Sven Reulen, StraTopo founder and director, explains:

With four employees and a few tons of turnover, StraTopo in Maastricht cannot experiment haphazardly with innovations. But innovation is essential for this highly technical company to remain relevant to its clients. How nice it is then that LIOF exists. With the program LimburgToekomstbestendig LIOF supports Limburg start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs with innovations that have an economic and social impact. LIOF gave StraTopo just that little bit of financial support that made an otherwise too expensive innovation financially feasible.

From product development based on smart technology

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LIOF supports innovation through three financing instruments, one of which is the Advisory Project. Within the AdviceProject, entrepreneurs can obtain financing for bringing in external expertise regarding the feasibility of an innovative product, process or chain development.

In the AdviesProject half of the consultancy costs of the planned innovation is reimbursed, up to a maximum of 7,500 euros. StraTopo received this maximum amount, because the total consultancy project cost 15,000 euros. For that amount, the company used the services of lean startup specialist Joris Heine, owner of the agency Valoop, for four months. StraTopo founder and director Sven Reulen met him during an entrepreneurial meet-up in Maastricht: I told Joris that we at StraTopo find it difficult to put a product on the market on the basis of technology on which we can then scale up. Joris turned out to have a lot of experience in that area. So that was a good match.

Which innovation was tested for feasibility?

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Reulen explains how the AdviesProject went and what it yielded: ,,I was granted the funding for the AdviesProject after a few exploratory talks and submitting the application form. The request for funding was aimed at advice on the development of a so-called Area Scan: a tool that calculates the amenity score of an area for each location entered. This score is determined by all sorts of factors, for example the presence of an elementary school, a day nursery, a supermarket, but also the population density, the distance to the freeway, and so on. During the project, this product unfortunately did not meet a market need.''

Towards a standard working method in product development

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Although a major setback, the AdviceProject did yield something else that may ultimately turn out to be even more valuable for StraTopo: a structured, standard method of working in product development, which increases the chances of market success. Joris Heine's 250 hours of advice led to: - A fixed method of guiding customers through a sales process, based on customer response data at each stage of the sales process - An interview monitoring script with key questions to ask. - A Business Process Model for each customer segment, as a means of learning why customers do buy something or not. - Branding: aligning through communication the market perception and the real identity of StraTopo.

"With this new standard way of working, we are going to waste less time on innovations that do not meet a market need"

More time and money going to the right things

Reulen explains the benefits of the Advisory Project in more concrete terms: ,,Because of this new standard way of working, we will waste less time on innovations that do not meet a market need. That is perhaps the biggest gain of all; as a company we struggle to determine when we should stop pursuing something that we don't know will lead to anything. At the same time, the new way of working leaves us with more time, resources and focus for - also - more efficient development of innovations that are in fact promising. We were founded in 2019. This company is still young, small and therefore potentially vulnerable. It is therefore important to improve the efficiency and success ratio of our product development. We also want to work towards a situation where more and more customers integrate our smart solutions into their work processes (see highlighted). Indeed, engineering, research and real estate consulting firms can forgo much investment in expensive accessibility and other surveys if they are constantly connected to the latest versions of our smart technology via a subscription to StraTopo."

Innovating? Get expertise in-house with the AdvisoryProject

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Is your company also working on an innovative product, process or an interesting chain innovation whose technical or economic feasibility you would like an external expert to assess? Get the right expertise in-house with the ConsultancyProject. Click here for more information or contact us to discuss the possibilities for your company. If the application is granted, you get 50% of the advisory costs reimbursed, up to a maximum of 7,500 euros.