Testimonials
Research Commercialization
Dan Leri, Director, Innovation Park, Pennsylvania State University
“Creating a culture of aggressive commercialization demands a radical shift to thinking about the value of IP in business terms. So what? who cares? why you?® provides a process and discipline to drive this transformation by giving our innovators, tech transfer officers and would-be entrepreneurs the tools to see the potential of technology and science through the lens of industry and customers.”
Keira Torkko, Director, Business Services, National Research Council of Canada
“Garnering support for our science and technology research is critical to the ongoing success of our programs. Wendy Kennedy’s roll up your sleeves commercialization workshops and practical So what? who cares? why you?® toolsets enable our research managers to assess and communicate ideas in a way that ‘de-risks’ new innovations for business audiences.”
Corporate Innovation
David Mann, former VP Emerging Business Investments, Nortel Networks
“So what? who cares? why you? provided my global team of technology oriented scientific staff with a methodology to define and articulate a business value proposition to support their applications for funding from a large investment pool. Along the way, the transformation in thinking that occurred was significant and, as a result, increased by more than six times the number of investment ready-ideas coming from our team.”
Michele Le Saux, Head of Ground Segment Technology Section Telecommunications Department, European Space Agency
“At the European Space Agency Telecommunications and Integrated Applications Directorate, So what? who cares? why you?® works with our standard process to assess project proposals to determine those with the best commercial potential. It also creates a platform for our staff to have high-value discussions with industry about the commercial value of projects submitted to us for funding consideration.”
Incubation
David Terry, Executive Director and Co-founder, West Texas A&M Enterprise Center
“So what? who cares? why you?® allowed us to fill a critical gap in services at the pre-incubation stage, where people need to find out if there’s even a commercial opportunity before spending a lot of time and money on it. This methodology is one of the best I’ve seen to really get outside of an idea and communicate what it means to customers who would pay for it. For founders, it’s a lot easier to map out your idea using visual tools than to write a business plan before the concept is even fleshed out.”
Darlene Ryan, Executive Director, TECH Fort Worth
“TECH Fort Worth, So what? who cares? why you?® has become a pillar of our entrepreneurial coaching program. We use the workbook as a tool with our company founders to really ‘dig in’ to their business models. The methodology and the workbook together provide an un-intimidating format for entrepreneurs who are distinguished in research and academia but not necessarily in business.”
WKI Certified Coach Program
Jennifer Fowler, Business Consultant, Louisiana Business & Technology Center, Louisiana State University
“The WKI Certified Coach hands-on training gave me a comprehensive understanding of the tools and how to use them with our researchers and entrepreneurs. The knowledge and insights I gained will help my organization more quickly assess the viability of early stage innovations. Even more important, I left the session with a practical plan to implement this method into our incubator.”
Paul Moses, Director, Purdue Technology Center
“The WKI Certified Coach two-day training gave me an opportunity to refine some of the skills and techniques I had been using to work with very early stage high-tech entrepreneurs. Combined, I think the tools and methodology are wonderful complements to our already successful incubation program at the Purdue Research Park.”
Dar Schwanbeck, Managing Director, Northern Alberta Business Incubator (NABI)
“After completing the WKI certification training, I ran a full-day commercialization clinic using the tools with a group of agri-food producers. It’s a testament to the simple power of the methodology that all six of the participating pre-venture teams were able to go from idea to funding in just a few short weeks.”
Methodology
David Fonseca, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
“WKI is the best program to guide and explore innovative ideas. The hands-on tools permit coaches to move accountability to the entrepreneur while helping to understand the real business value in the process.”
Susan Gorges, CEO, SpringBoard West Innovations
“The magic that sits inside of So what? who cares? why you? tools is that it matches the ‘ready, fire, aim’ personality of the entrepreneur. Founders can use the visual, action-oriented tools to crystallize their idea and have the first alpha review of the concept in a few hours.”
Tim Peoples, Director, Purdue Research Foundation
“Through our Entrepreneurship Academy and PREPP post-doc program, we see the impact of So what? who cares? why you? at both ends of the spectrum – from planting the seeds of entrepreneurial thinking in the next generation of innovators to empowering pre-venture founders to become the lead navigators in discovering the commercial opportunity of their ideas.”
Rod Schatz, Co-founder, Oolite Solutions Inc.
“Working through the So what? who cares? why you? tools in a dynamic, coaching environment really forced us to challenge our assumptions about the business value of our SAAS idea. Without going through this framework as a team, we would never have achieved alignment on the value proposition and strategy so quickly – it saved us at least two and half years of heartache.”
Tools
Sean MacEntee, Manager-Novation, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Dundalk, Ireland
“The self-help nature of Wendy Kennedy’s So what? who cares? why you?® makes it a must-have resource for technology entrepreneurs who must address the commercial aspects of their offering. We have embraced Wendy’s methodology for several of our programmes and we expect So what? who cares? why you?® to become the centrepiece of all of our future Enterprise Development Programmes.”
Piet Beukman, Director, Engineering Management Programme, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
“I have used So what? who cares? why you?® as a workbook in a number of courses I teach in new Zealand and Australia. The book is practical, to the point and of great value in that the essential concepts of commercialization are presented in a way that can be readily used. Wendy has managed to strip the subject of all the myth and hype usually associated with turning ideas into businesses; the book is an essential teaching as well as a practice tool.”
Alec Saunders, President & Founder of iotum Corp
“So what? who cares? why you? makes it very easy to develop a startup strategy and cut out all of the extraneous ‘fluff’ that it’s easy to get bound up in. Wendy’s method forces you to focus on the real issues. I’ve used it successfully with a team of 15 that had only a basic knowledge of business and I’ve used it in my own startup. It works.”
David Williams, Co-Founder of Prairie Designs
“So what? who cares? why you?® has helped us to develop the vocabulary necessary to communicate both the critical numbers and the ideas that are important to investors. Not only have we broadened our business vocabulary, we have also learned how to streamline our analysis of potential markets and customers. We are better able to adequately explain how our product works, what our next steps in commercialization are, and where we want to be in several years.”
