Resolute Marine Energy (RME) founder and CEO Bill Staby and COO Olivier Ceberio believed their company’s wave energy desalination system could provide safe and affordable drinking water to water-stressed communities. They set their sights on launching RME’s Wave2O system in Ugu, South Africa, population 700,000, where wave energy was abundant. Keeping in mind the many commercial failures of wave energy companies that came before them, what Staby and Ceberio were less certain of in the spring of 2012 was which of three strategic approaches to take as they worked to commercialize RME’s unique technology.