When your pipeline becomes a storage unit
Is your innovation pipeline filled with…?
- Startup proposals from 2021
- 43 “urgent” projects with no clear ownership
- That one “disruptive blockchain solution” your CFO keeps side-eyeing
When a customer of ours audited their pipeline last spring, they found over 60% of “active” startups hadn’t been in contact in 9 months. After cleaning the house, they freed up 200+ hours/year. Amazing, right?
If you wish to perform some Marie Kondo actions, follow these 5 steps to transform your pipeline from chaotic to strategic.
Step 1: Delete the zombie deals
Check for the Walking Dead in your pipeline, i.e., those startups that died but nobody told the spreadsheet, or those that no longer align with your strategic goals. Here are the steps to do so:
- Filter your pipeline for deals that have:
- No contact in 6+ months
- Zero progress since added
- Solutions that are no longer relevant (e.g., outdated technologies)
- Ask the harsh questions:
- Would we engage with this startup if we discovered it today?
- Does their “innovation” still exist? (RIP metaverse retail)
- Archive decisively: preferably as a team exercise to ensure alignment
Step 2: Tag like Monica in Friends
Tagging is a powerful tool in innovation pipeline management. If your current tagging system is as hazy as “Stuff Paul Liked in 2023”, “potential” or “check later”, it’s time to rework. We recommend The Holy Trinity of tags, including:
- Strategic fit (e.g., “saves us $10M/year” or “patient-facing AI”)
- Stage (e.g., Seed, Series B or commercial)
- Dealbreaker alerts (e.g., “No FDA pathway”, “scandalous CEO”)
Step 3: Score like you’re on Shark Tank
Do you have a working evaluation process for innovation partners? Or is it a mix of, e.g., 10% data, 30% shiny demo and 60% hunch? At Innopipe, we always advocate for a company-standardized approach here to remove subjective judgments and personal biases.
For example, you can rate startups on the 3 categories below:
- Strategic fit (1-5)
- 5 = Our CEO dreams about this, aligns perfectly with corporate priorities
- 1 = No clear connection to business goals
- Scalability (1-5)
- Can they grow with us, or is this a science fair project?
- Team strength (1-5)
- Evaluate the company’s leadership and execution capability. Is it a PhD dream team, has 10 years of experience, or two people and a Figma?
Post-evaluation action
| Top 20% | Prioritize for immediate engagement |
| Middle 60% | Revisit quarterly |
| Bottom 20% | Deprioritize |
Step 4: Automate manual work
If your innovation team spends more time updating spreadsheets than talking to startups, you are losing out on opportunities and money. Instead, let the robots do the dirty work, for examples:
- Auto-alerts when startups raise funding
- Duplicate detection
And centralize the chaos by replacing scattered spreadsheets with a unified platform. There are different tools for innovation pipeline management that you don’t need “version 12_FINAL_new.xlsx” in 14 Slack threads anymore.
Step 5: Make it a habit, not a crisis
If you want to avoid the “Wait, why do we have 3 AR glove startups?” next year, you should set up periodic pipeline reviews. Pipeline management is not a one-time effort.
We suggest:
- Quarterly “Pipeline Detox”: reassess startup alignment and prune inactive entries.
- Monthly “Show & Tell”: teams share top finds to kills silos and duplicate work
- Annual “Strategy Reset”: Because if your goals changed but your pipeline didn’t… yikes.
Pipeline management: from chaos to strategic focus
Key takeaways
🧼 Archive startups with no engagement in 6+ months
🧼 Tag by strategic fit, stage, and risk factors
🧼 Automate tracking and manual work
🧼 Reassess pipeline alignment with goals quarterly
A clean pipeline isn’t about being neat, it’s about focusing on startups that can actually move your needle. A well-maintained innovation pipeline enables teams to:
🎯 Eliminate wasted effort on low-potential partnerships
🎯 Demonstrate clear ROI to leadership
🎯 Accelerate decision-making with structured processes
Ready to optimize your pipeline?
Discover how Innopipe can help you discover, evaluate and track most potential innovation partnerships. Book a free demo today!