To Improve Corporate & Startup Engagement — Trade Places

20 Ideas in 20 Days — Day 2

One of the biggest challenges for corporations trying to engage with startups is what to do after the accelerator/co-working/proof of concept deal is inked and the initial investment is done. How do you go about meeting strategic innovation objectives like infusing the larger organization with startup DNA or doing a deep dive into a new and potentially disruptive business model? You can do joint training and/or bring in experts to mentor, but I think there’s a better way to entwine.

What if we built an exchange system where an employee from BigCo. and an employee from the startup are paired for a block of time — maybe a week — where one goes and works side by side with the other. Like embedded journalists, except they’re doing the job first and then reporting on it later.

I’m not talking shadowing. I’m talking working. Participating in brainstorming sessions. Going to product meetings. Joining the scrum and coding right along side their counterpart (or pair coding). Answering customer success calls. Writing social media posts or email copy.

On the big company level this might happen at the senior manager or director level. It should be someone who has at least 2 years of company experience and at least 5–7 years of work experience. The counterpart on the startup side will vary depending on the stage of the company.

What Does Each Side Learn?

The startup gains valuable insight that will be critically important when it comes time to scale. They learn:

• how the various departments like development, R&D, marketing, product and operations work together and communicate
• how big teams stay connected, set milestones/kpis, communicate and divvy up work
• what tools, processes and resources larger companies use and have access to
• how experienced leaders run meetings, work with direct reports and deliver feedback
• about the culture

The larger corporation learns more about what the startup is working on and employees get a window into how startups operate. They learn:

• how timing and decision making are different in startup land
• what it’s like to be scrappy, change lightbulbs, buy fire extinguishers and put your own desk together
• how it feels when the whole company can fit into one room
• how quickly startups can change direction and why
• what it’s like to be part of the contagious energy of a startup
• what tools, processes and resources (or lack thereof) smaller companies use and what they do for proxies
• what it feels like to make decisions in an ambiguous environment
• how startups interact with customers, use data and manage customer feedback
• depending on the level of the switch — the constant tug of war on leadership between fund raising and getting things done

Not all the exchange programs have to happen simultaneously. They can happen sequentially over time.

The Challenges

It may be difficult for the smaller company to live with having missing people here and there over a period of time. It could be expensive on the T&E side if the companies are not both in the same city, but the larger company could foot the bill for both companies under their innovation/corporate development budget. There may be some roles where it’s difficult to dive in and start working, but startups can almost always make use of an extra pair of experienced hands and big company teams almost always have side projects that could use some focus for week. If there’s IP or trade secrets, these would need to be protected.

The Benefits

The two companies will organically develop meaningful relationships and communication channels. It will be easier for the startup to identify big company resources it might leverage and easier for the big company to understand the new product or technology. Additionally, each company will have advocates within the other organization that can at least begin explain the other’s priorities. And hopefully, each embedded resource is going to generate ideas about how the two companies can better collaborate and open the door to new possibilities. Finally, if the big company implements this program over many employees and multiple startups, it will begin to spread that elusive innovation/startup thinking throughout the middle of the company where it can filter both up and down.

Has anyone built a program like this? I’d love to hear how it went and the outcomes. Please share in the comments.