There are many stereotypes surrounding startups and corporations, but when it comes to company culture, some of them are actually valid. While startups can act as the young character, ever-changing and always with an innovative mindset, corporations may be embodied as a more wise personality, with a well-defined structure.
As we know, collaboration leads to innovation, so when startups and corporations partner, often interesting projects arise. The only difficulty is their different type of “personalities” which can sometimes stand in the way of a natural bond.
So what are the steps for a fruitful partnership between these two? Fortunately, we had both perspectives on the stage of Techsylvania and this is what we’ve learned:
Simon McDougall submitted that corporations are always taking a strategic view on how their industry is going to disrupt and they want to maintain relevancy and be early investors in promising ecosystems. This is an aspect that needs to be taken into consideration by startups when they want to initiate a collaboration, as this is their promising standpoint.
Pitching to a corporate is different than pitching to a VC because they are more interested in strategic metrics and startups need to have in mind a broader business case.
Simon actually underlined the three most important questions that startups need to have in mind before initiating this type of partnership:
- Understand corporates: the perspectives, the state of mind, the strategic goals, the objectives. How do I fit in the majority curve?
- Understand the collaboration models: is it a joint venture? Is it investment? Am I looking at going into their incubator? — have a clear understanding of what their models are and bring them intelligently and proactively to the table.
- Understand the partnerships models themselves — the risks, the clauses, the inflexion points and how you can integrate that into the structure of the deal.
Marius Stewart came with a different perspective, and he actually marks it down to identifying other three essential steps when creating a successful bond between the two parties:
- How are the decisions made?
- What gets prioritized?
- What gets incentivized?
Startups and corporations are very different when it comes to company cultures but both of them can add strong value if they collaborate. Understanding both perspectives and benefiting of each other’s core points can be the key to delivering the best joint result.