The Green Room podcast
What makes innovation worth backing?
A great elevator pitch might win attention. But what earns commitment and support?
Making the right judgement call
How to differentiate a good idea from a backable one.
Having the best idea doesn’t mean anybody is ready to commit to it. A breakthrough technology. A new direction for a business. Both can inspire enthusiasm – but getting the support of people, time or money is another matter.
The ideas with the greatest potential rarely come with the greatest certainty. Moving too early could waste scarce resources. While waiting can make a decision safer but the opportunity smaller. Behind each decision is a balance between belief and evidence, optimism and discipline, and opportunity and risk. So how do we determine what's worth backing?
In this episode, we explore what makes an idea worth backing before success is guaranteed. What evidence is enough and which risks are worth taking? And do we invest in the ideas that we think will shape the future, or wait until the future tells us which ideas definitely will?
Watch below, or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Read the transcript here.
"Don't pitch the idea, pitch the evidence. Where's the evidence that demonstrates the huge market opportunity is there already?"
Rad Patel – Healthcare M&A and Corporate Finance Advisor, Deloitte
"I don't think it's the innovation itself that's being assessed"
It's easy to assume that we back decisions purely by the strength of the idea alone. But according to Rad Patel, who provides strategic and M&A advice to owner managed and private equity backed companies, the innovation is only the start.
When investors assess an opportunity, they're looking beyond the innovation itself and asking deeper questions. Is there a genuine market need? Can demand be demonstrated? Are customers already adopting it? And does the team have the experience and capability to turn potential into results?
Sir Danny Alexander, CEO of HSBC Infrastructure Finance and Sustainability, agrees: an idea may be compelling on paper but deciding whether it is worth backing means assessing the team behind it just as carefully as the opportunity itself.
Part of that comes down to whether the team can read the room: how are they presenting themselves? Have they brought the right people in? Early investors may be drawn to what's new and exciting, while later forms of finance often require a different kind of evidence, with more certainty of what's established and known.
"You're trying to de-risk."
For Sir Danny Alexander, weighing up the risks is as important as assessing the potential for success.
Moving from an exciting innovation to something that can operate at scale needs a process of de-risking. After all, the strongest opportunities aren't always those with the least risk. They're often the ones where the risk is best understood.
As Danny explains, "If you come to that with zero knowledge, probably your perception of that risk is going to be very different." The less we understand an opportunity, the harder it is to judge whether the risks are acceptable. But experience, relationships and a track record in adjacent fields can provide valuable context. It's about turning an unknown risk into a known one, giving decision-makers greater confidence in what they're backing.
Supporting the ideas that will shape tomorrow.
Investments often begin long before outcomes are guaranteed, when all you have is potential, trust and a belief in what's possible. But how do we identify the opportunities that could shape the future, with the confidence to back them today?
Hear more from Sir Danny Alexander and Rad Patel as they explore how organisations, investors and innovators decide what's worth backing. Why do some opportunities attract support while others struggle to gain momentum? What role do trust, evidence and human judgement play? And how do you make sure you don't miss the next big opportunity because somebody else was willing to back it first?
Watch below, or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Read the transcript here.
"If global goals are going to be met... if we're going to generate the kind of economy that we want to see in the coming decades, that's going to come from innovators. It's going to come from new ideas from early-stage companies."
Sir Danny Alexander – CEO, HSBC Infrastructure Finance and Sustainability
Let’s make this work.
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What does it take to turn ideas into impact?
The future isn’t built by accident. Explore more insights from Series 15, where we learn from the people brave enough to think big, and explore the role we can all play in turning bold ideas into progress.
