Hacking your way into Successful Startup-Corporate Collaborations
An honest Interview with the Founder of Magnet
Startups and Corporates are very different in nature — in terms of size, scale and speed, they are powerful in their own ways. According to a recent McKinsey report, 84 percent of global executives believe innovation is vital for the operation of a company, yet only 6 percent think their company is innovating quick enough.
We’ve had the pleasure of having the founder of Magnet, Scott Salandy-Defour, winner of the LVMH Moet Hennessy Innovation Challenge powered by WHub, discuss why startups and corporates can create a win-win scenario through hackathons and innovation challenges.
“In my opinion, the best way to do your startup is to do challenges and sign up for corporate accelerators. See if your products fit, meet people, understand what their problems are, understand the stakeholder side… that’s what it’s all about.” — Scott Salandy-Defour
Previously, Scott has worked in a management consulting company for emerging technologies, and has organized hackathons and accelerators. Now, as a startup founder, Scott’s understanding of both startups’ and corporates’ perspectives and motivations makes the interview an incredible insightful blend of truth and inspiration.
Read on to find out about his vision, his mission, and his learnings from working with startups as different stakeholders, with reference to his experience and hurdles.
1. How did Team Magnet come together?
I had an idea that I haven’t really talked to anyone about, and I decided two years ago to pitch it at a startup hackathon in New York. I thought to myself, “ok, this is the last time I was ever going to talk about it”, and at the event, it was the most popular idea. So, luckily two people at that same hackathon both wanted to work full time on it with me, and we’re still working on it two years later.
2. Could you please explain a little about what Magnet does?
We create a platform that incorporates new emerging technologies into businesses, right now, the four we have integrated into our platform are machine vision, IoT, AR and a blockchain component to do identity management.
We help companies incorporate these new technologies to enhance customer experience, and to help them to gather more granular analytics on what their customers are doing, what they’re interested in.
“For startups… understanding what big companies look for in order to sign you on for a project is critical.” — Scott Salandy-Defour
3. Can you please give examples?
Here’s what we’ve pitched during competitions.
First, to Moet Hennessy. Not sure if you know that there’s more fake alcohol sold in China, and so what our app does is to use machine vision to recognize whether or not the bottles are real. We also have an IoT device that you can put on the bottle to check if it’s been opened, because sometimes the bottles are real, but they’ve been tampered with.
For another pitch we did, you can basically put an image on a shirt, and replace that with AR activation. Imagine you have a shirt, and it has a picture of your face on it, and when someone scans the shirt with an app or a website, they see all the pictures you want them to see, but in AR.
And the third example is for a luxury hotel company, we are in the process of getting a really complex IoT and AR patent, but we can automate check-ins at events and hotels. And for artworks in lobbies and stuff, you can also scan it with your phone, and the paintings will come to live so as to speak. A shape can pop up in AR, it can dance and move and whatever you want it to do.
4. As you have joined several hackathons and innovation challenges, how do you think these competitions can make an impact?
For startups, I think it’s valuable to work with the large companies, because number one, if your startup doesn’t work you’ve made a lot of contacts in large companies to get a job or a reference, but also, understanding what big companies look for in order to sign you on for a project is critical.
In my opinion, the best way to do your startup, is to do challenges and to sign up for corporate accelerators. See if your products fit, meet people, understand what their problems are, understand the stakeholder side, like how the other jobs are actually judged, and how you can help those individual people look better in their company, that’s what it’s all about. So I think these sort of hackathons present a unique opportunity to do that.
“Companies need to incorporate new technology because customers’ demand is rapidly evolving, and also employee productivity needs to be ever increasing to make stockholders happy.” — Scott Salandy-Defour
5. You used to help your company host hackathons and set up accelerators, what’s the perk for large companies to do so?
When I was doing consulting we found that connection to startups helps large corporates in 2 ways.
Number one, we found that it really helps them retain talent. They may have some really talented and innovative people, but they may want to do their own startup. By bringing in startups for them to work with — for them to lead, it lets them scratch that itch without having them necessarily take that full jump.
The other benefit is that companies need to incorporate new technology because customers’ demand is rapidly evolving, and also employee productivity needs to be ever increasing to make stockholders happy. Most of these technologies these startups are talking about are mostly just 3–5 years from being actually able to implement them at scale. So by working with these startups, they get to see what’s available for them next. They can think about these new technologies can transform their business, and how it can make jobs easier, they can do more interesting things. There’s a lot of benefits with innovation for big companies.
6. How was your experience working with WHub?
I came into contact with WHub right before the LVMH competition, and no joke — the description of the event was exactly like something we’ve written before — pivoting to focus on brands like Moet and Hennessy that have an urban influence, that wanted to do online and offline connection. We had only been able to raise $50,000 USD in our 18 months — we were thinking that this would be the last thing we were going to do. If it doesn’t work out, then it’s a terrible idea… but we tied for second.
WHub has been super helpful. They’ve also introduced us to the Peninsula Program — with which we were able to make great connections. It’s really 2 for 2 in terms of introductions that they’ve helped us to make, and these companies are not just asking startups to do pilots for free, they actually set aside a budget for the programs, and to me, that’s really valuable.
Next Open Innovation Challenge
Great news! WHub is hosting an Open Innovation Challenge with Explorium HK.
We are now calling out to the entire Hong Kong population, especially the innovators: startups, entrepreneurs, investors, students, and industry leaders to explore what’s holding this city back to become a more creative and innovative economy, a happier and healthier community, and a sustainable place to live and submit their problems.
If your problem is selected as one of Hong Kong’s five most pressing challenges, you’ll be invited to attend the Startup Impact Summit by WHub on 25 January 2019 where you’ll have the chance to work with subject matter experts to refine and frame your problem ahead of a chance to pitch your problem on stage to a panel of expert judges.
There will be one winning problem selected on 25 January and the winning entry will receive WHub and Explorium HK’s support to build solutions to this problem in 2019.
Learn More | Submit Problems | View Submissions | Witness Winners
There’s a lot of inspiring ideas and speakers at WHub’s Startup Impact Summit this 25 January, so kickstart your 2019 the right way with powerful connections and insider insights! Get your tickets now!
Be the first to know
Want to know more about Scott Salandy-Defour and Magnet? Read Scott’s latest blog post: Corporate Tech Accelerators the New R&D
We write blogs about #startups every week, and we’ll be writing about more solutions! Follow us to keep up to date!
Sign up to WHub’s Newsletter: https://whub.io/s/newsletter
Follow WHub on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whubhk
Follow WHub on Twitter: https://twitter.com/whub_io
Follow WHub on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/w-hub
