PowerPoint Presentation

[Audio] Welcome to our closing session. Closing Your 90-Day Plan, Key Takeaways and Questions.

[Audio] Before we continue, take a moment to look at what you now have in front of you, if you did the exercises. From Module 1, a readiness scorecard and a technology readiness level for your outcome. From Module 2, a map of your customers, a plan for interviews, a value proposition sentence, and a first beachhead segment. From Module 3, a rights audit with a list of the things that are still unknown. From Module 4, two draft business model canvases, each with a riskiest assumption and a test. And from Module 5, a one-page go-to-market sketch, a pilot design, and a first view of your funding options. That is a substantial amount of work, and most research outcomes never get this far. But these are all drafts. A plan only becomes real when it turns into actions that people carry out, by specific dates. So in this final section, we will convert your drafts into a ninety-day plan: short enough to be realistic, and long enough to produce real evidence. Then we will review the key messages, and finish with some common questions..

[Audio] Let me give you the whole journey on one slide, so that you can see how the parts fit together. Step one is readiness. We began by asking honestly where your outcome stands, using technology readiness levels for the technical side and an eight-point scorecard for the commercial side. The lesson was that the weakest dimension decides how fast you can move. Step two is customers. We learned that market risk, not technical risk, is usually what stops promising innovations. We mapped users, buyers, influencers and gatekeepers, ran discovery interviews that focus on their lives and past behaviour, built a value proposition from jobs, pains and gains, and chose a first segment to win. Step three is rights. We asked what you own, who else has a claim, how to protect it, when disclosure is safe, how open and commercial strategies fit together, and how farm data, which is central to digital agriculture, is governed. Step four is the business model and price. We compared options from subscription to licensing, learned to price on value and test willingness to pay with real offers, checked the basic economics, and addressed adoption barriers. Step five is the route to market and funding: channels customers trust, partnerships that are started small, pilots that produce references, the regulation that may apply, and funding routes matched to your stage. Running through all five steps is one principle: evidence. At each stage, you replace a belief with something observed. Interviews give way to pilots, pilots to letters of intent, letters of intent to paid pilots, and paid pilots to renewals. The further up that ladder you climb, the less risky your venture becomes, and the easier it is to find partners and funding. Now let us turn this into action..

[Audio] A good ninety-day plan has three phases of thirty days each, with a small number of priorities in each, and a clear way of knowing whether each one is done. Phase one, days one to thirty, is learn and clarify. Update your readiness scorecard, now that you have thought more carefully. Run your customer interviews: ten to fifteen conversations with the people on your actor map, following the rules of talking about their lives and asking about the past. Meet your technology transfer office, or whoever handles intellectual property in your institution, and take your rights audit with you. And resolve the most important unknowns, especially ownership and any restrictions on commercial use. Phase two, days thirty-one to sixty, is define and test. Use what you heard to refine your value proposition and your beachhead. Test your price by making a real offer, for example a written quote for a paid pilot, to at least a few customers. Choose which business model you will pursue first, based on your two canvases and your tests. Draft a pilot agreement with clear success criteria. And speak with two or three potential partners, such as a cooperative, an adviser network, or an industrial company, to explore interest. Phase three, days sixty-one to ninety, is commit. Aim to start a pilot or sign a letter of intent with at least one customer. Choose your funding route, and contact the relevant adviser, whether that is your institution's funding office, a National Contact Point, or a programme such as EIT Food. And hold a formal review to decide: go, pivot, or stop. We will discuss that on the next slide. For every action in your plan, write three things: who is responsible, by when, and what evidence will show that it is done. "Talk to customers" is not an action. "Complete twelve interviews with greenhouse growers and record the three most common problems, by day thirty, owner: Maria" is an action. And keep it small. Choose no more than three priorities per phase. A short plan that you complete is worth far more than a long plan that overwhelms you. Be realistic about your time, since most of you will do this alongside other responsibilities..

[Audio] This is our final exercise: writing your ninety-day plan. Please pause the video when I finish. Step one: draw three columns, for days one to thirty, thirty-one to sixty, and sixty-one to ninety. Step two: under each column, write up to three priorities. Choose them using what you have learned about your own outcome: your two lowest scores from Module 1, your "unknowns" from the rights audit, and the riskiest assumptions from your business model canvases. Step three: for each priority, write the owner, the deadline, and the evidence that will show it is complete. Be specific and measurable. Step four: write one criterion for the day-ninety review. For example, "At least five of twelve growers describe this problem as significant and two agree to a paid pilot." Step five: share your plan with one colleague, mentor or friend who will ask you about progress. A plan that someone else expects to see is far more likely to be carried out. Take around fifteen minutes. Pause the video now..

[Audio] At the end of ninety days, you will face a decision, and it is better to prepare for it now than to improvise later. There are three options: go, pivot, or stop. Go means the evidence supports continuing. Customers have confirmed that the problem matters, some have committed time or money, and your economics look workable. You then plan the next stage: a larger pilot, a funding application, or the first commercial agreements. Pivot means that something in your model needs to change, and the evidence shows what. Perhaps the problem is real but in a different segment than you expected. Perhaps customers value a different part of your solution. Perhaps the price metric or the channel is wrong. A pivot is not failure; it is learning applied, and you return to testing with a new hypothesis. Stop, or park, means that, after repeated and honest tests, customers do not pull. That is difficult to accept after so much work. But continuing without evidence only consumes your time and your funders' money. Stopping a commercial path does not have to waste the research: you can publish the results openly, license them to a company that has a better fit, or return to them when conditions change. There is a well-known trap here, usually called the sunk cost fallacy: the tendency to keep going because of what you have already invested. The way to avoid it is to set your criteria in advance, as you did in the exercise, and to judge the evidence against them. One last point. Be honest with yourself and your team. Researchers are used to the idea that a negative result is still a result. The same applies here. A clear answer after ninety days, even if it is no, is more valuable than uncertainty after three years..

[Audio] Let me close with nine messages to take away. One: a research outcome is not yet a product. Packaging, support, proof and price turn it into an offer. Two: measure readiness on two scales, technical and commercial, and remember that the weakest one decides the pace. Three: start with customers, and learn from what they have done, not from what they say they might do. Four: know what you own before you share or sell it, and protect before you disclose. Five: choose your business model deliberately, price on value, and test willingness to pay with real offers. Six: lower the barriers to adoption with trials, flexible payment, open interfaces, good support and references from peers. Seven: partner step by step, and turn every pilot into a reference. Eight: match funding to your stage, and always check current conditions for programmes and regulations. And nine: decide on evidence. Go, pivot, or stop, with criteria that you set in advance. If you remember only one thing, remember the question we started with: who will use my result, and why will they pay for it? Every action in your ninety-day plan is a way of answering it with evidence..

[Audio] Before we finish, let me address four questions that people often ask at this point. First: do I have to start a company? No. Many research outcomes reach the market through licensing to an established company, through partnerships, or through services delivered by an existing organisation. Starting a company is one route and suits some outcomes and some people. Use the business model comparison from Module 4 to decide. Second: how do I protect my idea while I talk to customers? In most cases, you talk about the problem, not the secret details of your solution. Where you need to share more, use a confidentiality agreement. And if you think a patent might matter, file before you publish. Third: my technology is not ready, so can I even begin? Yes. Begin the customer work now, because it will show you what to develop, and use public funding to bridge the technical gap, as we discussed in Module 5. Fourth: how much should I charge? Price on the value you create, and test with real offers instead of questions. You do not have to do this alone. Your technology transfer office can help with ownership, protection and licensing. National Contact Points and the EU IP Helpdesk offer advice on funding and intellectual property. The Enterprise Europe Network helps with partners. EIT Food supports agrifood start-ups. And cooperatives and advisers are often the most valuable allies of all..

[Audio] Thank you!. thank you!. TALLHEDA has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101136578. Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them..