HOBOKEN, N.J. (PRWEB) April 19, 2021
Innovation is serious business within most corporations; More than 80 percent of executives consider the future success of their business to be dependent on innovation. Many innovation programs include partnering with high-growth tech startups, and an extremely popular vehicle for this is the corporate accelerator.
These programs are powerful tools that can jumpstart growth, drive cultural change, open new revenue channels, and transform businesses. However, 60 percent of corporate accelerators fail within two years, and partnerships result less than 1 percent of the time.
“Corporate innovation is never easy, but sometimes it seems as if startups and big companies speak completely different languages,” said co-author and venture capitalist Jules Miller. “Our goal with this book is to help with the translation, allowing innovators and incumbents to work together effectively through an accelerator program that achieves real results on both sides.”
Since they became popular in 2010, copying the model of popular independent accelerator programs such as Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and Techstars, corporate accelerators have led to hundreds of millions of dollars of investments in tens of thousands of startups around the world.
“It’s like an innovation cargo cult, when we imitate behaviors without understanding how they work in the hope of achieving the same results,” says Jeremy Kagan, Co-author and professor at Columbia Business School. “Big companies have an opportunity to build a different type of accelerator program that is better suited to their business goals, which is what we guide them to do throughout this book.”
With work as we know it upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is even more important for companies to innovate, digitize, and adapt. Companies that invested in innovation during past crises delivered 30% higher growth than their peers who paused or never had innovation initiatives after the crises ended.
“Many businesses won’t survive; many more will have a long path to recovery and will never be the same,” says Miller. “This is a time to continue, and even push harder, on innovation investments including accelerators.”
Designing the Successful Corporate Accelerator
This book is currently available for order and is available wherever books and eBooks are sold on March 16.
About the Authors:
Jules Miller is a Partner at Mindset Ventures and the former leader of IBM’s Blockchain Ventures group, where she launched two corporate accelerator programs. She is an expert in corporate innovation from her experience as a serial entrepreneur, venture capital investor, intrapreneur, innovation executive, and accelerator manager. She is a Kauffman Fellow and frequent speaker on innovation, venture capital, and startups.
Jeremy Kagan (New York, NY) is a Venture Partner at Reign Ventures and the former Managing Director of the Eugene Lang Center for Entrepreneurship at Columbia Business School, and a consultant for companies launching their own corporate accelerators. After going through the Entrepreneur’s Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) with his own startup, Kagan is active as an award-winning lead mentor, advisor, and board member.
About the Book: Designing the Successful Corporate Accelerator by Jules Miller and Jeremy Kagan (March 16, 2021, ISBN: 9781119709060, 352 Pages, Cloth, $29.95)
Media Contact: For review copies, interviews with the author, excerpt requests or additional information, please contact Jean-Karl Martin, Wiley, jemartin@wiley.com.
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