Transcript
A (0:00)
This is the story of the 1. As head of maintenance at a concert hall, he knows the show must always go on. That's why he works behind the scenes, ensuring every light is working, the H Vac is humming, and his facility shines with Grainger's supplies and solutions for every challenge he faces. Plus 24. 7 customer support. His venue never misses a beat. Call quickgranger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
B (0:38)
Welcome to Coruscant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive podcast. Do you work in emerging tech? Working on something innovative? Maybe an entrepreneur apply to be a guest at www.corazon.com brand welcome to the Digital Executive. Today's guest is Roland Ostrup. Roland Ostrup serves as Chief Growth Officer and member of the Executive Committee at Inventure, an industrial growth conglomerate that creates and operates standalone companies from breakthrough technology solutions developed by multinational corporations. Since joining Inventure's leadership in 2021, Roland has held multiple strategic roles, including Chief Financial Officer and head of Capital markets, bringing decades of financial expertise to the company's unique model of commercializing validated R and D. Well, good afternoon, Roland. Welcome to the show.
C (1:30)
Thanks, Brian. Nice to be here.
B (1:32)
Absolutely, my friend. I appreciate it. And you're coming. Way of Toronto, Canada via Florida or vice versa. I know you travel quite a bit and back and forth. I'm in Kansas City. I just appreciate you making the time to jump on the calendar and making this happen. So, Roland, jumping into your first question. You've served as Chief Financial Officer, Head of Market Capital markets, and now Chief Growth Officer. What have you learned about scaling industrial technology companies that most growth leaders overlook?
C (2:01)
Well, that's a good question, Brian. I've certainly learned a lot. I imagine other growth leaders may learn these same lessons along the way. But I think the main lessons I've learned are that specifically with industrial technology, you can really underestimate lead times and capital intensity. And similarly, customer adoption cycles can also be slow. There are barriers to overcome. Buyers are generally very conservative and move cautiously. They need warranties, they need proven reliability. They need quality assurance. They need to know there's a supply chain. They just won't take risk in adopting innovation. And so there's a trust building and validation period before adoption. And I think a lot of growth leaders underestimate that. Last couple of things I would say is you don't know what you don't know, particularly when you're transforming an industry or disrupting an industry. You're creating new paths and so you have to be very adaptive. Now I think the last lesson would be don't assume if you build it, they will come. And that's both in terms of the customer and capital. Oftentimes growth leaders assume that if they have a good strategy, capital will be available. You have to have a capital strategy internally as well and you really just have to mitigate. The bottom line is you have mitigate a lot of the risks before you decide to embark on scaling and industrial technology.
