CBI Pro-Akademia

In this paper I focus on innovation management in a very specific environment – the start-up companies. That means there are many constraints: restricted resources in the sense of money, people and equipment. The aim is to share some approaches towards creating innovative solutions using other people’s money. My study is based on detailed observation of opportunities that surround small companies, the power of networking, and ability of benefiting from both of them. I present how to stimulate the growth of an enterprise and prepare it to be a credible partner in the future. It is examined how to start an innovation process within a small company getting the stakeholders involved and supports it from external sources of labor and insights. A few techniques and methodologies of marketing and sales are analyzed and commended on. The large part of the paper elabo-rates on binding partnerships with universities and through these getting funds or services within a field of research and development. The extended model of open innovation is introduced here, including not only technology, but also other resources. Results are derived from case studies of real operating companies, of which I was a consultant. The key takeaway of the paper may be stated as a clause that the proper innovation management process needs a mix of different techniques and approaches applied at each level of product or service development with a respect to surrounding operating and market conditions. And these above men-tioned issues are discussed in the paper as well.