relatively rare skill set. The bright side? The world has LOADS of innovators with ideas. We’ve also got plenty of whip-smart specialists everywhere wanting to work on exciting projects.
What if the big idea is to bring the complementary skill sets of innovators and specialists together in a model to manage the rapid commercialization of innovation in a way that benefits our businesses, communities, governments and economy.
Approach
An innovative approach to value creation, commercialization and community economic development. A tri-sector approach brings government, business and community together to understand critical problems while growing thriving businesses that create jobs and prosperity for all stakeholders.
How it could work
Start with being the only institutional pre-revenue investors. It all starts with “how can we help you?”
Wrap business specialists around innovators from all walks of life to rapidly scale their innovations out of the idea phase into the market — or nudge them towards other innovations to best use their talent.
A shared service model brings the right business resources to projects at the right time, in a cost-effective way so innovators can keep doing what they do best — innovating.
Fund and steward this portfolio of innovation through a publicly traded holding company that provides a mechanism for consumers, businesses, pension funds, foundations and endowments to invest closer to their communities while ensuring liquidity and an inclusive model that benefits all citizens.
Investors receive financial returns and accelerated value due to our unique commercialization growth model.
The innovators generate revenue with the goal of outgrowing the shared services as soon as possible. Jobs and new leadership opportunities for our specialists emerge. Your economy and innovation ecosystem continue to flourish.
With their promise to do good, the companies deliver a percentage of top-line revenue straight into the nonprofit sector partners as unrestricted funding as our community contribution. Portfolio companies also commit to an ongoing environmental, social and governance audit process.
When they’re profitable (> 2 years), the companies exit the shared services with a stand-alone leadership team composed of innovator(s) and business specialists, allowing for continuous improvement to emerge as you onboard and expand your network of specialists and innovators.
Communities gain great companies. Investors make excellent financial returns from the increase in the value of our shares. At any point, investors can invest further for ongoing impact or take their returns by selling shares of our public holding company.
BENEFITS — FOR INVESTORS
For wealth managers, institutional and consumer investors, there are significant benefits to investing.
Janet is a wealth manager. Her family office, foundation and trust clients are all asking her to find and invest in a publicly traded growth fund focused on investing in innovations with an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) mandate. Janet notices this innovative approach to value creation, commercialization, community economic development, ESG values and tri-sector leadership.
Alex is an institutional investor who manages a pension fund portfolio and is looking for a channel to increase their investments with ESG at scale.
Kunal is a retail investor. He wants to allocate a portion of his goals-based investment portfolio to an investment that fits his values — and has a huge potential to scale.
BENEFITS — FOR INNOVATORS
Innovators benefit from getting their concepts vetted and into the market quickly while generating financial returns and adding value to their communities through economic development. Shared Services researches, vets, tests and launches their innovations in the market. We bring the skills, expertise and funds, moving the idea to commercialization while keeping the innovator as part of the team.
Fadia is a scientific innovator. Truthfully, she prefers innovating to doing target market and competitor research, finding investors, branding products, making sales and managing her company. It’s just not making the best use of her expertise.
Tash is a food artisan who has formulated a nutritional supplement he thinks will address some big issues related to malnutrition. He has a formula but has no idea how to get the product into production and the market. He’s looking for more than advice; he needs experienced partners to do this with him.
Victoria is an educator who has developed a new online reading program for elementary school students. She has the program designed but doesn’t know the best way to build the tool or market it.
BENEFITS — FOR COMMUNITIES
Sarah is a Mayor. She has worked hard alongside her partners to steward support in her region for economic development. With her ear to the ground, she heard through her network that businesses established through this new model are selected for how much good they can do in the market and their communities. This “good” includes a long-term commitment to communities — and it might consist of early-stage innovation funding, creation of meaningful jobs, commitment to ESG goals and partnerships to bring financial support into the community.
Jen is an Economic Developer within her region. Her primary interest is increasing economic activity to create more skilled jobs within the community. She is interested in how this model incubates and commercializes businesses that can bring these kinds of roles to her area.
Kendal, a Community Association Executive Director, is looking for unrestricted funding for their organization’s administrative and operational activities. They are always being asked to do more with less and have trouble meeting their community’s needs on their tight budget. Kendal’s organization is interested in partnering with companies to obtain financial support to solve problems of mutual interest that come out of this model.
BENEFITS — FOR GOVERNMENTS
Nick is the head of his country. He has worked hard alongside his party to create economic policy and investment focused on growth, supported by building and allocating economic development resources throughout the region. He sees how this model is a parallel system that complements traditional entrepreneurial support and public sector economic development. He is most interested in how this model provides a mechanism for both the private and public sector to work together to fund and commercialize further innovation that might otherwise be left on the table.
Paul is the fund manager of a public pension fund. He is looking for opportunities to invest at scale in a portfolio of companies with an ESG mandate while maximizing returns.
Karen is the head of the public service. She works hard to implement traditional entrepreneurial support and public sector economic development, and is excited to see a parallel system that complements the work they have done to date without having to change.
“With a few micro alignments, we can rapidly enhance the quality of life in any part of the world.” — Peter Elkins
White Paper Available — info@peterelkins.ca
