We help you achieve your goals.
We offer customizable engagements that leverage deep partnerships within the innovation community.
We deliver the full spectrum of innovation: from ideation to implementation and beyond. All engagements are white-glove and can be customized to suit your needs.
Captains of Innovation would welcome a consultation with you to discuss engagements and services in more detail. The following are examples of services that we offer:
High-touch services
Corporate innovation can be rife with challenges, cultural inflexibility, limited business unit buy-in, budget constraints, and more –– and nascent efforts can be particularly vulnerable. Captains of Innovation can provide strategic support and guidance to help key staff develop a robust understanding of the varied ways in which they can cultivate and implement innovative ideas. Captains will tailor each coaching session to your needs in order to optimize individual innovation plans and create a competitive edge while identifying areas for opportunities.
Based on the criteria or "shopping list" that you present –– focused on technologies, solutions, or areas of interest –– Captains can expertly research and deploy a vast network to create meetings with startups in a city or region. Captains will provide a heavily vetted, strategic list of startups for the corporate partner to prioritize, and will then coordinate meetings from the prioritized list. Captains can deliver Startup Connect in cities and regions globally.
Each Venture Café across a global network –– that spans from Cambridge to Tokyo –– hosts a weekly signature event: the Thursday Gathering. In established locations, the Thursday Gathering is the port of entry into the innovation ecosystem and combines networking opportunities with a variety of curated, high-impact educational / thought leadership sessions. Captains offers its clients a portal to engage these communities, providing access via event sponsorship for marketing and branding and activities around a theme or industry vertical.
Many large companies can be slow to move in today's fast-changing environments. Captains of Innovation can convene an immersive, facilitated Mindset Shift Workshop to assist in quickly moving the needle on burning internal issues, corporate venturing, innovation strategy, and many other topic areas. Captains can calibrate the tone specifically to the needs of the group –– even those that are workshop-resistant –– while keeping all eyes on the prize and developing a strategic path forward.
Captains can convene a facilitated, interdisciplinary group of academics, thought leaders, futurists, and super-users for two days that will focus on the future of your industry. The group will approach the field holistically and will also focus on pre-defined area(s) that corporate partners may want to explore while re/imagining the future of the industry from myriad broad and narrow lenses.
Strong ties are people, models, approaches, or organizations well known and influential to you, but "weak ties" are often the more crucial building block in innovation. Exposure to new weak ties can often lead to powerful ideas and unexpected synergistic connections. Captains can build and host half, full, or multiple day, strategically composed Weak Tie introductions, discovery meetings, and tours with select ecosystem players (eg. lab heads, venture capitalists, etc.), engineered to position senior executives or innovation teams to create high level innovation relationships.
The Implementation Framing is a 3-5 day workshop that provides the discovery space for a full understanding of the corporation’s core competencies, internal challenges, and competitive landscape, and structures the remainder of the engagement for projected solutions. The effort immerses a diverse group of the corporate partner’s staff –– typically 7-12 individuals from across departments or business units –– to collectively surface problems and pursue an innovation roadmap. The facilitated workshop incorporates guest experts and key innovation players, and will produce an innovation assessment of the company, as well as robust avenues of pursuit for the partner’s future direction, with Captains and beyond.
Captains can produce virtual or in-person private or public events that further the client's brand or innovation initiatives. We routinely co/produce hackathons, demo days, pitch events, and more. The scope, cost, and impact can be defined by Captains and the client as part of their engagement.
Premier engagements
Captains of Innovation engagements are designed to help organizations achieve distinct, defined goals. However, many organizations have similar needs and Captains has identified throughlines centered around certain themes. The engagement packages below are illustrative –– and customization is welcome –– but can be seamlessly deployed if aligned with your goals.
The Open for Business package is designed for clients who have entered a new market and want to signal to the ecosystem that they are “open for business.” Over the course of the engagement, Captains of Innovation will research, identify and connect the partner with startups and relevant organizations in the target market, culminating in an innovation event to engage the wider community.
Services include:
• Regional Startup Connect
• Innovation Event (e.g. Venture Cafe Sponsorship)
The Global Engagement package serves partners who seek to expand their reach and engage with a global innovation community. Captains of Innovation can deploy its proprietary research methodology to identify and connect with target startups around the world. The engagement will culminate in an innovation event, which could occur in multiple markets, featuring a global “call to action” to drive sustained engagement.
Services include:
• Global Startup Connect
• Innovation Event (e.g. Global Call to Action)
The Corporate Beachhead package supports clients who seek to establish a corporate beachhead in Boston/Cambridge. Captains of Innovation can facilitate deep engagement with the innovation community and other key local stakeholders from Day 1, accelerating market engagement. Additionally, Captains will research, identify and connect the partner with startups in the target market to build contacts and kickstart opportunities for partnership.
Services include:
• Weak Ties Introductions
• Executive Tour
• Regional Startup Connect
Captains of Innovation’s Innovation Mindset package is designed for new clients who seek to cultivate the mindset which will best position them to embrace open innovation. Captains of Innovation will privately coach key staff members and develop a facilitated workshop for internal stakeholders.
Services include:
• Innovation Coaching
• Mindset Shift Workshop
The Blue Sky Innovation package is built for clients who are working to conceive and launch innovation strategies within their organization. Captains of Innovation will provide targeted innovation coaching to key leaders of the initiative, focused on skill development and strategy. To accelerate an understanding of ecosystem best practice and activities, Captains will host an Executive ecosystem tour for a larger group of internal stakeholders.
Finally, Captains will convene a Think Tank with futurists, industry experts, and thought leaders to explore the future of an industry, as determined by the client. Together, these services will help the client develop a robust innovation strategy to help guide corporate activities.
Services include:
• Innovation Coaching
• Executive Tour
• Think Tank
The Industry Partner packages offer three tiers of engagement with both Captains of Innovation and a CIC Industry Hub. CIC’s Industry Hubs are centered on industry verticals, such as Aging or Mobility, and can provide access to nascent startups, established companies, and ecosystem partners in that industry. Captains can facilitate the combination of deep engagement with an industry vertical and high-touch corporate innovation consulting support. Services vary by tier, but can include:
• Innovation Event
• Startup Connect
• Weak Ties
• Mindset Shift Workshop
The Corporate Strategy package is tailored to accelerate the deployment of impactful long-term innovation strategies. Captains of Innovation works closely with partners to fully understand the corporation’s core competencies, internal challenges, competitive landscape, and projected solutions. Captains will facilitate a series of workshops with key internal stakeholders to move the needle on burning internal issues and build consensus around the path forward.
Finally, Captains will convene a Think Tank with futurists, industry experts, and thought leaders to explore the future of an industry, as determined by the client. Together, these services will help the client develop a targeted, intentional strategy focused on maximizing innovation potential.
Services include:
• Implementation Framing
• Mindset Shift Workshop
• Think Tank
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