Exploradores tras las "gemas" de la Innovatividad

La entrada es de Knowledge@Wharton y contiene la entrevista a uno de los socios de TSG Consumer Partners, compañía que administra un fondo de inversión de riesgo, dedicada a hallar y promover "gemas" en pleno crecimiento en las categorías de alimentos, bebidas y productos de belleza. Se trata pues de un actor un piso más arriba en lo que podemos llamar la cadena del valor de la innovatividad: el empresario innovador - el producto y la compañía innovadores - el inversionista innovador

El primero es quien tiene como modo de vida el entendimiento de las oportunidades de innovación que surgen en los mercados; la segunda-segundo (bajo la conducción del mismo empresario innovador) traducen dicho entendimiento en bienes y servicios transables que hacen real el delivery de la promesa que en la oportunidad identificada clamaba por una nueva propuesta de valor; el tercero, es el inversionista no-tradicional, que se distingue de los otros inversionistas por saber juzgar cuándo hay una verdadera "gema" en la combinación del primero y la segunda-segundo, y actúa con decisión poniendo dinero y conocimientos al servicio de su ulterior desarrollo

Tenemos aquí una combinación virtuosa de Jobs-To-Be-Done: de una parte los Jobs-To-Be-Done que al mercado le urgen ser resueltos (la oportunidad), de otra, los Jobs-To-Be-Done que la organización innovadora necesita resolver para su ulterior crecimiento y consolidación (la oportunidad que los "exploradores" andan buscando)

Extracto de inicio:

"Knowledge@Wharton: Our guest today is Alex Panos, managing director of TSG Consumer Partners. Alex, thank you so much for joining us. TSG was set up in 1987 as an investment fund focusing on the food, beverage and beauty industries. Could you help us understand what business opportunity you saw and what your strategy was?

Alex Panos: Sure. The firm was actually founded by two of my partners, Chuck Esserman and Gary Shansby, in 1987. I joined in 1998. I will describe what they saw in the market then and what I think applies today. There seemed to be a gap in the market. There were private equity funds using a lot of leverage and doing larger deals -- fewer of them. Venture capital funds were doing many deals, but all equity. Neither had a particular industry focus. The VC guys were business builders and the LBO guys were driving value primarily through leverage. So my partners saw an opportunity to focus on business building and driving value through growth. That seemed to be the opportunity. So it really is a hybrid. We do fewer investments and we use very little debt, if any, in our deals.

Knowledge@Wharton: Why did your partners pick that industry?

Panos: In consumer products there seems to be a lot of innovation. They saw an opportunity to find products where there would be strong loyalty, and premium products that were still affordable. So even in a down economy, people still might include them in their lives. Something we look for in all of our businesses to this day is an installed base, a product that works, that people enjoy; perhaps it somehow enhances their life and is -- we use the term -- an "affordable premium upgrade." So Vitaminwater -- one of our investments -- is an example of that, something that provides maybe a little bit more than what you were drinking before and that does not cost that much more..."