Corporate Startup Innovation | Sopheon

Esther Gons is the CEO and Co-founder of GroundControl, the reporting tool and software platform for disruptive corporate innovation. She is the co-author of The Corporate Startup and Innovation Accounting and the winner of the 2019 Golden Axiom Business Book Award as well as the 2018 Management Book of the Year Award. Esther is the CEO and Co-founder of NEXT Amsterdam, the Founder and Managing Partner of NEXT Startup Ventures, and an investor at European Super Angels Club. She is also an international speaker on corporate innovation, entrepreneurship, innovation accounting, customer development, business models, and lean methodology. Esther joins me today to discuss corporate startups. She highlights the topics covered in her playbook, The Corporate Startup. She reveals challenges and threats that corporations face and what it takes to innovate for the future. She discusses the dilemma of moving individuals in redundant positions across to the innovation team to prevent employee turnover. Esther defines innovation, startups, corporate venturing, and entrepreneurship.  

"You need a strategy and a vision that's connected to your core and core innovation strategy to pull innovation off successfully." - Esther Gons

• What is driving companies to do corporate venturing
• The challenges, threats, and opportunities for corporations
• How to pull innovation off successfully by focusing on opportunities in the near future
• The search versus execute business model and methodology
• Why it's important to connect your resources to internal startups to overcome external threats
• The kinds of people necessary for your innovation team and where to source them
• Esther's definitions of innovation, startups, corporate venturing, and entrepreneurship.

• Podcast: Necessity for Innovation Accounting

• GroundControl
• NEXT Amsterdam
• Book: The Corporate Startup: How Established Companies Can Develop Successful Innovation Ecosystems by Esther Gons, Tendayi Viki, and Dan Toma
• Book: Innovation Accounting: A Practical Guide For Measuring Your Innovation Ecosystem's Performance by Esther Gons and Dan Toma
• Esther Gons on LinkedIn
• Esther Gons on Twitter

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