You’ve got the idea.
Now comes the fun part.
Academic brilliance and entrepreneurial instinct are not the problem.
They’re rarely the problem.
The problem is usually one of these:
- You’re too close to your own idea to see where the real value is — or where the real risk is.
- You know what you’re building but you can’t explain it to the people who need to fund it, back it, or buy it.
- Your research is genuinely world-class and completely stuck at the translation layer — between discovery and impact.
- Your founding team is smart and committed — and you’re starting to pull in different directions without quite naming it.
- You’ve got momentum — and you’re terrified of building the wrong thing
This is the work I do. Sit with you in that complexity, help you name it clearly, and figure out what moves to make next.
THREE KINDS OF WORK
You’ve done the hard intellectual work. The question now is how it travels — to industry partners, to funders, to policy, to practice.
I help researchers and research teams think through commercialisation pathways, develop the narrative that makes their work legible to non-academic audiences, and build the strategy for what happens next.
I understand research culture from the inside. I know how universities work — and where they get in their own way. And I know how to build the bridge between discovery and impact without flattening what makes the research valuable.
Early-stage is exciting and exhausting in equal measure. You’re making a hundred decisions a week with incomplete information, and the cost of getting the big ones wrong compounds fast.
I work with founders who need a thinking partner — someone who can hold the strategic picture without losing sight of the practical realities of actually building something.
I’m not a startup accelerator. I don’t do generic frameworks. I get into the specifics of what you’re building, who it’s for, and what the next right move is — for you, in your context.
The moment a founding team starts pulling in slightly different directions is almost never dramatic. It’s quiet — different assumptions about priorities, different mental models of what success looks like, different risk tolerances that haven’t been named yet. Left alone, that gap grows.
I facilitate the conversations that get teams on the same page — about strategy, about culture, about how decisions get made when things get hard. So you can build faster with less friction.
HOW IT WORKS
There’s no one single approach. Every interaction is designed specifically for you.
Here’s a few examples of what’s working for my current clients.
You bring the problem. We leave with clarity on what it actually is and what the next move looks like.
Defined problem, defined output. Strategy, narrative, or alignment, depending on what you need most.
For founders and researchers who want a strategic sounding board as they build, not just when there’s a crisis.
For founding or research teams who need to get on the same page before they move forward.
To have a cheerleader is one thing but to have a cheerleader with the experience and smarts of Hannah, is truly a gift!
Hannah has a deep understanding of the academic playbook – its written and unwritten rules – and how easy it is to get caught up in the chaos and miss the opportunities and possibilities. With Hannah you get encouragement and honesty in equal measure. Enough encouragement to keep you motivated, and enough honesty to put your motivation on the right path. If you’re academic with an entrepreneurial idea, I’d highly recommend reaching out to Hannah Brown at Sparkle Ideas Lab to help you take your next step confidently (and with sparkle).Associate Professor Nadia Corsini
Adelaide University
WHY I DO THIS WORK
I’ve sat on both sides of this. I’ve been inside universities long enough to understand how research actually moves — and gets stuck.
I’ve worked with enough founders and early-stage ventures to know that strategy without execution empathy is just expensive advice.
And I’m an ADHDer, which means I naturally think in systems, connections, and non-linear possibilities. Turns out that’s quite useful when you’re trying to build something that doesn’t exist yet.