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Dominic Basulto (formerly of the Business Innovation Insider) has an interesting article on his new Blog Endless Innovation that discusses the concept of the Innovation Capitalist. The Innovation Capitalist as described by Satish Nambisan and Mohanbir Sawhney in their Harvard Business Review Article. I think Dominic really treats the topic well and worth the read.

Nambisan and Sawhney describe the evolution of companies/firms that specialize in a certain application area or markets and develop unfit or fuzzy conepts into products. So Innovation capitalists take the place of a companies Product development, or for at least the front part of it. The innovation capitalist would specialize in taking a raw product concept and developing it to the point where a company would be willing to purchase the idea.  So they would prototype, verify market space, develop a plan for manufacturability, build a cost model, etc.  By specializing in one particular sub-segment, they can be more efficient than some large firms.  It seems to me like Innovation capitalists are like startup owners, but their currency is the idea.   

As I was reading his article and the HBR article the many different idea intermediaries really started to fall into place: Product Scouts, Patent Brokers, Sole inventors, Startup firms, Electronic R&D marketplaces, innovation capitalists, and venture or private equity. This whole concept of an ideas ecosystem/economy seem more solid. Are ideas an exchange medium or tradable commodity? or is this just a interesting label for a consulting service?   Could one buy and sell ideas much like one purchases intellectual property now?   Should they be traded or licensed like patents?   Should one account for them when they list their assets?

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