For the past 3-4 months, I and a couple of my colleagues at the HeadStart Foundation have been involved in creating a framework for formal collaboration between corporates and startups for jointly identifying, pursuing and executing business. The HeadStart Foundation is launching that initiative on the 9th at the HeadStart and Compute 2009 event in Bangalore and we have got 5 companies confirming as launch partners (names to disclose on 9th) and 20 more (evenly split between companies in India and abroad) in discussions.
This collaboration initiative takes the form of both online and offline interaction. The online bit is a simple process – corporates identify areas of interest and issue RFIs, startups and SMEs submit proposals that a team from HeadStart initially filter and then route to designated individuals in partner companies. There is also a process for regular offline interaction and doing reviews of the programme from time to time.
Since this is a new initiative, your views would be appreciated
1. Do you think that such initiatives will help innovation and business ?
2. What do you think are important things to make such an initiative a success ?
3. Where would VCs fit in to all this ? How should we engage investors ?
See you on 9th and 10th for those of you who can make it to Bangalore. Even otherwise, the Startup Saturdays are always there. And the online collaboration platform is an open one, so it will be available from the 9th for startups to join.
- Demystifying consumer hardware product development - February 14, 2014
- the First Startup Camp @HeadStart Ventures - July 24, 2010
- My experience of raising an Angel fund. - July 18, 2010
Kallol: Fabulous initiative and I am glad that someone is looking at this bridge.
I would however advise the same thing I’d advise any startup “Have your ideal customer in mind”. If you can envision, even better, map a few startups and the kind of startups that need this kind of help, then it makes for a focused and inherently productive initiative.
The other thing that is of concern is as to who wins out of this engagement. Is it the startups or the large companies. if not treaded carefully it could turn into a case where one is feeding little animals to the lions in its own den – you get the idea.
There are a lot of legal issues. As Indus rightly pointed out, the issues are that the startups could get completely swayed. Is this for product-focused startups or service startups? if so who owns the IP, and if something goes wrong (big company likes idea, but builds its own instead of paying the startup etc) – in such cases who will bail the startup and provide protection, all of that needs to be sorted out.
Also look into already existing programs. Honeywell had such initiatives. And TCS has COIN (which as far as i know hasnt taken off). Look to learn what went wrong in them.
I think “Innovation” is a slightly dicey word. If we narrow it down to either a product or a patent – or even a tactical advantage to grow the market, things become much more easier to identify, support, nourish and help grow.
This can be a course-changing move for startups. I agree with Indus. It is for sure a sincere attempt at providing opportunities, and boosting business for startups and SMEs.
Yes, we startups have to consciously take decisions, take it one step at a time, specially because, the core focus should be laser sharp, and thats what will be challenged.
– Deeps
It’s a good initiative. However, since things are much more at the grassroots level in the Bangalore plateau, a better initiative is to hook the startups with the academia (eg. PhD’s at Powai giving out much needed help on Information Retrieval algorithms or HCI/UX experts at NID, Ahemdabad advising startups on interaction design of a website).
Also, a word of caution to the startups participating in the RFIs — standing near the right hand sleeve of the “big guy” can alter the plan and change focus. Go with an aim of learning what the gaps of the big guys are and not what they want.
Indus
t:1ndus
@Himanshu:
Yes, corporates may not always be known for innovation but neither are startups known for always tackling ‘real’ problems. The idea is to get corporates to identify problem areas and startups to work on innovative solutions, that combines the best of both.
The academic wisdom seems to be that established companies are poor at identifying either innovation or the areas to innovate in and thus are not good fora or partners for innovation. Of course, everyone is going to jump up and shout 3M or Apple, so as with everything else in the entrepreneurial world… Doing small cheap fail-fast experiments are the way to find out. All the best.
What is the commitment that you are envisioning from each side?