Founder at Upbeat 👉 Accelerating strategy so we can finally get our hands dirty | Revenue Architect | for B2B companies that want go to market, optimize revenue channels & build bowtie funnels

I help founder-led B2B companies at €1–5M ARR who are profitable but overwhelmed by growth choices, and want ONE focused go-to-market system that matches their market, pace, and ambition.

Story time. 

I went from being “fine at many things” to being known for one thing that compounds.

It took me almost 20 years.

Early in my career, I worked across sales, consultancy, and strategy in B2B and startups.

It looked like this:

- Chasing roles instead of building leverage
- Startups failing around me
- Being competent, but never the obvious standout

By 31, I’d been fired, quit jobs, and watched things fall apart more than once.

At my lowest point, I took a minimum-wage job because I didn’t know what my angle was anymore.

Surrounded by people who were “making it,” I kept thinking:

“Maybe this is just my ceiling.”

As a generalist, I didn’t have:

- A single lens to make decisions
- A clear point of view the market could repeat
- A system that compounded without me

So I stayed busy, but replaceable.

Lots of motion. Very little leverage.

So I changed how I operated.

I stopped being a generalist.
I stopped solving ten problems at once.
I focused on one thing:

Why revenue actually happens.

→ ICPs instead of personas
→ Buying behavior instead of opinions
→ Systems instead of tactics

At least, that was the plan.

I learned it takes time to earn “known for one thing.”

I went deep, shipped frameworks, tested them in the wild, and kept narrowing the lens.
Over time, founders started coming to me for ICP-driven GTM and Revenue Architecture.

Since then, I’ve worked with 250+ teams, mainly founder-led B2B SaaS between €1M and €5M ARR.

And the conversations shifted:
“We finally know who we’re for.”
“Our pipeline makes sense now.”
“We can explain why deals close, or don’t.”

This led me to build my approach at WhyThey.

If that sounds good, there are 3 ways I help founder-led B2B companies at €1–5M ARR build ONE focused go-to-market system:

→ GTM Audit + ICP Sprint to diagnose what's broken and find your ideal customer
→ Founder GTM Advisory to build your GTM motion with your team through bi-weekly sprints
→ Team Implementation for everything in #2, plus hands-on guidance to execute with your team

Check out my Featured section 💪

Douwe W.

How many customers does it take before your ICP becomes real?

Founders ask me this all the time.

Usually, because they’re stuck in between.
They have customers.
But not enough confidence to say, “this is our customer”.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth.

You can’t find your ICP with two great customers.
That’s just a story.
Not a pattern.

From experience, not hard science, you need at least 8 great customers before your first ICP starts to form.
Anything less is guessing.

Why this is so hard early on comes down to one thing.
Your GTM motion.

Different motions give you different levels of ICP clarity.

No touch, roughly 5 percent ICP clarity.

> This is pure PLG.
You learn from behavior only.
Usage.
Support tickets.
Chats.
Surveys.

You see what people do, not why they do it.

To get 8 core ICP customers at this level, you need roughly 160 customers.
Not because PLG is bad.
Because the signal is thin.

Low touch, roughly 10 percent ICP clarity.

You add light human contact.
Short discovery calls.
Quick demos.
Basic qualification.

Think around 80 customers.
ACV in the 5k to 15k range.

Retention starts to matter more than volume.
Patterns begin to show, but they’re still fragile.

Medium touch, roughly 20 percent ICP clarity.

Sales and CS start working together.
Discovery becomes structured.
Feedback loops exist.

ACV moves into the 15k to 50k range.
With around 40 customers, your ICP stops being a guess and starts becoming defensible.

High touch, roughly 30 percent ICP clarity.

Fewer customers.
Much richer data.

Multi-stakeholder discovery.
Regular CS debriefs.
Clear success definitions per account.

Around 25 to 30 customers is enough here.
Data turns into stories.
Stories turn into patterns.

Dedicated touch, roughly 40 percent ICP clarity.

Founder-led.
Deeply involved in GTM.
Strong domain and market knowledge within the team.

Every deal teaches you something.
Not just about fit.
But about timing, urgency, and risk.

This is where ICP clarity compounds fastest.

The strategic angle most teams miss.

Higher touch doesn’t just mean fewer customers.
It means more context per customer.

More domain knowledge.
More qualitative insight.
More signal per deal.

That’s why ICP clarity scales differently per motion.

You don’t define your ICP in a workshop.
You earn it through motion, customers, and repetition.

And yes, 8 great customers is the minimum.
Everything before that is educated guessing.

If you want help figuring out which motion gets you to ICP clarity fastest in your situation, reply “ICP” and I’ll walk you through it.

Douwe Wester 🟢 👉

Helping SaaS & Tech founders (500k–€5M ARR) nail their Customer Fit, Messaging & GoToMarket Motion so scaling becomes predictable | Ideal Customer-Led Growth | 👇

How many Clients does it take till ya get to the center of the...
(I’ve got to know)
How many Clients does it take till ya get to the center of the...
(Tell me...)
How many Clients does it take till ya get to the center of the...
(Oh oh)
How many Clients does it take till ya get to the center of the...
(Oooh oooh ah ah oh)

Turns out, how many touches you have with your clients
will determine how you acquire them
and how much you can charge them.

Here’s what that journey actually looks like 👇

1 | How many customers do you need before your ICP becomes real?
Each GTM motion reveals new data about your buyers.

No-touch → Build a behavioral ICP from analytics, churn, and usage.
Low-touch → Double down on high-retention micro-segments.
Medium-touch → Blend SPICED interviews with win/loss reviews to confirm fit.
High-touch → Treat every deal as a test case and iterate your ICP quarterly.
Dedicated-touch → Shift from ICP to Ideal Account Profile (IAP) and segment by org traits, not personas.

The higher the ACV, the clearer the ICP.

2 | ICP Fit Stages
Early customers → help you learn
Ideal customers → help you scale
More clients + more data = ICP Fit


3 | The Goldilocks Zone ICP
Too big → deals stall
Too small → revenue leaks
Your ICP lives in the middle ↳ where velocity meets profit.


4 | Profile Creation
Stack it!!!
→ ICP: What makes a customer ideal
→ SPICED Tiers: Who gets your best effort
→ Personas: Who’s really in the deal
→ Info Needs: What moves them forward

Each motion teaches you something new.
Each client brings you closer to clarity.

You don’t find your ICP by guessing.
You find it by graduating through each motion with intent.

P.S. I'll be dropping these individual BOMBs this week ;)

This weeks Ideal Customer-Led Series:
#2  of 5 | ICP FIt = https://lnkd.in/enA6jFTw
#3 of 5 | Goldilocks zone =https://lnkd.in/eHXsFTuF
#4  of 5 | ICP Profile Creation
#5  of 5 | How many customers?

Your next customer probably won’t buy from you this quarter.
But they will remember who helped them think more clearly today.

That’s the part most founders miss.

Pipeline problems don’t appear out of nowhere.
They show up months after you stopped doing the work that actually builds demand.

I see this constantly with SaaS founders.

Things felt fine, so visibility dropped.
You stopped showing up.
You treated growth like something you could turn back on when revenue slipped.

Now pipeline is dry, and you want results immediately.

You’re asking for outcomes on a timeline you didn’t earn.

Nobody likes hearing that.
But it’s usually true.

Most founders chase quick pipeline wins.
Cold outbound. More volume. More pressure.

Sometimes that helps.
Most of the time, it doesn’t save your ass.

Because 90% plus of your market isn’t buying right now.
They’re not even looking.

But they are watching 🌱

The founders who keep showing up
sharing useful perspective
talking about real problems
teaching before they pitch

are quietly planting seeds 🌱

Pipeline isn’t a vending machine.
It’s a garden 🌱

You can’t harvest what you never planted.
And if you only show up when you need pipeline, you’ll always be chasing it.

The best founders I see understand this.

🌱 Educate before they sell
🌱 Build trust before there’s intent
🌱 Play the long game on purpose

Because growth doesn’t come from hacks.
It comes from habit.

If you need pipeline right now,
you probably should’ve started earlier.

If you want pipeline six months from now,
start today 🌱

If you are between 1–5M in revenue

↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓

What’s one thing you’re doing right now that won’t help this quarter, but will pay off later this year?

You don’t go from “any customer” to “ideal customer” overnight.
You earn your ICP one stage at a time.

Your ICP isn’t static.
It evolves with every deal, every dataset, and every motion.

Here’s what that journey actually looks like.

Early customers
They help you learn.

They show where value is real and where it breaks.
They expose friction in onboarding, gaps in positioning, and mismatched expectations.

They are your first dataset.
They are not your finish line.

Ideal customers
They help you scale.

By this point, ROI is proven.
Onboarding is tighter.
Positioning is sharper.

These customers start to look familiar.
Same pains. Same wins. Same retention curve.

Patterns emerge.

ICP fit
This is where success becomes predictable.

Sales, CS, and product can describe the buyer the same way in one sentence.
New customers behave like your best customers by design, not by luck.

More customers plus more data creates ICP-Fit.

It’s not a milestone you announce.
It’s a signal you confirm.

You don’t find ICP fit by guessing.
You earn it through motion, validation, and iteration.

This week’s Ideal Customer-Led Series:
#1 Base idea behind the series https://lnkd.in/eqaUhrNS

Up next -> The ICP Goldilocks Zone

PS. Credit to Maja Voje for coining the Early Customer Profile concept that started it all.

When I was a kid, I played a lot of baseball.

Like most kids, I wanted to swing for the fences.

Home runs.
Big plays.
Crowd goes wild.

What nobody explains early on is this.

You don’t win games on home runs.
You win when everyone gets on base.

One player reaches first.
Next one advances them.
Another brings them home.

It’s boring.
It works.

That’s how growth actually works too.

Improve 2% on all bases.

Grow Annual Recurring Revenue by 52.84%.

Sounds like clickbait.
It’s not.

If your conversion rate moves from 15% to 17%, that’s a 13% improvement.
For an early-stage SaaS company, that can compound into 50% plus ARR in a year.

Early growth doesn’t come from massive swings.
It comes from small, stackable wins.

A slightly better activation flow.
A clearer pricing page.
Fewer drop-offs in onboarding.

Just like baseball, not every play needs to be a home run.
Most wins come from getting to first base, over and over again.

Here’s the trap founders fall into.

They keep swinging harder.
More leads.
More traffic.
More noise at the top.

Meanwhile, runners are stranded on base.

If you’re early-stage, your advantage isn’t volume.
It’s efficiency.

Getting more out of the traffic, trials, and conversations you already have.

Because improving conversion by 2% is usually easier and more impactful than doubling traffic.

So the real question isn’t
“How do I hit a home run this quarter?”

It’s
“Where’s the easiest first base in my funnel right now?”

I turn messy GTM into ONE clear motion for B2B SaaS founders (€1–5M ARR), so growth becomes explainable and repeatable | Ideal Customer-Led Growth | 👇

Don't swing for the fences ⚾

Selection. Mutual commit. Onboarding. Impact. Expand.
Sounds like SaaS? It’s also how I fell in love.

I can’t seem to turn off the GTM brain, even in relationships.
And when I look back, the bowtie funnel fits a little too well.

Awareness
We noticed each other.
First glances. Slow smiles. Probably over coffee.
Definitely filtered.

Consideration
A few dates.
Sussing out values, attachment styles, and brunch orders.
No deck. Just vibes. And light stalking.

Selection
Choosing. Slowly, then all at once.
Not just “I like you,” but “I like where this is going.”
The spreadsheet of red flags? Surprisingly empty.

Mutual Commit
Labels. Exits closed. Shared Netflix login.
A roadmap (kind of).
Still messy. Like, who does the laundry kind of messy.

Onboarding
Moving in.
Cohabiting ecosystems. Calendar collisions. Towel negotiations.
It’s not all candles and playlists, or sometimes it’s moldy Tupperware.

PS. obviously getting Cats together is part of the onboarding, and dogs are expanding.

Impact
Real life shows up.
Family stuff. Struggles. IKEA assembly tests.
We figure out what “I got you” really means.

Expand
Kids (or houseplants that feel like kids).
Got a DOG
Joint rituals. Friends that become family.
A shared Google calendar with too many color codes.

There’s no pipeline stage for magic.
But it sneaks in somewhere between “Impact” and “Expand.”

Maybe love is a funnel.
Or maybe I need a day off.

Have a great day! Almost weekend

Everyone says “start narrow.”
Almost no one actually does it.

No wonder your strategy isn’t converting.

Pipeline isn’t the problem.
You’re selling to the wrong customers.
Or just not the right ones.

Sound familiar?

You’re not alone.

The same patterns keep showing up:

• Sales burns out on discovery calls that go nowhere
• Marketing creates interest, but zero intent
• Product keeps pivoting because “the market doesn’t get it”

You’re optimizing for the wrong customer.

This week on a discovery call:
“We want to market to all of them.”
Me: “Yeah, I get it. Your customers won’t.”

Last week, in a coaching session:
“But that excludes these customers.”
Me: “Correct. It’s not forever.”

Another one, data review:
“So… we’ve been targeting the wrong prospects this whole time?”
Me: “Annoying. But better now than later.”

Wrong size. Wrong GEO. Too many verticals.
That’s how growth dies.

Let’s fix that.

ICP too broad
Everyone’s interested.
Nobody buys.

Your website doesn’t fully resonate.
Prospects ask “is this for me?”
Deals stall at offer sent.
Revenue feels like pushing a boulder uphill.

ICP too narrow

Deals close fast.
Then the pipeline dries up.
The market’s too small to scale.
Expansion dies early.

Different paths.
Same destination.

Burned teams. Missed targets.

And then the blame game starts:
↳ Marketing blames sales
↳ Sales blames marketing
↳ Leadership burns budget

Meanwhile, a competitor with a sharp ICP compounds quietly.

Same market.
Same category.
Different clarity.

What if there’s a customer size where everything clicks?

Not the biggest TAM.
Not the tiniest niche.

The Goldilocks Zone ICP sits in the middle.

Narrow enough to speak with authority

Broad enough to scale without rewriting your GTM

Clear enough that product, marketing, and sales reinforce each other

When you hit it, something shifts.

One message
One discovery flow
One demo
A few offers
One onboarding

It resonates. Because they know it’s for them.

Quick diagnostic:

• Do your best customers teach you how to find the next ones?
• Do deals follow a repeatable path to close?
• Does your team know who to disqualify, and why?
• Are sales, marketing, and product aligned on the same customer?
• Are fast deals also your best deals long term?
• Do you know why you win and why you lose, early?

It’s not about total addressable market.
It’s about total actionable momentum.

That’s the clarity most teams are missing.

This weeks Ideal Customer-Led Series:
#2 of 5 | ICP FIt = https://lnkd.in/enA6jFTw
#3 of 5 | Goldilocks zone
#4 of 5 | ICP Profile Creation TOMORROW
#5 of 5 | How many customers?

I’ve watched Pulp Fiction way too many times.
Still have no idea what’s in that briefcase.

But I do know what should be in yours if you’re running a B2B company.

If you’re a founder sitting somewhere between €500k and €5M in ARR, this is for you.

You have a proven concept.
You’ve got paying customers.

But every new deal feels harder.
Because at that stage, growth feels off.

And somehow, progress still feels like pushing uphill.

Most founders I talk to are obsessed with the hunt.

New leads. 
New logos. 
New channels.

It feels productive. 
It feels like motion.

Meanwhile, your customers are already paying
And for some reason, they get less attention.

I get it.
New, New, New is kinda sexy.

It gives you the dopamine hit you probably need.

But when growth slows, and CAC keeps climbing, you need to wake up.

Adding new customers is linear.
Adding and retaining them is compounding.
That’s where real growth happens.

It’s Q1.

Everyone’s setting goals, 
chasing momentum, 
trying to build faster.

But the companies that will actually grow faster this year

They’re not chasing. 
They’re compounding.

TL;DR

Do this this week:
- Who's still in onboarding?
- Who's still in adoption?
- Who's really getting recurring Impact?
- Who's so happy you can ask for a case study?
- Who's so happy to refer you to others?
- Who's ready to renew?
- Who's ready to expand?

1. Make a Google Sheet. 
2. Put these questions horizontally.
3. Divide all your customers into these categories.
4. Make two types of plans 
a) What do we do when a client enters that stage
b) How do we progress the client to the next phase
5. Pick the area that needs the most attention.

Tom van Os 📈 any additions or suggestions?

You don’t need a new tactic.

Clarity brings all the clients to the yard. 
And they're like, "It's better than yours"
Damn right, it's better than yours
I can teach you, but I have to charge

Would love to hear the CS community about how to transition from focusing on sales to a full bowtie focus.

Helping SaaS & Tech founders (500k–€5M ARR) nail their customer fit, messaging & GTM motion so scaling becomes predictable | ‘That ICP Guy’ | Ideal Customer-Led Growth | 👇

How niche is too niche?

Here’s how I think about it for early-stage SaaS teams.

Your market should be big enough to get investors interested.
Your ideal customer should feel almost uncomfortably specific.

The narrower you go:

→ Sales gets simpler
→ Your story gets sharper
→ The path to €1M ARR gets shorter

That’s the Goldilocks Zone of early GTM.

In astronomy, it’s the orbit where life can exist.
Not too hot.
Not too cold.
Just right.

Startups have one too.

Too broad, and your message turns into noise.
Too narrow, and you run out of oxygen.

The answer isn’t “bigger.”
It’s focus.

One clear customer.
One clear problem.
One clear way you win.

Below €1M ARR, that’s where leverage is built.

One story.
One buyer.
One repeatable sales motion.

Everything else comes later.
New segments. Expansion. Adjacent markets.

But not before the first million.

👉 How close are you to your Goldilocks Zone?

Corporate innovation projects stuck in pilots but never generating revenue? 

Here’s why 👇

I help corporate innovation and business development teams turn new products and services into real, scalable revenue, before momentum is lost.

At BW Ventures, we work with enterprise organisations (1,000+ FTE) to validate demand, design go-to-market strategies, and accelerate growth.

Most corporate innovation teams struggle with:

- Building solutions before validating real customer demand
- Strong pilots that never scale commercially
- Slow, unclear go-to-market execution
- Innovation teams disconnected from revenue ownership
- Missed growth opportunities due to internal complexity

Our work is structured around three growth levers:

1️⃣ Pre-Acceleration
Validate demand and secure early customers before heavy investment.

2️⃣ Go-To-Market Execution
Design and launch enterprise-ready GTM strategies for new products and services.

3️⃣ Strategic M&A (Growth Acceleration)
Acquire or partner to scale new business lines faster.

(Most clients start with Pre-Acceleration & GTM.)

Over the last few years, we’ve:

- Supported multiple corporate teams in launching new revenue streams
- Reduced time-to-market for enterprise innovations
- Helped innovation teams move from experimentation to commercial traction


👉 DM me “INNOVATION” if you’re responsible for turning new ideas into revenue and want to validate your next move before scaling.

Maarten Kroonenburg

Most innovation teams aren't testing ideas. 

And it’s exactly why they don’t grow. 

And look, I get it. 

You can have the best idea in the world. 

But in practice, it usually turns into: 

- Roadmaps that feel solid (without market proof) 
- Business cases built on assumptions 
- Steering committees approving vibes 
- Internal alignment instead of customer truth 

It looks professional. 

But none of it proves that a customer will ever pay. 

And that’s exactly why most initiatives die before revenue. 

The top 1% do something different.

They disqualify bad ideas early:

→ Dozens of actual customer conversations 
→ Pricing tests before building anything 
→ Kill criteria defined upfront 
→ Assumptions written down and then attacked 

Roadmaps by themselves don’t reduce risk. 

Nor do business cases make people buy. 

Only customers do. 

The fastest way to accelerate isn't speed. 

It’s using money wisely when you don’t yet have answers.

Maarten van Kroonenburg

I help corporate innovation leaders turn new products into revenue | Pre-Acceleration & Go-To-Market for enterprises

Almost all new corporate ventures could make money. 

If they just knew how to validate. 

The biggest mistake most business developers and innovation managers make isn't having a bad idea. 

It's spending 6 months building something nobody wants.

Then wondering why revenue never shows up.

I've seen it dozens of times: 

- Smart people 
- Solid execution 
- But absolutely zero customers 

All because they never validated the willingness to pay before launch. 

So I built something different. 

Not another guide or a framework you'll never use. 

A Revenue Readiness Diagnostic. 

It’s a structured assessment that exposes the gaps between what you believe and what you’ve actually validated. 

Here's how it works: 

→ You answer a short series of scored questions 
→ Questions force brutal honesty about your evidence 
→ You get a clear score showing where you actually stand 
→ The system identifies your biggest risk gaps 
→ You receive a prioritised validation plan Instant insights

It's clear roadmap showing what must be proven before revenue.

This will save you months of pain. 

Want the diagnostic? 

1. Connect with me 
2. Comment "READY" 

And I'll send it straight to your DMs.

Most people think Go-To-Market is a launch event. 

It's not. 

GTM isn't a date on your roadmap or a campaign you run once. 

Nor should it be. 

Here's what it actually is: 

→ Repetition: Does your motion work the 100th time?
→ Objections: Every "no" tells you what's broken in your model 
→ Unit economics: Can you acquire and retain customers profitably? 

The biggest mistake? 

Optimizing for visibility before proving viability. 

Teams spend months on launch decks and enablement materials... 

Before they've heard a single real objection. 

And before they've even proven the model repeats. 

GTM isn't a phase you complete. 

It's a system that either compounds or collapses. 

If it only worked once, it wasn't GTM. 

It was pure luck.

P.S - We don't create unicorns,

We breed blue whales 🐋

"We'll let the product speak for itself." 

Don’t. 

Because it never works. 

And this is the exact sentence that kills more deals than bad products ever will. 

Because buyers don't start with logic. 

They start with risk. 

Your product might be brilliant. 

But if your offer doesn't answer these questions up front, you lose: 

- What if this fails? 
- Can I defend this internally? 
- How much will this cost me politically? 
- Will procurement block this? 

Most innovation teams spend 90% on building. 

Almost nothing on packaging the offer. 

People assume that once the prospects see it, they'll get it. 

But they won't. 

Nobody has the time or attention to figure it all out. 

Strong offers do three things instead: 

1. Translate value into belief 
2. Remove risk before objections appear 
3. Give buyers a story they can repeat internally 

Without that, even the best product stays stuck in "interesting." 

Closing isn't about persuasion. 

It's about removing uncertainty.

Innovation teams don't have a budget problem. 

They have an investor mindset problem. 

Here's what I mean: 

Innovation teams manage projects as if they were parents. 

They protect each one. Defend their potential. Keep them all alive. 

But investors manage portfolios differently: 

- Expect 80% to fail 
- Fund small, early 
- Kill fast when evidence is weak 
- Double down only when signals are strong 

The difference? 

One keeps everything alive. 

The other moves resources to what's working.

If you protect everything, you’ll end up with: 

→ Crowded portfolios 
→ No clear winners 
→ Capital stuck in weak signals 
→ Decisions delayed because killing feels like failure 

Innovation isn't about running more experiments. 

It's about capital allocation under uncertainty. 

Without that mindset, teams just stay busy. 

Not effective.

A lot of innovation teams are lying to themselves. 

Not on purpose. 

But almost by default. 

Because if innovation never changes the budget, it’s just theatre. 

And as a result: 

- Companies run pilots. 
- Build prototypes. 
- Test new ideas. 

But when it's time to allocate capital? 

The innovation work sits in a separate folder. 

So what actually happens: 

→ Projects get explored, but budgets don't move 
→ Teams learn, nothing scales 
→ Experiments end, funding stays the same 

Meaning that nothing really happens. 

Real innovation doesn’t do this. 

It forces hard choices. 

It kills bad ideas instantly. 

And it gives the few that survive more funding, faster. 

Anything else is activity without consequence. 

And that’ll take you nowhere.

P.S - We don't create unicorns,

We breed blue whales 🐋

Most innovation teams don’t realise how much money they leave on the table. 

Not because they don't have budget.

But because they lock it in too early. 

Here's what I mean: 

A company has €6M for innovation. 

Bad approach: 

- 12 projects at €500k each 
- All run in parallel 
- No hard stops

Result? €6M spent. Maybe 1 project works. 

€5.5M went to ideas that never got a real yes/no. 

Better approach with the same €6M: 

Phase 1: 20 ideas x €75k 
Kill 14 fast. Continue 6. 

Phase 2: 6 projects x €250k 
Kill 4. Continue 2. 

Phase 3: 2 projects x €1.5M 
Fund what's actually working. 

Same total budget. 

Completely different logic. 

The first setup commits money once. 

The second moves capital toward signal. 

Innovation doesn't fail from lack of budget.

It fails because money gets allocated too early and reallocated too late. 

Good systems don't spend less. 

They just move faster.

A mediocre idea tested fast beats a great idea tested late.

Not because brilliance doesn't matter.

Because the market doesn't wait.

Most teams spend months perfecting the pitch.

Polishing the deck.

Aligning stakeholders.

While their competitors are already learning what works.

Speed isn't reckless execution.

It's cutting the gap between your assumption and real feedback.

Test fast and you get:

- Bad ideas exposed early
- Good ideas validated quickly
- Less money stuck in "what ifs"

Brilliant ideas feel too precious to risk.

Mediocre ideas feel safe to throw at the wall.

That's why "smart" projects die in planning.

They're waiting for certainty only customers can give.

Innovation isn't won by the best idea.

It's almost always won by whoever learns fastest.

P.S - We don't create unicorns,

We breed blue whales 🐋

Most corporate innovation will fail in 2026.

Not because they lack ideas.

Because they're structurally incapable of scaling them.

They all run innovation like project management.

But the companies that win?

They run innovation like investors.

These are Spawner companies.

And they operate on a completely different capital logic.

I just created a full breakdown of the Spawner framework covering:

- The 5 Spawner types (Adjacent, Embryonic, etc)
- Why asymmetric capital allocation drives real growth
- How to stage funding: Discovery → Validation → Scale
- The innovation system that actually works
- A practical checklist to start acting like a Spawner

This is the same system used by companies that continuously create new businesses while most corporates kill good ideas with bad process.

Want the full Spawner framework?

1. Connect with me
2. Comment "SPAWNER"

And I'll send it over to your inbox.

P.S - Repost this to get it early!

Most innovation projects I’ve seen have failed. 

Not because the idea sucked. 

But because validation stopped way too early. 

Here's what happens: 

- A prototype works 
- Users say "this is cool" 
- Team celebrates the quick win 

Then 2 years later, someone asks: "Where's the revenue?" 

The problem? 

You validated interest. 

But skipped the only thing that matters:

Actual willingness to pay. 

Real scaling requires: 

→ Moving from niche to real problem 
→ Turning promises into commitments 
→ Building repeatable economics, not just pilots 

Innovation doesn’t scale on enthusiasm. 

It scales on evidence. 

And evidence starts with customers paying.

Most bold ideas don't fail in the market. 

They fail in the building. 

Not because leadership said "no". 

Because they said "let's revisit this next quarter." 

Here's what kills internal innovation: 

- Extra approval layers 
- Requests to "refine the strategy" 
- Endless re-scoping 
- Death by a thousand delays 

The bigger the idea, the stronger the resistance. 

Beautiful pitch decks don't create confidence anymore. 

They create doubt. 

What actually builds internal support: 

1. Show evidence of a real problem worth solving 
2. Prove people will actually pay for it 
3. Be honest about what's working and what isn't 
4. Ask for small staged funding, not one massive bet 

Internal champions aren't won in boardrooms. 

They're built during the work. 

Long before you ever pitch. 

When stakeholders see the evidence early, buy-in stops being political. 

It becomes obvious.

Innovation teams obsess over burn rate.

They ignore opportunity cost.

And that's the real killer.

Burn rate shows up in dashboards.

Opportunity cost doesn't:

- It's the capital that could've gone somewhere better.
- The stronger projects that never got funded.
- The options you lost by locking budgets in too early.

Most teams track spend.

Almost none track optionality.

Here's what happens when budgets get locked:

- Weak projects keep running because they were "approved"
- Dead signals get more runway than they deserve
- Better ideas arrive when there's nothing left to move

On paper? Everything looks fine.

In reality? You've killed your ability to adapt.

The strongest innovation systems don't just control burn.

They keep capital flexible.

Fast kills. Clear thresholds. Money that follows evidence, not history.

Because the real risk isn't running out of budget.

It's running out of options.

P.S - We don't create unicorns,

We breed blue whales 🐋

Most companies fund innovation backwards.

And it can end up costing millions.

First, they approve big budgets upfront.

Then spend months defending why they shouldn't lose it.

Here's what actually works:

Start small. 

Really small.

Give teams just enough to test their riskiest assumption.

If the signal is weak? Kill it.
If the signal is strong? Add fuel.

The goal isn't to protect budgets.

It's to protect speed.

Because innovation dies in two ways:

1. Bad ideas that get too much runway
2. Good ideas that don't get rewarded fast enough

The solution is simple.

Treat funding like a filter, not a commitment.

- Start with tiny bets across multiple ideas
- Cut aggressively based on evidence
- Double down only when conviction is earned

This forces two critical behaviors:

Teams move faster (because they know decisions are coming)

Capital flows to what's working (not what was approved 6 months ago)

Shrinking budgets early isn't about thinking small.

It's about staying honest.

P.S - We don't create unicorns,

We breed blue whales 🐋

Almost all innovation teams seem busy from the outside. 

Close to 0 are actually moving the needle. 

Because rarely any of them track the right things. 

But instead, they track: 

- Experiments run. 
- Pilots launched. 
- Decks presented. 
- Stakeholders aligned. 

None of that proves actual impact. 

And that drives the wrong decisions: 

→ Projects stay alive longer than they should. 
→ Momentum gets reported instead of results. 
→ Weak ideas avoid being killed, because stopping doesn’t look like progress. 

The outcome is predictable. 

Initiatives move forward without earning the right to scale. 

And capital gets stuck in “promising” work that never moves. 

The fix isn’t complicated. 

Just change what you measure. 

Stop rewarding motion, and start rewarding outcomes. 

Revenue doesn’t come from being busy. 

It comes from narrowing the field. 

If your KPIs don’t make stopping easier, they won’t make scaling possible.

P.S - We don't create unicorns,

We breed blue whales 🐋

The most expensive mistake in innovation?

Waiting too long to kill a bad project.

Early-stage experiments are cheap to stop.

A prototype costs time, and maybe a few weeks of resources.

That’s easy to walk away from.

But here's where teams get trapped:

The "almost proven" zone.

You've got:

- Pilot data showing promise
- Teams already staffed
- Budget allocated
- Stakeholders invested

And as a result, you run "one more test."

Then another.

But that uncertainty is very expensive.

Especially when the core questions still remain unanswered:

→ Will customers actually pay? 
→ Can this scale profitably? 
→ Who owns this commercially?

The project hasn't earned the right to scale.

But it's no longer cheap to stop.

The fix is simple:

Define your evidence thresholds before you start.

And agree on kill criteria while stopping is still affordable.

Early uncertainty costs you weeks.

Late uncertainty costs you years.

“Almost proven” is where innovation bleeds money.

Not at the start.

Not even at scale.

But right in the middle.

We see this phase all the time:

- A prototype works.
- Early users are positive.
- The team feels ~70% confident.

Not enough to scale, not bad enough to kill.

So what happens?

Early ideas are cheap.

Late uncertainty is expensive.

This is the moment where:

→ Kill decisions get delayed because optics matter
→ “Just one more pilot” sounds reasonable
→ €100k quietly turns into €500k without a real yes or no

Not because teams are reckless.

But because stopping late feels worse than continuing.

So projects drift, stay alive, all while capital stays locked.

We’ve helped multiple teams step in exactly at this point.

When things feel promising, but unclear.

Want to see if we could help navigate your situation better?

Comment "INNOVATION" and I'll shoot over a DM.

Innovation teams optimise projects.

Real spawners optimise decision speed.

Because the real bottleneck isn’t ideas.

And it isn’t funding.

It’s how long teams stay in uncertainty.

Most organisations are great at starting things.

They’re terrible at deciding:

→ Is this real demand or just polite interest?
→ Is this scalable or just a nice pilot?
→ Is this worth real capital or not?

So projects linger.

More research.

One more experiment.

Another stakeholder update.

Not because the team is slow.

But because the system makes decisions hard.

Spawners work differently.

They design their innovation process around one outcome:

Turning uncertainty into a clear decision, fast.

That’s also exactly what Pre-Acceleration is built for.

It’s not about running more experiments.

It’s about shortening the distance between:

“We think this might work” and “We now know what to do with our capital.”

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