Relationships Are Critical To Corporate-Startup Partnership Success

What makes a startup unique is its culture. When you look at companies as human beings, you discover that there are no two alike. Similarly, there are big differences between individuals, their families and communities. These same kinds of differences distinguish startup cultures from corporate cultures.

Startup culture is very informal compared to the culture of corporations. A large corporation is better organized around many business units, many thousands of employees, but the downside is there is much less flexibility.

When startup culture and corporate culture meet, a big part of success depends on both groups' ability to develop the personal relationships necessary to overcome the tensions that can naturally arise when these very different cultures meet.

So if you're an executive at an established company, and you're saying "I want to work with startups," it's a good idea to begin by developing personal relationships with the startups'  founders and executives.

We work extensively with corporations who are seeking to partner with startups in order to identify new technologies, business models or talent to power the next wave of growth for their company.  Our Data-Driven Startup Scouting and Matching, offered in partnership with Valuer.ai, allows us to rapidly identify the startups that are the best match, and then we get involved to help facilitate relationships between the two companies.  There are a number of ways we do this, including creating a private space inside the community where we facilitate dialog that assists the fledgling partnership as it takes shape, all within the context of a supportive and resource-rich environment.