My Proposition To All Fortune 500 CEO’s — Appoint A Chief Startup Officer

I’ve spent a good part of my waking hours over the years trying to penetrate the mysterious chasms of hundreds of corporations on behalf of viable startups and these “treks” have taught me a few things.

First, there are no front doors — corporations pride themselves on lot’s of things especially the ease of doing business with them but when you are in that role, nothing is made more difficult and if you do manage to get your paper airplane in the window, don’t expect an answer.

Second, if you do manage to find someone to talk to, they are so scared to be seen with you (yikes, something “new”), yet alone promote your project, that it’s pointless to even continue the relationship.

Third, you read in the press or at an event that the prospect is transforming, changing or incorporating and is looking for “something” to help with that and you send in a request for just that and receive an email (sometimes surprisingly quickly) from an intern who say’s your offer doesn’t match any of their needs.

Fourth, if your golf handicap is not near zero, you didn’t graduate from an Ivy League School or your cousin is not the Governor, chances are your deal won’t get on the table.

Fifth, if you haven’t done any previous business with “a number” of similarly sized accounts (startups are well known for starting out with complex nationwide multi-channel deals) then you don’t get the opportunity to show that you can serve these types of clients (chicken & egg).

And finally, there’s often someone or a department that’s going to get a part of their existence removed or profoundly modified, sidestepped or replaced by what you’re selling and that makes for a complex first date conversation.

And all this time, the charismatic CEO of your prospect is on CNBC, The Huff or The Late Night Show blabbing how innovative his company is and how he’s nimbly pivoting his corporation to produce more value for its shareholders. Yawn.

What if there was someone at ABC Corp that actually was a Startup Founder or Co-Founder and was given enough breathing room to actually make something happen?!

After all, it’s his or her’s day job to disrupt, change, innovate and transpierce traditional models & thinking. And because this mindset has been buried and long lost at most large behemoths, I’d say that more and more innovation and groundbreaking progress is going to be made on the outside of shiny corporate buildings and just gobbling them up like M&M’s is not going to change anything (look at Yahoo’s blunder with Tumblr). What it’s going to take is the appointment of someone who can truly grasp what’s going on, on both sides of the wall and who has the talent to weave together the unimaginable. Our Chief Startup Officer (get shit done guy / gal) is going to have to be pretty thick-skinned, though. He’s going to have to resist, as Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey depicts, being lured by all the other officers bathing in the sunshine at the nearby country club, sipping rare whisky and counting their stock options while carefully managing the status quo. He’s going to need to work hand in hand with HR to foresee large-scale industrial change and push for more human capital transmutation to accompany the imminent market-driven transformation. Sales & Product are not going to want to share pipelines or development schedules over beers on Friday’s, so our unicorn is going to need to be an ace at poker as well as having the instructive patience of a kindergarten teacher. And miracles are going to be seen on the refrigerated lower floors governed by the CIO who will need to be hand-held more than your offspring on their first day at school. Yes, our Yoda of the new economy is going to have his / her plate full but I’m betting that any CEO who has the guts to go out and find someone with that pedigree and gift him with enough wing room will reap the benefits in the year’s to come.

But with all the change that is going to happen internally, who’s going to mentor our super change agent (Bull in a China Shop)? My advice is the CEO him / herself — he is the only one that can assume the responsibility for substantial change to take place and if he doesn’t, our champion should not take the job to start with. Most CEO’s weren’t around when their company was created and this lack of ownership has taken many to the front pages of business website obituaries. My proposition to all Fortune 500 CEO’s — hire a Startup Founder (or Co-Founder) to spearhead your innovation and transformation and maybe, more importantly, rub shoulders with this entrepreneur and learn more about how your own company was born.