I’M DAVID DING…
Negotiator, Sounding Board & Strategist for Innovators on the Fringe.
ARE YOU
a mission driven innovator working on a fringe project with high potential?
DO YOU
feel as though progress is stalling with no obvious solution in sight?
ARE YOU
surrounded by stakeholders pressing you to commercialise too early because you need to extend your runway?
ARE YOU
struggling to find an incubator or accelarator that meets you where you are to solve the problems that will actually take you forward?
DO YOU
just need a crash course in capital raising and how to navigate the process of launching a startup in NZ?
I WILL BE YOUR SPOKESPERSON
Spokesperson, Mentor, Strategist and Independent Chair for innovators.
I will leverage my networks to connect you with people who will share the load and take responsibility for their part in accomplishing the mission at hand no matter how grand your vision may be and how little runway you may have.
I’ve likely been in your shoes. As a founder (and a distressed asset) of a highly technical venture I found it almost impossible to convey its value to potential partners and investors. Not only that I suffered terribly from tall poppy syndrome, always dulling down my vision and strategy to try and make it fit somebody else’s narrative. These are mistakes you may have made yourself but believe me there’s a far better way regardles of how entangled or entrapped you may feel right now.
Due to the highly innovative nature of my venture I had to experiment and fail a lot which kept erroding my runway so I felt immense pressure to commercialise the prototype to try and get money through the door and upease my stakeholders…which didn’t work.
I have curated a diverse network of talented people, organisations and investors I know and trust to copilot the incubation and accelaration of a high potential startup in any industry.
No matter how much pressure you are under, there’s always a way forward if you’re willing to let go of the past and embrace innovation, so if you’re burnt out and feel as though there’s nowhere else to turn…don’t worry about money, just contact me for a chat.
David Ding
LET'S CODESIGN A BESPOKE PROGRAM THAT GETS RESULTS
I WILL ANALYSE YOUR VENTURE
IN ITS CURRENT STATE AND GUIDE YOU ON INVESTOR READINESS
WAYS I WILL HELP
SPOKESPERSON
I will speak and make public statements on your behalf. By limiting my authority to speaking on your behalf I cannot legally act or contract on your behalf so nothing I say will ever be legally binding.
(I am media trained for politics).
Market ValidatioN (MVP)
I will codesign a draft single page concept and facilitate discussion with stakeholders until everybody is on the same page.
EXPERT FACILITATION
I will design and facilitate mission driven workshops designed to challenge patterned thinking and set wheels in motion with immediate effect.
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
I will represent stakeholder groups and organisations to speak at official engagements on their behalf. I have been formally media trained (Politics).
BOARD OBSERVERVATION
I will be a fly on the wall at board meetings and other important events if you want me to observe and share my perspective.
Recalibration
I will steward your vision to ensure it is continually aligned with true north. I will facilitate recalibration and conflict resolution if required.
Surrogate ELT
I will connect you with global calibre fractional leadership experts (CEO, CFO, COO, CPO) who can provide surrogate support at a fraction of the price of an FTE and/or equity.
Event Hosting (Innovation)
I will host and facilitate discussion on futurism and innovation as a spokesperson on your behalf.
Independent Chair
I will chair your board meetings and steward the vision for the organisation. I am an experienced coach and mentor of aspiring founders and ELTs with specific experience managing investors and advisors.
(Great for DAOs that want to run companies).
Proof of Traction
I will negotiate deals and facilitate workshops on behalf of stakeholder groups to produce LOIs and MOUs.
(Useful when you need to provide a signed artefact proving evidence of traction to a grant/investment committee).
Securing Deals
I will facilitate workshops to help secure signed LOIs and MOUs for paying Alpha/Beta Testers so you can deliver product market fit and begin generating revenue.
Sounding Board
I will be a sounding board to help augment and solidify the ideas most others tend to diminish. I am capable of envisioning strategies with extremely near or distant horizons and/or commercialisation paths.
Novelty Assessments
I will do a deep dive with you to unearth and understand the novelty of your innovation. I will then send you a single page summary conveying the novelty, commercial impact and ecosystem impact in terms that a grant and investment committe will find easy to understand.
COLLABORATION
I will leverage my networks and relationships to bring the right people in the room and facilitate meaningful discovery.
Swiss Foundations
I will steward a company/foundation in Switzerland on your behalf. I am a dual citizen of Switzerland and New Zealand.
(subject to risk assessment and criteria).
Current & Recent Projects
Innovation Strategy & Advisement for the following organisations.
Callaghan Innovation
Callaghan Innovation is the New Zealand government’s Innovation Agency.
I have worked with a number of New Zealand’s aspiring unicorns, their founders and executive leadership teams to develop a critical path for productisation, capital raising and commercialisation with a focus on Digital (Software), AI, Web 3.0. and Autonomous Organisations.
I had the privilege of being on the selection committee for the Ārohia Innovation Trailblazer Grant.
HyperSpace Ventures
HyperSpace Ventures is a hybrid innovation incubator and accelerator that assembles bespoke self managing teams to launch and scale high potential venturss in any industry.
Our mission is to make it viable for any human being from any walk of life to receive all the help they need to turn a novel idea into a real product that’s validated and commercialised.
Trinity Systems
Trinity Systems is a design method for producing autonomous systems and organisations.
Our mission is to sandbox and validate a proof of concept blueprint for a digital twin of civilisation that will self perpetuate and infinitely scale.
PowerHouse
PowerHouse is the world’s first viable solution for powering any Web 2.0. software platform with a native blockchain or other distributed network.
Our mission is to inspire the vendors and users of the largest centralised marketplaces in the world to transition to the PowerHouse platform so that each user becomes the custodian of their own data, entitling them to receive royalties for income generated from advertising. (UBI).
Morpheus
Morpheus is a fund of funds devoted to proliferating activators, incubators and accelarators using an asset portfolio approach.
Our mission is to onboard 12 portfolio managers who each target a specific industry and combine them to produce an all encompassing fund united around a single standard for activating and appreciating assets.
Sirius
Siruis utilises dormant land to build distributed networks of solar farms with battery backup to power wireless electricity grids and sovereign blockchain networks. Each node is capable of mining cryptocurrency 24/7 and transmitting electricity and data.
Our mission is to catalyse a movement that leads to the building of a carbon neutral power grid, starting in New Zealand and repeating throughout the world.
Chimera Studios
Chimera Studios is a music post production studio devoted to enabling talented producers and label managers to output creative works of the highest possible quality. We have developed a proprietary method for Digital Remastering of music based on the principles of Trinity.
Our mission is for the greatest anthems of all time to be digitally remastered, re-released and reborn as something that sounds brand new and in so doing exponentially increase the quality of recorded music worldwide. Our North Star is to train an Ai model to utilise our proprietary method so we can scale our impact with an online tool and eventually have our method adopted as the industry standard for Digital Music Remastering.
OPPORTUNITY
Opportunities are infinite, with no beginning or ending in sight.
POSSIBILITY
Possibilities are distilled opportunities where we can envisage an ending that makes us curious.
PROBABILITY
Probabilities are distilled possibilities where we can envisage a viable ending that gets the electrons jangling.
MOTION
Motion happens once we have constrained the formless into form, with a deterministic beginning, middle and ending to give it the time and space to exist in 3 dimensions.