CASE STUDY
Across four cohorts from 2020 to 2023, we built coach capabilities and a certification system for conducting assessments and validation in local startup ecosystems.
Client Context
Effectively supporting local startups required hands-on coaches who could go beyond offering advice to assess business structures and validate hypotheses with evidence from customers and the market. A consistent set of learning, practice, and evaluation criteria that could be applied across multiple cohorts was also needed.
Transformation Design
The Innovation Lab ran four cohorts of the program from 2020 to 2023. Working with real companies, participants practiced assessing business structures, interviewing customers, running hypothesis-validation experiments, estimating market size, and redesigning target customer segments. Final presentations and certification reviews turned that learning into capabilities they could apply in the field.
Changes in Judgment and Action
Participants moved beyond relying solely on experience or intuition and learned a coaching process that systematically connects assessment, interviews, experiments, and market judgment. With each successive program, coaching language and certification criteria for use in local startup ecosystems were further developed.
Key Proof Points
- Four cohorts delivered, 2020–2023
- Business assessment + customer interviews + hypothesis validation + market and target customer redesign
- Development of practice-ready coach capabilities through final presentations and certification reviews