There are many examples of companies and start-ups that have partnered with a huge benefit of both sides.
For example, when Coca-Cola first teamed up with Wonolo, which launched on request Wonolo a few years ago, it resulted in a cost reduction of 75% on the sales market for Coca Coli and 5.7 million for the subsequent Wonolo financing rounds.
Corporate/agency/start-up cooperation can be transformatative. For companies, the partnership can provide speed, agility, hunger and imagination needed to remain at the forefront. In the case of agencies, this can lead to the necessary difference in their product/service in a poorly diversized market.
For the start-ups themselves, the partnership can deliver everything from the credibility they need to attract early investment and customers, up to a huge “scaling opportunity” that would otherwise take years.
And yet the problem remains: partnerships are very rarely performed satisfactorily for the parties involved.
“There is a huge amount of confusion about start-ups”
Says Richard Fearn, director at Friday Club London, an early-stage technology investor and chairman of the Start-up BIMA Council.
To deal with some of these confusion, the Start-Ups Council organized a round table session titled “Obligations and prohibition of an effective start-up partnership”, in which the experts from the Corporate, agency, “Swatów” and Worlds begin-up were attended.
The session aimed to try out some real problems that hinder the seamless interaction between start-ups and corporations. Here are some key topics from the discussion.
Corporations: Do not innovate
Too often, innovation is the corporate activity of PR; Flag to wave, which can give the impression of innovation and can encourage colleagues to do something interesting, but it does not bring results.
This is because the willingness to innovate often appears in the first place when, in fact, corporate companies have to ask, “What are we good about?”, “What are we not good at?” “What shouldn’t we do?” Corporate customers should not do a fast-growing start-up.
With the right space to define start-up interventions, the next task is to match the challenges of corporations to the innovations offered by startups.
Start-ups: Engage your core business
Corporations bring scale. Start-ups bring innovation. This is the quid pro quo compound.
However, many companies are creating an innovative team and asking for a new, exciting program. When the agenda fails to reach key decision-makers, the innovation team is on the margins of business.
The company does not receive the desired innovation. The Start-up does not reach the required scale, sits alone and does not provide too much.
Start-ups need to engage the core business because it gives them access to distribution, marketing and other benefits stemming from the scale. In this way, they provide innovations that aim to deliver the innovations that a corporation wants.
Corporations and start-ups: cooperation and committees
The relationship between a start-up and a corporation built on disagreements is doed to fail. No wonder that frustration begins to build when the company finds a new innovation that is not 100% matched to business.
Likewise, it irritates start-ups to discover that they engage in PR work on the outskirts, rather than in the shock-bargains that they think were promised.
For “Matchmakers” at the Roundtable, communication and understanding of the commitments undertaken by each Party were key to better relationships. T hese programs, whether corporate accelerators, incubators start arms of high corporate or other risk, we all need a long-term, senior management commitment, measured in not years months. And there must be a high level of understanding of expectations on both sides.
On the corporate side, companies must commit to a budget before the process and show that they are serious. If they are actually “tech-tourists” (without a real commitment or budget), the corporation should be convinced in advance about it, and the start-up should know when to go.
Partnerships between corporations and start-ups are not just a matter of technology matching-the best relationships start with people. Start-ups need to be better in talking with corporations to know what they expect from them-and companies need to spend time to meet and talk and understand, instead of relying solely on written conclusions.
The corporation should be aware that no innovation will be in 100% matched, and the start-ups must be cauous with over-promising.
And finally, corporations should be involved in choosing their start-up partners (instead of leaving them entirely to agencies or accelerators). As long as they are involved in creating a short list, they can feel as if they were part of the journey and have a “skin in the game”-which increases the chances of a relationship that is beneficial to everyone.
Start-ups: Don’t call this “disturbance”
Corporations want solutions. They want the innovations introduced into their systems, they work smoothly and deliver positive changes, but without any disruption.
In part, companies need to understand that this is an unjustified expectation: you can not deliver a new one without, to some extent, ripping the old. At the same time, start-ups usually talk about disruptive, unhelpful, destructive ways.
The conversation needs to change so that instead of proposing innovations that disrupt a particular player in the value chain, they should focus on the end user, whose life will be improved through innovation. This end user can then decide who, if anyone, in the value chain is disrupted.
Corporate Customers: Learn how to be a beginner-friendly
If companies want a culture of innovation, they must help start-ups to help them achieve it. Some points that can help you achieve this include:
- Do not kill the boot. They are delicate beings!
- Do not limit yourself to budget (welcome); Agree on how to issue them.
- Avoid “soft” so that the strings begin with months.
- Go to start-up shoes. I understand how often the start-up and his (several) employees will occur.
- Avoid mommy contracts, first options and unfair payment practices. Start-ups talk to other start-up ones, and the easier it is to work with the corporation, the greater the chance that they will be rewarded with the best collaborating.
Start-ups: Consider the agencies
Adapting to the agency can be a good business for start-ups. Immediately gives them access to experts-social, search, content and others-who can support them.
Being under the wing of the Agency can also facilitate the start-up of earning, “overclocking” on the status of approved supplier by the agency, without having to go through the procedure of setting own. With this in mind, agencies should also respect the above points.
Corporations: Give Feedback
This is a measure of how rarely startups receive feedback that their response to any feedback (even if the answer is ‘ not ‘) is rarely bitter. Contrary is often very appreciated.
Start-ups: I understand the expectations
In many ways, you can simplify the procurement process for start-ups, and there is still a requirement to meet this task. Start-ups must be prepared to interact with corporations and clearly distinguish between the types of investor meetings that can be known to them and the corporate meetings they do not know.
Frankly, companies do not want to know where the founder came from, nor how well the financing round lasts; Are focusing on problem solving.
Corporate Customers: Understand the value of start-ups
There is a stubborn group of corporations that still believe that the “start-up technological” is synonymous with “the bedroom encoder”. When they come outside and meet with a startup and discover that it is a serious, well-managed business, often headed by someone with a corporate experience and entrepreneurial talent, the perception changes.
Working with newcomable companies can revive business. Meeting start-ups can remove the fear of people and technology. Rather, focusing on “emerging technology” (perceived as supporting and enabling) than on “innovation” (sometimes perceived as a threat) can change the willingness to engage and experiment.
All this can make the corporation better positioned to understand the true value and risks of the business start-up.
