Starlab: Transforming Ideas Into Business

It was early morning in the glazed loft of the modernist building in Barcelona (Spain), head office of Starlab, and Ana Maiques, responsible for the Business Development of the company, was sitting at her office wondering about the future of the company. The company worked on Space technology and Neuroscience, with a team of 30 scientists and engineers from 9 different nationalities. Founded on July 4th 2000, Starlab¿s evolution during its first 10 years had been reasonably successful ¿ they had grown at a CAGR (cumulative accrued growth rate) of 33%. However, the deployment of its original strategy had taken longer than expected. In 2010, 10 years after its foundation, they were confident they had completed ¿Phase 1¿ of the company¿s strategy: transforming science to technology in some key areas. Phase 1 represented the success of the Scientific Consulting model. They were now posed to enter Phase 2: transforming technology into business in the form of product and services. This was a more challenging phase by most accounts.