Activate reposted this
Chairman @TrellisGroup, award-winning writer, speaker, advisor and entrepreneur on sustainable business, climate tech, blah blah blah
If #climatetech is to scale and help accelerate the deep #decarbonization the world urgently needs, we’ll need to ease the challenges #startups often face working or partnering with large companies, and quickly. That was the focus of an invite-only forum Trellis Group hosted at #VERGE24 in Oct., in partnership with Activate. A lot of great insights, which I've just summarized. Thanks to Jake Mitchell Cyrus Wadia Nikhil B. Gargeya Kaavya "Kavi" Reddy Mollie Starr for making this happen. https://lnkd.in/gADGfYxu
Great content; wish I had been there. Let me add to the solid thinking. The disparity in size is a fundamental problem-- one is a gorilla and the other a mouse. Bad things can happen. For example, the difference in time-to-decisions and actions between corporations frustrates progress. The big guys are slow and the small guys need actions quickly to stay alive. Also, the big guys have incentives in place for their products and services-- they feed their own. The small guys need help getting the attention and nutrition they need to get into the market at a meaningful level.
In the race to decarbonize, we can’t just rely on the market to pick winners. The real challenge is creating a clear path to bankability at every stage. What if we had an 'Activate 2.0' to bridge the gap between early innovation and growth? Could a standardized adoption readiness framework help corporates, VCs, and startups speak the same language, de-risk commercialization, and build trust faster?
As a climatetech startup going going through the raising process, we certainly feel some of these challenges. Looking forward to hearing more insights and actionable steps to implementing these much need solutions 🌱🚀
Thanks for sharing Joel, and for your hard work on this. Are you going to release a summary or related content to the discussions in the panel?
+1 for offtake agreements. I would add one more "opportunity for improvement" on the corporate side and that is procurement cycle-time, process and requirements. The best corporate buyers create a different process for startups because the existing process is often wholly misaligned with the speed that startups need to demonstrate traction and often has extremely onerous and sometimes impossible to achieve requirements. The glacial pace (1-3 years) leads a lot of investors not wanting to back startups where "slow moving" industries are the customer.