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To help corporates reap the benefits of collaboration with startups, NESTA, UK in collaboration with Founders Intelligence and the Startup Europe Partnership have produced the guide ‘Winning together – A guide to successful corporate-startup collaboration’.
The guide aims to:
- Help executives and innovation managers understand what value working with startups can bring to their organisation.
- Provide them with a three’“step approach and framework to evaluate and select suitable programmes to engage with startups.
- Empower those who want to champion startup engagement inside their company with case studies and stories that clearly illustrate the transformative benefits of collaborations.
Key findings of the report are:
- Working with tech startups has become key to corporate innovation strategies.
- Corporates from all sectors and sizes can significantly benefit from working with tech startups. Benefits include rejuvenating corporate culture, innovating big brands, solving business problems and expanding into future markets.
- To identify suitable programmes to work with startups, corporates should follow these 3 steps: clarify your objectives, consider the programme options and connect potential resources.
- Successful startup programmes combine a range of smart features, including effective internal management, new incentive structures inside the corporate to engage senior management and employees and simplified processes to make collaborations easier for startups.
The following ten lessons is important in every collaboration:
Designing your programme
1. Carefully consider your objectives to engage with startups.
2. Select the programme(s) that best deliver on these objectives.
3. Secure board’“level sponsorship.
Measuring your programme
4. Develop key performance indicators.
5. Capture data and feedback continuously to iterate the model.
Implementing your programme
6. Hand startup programmes to people with an entrepreneurial mindset.
7. Allocate an internal champion with decision and budget power.
8. Create a publicly visible, single access point for startups.
9. Scout internationally to attract the best startups and technology.
10. Make it easier for startups to work with you.