The innovation experience: scaling-up Innovators mind the gap Dr Louise Jopling, Commercial Director at Eastern AHSN, and Dr Uday Phadke, at Cartezia, provide an overview of our scale-up academy programme, which we offer, in partnership, to selected innovators to help them navigate the potential chasms related to scaling-up Success in business depends not just on having a great idea but also on the ability of innovators to integrate a wide range of economic, technological, commercial, social and cultural factors in the commercialisation process. Patience and fortitude also have an important role to play, as our research shows that the early stages of business growth take a lot longer than most conventional wisdom reported in business literature. Halfway through the product journey, cumulative market penetration will only have reached about 10% of the potential number of customers, which is widely divergent from the 50% market penetration figure claimed traditionally. This can present a challenge to companies attracting investments and Whocanbeneltt The programme is designed for senior leadership teams of companies that are committed to growing their business. These teams could come from established corporations, startups or innovation agencies: leading the prolonged journey of scale-up and return on investment. We host scale-up academy programmes to help innovators at this vital development stage, which employ a new structured approach. Key to this approach is for innovators to understand how the commercialisation journey is interrupted by three discontinuities or chasms where cumulative customer growth could stall. This Triple Chasm Model is shared with innovators at our scale-up academy programmes, alongside a modified technology readiness level and a corresponding commercialisation readiness level which, together, help companies quickly obtain a robust measure of the maturity of their product or service. During this process, we also help senior teams from companies address any gaps or commercialisation challenges that have been identified. The third critical element we introduce at these workshops are the 12 drivers the meso-economic vectors that shape the commercialisation trajectory. All elements are brought together in an easy-to-understand commercialisation canvas, which the companies can use to support decision-making, including resource allocation, during their commercialisation journey. Each company graduating from the programme will have access to its own private data via the platform, so it can use the insights internally, on an ongoing basis. The platform also enables companies to generate reports based on their input and analysis, which means strategic and tactical decisions acquire a new dynamic character: the idea is to provide a real-time collaboration and decision-support tool E stablished corporations can tackle their innovation challenges in a structured way, rather than embracing generalised approaches exhorting them to harness entrepreneurial thinking, more innovative leadership and increasing R&D spend S tart-up firms can understand their commercialisation journeys and allocate the right resources at the right time to increase the chances of success P ublic innovation agencies, technology transfer firms, incubators and accelerators can design and execute the best intervention strategies for use in the long-term. Key components: The Triple Chasm Model: unique online collaboration platform that brings to life the tools and insights set out in Cartezias scale-up manual World-class coaches and mentors with deep domain expertise in markets including the NHS, technologies and products, coupled with knowledge of the tools and mentoring skills Ongoing support, enabling continued dialogue to develop, test and implement robust growth strategies Share this article Get involved If you would like to take part in a future scale-up academy, please contact louise.jopling@eahsn.org. Please note, this programme is aimed at leadership teams.