Your researchers have brilliant ideas. LinkedIn is how they reach the people who need them.
Specialist coaching designed for innovation cohorts — turning LinkedIn from a source of anxiety into a practical customer discovery and credibility-building tool.
The researcher's LinkedIn problem
Researchers entering the commercialisation process face a LinkedIn challenge that generic business coaching doesn't address. They're not selling a finished product — they're building a value proposition through customer discovery. LinkedIn has to do something different for them.
The Avoidance Instinct
LinkedIn feels like self-promotion — uncomfortable and at odds with academic culture. So most researchers avoid it entirely, missing the customer discovery conversations it could be opening.
The CV Reflex
When researchers do engage, they default to listing achievements and publications — which doesn't open conversations with potential customers or collaborators.
The Time Pressure
Customer discovery sprints are intensive. LinkedIn feels like an additional overhead rather than a tool that makes the right conversations happen faster.
What CubeSocial brings to this context
CubeSocial has worked with ICURe cohorts, university enterprise programme participants, and Innovate UK-funded growth programme companies. The coaching is designed specifically for this context — it reflects the Lean Canvas framework, the customer discovery process, and the specific challenges researchers face when they step outside the lab.
Linda's approach starts not with LinkedIn features, but with the same question that drives the customer discovery process: who do you want to talk to, and about what? That alignment with the commercialisation methodology makes the coaching immediately relevant to where participants already are in the process.
What the coaching covers
- Framing LinkedIn as a customer discovery tool, not a self-promotion platform
- Value proposition — articulating the problem you solve in language that resonates with the customer segment you're targeting
- LinkedIn profile as a conversation-starter — not a CV, not a pitch, but an invitation to talk
- Finding and reaching the right people — how to identify, connect with, and open conversations with potential customers and partners
- What to post during customer discovery — building credibility without giving away the full picture before you're ready
- Managing the volume — how to use LinkedIn without it becoming another overwhelming demand on the cohort's time
Delivery options
The coaching is designed to fit within the existing programme structure — either as a single intensive workshop session or as a series of shorter sessions spaced across the programme. Linda works with programme managers to align the coaching timing with where participants are in the customer discovery process.
- Group workshop: 90-minute to half-day session for the full cohort — ideal at programme start or at the customer discovery sprint stage
- 1:1 follow-up sessions: 45-minute individual coaching for participants who want to go deeper
- Cohort size: Up to 20 participants per workshop
- Delivery: In-person at programme events or remote via video
- Coach: Linda Cheung
Founder & researcher Particpant, ICURe Explore programmeI was a cynic, now I am converted. 30 minutes after the session, I posted an event in the recommended way — three days later it had circa 1,300 impressions, 16 reposts and 30 comments.
Let's talk about your situation.
Whether you're looking for firm-wide training or individual coaching, we'd love to hear from you.