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I'll try to keep this as brief as I can. Recently I have taken up a position within a big agency where I am responsible for an 'innovation cell'. People can voluntarily join this cell and they get to use 20% of their time to work on innovative, new projects/products they choose. Usually this is on fridays. In return, they turn in a part of their paycheck. 50% of the profits made by this cell is distributed in equal parts between everyone in it. Basically it's a sort of 'embedded startup'. There are 9 people who are mostly designers and developers by trade.

Now, I am the only person who works on this cell full time (there's one other person who works on it half-time). So I do customer support, business development, analytics, project management and everything in between that needs attention day-to-day. My background is mostly in Interaction/experience design & information architecture so I am still learning a lot :). On my fridays I do mostly Interaction design for the new projects.

On to the issue. After a few months I have found a few factors that are holding this team back. I'd like to see if anyone here has some insights.

  1. Follow through after launching. There are a couple of products that are currently live (and have customers), but have no further development. Since people signed up to make new things and the time they get is limited some believe that followup is not their 'job'. And it may not be. Fact is that products tank because there is no follow through.
  2. Coherence. Because of the 'fractioned' nature of this arrangement it's hard to have an overview of what's happening, what needs to be done and who is doing what. I have tried introducing a project management tool, but again, I failed at getting people to actively update it. Are there good ways you guys have handled this?
  3. Marketing. The achilles heel of a lot of tech startups :). We don't have any marketeers. I'm wondering if there is a good way to do marketing with such a fractioned, time limited team. Or maybe a way to get a marketeer to join us :).
  4. Management. Overall I feel the management of the cell is not going well. I took over the job (and methods) from my predecessor but am by far not satisfied with the way of working. I'd like to work on a new approach, but would love some guidance on figuring out what that should be, and on introducing new concepts in an established team with active projects.

I know this is a big question, but any advice will be majorly appreciated. I really want to pull this team together and make amazing things. All the people here are so talented and I'd love to help them realize something awesome. I'm sure the potential is there.

Cheers.

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To clarify...you're saying that people volunteer to spend a 20% chunk of their time in this cell, typically on a Friday, and they give up a part of their paycheck to do it in hopes that something gets released and they can get half the profit split among everyone that worked on it? – Bart Silverstrim Nov 13 '12 at 14:25
Isn't that kind of like paying to have some time off without being an actual vacation, a pay cut that the business could potentially profit from with the other 50% cut along with the IP of the project? – Bart Silverstrim Nov 13 '12 at 14:27
Is this run as part of a big company, with all the participants working for that company - or is this something people can just wander in off the streets and join? – DJClayworth Nov 13 '12 at 20:40
Since people signed up to make new things and the time they get is limited some believe that followup is not their 'job'. And it may not be. - So basically the product is half-baked and its creators have bailed, so what kind of profits can be expected from this? – Karlson Nov 14 '12 at 15:31
@BartSilverstrim : Yes, that is how it works. However the company provides some extra benefits for people with us. There are also arrangements for IP and pulling products 'out of' the company into an independent startup. – Maikel Nov 15 '12 at 10:48
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I think this is a great idea, I think the key issue you have is "making the sausage factory". Your role is to fill in all the blanks around the other contributors and make a process that they can fit into.

The feedback loop. Most techies don't have a detailed understanding of post release, they generally don't see this and don't appreciate it, their job is done, they can relax ... thus most don't have any follow up.

So you need to create an end to end process:

  • Starting with them agreeing at the outset to continue being engaged OR if they want out what the rules are for dropping the project, replacing themselves before they leave.
  • Then you need to have them define the project beyond the first delivery so that it is understood there is to be more and it could be their new job.
  • You need to define a series of success metrics for each project and help to get these feedback points in place. Pre-release is features developed and the usual techie stuff, after release it is the number of prospects trying, conversion to prospects using the system, ROI that the company or otherwise has setup.
  • You need to provide them with an early adopters/users (your internal company is a good start), you could also help them go on kickstarter and other forums to get engagement. Without this they are playing in a vacuum and without feedback will wander onto the next thing.
  • You need to find and engage marketing and sales people. These I think will be either old guys who have done it all before and like contributing OR newbies who want to prove themselves and this is a shortcut to getting runs on the board. I think you need to do a pitch of the overall "incubator" goals with the pitch focusing on the benefits.
  • You need to find key leadership people. These again will be up and comers who are looking to prove themselves in the management space, convince them that these projects are the shortcut to getting recognized.
  • Define the ownership rules upfront. You now have lots of people involved, who gets what, when and why? everyone will start from "I deserve the most because without me X won't happen", which is true for each and every one of them, so you need a balance. Here are my thoughts from a few years ago on thinking about the split.
  • You probably need external interested parties as well, taking your businesses to start-up meetings or if you can, start to host startup meetings will open up a lot more possibility.

The parent company interest.

You need to get your parent company to workout what interest they want and what additional they are going to contribute to a company once it has passed specific milestones (like proven market, proven ROI, proven good bet). Are they going to invest? Are they going to give resources? If not why does the incubator exist in the first place. Once you have a statement like that from the key management team you can then start to make promises to the participants in the projects to drive a higher level of interest.

Something like $1M investment to the best start-up (as judged by the board) in 12 months time would get the attention of more than just the techies. Possibly have 3 winners to spread the boards risk, but you get the idea.

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Glad I could help – Robin Vessey Dec 23 '12 at 5:11
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Seems to be 4 questions in one, let's try to address the first: Follow through after launching.

  • Who should be responsible for the follow up of the product? The entire cell? A specific person?
  • Are you measuring somehow the use of the product, either some type of analytics. Does your cell have the know how to do that? Do you need to acquire it?
  • What are your customers saying about them?
  • Is there any path for harvesting a product?

So you have a group of people who worked voluntarily, presumably quite hard during non payed time, on a product that was launched. You should collect feedback on the product from users to see if the company could have a go/no-go decision to boost the development of the product, particularly in the areas your team needs and cannot be done in freetime such as marketing.

I wouldn't expect to earn anything without investing beyond the development of a product. Your last 10 bucks should go to find out if people like the product and convince your company either to foster the development or to halt it.

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Thank you for the response. * Everyone should be included in the follow through, since there will always be need of different skillsets. * Yes, we are measuring. One product in particular is promising. * Customers are generally satisfied, when talking to them. But we are noticing low retention due to campaign-based behaviour. * I'm not sure what 'harvesting' in this context implies. Care to elaborate? – Maikel Nov 19 '12 at 9:48
We are working on getting more user feedback. However this has been rocky so far, with low response rates on (personal) emails and surveys. – Maikel Nov 19 '12 at 9:53
up vote 0 down vote

Something that doesn't seem right here is that individuals are "donating" their salary time to create a product / service in return for 50% of the profits.

Why bother having a 50% albatross around your neck + assume additional support work + do (likely) an already difficult deadline driven job?

What is the agencies responsibility for their 50% of the cut? It would seem that sponsoring company should be doing more to encourage longer term success (customer development, metrics, support) and using such experiences as proof / fodder for additional post-launch services for their client base. Or at least holding a quarterly competition of all the launched projects to pick a winner that gets some real business support.

Once the cell "project" is sold to customer base, it is no longer a project - it is a business. If the agencies name is on it, the agency also must claim responsibility. The value proposition assumptions of the business will face reality and likely change. Someone / some org must assume post launch responsibility and adjust based on customer feedback. Otherwise these projects are just a lab experiment - one that can hurt the reputation of the agency if mismanaged.

IMHO The team that needs to be pulled together is the agency + the "innovation cell" - not the cell itself.

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