The success of a new venture does not solely reside on the shoulders of the Founder. Yes, Founder(s) are key role players, but we need to look beyond the boundaries of the venture.

The innovation ecosystem in South Africa is inherently fragile. There are a few key stakeholders that we need to acknowledge for the pivotal role they play. For the purposes of this article, we will limit the list to: Founders (or Inventors), Investors, Enablers and Service Providers.

 

When unpacking the role(s) of each stakeholder, it seems perfectly complementary to the objective to accelerate innovation and see the product successfully reach its target market. The Investor(s) should provide money to fund research, development, and go-to-market costs; the Enablers should provide strategic and operational support to the venture while the Service Provider should deliver services in a timely and predictable manner to ensure a market-ready product offering.

So, the question is: should we not see more success stories emerging from the ecosystem? After all, there is an abundance of good ideas and intellectual property provided by Founders. Needless to say, we are dealing with a complex question. From a SKEG perspective and based on years of experience we should take a different lens. More important to the identification of stakeholders and articulating roles, we should understand their respective motivations.

We can imagine the ecosystem stakeholders as gears that can accelerate the idea-to-product journey. Stakeholder motivation, however, influences the cadence at which a particular gear rotates. A good example is the age-old saying: The person with the money makes the decisions. An investor is typically driven by an expected return on investment within a reasonable time window. When R&D takes longer than expected, the Investor tends to put pressure on the Founder to commercialise prematurely. The central gear is compromised, and value could be destroyed.

Another good example is the motivation of the Founder. In many cases, Founders are motivated by the greater potential of an idea without a sense of urgency to realise the defined value in a market setting. As such, the Founder could compromise the product definition and directly influence all remaining stakeholders. So, who is responsible for coordinating the system to ensure that all gears operate as part of the system to ensure the central gear (the Product/Value) rotates at optimal speed to deliver the value which was envisioned in a timely fashion?

It is clear from examples that each stakeholder’s motivations can easily lead to a misaligned system which underpins why many products never reach the market. As a Founder, it is paramount to articulate the essence of the product offering to all stakeholders and stay true to the delivery thereof. When Stakeholders buy into realising the product, they also buy into the roadmap to realise the offering with the understanding that there are uncertainties and risks. The Founder may be the voice of the product and held accountable by other stakeholders, but the product plays the leading role in the innovation story.