Four-Sided Marketplace

Xinova’s Marketplace combined Talent, Technology, Capital and Market. There were four primary users for the portal that sat on top of that marketplace:

• Customers—these included multinationals (ie. Pepsico, Honda, Samsung), NGO’s and Inventors who, seeking innovations, post their Request for Innovation

• Innovators—these are experts, individuals, teams, labs, etc., that research the problem, then create and submit solution proposals to address the innovation.

• Investors—these Partnerships, Family Desks, etc. who want to leverage their capital bring emerging technologies to a broader market.

• Reviewers—these are industry and academic experts who review solutions for their technical feasibility and market viability and in some cases desirability in regards to intellectual property

The challenge was tailoring the presentation of the opportunities and solutions to each of these four groups in ways that best addressed their needs.

Customers

Customers would start with their Project Dashboard. Giving then an overview of their various projects, customers can track the performance of their project within the marketplace. Each submission is automatically shared with the innovator network, how well a project performs is a combination of incentives, the problem itself, and the upside for the innovators.

Drilling down, Customers can also review each project in more detail by opening the Project Performance Summary. A core insight within the marketplace, was referred to as the “Battleship” graph; knowing where your enemy’s ships aren’t is just as important as knowing where they are. For novel innovations, e.g. inventions knowing what will not work is incredibly valuable in helping to optimize resources and time.

These Project Performance Summaries also included an analysis market potential, top teams, etc. There was also a space to allow the customer to discuss with Xinova’s investment team the potential of opening the Project to third party investors.

Once the submissions had been reviewed and vetted but Xinova’s innovator network, they would be shared with the Customers. This review process ensured that only solutions that were both technically feasible and economically viable would be moved forward in the process.

Once cleared for submission to the Customers, the Solution Description included a summary of the solutions, its core differentiations and an analysis of the solutions potential in the market. Also included was an overview of the team who submitted the solution, including links to their full Innovator Profile. And detailed description of the proposed solution given some of the customer contacts were not member’s of their company technical staff, often the Solution Details would need to be reviewed by the extended customer .

Innovators

Each member of the Innovation Network has a personalized marketplace homepage. Given participation in the network was a source of revenue for these members, we focused the page on helping them maximize their time, and to be as efficient as possible in managing their submissions, learning about new innovation opportunities, and making connections with other innovators looking to collaborate on a solution.

New projects would be prioritized for presentation to the member based on their profile, which was a combination of their self reported interests and skills, as well as their performance metrics from previous submissions.

Additionally we would display the status for their submissions as they progressed through the review process.

When Customers posted a New Request for Innovation, members would notified based on their preferences. In addition to presenting the customer’s project, the RFI page for members also included suggested collaborators from within the network.

Each RFI’s also included a threaded Discussion allowing members and customers to discuss the project, ask questions and make suggestions for refining the scope of the project as well as expanding the incentives for participation.

Once the member submitted their solution, they could also track its performance within the project. Solutions not selected by the customer would be added to the Solution Library with in the site, and made available for future customers as well as investors looking to bring new technologies to adjacent markets.