Podcast: Incubators are a distraction, acquire customers early instead

Researchers with promising technology in the UK can apply for public innovation agency Innovate UK’s pre-accelerator programme ICURe, which supports them in reaching out to 100 potential customers to understand the market viability of their idea.

It’s a powerful initiative that helps would-be founders understand if their idea can make a good business and what it should look like. But securing money wasn’t, until recently, part of that programme and researchers weren’t taught to ask for cash — the thinking was that anything inventors had to offer at this stage didn’t yet have commercial value.

Pearse Coyle, founder and partner of the Deeptech Seed Fund, says that’s the wrong approach. He worked with government agency Innovate UK to change the ICURe programme. The solution is a scorecard outlining potential customers’ willingness to pay for a pilot project and engage seriously with a spinout.

Coyle’s thesis is that spinouts that demonstrate this early traction are much more likely to be successful in the long run. He argues that spinouts should focus on asking for money early on — long before there’s a finished product — and avoid spending time in incubators which may add no value.

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