Maven: Leveling the Playing Field for Corporations

A few months back we told you about how venture capitalists use Maven. Maven now has over 50 venture capital firms as Clients, with more migrating onto our research and diligence platform every day (and abandoning the clumsy, expensive, and inflexible “expert networks”). These include most of the major VC firms in Silicon Valley and beyond.

Given our strong position with VC firms, it is only natural that corporations would begin to take notice of our capabilities. In fact, we have recently experienced significant increase in the number of corporate users who are finding ways to leverage our Knowledge Marketplace. Our corporate clients range in size from small independent startup companies to major multinationals with global operations. There is a growing sense that the commingling of the global talent pool brought about by the likes of LinkedIn is ultimately beneficial to companies- and that knowledge sharing across corporate boundaries brings about faster innovation, better products, and more efficient operations. In short, open innovation is here, and Maven helps to power it by leveling the playing field and bringing on-demand expertise to companies of all sizes.

Just in the past month we have helped corporate users connect with Mavens for:

• Market research
• New product launches
• New market expansions
• Technology sourcing
• Independent consultant sourcing
• Supply chain investigation
• Vendor identification
• Academic expertise
• Cross-border and emerging markets expertise
• Out-sourcing decisions
• Merger and acquisition diligence
• Customer or potential customer surveys
• RFP expertise

For example, we recently helped a large industrial goods company find a Maven who could help them identify potential issues with a new product under development. The product required technology with which the development team was unfamiliar; they were perfectly comfortable exploring and evaluating the technology, but wanted an expert to “point them in the right direction” before launching the effort. Within 24 hours Maven had connected the team with a seasoned professional with over 30 years of experience in the application in question. After a 45-minute Telephone Consultation, the team had the knowledge it needed to proceed with confidence; in fact, the team leader told us that the Maven had “pointed out several issues we hadn’t considered, which has fundamentally changed our development plans for this product. The call was a complete success!”

A little knowledge can go a long way. Maven levels the playing field for corporations, allowing them to tap into “small bites” of highly-targeted expertise to help guide their efforts and make employees more efficient.