ICURe-Style Customer Discovery
ICURe-Style Customer Discovery helps the founder or programme team complete a focused intervention on customer discovery plan, assumptions, interview targets and learning goals. Within University & Research Commercialisation, it turns a broad or uncertain area of the venture into a concrete Bertie work product that can be reviewed, improved and reused. The task is intentionally discrete: it should produce a specific artefact, decision, evidence item or risk signal rather than general learning notes.
Complete a focused intervention that advances ICURe-Style Customer Discovery. The objective is to remove ambiguity around customer discovery plan, assumptions, interview targets and learning goals, give the founder a decision-ready output, and make it clear whether the venture should progress, repeat the task with stronger evidence, escalate to expert support, or move into a linked stage.
Bertie or a programme manager assigns ICURe-Style Customer Discovery when the venture needs a decision-ready output for this group. Typical triggers include group-gate reviews, evidence gaps identified by the co-pilot or founder request.
research asset; IP or publication status; research team; technology maturity; candidate applications; specific context for customer discovery plan, assumptions, interview targets and learning goals.
Define why an intensive, ICURe-style customer discovery sprint is required for this university IP or academic research spinout. Frame the commercial boundary of the research and establish clear expectations around testing value propositions outside academia.
ObjectiveClarifying this action defines the commercial parameters and boundary conditions for market engagement before speaking to prospective buyers. It ensures the team does not mistake technical validation or academic interest for genuine commercial market demand.
What's expectedThe founder must produce a one-page discovery charter outlining the target market domain, the core IP being commercialised, and the explicit business rationale for the discovery sprint. This must include success metrics for the discovery phase and explicit alignment from the technology transfer office or academic team.
Open action arrow_forwardConsultant stress-test · 5 questions- 1.What specific commercial uncertainty are you trying to resolve through this ICURe-style discovery sprint rather than standard academic feedback?
- 2.How have you distinguished between interest from research collaborators and actual willingness-to-pay from commercial buyers?
- 3.What boundary conditions have you agreed with your Technology Transfer Office regarding IP disclosures during these customer conversations?
- 4.Why is an intensive discovery sprint necessary now, and what specific strategic pivot would this exercise trigger if key assumptions fail?
- 5.How does this discovery rationale directly align with the broader spinout trajectory and funding timelines?
- A data-room asset titled ICURe-Style Customer Discovery
- A clear task output, updated venture DNA and recommended next action
- It should update the venture DNA with specific evidence or decisions about customer discovery plan, assumptions, interview targets and learning goals, create a visible milestone in the founder journey, and generate one or more recommended next tasks
Bertie co-pilot translates research language into commercial hypotheses, structures IP and application evidence, and recommends spinout, licence or discovery tasks. For this task, it should focus on customer discovery plan, assumptions, interview targets and learning goals, prompt the founder for missing inputs, draft or improve the output, flag weak assumptions, and record the result back into the relevant data-room section.
A mentor or evaluator can review the output at the group gate. Programme managers can require an advisor checkpoint before Bertie moves the venture forward.