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We all know what incubators do: they bring people, ideas and facilities together to build new products and services. Simple, or is it?
Incubators build start-ups that focus on innovators and early adopters to generate initial revenues. But is this enough? Not if you read Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A Moore. Written in 1991 (and revised several times since) its message is still true today. Many businesses fail to migrate from the early adopter to the early majority markets – the chasm. This is primarily driven by the lack of a “whole product”: i.e. one that addresses the whole customer experience from buying right through to servicing, support and upgrading and makes it easy for a customer to buy.
This is where consumer facing distributed energy offerings are today: the market is hugely fragmented. Although much of the technology has been proven and pilots delivered, early adopters are still faced with integrating many of the parts themselves, something the mass majority will not do. In addition, funding is also highly fragmented for consumers and businesses alike. Even government support is fragmented, varies across regions and can be altered with very little notice. Bringing this all together is a huge challenge as the Sustainable Energy Authority Ireland recently identified in their recent report: Financing Energy Efficiency in Ireland – A Handbook on the Residential Sector.
What’s more, while money has been relatively cheap and plentiful, some large investors have seen the solution to be a seemingly desperate land grab: buying up as many pieces as possible as quickly as possible. An attempt to own the whole show, or not to miss it, even if not quite sure where the show will be. But the ideal mix of players will vary according to the “whole product” being offered (which in turn will be constantly evolving) and no investor will be big enough to own the whole ecology.
What we believe is needed are dynamic “Commercial Catalyst Programmes” that bring together a diverse but relevant and timely arrays of carefully curated businesses, proven ideas, mass market opportunities, large scale funding and top understanding in order to build whole products that cross the chasm.
VaasaETT and other partners are coming together to turn this vision into a reality. More information at www.traxisgroup.com