Tuesday 21 September 2010
Leverage "been there, done that" experience to grow faster
Many Australian companies, as they look for ways to grow and become more successful, face the challenges of attacking new markets like the US or EU or China, or expanding into a new industry adjacent to the one in which they are currently working. As well, new and emerging companies have the additional challenges of building a business from scratch, raising capital, and accessing domain expertise in the industry their new business is hoping to enter.
The management teams of such businesses can benefit enormously from access to individuals who have ''been there and done that'' before, and who have the bandwidth (and the right motivation) to offer guidance and encouragement. Acceleration Co-op is a recently launched, virtual, online community of global domain experts, that offers a new and different approach to providing this type of hands-on help.
Value proposition
''For the times when input from someone who has ''been there and done that'' can save you years of hard work or $millions.''
Differentiation
Of course there are various other mentoring groups and talent pools already ''out there'', but this initiative differs in a number of ways, and has the potential to address some of the imperfections of those alternatives. Here are some of the differentiators:
- A membership filter to ensure that the ''experts'' really are ''experts'' (see membership criteria);
- A ''collective'' business model, designed to motivate the experts to focus more deeply than in the case where their engagement is purely philanthropic;
- A focus on a global community and ''best in world'' expertise, rather than being limited to ''best from country x''; and
- A private, virtual interaction space - where businesses can engage with the expert crowd in a variety of ways, including one-on-one interactions, ''crowd sourced'' interactions (expert crowd in this case), and restricted ''private circles''.
The experts
A community like this only works if it contains high quality experts. You can judge the quality for yourself by browsing some of the backgrounds of the Acceleration Co-op experts. They include a mix of experts in markets ranging from cleantech to life-sciences, as well as people with experience raising capital and running businesses in diverse geographies. Many of the ''experts'' have held CxO titles, and a number have started successful businesses themselves. Current expert members are from North America, Latin America, Europe and Australasia - a good start on the goal of becoming a true ''global'' community.
Potential new expert members
The community is actively seeking new expert members who fit its expertise criteria. Why join? As the website describes:
Acceleration Co-op is for world-class ''experts'' who are interested in:
- new business opportunities;
- global recognition by peers and ''accelerates'';
- a share in the Acceleration Co-op revenues; and
- the fulfillment of helping entrepreneurs ''conquer the world''.
Learn more: www.accelerationcoop.com
Author: Richard G. Caro, founding member, Acceleration Co-op; CEO, TangibleFuture, Inc.
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