Innovation Tours: Find Solutions Wherever You Go

Words by Carlos Pichardo

Opportunity is to be found worldwide and with yet2’s innovation tours, an ordinary business trip can become the beginning of the next big innovation. Our tours are a chance for our clients to see prospects in their target area without the stress of scouting, selecting, and scheduling. We’ve had tours worldwide including San Francisco, Israel, and Singapore. We get our clients opportunities wherever they go!

Follow along to find out what is an innovation tour, why they are so valuable, and why we’re the best at organizing them!

What is an Innovation Tour?

An innovation tour is a brief tour of the local relevant companies in a client’s topic of interest. Over one or two days, our client will attend in-person meetings with the stakeholders of multiple companies. These meetings are a great opportunity for meaningful and actionable outcomes because of the unique features of an innovation tour!

The Power of Innovation Tours

Despite the upward trend of online conferences and digital communications, there is definitely power in being in-person. Innovation tours are a chance for our clients to quickly get a better sense of prospective stakeholders in a future deal. Clients don’t have to worry about unclear email exchanges that tie up progress or dealing with the distractions of impersonal virtual meetings. Instead, they get the opportunity to speak directly to senior stakeholders who are briefed and ready to take action. We believe in-person meetings help lead to actionable next steps because of clear communication. We even fly out yet2 staff to be right there in the room having the right conversations!

Let’s take a look at an example of how quickly valuable deals can be created with an innovation tour!

Outcomes

One of our clients, a large consumer packaged goods company approached yet2 hoping to inform their senior R&D leadership on the connection between big data and healthcare in the Bay Area. The tour attendees included the company’s CTO and seven R&D Vice Presidents in different categories. We facilitated an in-person Innovation Tour and the results were top-notch.

In one afternoon, our client’s senior R&D leadership obtained a prioritized list of 12 external technology and partnership opportunities with leadership agreement on the next steps!

These partnership opportunities are absolutely not the bottom of the barrel. We preserve the same quality checks by doing all the scouting, logistical, and scheduling work necessary to ensure our clients have successful tours.

Here’s what goes into planning a highly successful Innovation Tour!

Perfect Planning – Perfect Tours

To create the perfect innovation tours, yet2 ensures all the sites our client visits are the best they can be. We scout, select, plan, and prep according to our clients. For the Bay Area client, we found 11 potential targets by scouting the most relevant incubators, accelerators, and VCs. After further communicating with our client and utilizing yet2’s filtering and prioritization methodology, we identified the top 2 leads. After selecting these leads, we spent 3 months preparing and pushing them to address the client’s topics of interest. We diligently shared relevant information and continuously refined the agenda to make sure our client’s tour was catered to them. It is these months of effort which allow clients to reap such great rewards in as little as a single afternoon. Thankfully, yet2 is in a unique position to be able to offer Innovation Tours.

Why yet2?

To be able to provide Innovation Tours around the world is a privilege yet2 has built up over decades of establishing roots in the innovation hubs of the world. Having locations in the US, Asia, and Europe allows us the flexibility to find opportunities globally. It is because of this, we are able to plan tours in places as varied as San Francisco, Seoul, Japan, and Singapore. Furthermore, we have the experience to find the right targets and to take the results of Innovation Tours and push our clients to capitalize on these opportunities with detailed logistics planning.  Because of these reasons, when you want to touch down and talk to the major players of innovation, yet2 gets you in the door!

Contact yet2 for help planning your next innovation tour.

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