Roundtable Growth Partners
Devin Schain works with investors and company leaders to identify opportunities across products, services, customer segments, commercial systems and new categories; then test and pilot them in the market before committing to scale.
Where we work: established companies, investment teams and portfolio leaders looking for the next source of profitable growth.
Why Roundtable
The name is the method. The best growth solutions come when the sponsor, the management team, the customer-facing teams and the specialists all have an equal say, and the best idea wins on evidence.
Growth is the objective. We execute with virtual partners and a strong bench of vertical talent, assembled around each mandate rather than carried as overhead. One accountable leader stays on the work from first diagnosis to handoff.
Where innovation creates value
Innovation can begin in a product, service, customer need, commercial system or acquisition thesis. The work is to identify what could create value, then learn what is real before putting significant capital behind it.
Look for unmet needs and underused assets that can create a new offer, stronger commercial system or adjacent source of demand.
Turn the most promising ideas into focused customer or partner trials. Define the question, cost, owner and decision rule before the work begins.
Compare building a capability with partnering or buying it. Explore commercial growth and new-category opportunities alongside the investment thesis.
Our approach
Innovation creates possibilities. A disciplined sequence helps management see which ones merit investment and which ones should wait.
Frame the growth question and surface a short list of innovations in the offer, market, channel, partnership or acquisition path.
Choose the smallest real-world trial that can answer an important customer, partner, operating or economic question.
Review demand, economics, execution needs and evidence quality with management and the sponsor. State what remains unknown.
Put people and capital behind what earns it, assign an accountable owner, or stop and carry the learning forward.
Testing and piloting are used as one practical learning cycle: a focused trial in real market conditions. Some pilots provide directional evidence rather than statistical proof; the decision should match the strength of the evidence.
For investors and portfolio leaders
For a portfolio company, the question may be where its next profitable revenue engine can come from. For an investment team, it may be whether a new category, platform or acquisition thesis has a credible commercial path.
Devin brings an owner’s perspective to the front of the business: opportunity identification, customer and channel insight, sales strategy, partnerships and business development. When a question needs deeper analytics, technology, finance or operating implementation, the right specialist joins the work.
The aim: connect innovation to customer evidence, investment choices and accountable execution, while building useful learning across companies where Shore and management choose to share it.
Ways to work together
A ranked growth thesis, the assumptions behind it, the economics and risks, and a 90-day test plan with owners.
One or two high-value tests or pilots in market, a scorecard, and a scale, revise or stop recommendation.
Turn validated work into repeatable practice: a playbook, operating cadence, partner and talent plan, and handoff.
Senior leadership embedded with defined decision rights, to drive a specific growth workstream.
The table
Devin is accountable for scope, decisions and handoff. Specialists join the table only when the work calls for them.
Leads each mandate and owns the client relationship, the quality of decisions and the handoff.
Sales leadership and sales effectiveness for growth mandates.
Economics, structuring, and tuck-in evaluation and integration.
Execution and operating support to turn pilots into daily practice.
Experience
Devin has founded, operated, invested in and served on the boards of for-profit and nonprofit organizations, and has learned from ventures that moved too early as well as ones that followed visible demand.
Start with the decision, the customer and the evidence you have. We can identify what is worth exploring and what a focused test or pilot could answer.
Discuss a growth opportunity