No single team can cover every corner of innovation. Even the most capable in-house experts have limits on time, bandwidth, and visibility. Your internal team knows your industry inside and out. They have the expertise, the history, the instincts.

What they don’t have is an outsider’s perspective connecting dots across emerging and established industries. Innovation rarely appears where you expect it. It can surface in a lab halfway across the world, or in a startup solving a different problem entirely.

By widening the search, we help you find solutions that might never appear on your radar. We don’t replace your experts. We extend their reach. Our strength lies in knowing where to look, who to call, and how to connect the dots quickly.

Expertise Starts In-House

Our foundation is strong internal expertise. We recruit PhD-level team members with technical depth across a wide range of industries. That in-house diversity allows insight across industries and the ability to identify relevant opportunities to address technical challenges.

Our teams move fluidly from scientific papers to consumer insights to conversations with entrepreneurs. Every project begins with a structured intake. We work with your team to define pain points, frame the right scouting questions, and ensure the output ties directly back to your goals. That alignment means our first deliverables are decision-ready.

Experts at Finding Experts

For the past 25 years, yet2’s experts have collaborated to design, compile, and build our extensive networks and channels. Generations of iterations have made our network more precise, faster, and far-reaching.

Your experts are the foundation. They know what you need better than anyone. Their guidance and yet2’s living databases, direct relationships, and broadcast channels give access to insights in new places, moving projects forward faster. In ~80% of projects, in addition to our consulting, we connect clients with external experts to help make breakthroughs. Sometimes it’s a quick targeted call to test an idea. Other times it’s a deep-dive interview to gather detailed technical insights.

At yet2, we know how to structure those interactions so they generate actionable intelligence. A critical part of that skill is protecting client anonymity and IP. Engaging external experts while keeping the client protected requires nuance, credibility, and trust. It is one of the hallmarks of being an expert at finding experts.

Case Study: Finding Partners for a Global Healthcare Company

A global healthcare company approached us with a clear challenge. Their internal experts were highly capable, with great experience in their area. They knew what they wanted in an external collaborator, but they didn’t have a scalable way to reach beyond their established networks and to separate quality partners from noise. Traditional outreach risked swamping the teams with filtering through low-value responses or exposing their strategic direction too broadly. They had more important work to do.

We designed and launched a custom open innovation portal to meet that need. The portal broadcast their request to targeted innovators worldwide, while built-in screening criteria ensured only the most relevant submissions surfaced. Every response was filtered against technical fit, development stage, and partnership readiness, among other factors, before it ever reached the client’s desk. Within weeks, they had the submissions and a curated shortlist of vetted partners ready to engage further.

Our help didn’t stem from being deeper subject-matter experts than their internal team. Their experts set the tone and we set the process. By pairing their clarity of need with our ability to extend reach, protect confidentiality, and filter quality at scale, we turned a broad challenge into actionable introductions by finding the experts that count.

Bridge Your Gap

Open innovation isn’t about going at it alone. It’s about bringing together the right mix of internal expertise and external insight. We bridge the gap.

If you’re looking to expand your reach without slowing momentum, let’s explore how we can help. We offer a free innovation strategy session, learn more and book yours here.

Words by Carlos Pichardo

Image by Freepik