You could try to find a good pilot customer who has valuable data and is willing to work with you to adapt the algorithm to their particular problem. What you want as an outcome is a story like this: "Math Whizzes Turbocharge An Online Retailer's Sales" (http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=2...)
Working with a medical company to improve the results of their CAD software. After it works (hopefully :) ) that can be a great way to drive the next client.
