Pillar · The method
The TRL pyramid
Why we invest more at the beginning, not less: a wide base of analysis supports better everything built on top of it.
8 min read · or go straight to the pyramid
Most innovation projects spend a minimal fraction of the budget on genuinely understanding the problem, and rush to build. We invert that proportion: around a quarter of the total budget, some five times more than the sector average, goes to the TRL1→TRL2 phase. It is not slowness: it is the only way for what is built afterwards not to rest on a mistaken base.
The diagnosis
The sector's inverted pyramid
Most innovation projects invert the pyramid without realising it. A minimal fraction of the budget, of the order of 1/20 by common sector practice, goes to genuinely understanding the problem, the market and who the solution is for, and then they rush to build. The result is an unstable structure: a lot of weight (engineering, manufacturing, launch) resting on a base of analysis too narrow to hold it. The underlying error (the wrong technology, the market misunderstood, the audience that does not want it) is discovered late, when correcting it is already expensive.
The answer
The Volcano pyramid
Our answer inverts the investment. We devote, on average, around a quarter of each project's total budget to the TRL1→TRL2 phase, some five times more than the sector's usual proportion. It is not caution for caution's sake: it is the conviction that a wide base supports better everything built on top of it. The more the pyramid narrows towards TRL9, the cheaper each following step becomes, proportionally, because by then it is precisely known what to build.
The shape
The structure, in one picture
Two possible structures for the same budget: a narrow base holding a disproportionate block of implementation, or a wide base narrowing progressively towards the top.
The TRL pyramid: the usual way, and ours
The second thermometer
The CRL: commercial maturity, measured in its own right.
The TRL answers one question only: does the technology work? But once it works, the risk that remains is market risk, and it needs its own thermometer. It is the lesson of the commercial maturity frameworks (the CRL and CRI indices, born in the energy sector and adopted by industry): commercial risk outlives technical risk, and the two journeys advance in parallel, not in sequence. The nine levels, adapted from those frameworks:
The nine levels, with what each one proves, the product milestones (MVP, MMP, product-market fit) and the techniques to climb the first rungs almost without spending TRL are in the CRL ladder.
On the path, the TRL dominates the R&D macro-phase (F3 to F7) and the CRL dominates the market and scale ones (F8 to F13). A startup with a high TRL and a low CRL has a technology that works and a business still to be proved: it is exactly the imbalance the order of the phases is built to prevent.
References: the TRL scale (NASA); stage-gate processes with go or kill decisions (R. G. Cooper); the CRL/CRI commercial maturity indices (ARENA, 2014); the Investment Readiness Level (S. Blank); the Startup Genome Report (Marmer et al.).
The method
Why it is multidisciplinary, not only technical
The TRL1→TRL2 phase is not limited to checking whether something is technically possible. It also studies the reference market, the target audience and its psychology, the positioning against the competition, and the model of communication with which the solution will have to reach whoever uses it. All those elements go into the decision of which technology to build, not the other way round: you do not choose the technology first and then look for someone to sell it to. The sequence matters, and it is the one least respected in the sector.
That is why Volcano does not, at bottom, define itself as a technology company, even though it builds technology in every project. It defines itself as a company that decides, before anything else, which problem deserves solving: the what. The technology, the how, is always the second decision, never the first. Starting from an attractive technology and then looking for a problem to apply it to is exactly the error the inverted pyramid describes.
The arithmetic
Why the wide base comes out cheaper, not dearer
The proportion (≈25% against the usual ≈5%) is not an additional cost: it is the cheapest way of avoiding a much greater cost later on, on three different fronts.
Development cost. Building on a badly chosen technology almost always means rebuilding part of what has been done when the error is discovered, with the project already well advanced. Choosing well from the start avoids that duplicated work, which is always dearer than the analysis that would have prevented it.
Maintenance cost. A technology chosen to fit the real problem, not the first option available or the most fashionable, needs fewer patches and less rewriting across its whole working life: the saving does not end at launch, it continues every year the product stays alive.
Market risk, the most expensive of the three. Arriving with a technically correct product that nobody uses, or that is not exactly what the consumer expected, is not fixed with more engineering afterwards. It is avoided beforehand, by studying the consumer and the real market while the base is still wide and cheap to correct, not when it is already a company with a product on the street.
The reason
Why the later phases cost less, every year
There is a structural reason, not merely a prudent one, for shifting the effort towards the beginning. Building has become progressively cheaper: mature development tools, standard components, cloud infrastructure, manufacturing on demand. What has not become one bit cheaper is the part that demands expert human judgement: deciding what deserves to be built. The result is a growing asymmetry between the cost of thinking well and the cost of executing, and a well-built pyramid is, quite simply, the one that answers that asymmetry.
The advantage
A pyramid that ages better
There is a second reason, beyond the economic one, for building this way: the Volcano pyramid is also a structure designed for the long run. What changes most often in any product is precisely the specific technology it is built with, the highest and narrowest part of the pyramid. What barely changes is the deep understanding of the problem, of the market and of the psychology of whoever suffers it, the wide base. Since that base does not depend on any particular technology, it remains valid long after the technology it was built with has become obsolete.
That is why, when the technology at the top needs renewing (and in time it always does), there is no need to rebuild the whole pyramid: only its tip, the smallest and cheapest part. In the long run, this split is more efficient than one with a narrow, poorly validated base. That base also ages, because it was never built to last; and when the technology changes, it takes down the whole project, not just its implementation. A wide base slows the product's obsolescence, because it separates what expires from what does not.
The proof
It is not theory: it is what we apply
This is not a statement of intent. It is the criterion by which the projects of Volcano's portfolio are opened and financed, and the starting point of the thirteen phases of the path that every startup travels. Early validation is also one of the six levers with which we reduce risk before external capital arrives. And it rests on the map of the edge of knowledge, which avoids spending effort rediscovering what already exists.
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions
What is Volcano's TRL pyramid?
A way of allocating a project's budget that inverts common practice: a wide base of analysis at TRL1→TRL2 (≈25% of the total, against the sector's typical ≈5%), narrowing progressively towards TRL9.
Why spend so much before knowing whether the project will work?
Because spending little there does not save money: it moves it, with interest, to a later phase where correcting a basic error is far more expensive.
What exactly does that initial phase study?
The technical problem, but also the reference market, the target audience, its psychology, and how to communicate the solution: everything that determines which technology deserves to be built.
Does this slow projects down?
On the contrary: by reducing basic errors it avoids costly rebuilds later on, when changing direction is far more expensive.
What does the wide base translate into, in terms of saving?
On three fronts: lower development cost (there is no need to rebuild on a badly chosen technology), lower maintenance cost (a well-fitted technology needs fewer patches), and lower market risk, the most expensive of the three: arriving with a product nobody uses.
Why is the Volcano pyramid more efficient in the long run?
Because what changes most over time is the technology, the narrowest and cheapest part of the pyramid. The wide base (problem, market, psychology) does not depend on any particular technology and remains valid when the technology is renewed: there is no need to redo the whole project, only its tip.
«When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.»
A wide base, for every project we open.
John F. Kennedy, 1962