We are continually trying to learn which ideas Pollenizer can add the most value to. Over the past four years we have worked on many different businesses and have come to understand which opportunities we can have a huge impact on.

We have a set trimester system, called ‘The Pollenizer Way’ which unifies our pods into a schedule of 1 month Discovery and 3 months Validation. This means each business has 16 weeks to find the focus, build a MVP (minimal viable product), be placed in front of real customers, iterate several times, and raise investment. This is a huge task, in an high pressured environment with limited time.

In order to add drastic value we need to select businesses that work with our model. Critical attributes are:

• Have a clear revenue path. Businesses that rely on attracting a huge user base before they can become monetized are very challenging and do not suit our fast iteration model.
• Business can be easily tested. During the Discovery Stage we manually test the business model in any way possible.
• Business has a recognisable MVP. We can build the first version which customers can value and launch it in under 6 weeks.
• Business has had no past development. We have learnt that when a business has already had development work it is difficult for us to become involved and add value. In addition we have learnt that generally people who come to us at this point are looking for advice or a service provider.
• Has not had much money spent on the idea. When we form a partnership we start from the beginning together.
• Is not a business that we are already working on. It is important that we structure our portfolio so that we are not weighted to any one type of business or industry.