I found this paper to be extremely insightful. One of the most difficult and frustrating questions we are routinely asked is when are we going to start generating revenues? Seems like a simple enough question but it turns out not so. Moving advanced materials into the market requires more than just having a great new material that you believe is ready for prime time. In almost every case these new materials are displacing an old material and this transition is far from trivial. Much of the process is beyond the control of the new material developers. In other words, sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you are pushing your material into the market it almost always requires some pulling. This paper includes a case study on Cambridge Technologies, an OLED advanced materials company similarly focused on moving advanced materials to the display industry. It details the many starts and stops they experienced along the way and it has helped us gain a better understanding of what we can do to move the process along and to accept those things that are beyond our control. It also includes a case study on Kevlar and the 20 year time span DuPont endured before gaining broad market acceptance.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240295678 _The_commercialisation_environment_of_advanced_ materials_ventures