Different Paths, Same Question: Who Is Your Customer?
By Carlos Navarro, Technology Licensing Officer, and NSF I-Corps Hub: Desert and Pacific Region Instructor, University of Hawaiʻi
Have a promising research breakthrough that you think can revolutionize an industry? Youʻve probably already asked yourself: whatʻs the best way to get it out into the world?
Most researchers assume itʻs a binary choice: you either launch a start-up to build it yourself, or you license it to an established company for them to build. In reality, the landscape is much more flexible than that: whether youʻre in the early stages of exploring commercialization or already committed to a specific path, the NSF I-Corps™ program equips you with a proven methodology to figure out which route makes the most sense for your technology, your market, and your personal goals. Depending on your innovation, the market dynamics, and what you actually want to be doing five years from now, there are multiple legitimate paths worth exploring – and I-Corps helps you navigate them all.
Start With the Foundation: What Problem Are You Actually Solving?
This is a hard truth every researcher needs to face: your technology has to solve a real problem that real people are willing to pay to solve. If the problem isnʻt genuine or urgent enough, adoption just will not happen, no matter how technically brilliant your innovation is. Why would anyone spend money on something that doesnʻt fill a need?
This is why I-Corps is a valuable tool for any researcher considering commercialization, not just those with dreams of being the next start-up unicorn. The program teaches you a customer discovery methodology where, through enough structured conversations with the people who actually deal with the problems you solve, you gain a clearer image of the market need (or lack thereof). And the better you understand that problem, the better you can shape your innovation to actually address it.
Customer discovery doesnʻt just validate an idea – it reveals commercialization paths which make sense for your technology. Sometimes these conversations show that your innovation works best as a standalone product you can scale as a company. Other times, they reveal that your technology is better positioned to be integrated into an existing solution, which might mean a partnership or licensing arrangement is smarter than going solo. You might discover your invention solves a niche problem best served through collaboration, or that the market need is so large it demands you build your own company. Customer discovery helps you figure that out before you commit years to the wrong path – and there are many paths you could take, such as…
- Build and Scale Your Own Company
This is the classic start-up route: you establish a company to grow the technology over time while staying deeply involved. You might bootstrap it with your own funds, grant funding or other non-dilutive funding, chase venture capital, or piece together a mix of both to your liking, but regardless, the goal is to build a scalable business that can sustain itself long-term. Think Google and Facebook, the start-up stories everyone knows, or companies like Oxford Nanopore Technologies [1] and Planet Labs [2], which are less well-known but are still major players in their fields. All four came from university environments or garages and grew into significant companies.
- Build It, Prove It, Sell It
This path is particularly common in deep-tech fields where you need research and development work to prove your innovation actually works beyond the laboratory setting. You build a company to advance your tech to a higher readiness level with the specific intent of selling off to a larger established company that has the resources to commercialize it at scale, but was unwilling to take on that risk before. Expect many years of development before you reach that exit, but there may be comfort knowing that this will not be your whole life forever. Think Bluefin Robotics (bought by General Dynamics after developing their hardware) [3] or ALung (acquired by LivaNova after their artificial lung was approved by the FDA) [4].
- Partner with Industry While Remaining in Academia
For those uninterested in the founder role, there are still options: in this path, you collaborate with established companies to develop and scale the technology together. You contribute expertise, technical resources, or talent, while your industry partner leverages their infrastructure or customers to deploy the tech in real-world conditions or solicit feedback. Here, the risk and resources for scaling are distributed, and you remain in your post-doctoral or faculty position.
- Focus on Research, License the Results
This option is ideal if you want to advance your technology, secure strong IP, then hand it off to someone else to commercialize and work on something new. You guide your research based on what the market actually needs, the university manages the IP end, and a licensee picks it up from there. You get the credit and satisfaction of knowing your work is being used and deployed at a new level, but with minimal entrepreneurial and technical headaches of the actual scaling.
The Bottom Line
There is no one “right” way or defined path to commercialize research. What matters is doing it intentionally, with a clear-eyed understanding of what your customers actually need and what you actually want your role to be in creating that product or service.
Thatʻs why I am such a fan of I-Corps: the customer discovery methodology works regardless of which path you go down, and the mentors and instructors within the Desert and Pacific Region Hub have lived through them all. We are here to help you experience the technology transfer process as you explore how involved you want to be.
If you’re ready to explore whatʻs possible for your research, we’re ready to help! Sign up for an informational session to learn more about I-Corps, or click here to register for an upcoming I-Corps Regional Program now!
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