How to?

Get in the Ring: Knowing the corporate inside out

Get in the Ring Foundation started in 2012 with the aim to connect startups globally to growth opportunities. Get in the Ring is now active in more than 100 countries, organizing local events together with licensed partners to meet & select startups face-to-face and match the most relevant solutions to innovation challenges at corporates, governments and NGOs across all industries. 

Context: Collaborations between startups and corporates at Get in the Ring usually start with a pilot project, allowing the startup to prove the product, service or technology works within the specific corporate environment and can potentially be scaled up in a certain partnership model. In 2016 alone Get in the Ring facilitated 70 of these pilots projects, gaining in-depth knowledge on the do’s and dont’s.

Erwin Koenraads: “It is often underestimated by startups how valuable the knowledge on a specific corporate and their perception of the market is. Knowing how they work, how they see the market, what their values are, how the processes inside this corporate are organised, how decisions are made, etc. can make all the difference when you get stuck at one of the many potential barriers. This goes beyond knowing the right people, especially because these people might change position all of a sudden.”

Solution:  Get in the Ring creates moments for startups with corporates where the goal is not to sell solutions, but to get to know one or more specific target corporates and dive deep into all the relevant topics mentioned above. Off course the most important question to answer is whether your solution actually applies to an existing need, but also find out how you should approach the process if it does.

For more information: https://getinthering.co/

Starred Helps Spotify Maintain Its Partner Network

Context: In countries or subsets of markets where it doesn’t have a strong presence, Spotify works with partners to represent their advertising sales division. For example, in the US, Spotify works with a partner covering local radio sales, and in Brazil, the Rio and Brasilia sub-markets are covered by a local partner. As communication with the far-flung partner network is complex but essential, Spotify was looking for a way to gain knowledge of how well they service their partners, and what improvements they need to make.

Solution: Emily ffrench Blake, Spotify’s Global Head of Partner and New Market Sales, opted to implement Starred’s innovative customer feedback tools in order to evaluate the relationship with all sales partners across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. “We want to ensure we are servicing our partners as best as possible so they have everything they need to confidently represent us,” Emily says, “Partners should feel like they are a natural extension of the sales team. Spotify uses the insights gathered through Starred to help them understand where their partners need more training and support.”

The feedback they have received has consistently improved over time as Spotify use the data from previous surveys to improve client services levels . For example, in preparing for the 2017 survey, Spotify have trained account managers across all markets in understanding their partner feedback, as well as implementing action plans to follow up on that feedback.

At the start, Spotify did not have a specific Net Promoter Score (NPS) in mind, and was primarily focused on getting high-quality feedback to improve partner training and guidance, as well as the sales material they provide. This focus on taking partner feedback and turning it into tangible improvements for their customers has proved highly successful, and resulted in an enviable NPS of +71 during their most recent survey.

For more information: www.starred.com

Twill: The Winning Formula: when the “Old School” meets the “New School’

Context: For customers of the Freight Forwarding industry, shipping containers from one place to another isn’t easy. It is filled with emails, phone calls and documents and even the smallest roadblocks can cause big problems. For Twill, the sole purpose of our existence is to make shipping simple for our customers.

We knew that a layer of technology and customer centric culture as never seen in the industry could make a big difference. But we also knew that we needed vessels, airplanes, trucks, trains, terminals, airports, warehouses and very capable people all around the globe, making sure that the process is a smooth as possible just as the “Old School” still does it today.

So, we had three options: (1) start alone, (2) become a new product within an “Old School” player or (3) become a Start-up with a Corporate Partner.

Solution: Twill choice is to mix the expertise of the “Old School” with the digital and service centric mindset of the “New School”. We knew we needed to start from scratch. We focused on attracting the right skill sets and building the right culture. Then we moved to develop a platform and a level of service that can outperform competitors and exceed customers’ expectations. While making use of our corporate partner expertise on Freight Forwarding to move the cargo smoothly but also to reach to the right customer target group.

The road isn’t always smooth. We often need to remind ourselves the purpose of the partnership, as individuals on both sides find themselves anxious while exploring new grounds and new ways of creating and delivering value for our customers. We are excited that we are closing our first 7 months of operation achieving targets that a few weeks ago seem out of reach – we couldn’t ask for a better way to sit and draft what success will look like for Twill in the future (situation November 2017).

For more information: www.twill-logistics.com/ 

Widget Brain: How to interact with corporates in a professional way

Context: Widget Brain reinvents operations with with self-learning optimisation modules. They are passionate about creating smart solutions that have a real impact on daily life. Algorithms that lower CO2, save lives, deliver faster, prevent critical failures and decide autonomously. Widget Brain's primary markets are Supply Chain, Logistics, Workforce and Industrial Equipment.  Widget Brain started almost 2 years ago and currently has 17 employees and offices in Rotterdam, Australia, Malaysia and the USA (status: november 2017). 

Our products require companies to change the way they are working. Implementations thus require management support

Solution:  De meeste van onze verkoopcycli beginnen daarom op C-niveau. De juiste introductie op het juiste niveau krijgen, is cruciaal en je moet gebruik maken van je persoonlijke netwerk en reputatie. Maarten de Boo: "In samenwerking met bedrijven is het belangrijk om te laten zien dat, hoewel je klein bent, je een professioneel bedrijf bent. Je moet ze laten zien dat je je een ‘blijver’ bent en dat kan alleen door een heldere visie te tonen van waar je naar toe wilt. Het trackrecord en de reputatie van je personeel is daarom uiterst belangrijk. Als je professioneel handelt, zullen corporates er minder om geven dat je klein bent en in je roadmap geloven. In samenwerking met een bedrijf is het belangrijk om te weten hoe een deal te sluiten en hoe op te schalen. Je hebt geen tijd om te onderhandelen over uitgebreide IP-contracten, dus dat wil je uitstellen totdat je instaat bent een prototype te tonen of totdat je een eerste project hebt weten af te ronden. Daarom is het cruciaal dat je mensen hebt in je team die de kennis en kunde hebben om contracten te sluiten met grote corporates

For more information: http://widgetbrain.com/

On being flexible when it is in your startup's interest to do so

Context: We are an e-commerce startup focused on online advice. Our platform can capture expert knowledge and disclose it at the right time in the online journey, so that a user gets the help she needs to make a buying decision. That means we have a lot of backend technology. When Centraal Beheer approached us about cooperating on a pilot for insurance advice, the assumption was that we would provide the backend and they would build their own frontend. It soon turned out that Centraal Beheer had limited internal resources available to tackle the frontend project on the proposed business timeline. Now what?

Solution: We decided to be flexible and use this opportunity to expand our own frontend capabilities. We worked with freelancers in the short term and were ultimately able to hire someone full time. Being flexible helped our client realize their business targets, and it helped us realize our team growth ambitions and expand our subject matter expertise. We can now offer Centraal Beheer and other clients several plug & play frontend modules, from chatbot to web application.

For more information: http://feli.gift

Keezel & KPN: Aligning your startup roadmap with corporate collaboration

Context: Keezel had just launched its crowdfunding campaign and raised over $1M on Indiegogo. We had created a device to protect people on public WiFi networks from hackers and from prying eyes. Part of our business model from the start had been to work together with data & services companies. The first step would be to provide encryption services to our product / customers, which we had successfully done through collaboration with 3 global VPN partners.

Next up was to find large partners to integrate and scale our sales. We were looking for companies with a huge customer base. KPN came on our radar through a friend at TNO who was collaborating with them through TekDelta. Me and my co-founder both had worked for large corporates ourselves and we knew that this would need to be a longer term partnership with KPN. How would we be able to get value out of the collaboration with KPN while keeping the necessary pace to run and grow our own hardware business with just 5 people? How would we cover the investment needed (hours of our team) in working together with KPN?

Solution: Find alignment between the corporate project and your own roadmap. During the crowdfunding campaign we had received strong signals for B2B opportunities. This had influenced our own roadmap and making a Keezel for Business solution became an obvious opportunity. Working together with KPN made perfect sense as it would allow us to discover the requirements that businesses would have for the Keezel for Business product. KPN allows us to learn from them and their customers about the market needs. On top of that we enjoy leveraging our KPN pilot in investor meetings which has even helped us land our US investor. Partnering with a Telco is a badge that is globally recognized amongst investors.

For more information: https://keezel.co

GoCredible and Rabobank: creating a win-win relationship

GoCredible is a payment service, providing security in a market that often tests consumer confidence

Context: C2C automotive is one of the markets where it is not possible to exchange money and property at the same moment. Buyer and seller must trust each other without any proof. There is a moment in time on which one of the parties possess both the money as well as the ownership (of the car). The consumer's biggest "pain" is not the immediate payment but the uncertainty about the other party’s trustworthiness; "With whom am I doing business, can I trust the other party?" In case the other party can be trusted there is no more worry about the payment or delivery.

Previously the C2C transactions were taking place in a regional environment (cars were offered in the local newspaper); nowadays the Netherlands has become the market place via the digital online offering via de internet. By doing so, the problem that you do not know with whom you are doing business has increased even more.

Solution: GoCredible is committed to buyer and seller. We do not choose sides but create equivalence. How do we do that? We get both buyer and seller out of anonymity through the low-threshold online iDIN identification. We show all characteristics of the car. Transparency is paramount. The buyer transfers via IDEAL the purchase price to GoCredible's third-party account. This also allows the seller to quickly inform: your buyer is creditworthy; the transfer can be settled. Because buying and selling a car is not a daily event for a consumer, we give quidance to buyer and seller online throughout the entire process. So, nothing can stand in the way of a successful transaction. Payment to buyer occurs immediately after transfer has taken place according to the RDW database.

GoCredible adds value by creating hard facts through online identification, online payment and validation of a transaction based on independent sources. Buyer gets the car, seller gets the money. If the deal is unexpectedly called off, the money is returned. Nothing to worry about.

This GoCredible conditional payment service API is applicable to markets where bridging of time or distance creates uncertainty. GoCredible is the impartial facilitator basing itself on information from independent sources. Due to our smart contracts (deal-or-no-deal), GoCredible prevents damage in the deal chain.

The collaboration between our startup and Rabobank will result in a win-win situation for both parties. We have been able to connect our contract platform to the paying platform of the bank.Therefore, we have worked closely with Rabobank specialists. By doing so, we offer the customers of the Rabobank an additional, flexible service, which was create in a more efficient way compared with the Rabobank developing the service itself

For more information: www.gocredible.nl

Corporate do meetings and emails – startups collaborate digitally

Cendres-Metaux Microtech AG

Situation: Our product has a high critical size barrier and after a 7-year design and engineering period we needed to go into the first real production series of 3000 units of mechanical watch movements, which requires manufacturing capacity and financial strength. Therefore we asked a corporate with 400 employees and a 100 year history to join our company as a majority shareholder. Although we had low physical distance between our company and the corporate, we recognized that communicating with the corporate is time consuming. Regular meetings are not enough to inform the management in detail about the situation and due to the existing flood of emails in corporates our emails tended seem more disturbing to the management. The result is that important things cannot be spoken out in an accountable way and miss-interpretations about the true needs of the startup or its project are an omnipresent risk.

Best Practice: In order to install other communication channels into the corporate we tried to setup collaborative tools like Basecamp, Dropbox, Workplace. The process typically creates suspicion on management and IT-department level since it is often a generational difference which creates the suspicion (prejudice about the need and benefits for that new stuff). However, Whatsapp Groups turned out to work well with most of the elder management generation in the organization. A simple Whatsapp Group starting with informal content helped to get to know each other. Later the activity was stopped due to too much off-work communication (startup teams share their life and not only their work). We should have split this initial group early into 3 topic groups (food&fun / Market know how / Operations) to give it structure and avoid management think that a startup cannot separate between work and life content.

Notes about Communication: I also think a true problem between Corporate and Startup is that Corporate managers prefer to sit in meetings and startup people don´t, because they need to do operational work still by themselves. The way people think about the cost of communication no matter if it is efficient or not is a true generational problem and perhaps one of the fundamental problems of startup versus corporate communication. The resistance of a corporate to use modern collaborative tools due to the fear about security issues (driven by IT mal-information) or just because it is new, is a significant problem and seems to be highly underestimated.

But if the corporate understands that startups have other communication needs and expectations and if the corporate is willing to join the world of a startup then there is a true chance to improve communication. Sounds like a simple problem, but we think it is fundamental to have a channel which “self-serves” the corporate management keeping their email accounts clean, because then these rare important emails have a chance to arrive in the right way. Whatsapp was a simple move because we saw that even digitally less skilled managers use it. It helped quite well in the beginning, however getting beyond this one group and trying to make it more professional is very difficult and needs a lot of patience and empathy into the corporate managements situation.

Get in the Ring: Timing

Get in the Ring Foundation started in 2012 with the aim to connect startups globally to growth opportunities. Get in the Ring is now active in more than 100 countries, organizing local events together with licensed partners to meet & select startups face-to-face and match the most relevant solutions to innovation challenges at corporates, governments and NGOs across all industries. 

Context: Collaborations between startups and corporates at Get in the Ring usually start with a pilot project, allowing the startup to prove the product, service or technology works within the specific corporate environment and can potentially be scaled up in a certain partnership model. In 2016 alone Get in the Ring facilitated 70 of these pilots projects, gaining in-depth knowledge on the do’s and dont’s.

Erwin Koenraads: “Multinational corporates especially have a lot of innovation projects running at the same time, in different countries, with different stakeholders. When you are a startup you don’t always have the resources to keep tabs on all of the projects that could benefit from your solution. Nor do you always know when the time is right for showing your solution and whom you should show it to.”

Solution: This is usually one of the values startup support organisations offer in the ecosystem you are part of. They are in contact with corporates, sometimes on many levels. Get in the Ring spends more time finding the right person, at the right time, looking for a specific solution, than matching this with a relevant startup solution. Get in the Ring Challenges are the result of this search, most of them are public, benefitting any startup around the world that has a relevant solution and the resources to pursue the opportunity.

For more information: https://getinthering.co/

Green Minerals: Turn waste into value by building an ecosystem

Context: CO2 capture by using minerals was totally unknown and there was only very limited research into this topic. Most attention was given to the generation of renewable energy and CO2 storage. Germany has a major research program for CO2 reuse, however, this programs is focusing on using CO2 as a raw material for fuels and chemicals and is not taking into account mineralization. CO2 capture with minerals was only known in science and not within companies or the general public.

Solution: Due to the fact that the German Ministry of Bildung und Forschung wanted to investigate mineralization as an option, Heidelberg was asked to make a research proposal. Therefore, HeidelbergCement asked Green-Minerals to collaborate with them in making and filing the proposal. This is because we have the knowledge and experience and also because we want to focus this research more on industrialization (involving the "customer" in the development). Consequently a number of  developments converged:

These three developments coincided when the German government made research funds available for this research. This research program has a duration of 3 year with a total budget of € 2.8 million (press release). The program will enable us to develop concrete / cement applications based on our technology. Other applications of the technology (in the paper sector and plastics) will be investigated with other partners next year.

For more information: www.green-minerals.nl