there is a bloody war. Furthermore, digital technology has broken down the barriers between sectors of activity. In short, everything is in everything, because of or thanks to digital technology. An established company, in order to avoid losing its position on its markets, must therefore quickly provide innovative solutions to its clients to build loyalty, or even bring new solutions to market in an attempt to acquire new ones. We both know that producing innovation within an established company can take a long time…. Therefore, being able to capitalize on start-ups, their velocity, their innovations, can represent a significant competitive advantage for the established company. At the same time, start-ups looking for clients are well advised to deal with established companies that have large customer bases. It is not over until the fat lady sings. This was to be the main objective of the corporate start-up accelerator: to make commercial partnerships between internal business units and start-ups. In short, it was necessary to “marry” start-ups and business units.
It is difficult to claim that this choice, which I can clearly state as having been an individual choice for the corporate accelerator at the time (with the consent of my company), is a choice of objective that can be generalized to all start-up corporate accelerators. It would be wrong to claim this, and I believe that many start-ups would certainly be able to confirm that there is a gulf between the promises of objectives made by corporate structures supporting start-ups and the reality. The constant is the communication about the relationship between the established company and the start-ups. Some corporate start-up accelerators go further in the sense that the objective is primarily business, communication being only the representative that aims to speak about the results obtained. This was my conviction from the first second of my mandate.
As for the corporate accelerator that I was responsible for launching with my employee, things were very clear. This choice would become the decision that would change the course of my life in a lasting way. It was easier said than done, and I’m weighing up my words, because that’s what’s making me write these ones….
I.3. How do you do it?
I then asked myself and my colleague the question of how to do it. I met a lot of people, first and foremost external people working in the start-up ecosystem. My assistant did the same, and we debriefed each other quite regularly.
From all these interactions, and debriefings, I retained the following points from the outsiders (the people involved may recognize themselves). Here’s a small sample (because I kept countless notes of my appointments and debriefings from my colleague). This book could have been called “Journal of a numb person” (I’ll explain later).
– “You’re a big company. You are expected to encounter problems and you will make the front pages of the web media if you botch it” – A representative of a well-known web media company.
– “Start-ups want business, not communication” – A successful entrepreneur who has succeeded by sheer determination.
– “Be careful to strengthen them while you accelerate them, you’re big and startups are small” – An expert used to coaching start-ups.
– “You know, your company, like a lot of big companies, doesn’t have a good reputation in its relations with start-ups. Stop pillaging ideas!” – An entrepreneur who had had some unfortunate experiences with my company.
– “You’re a great brand and you have a big role to play with start-ups, how can we help you?” – A representative of institutions that promote start-ups under the aegis of the government.
It wasn’t just external actors we were looking at. Internal actors were also solicited. I’ve encountered internal colleagues at somewhat different points.
– “Start-ups are no more innovative than we are internally” – An R&D Engineer.
– “Step forward and engage that corporate accelerator. Move the boundaries, even though we know you won’t just make friends” – A Chief of Staff.
– “Don’t make promises to start-ups that the company can’t keep” – A top manager in innovation.
– “It’s not clear what the risks are of working so conspicuously with start-ups. Identify risks and control them operationally” – A Communication Manager.
– “Business partnerships with start-ups? Why not! Make us some proposals and we’ll take a look” – A Business Unit Manager.
This is a small sample of the exchanges. For the internal actor, as for the external one, the tone was sometimes positive, sometimes aggressive. But in any case, my feeling was that there was a real desire to face this mystery embodied by the universe of start-ups whose media were buzzing in our ears every day. Everyone was asking to see, some in an observing role, some in a potential inquisitor role, and some in a benevolent one.
What better way to try to succeed than to enlist the services of allies, as well as critics, both internal and external? That’s exactly what was going to be done. From the outside, we could expect pushing the best start-ups and helping us strengthen them in terms of structure and people. Internally, we were able to find the first “courageous” people who were at least committed to taking a good look at start-up cases and helping us to retain those that made sense. It was difficult at this “first” stage of obtaining firm commitments from commercial partnerships at the end. I was counting on the involvement of the corporate accelerator team to make sure we got there as much as possible. Shy, numb, no doubt, but I was not giving up.
Involving the actors, while taking final responsibility for the outcome seemed the right stance to me. If it worked, it would be thanks to all these actors. If it went wrong, it would be because of me. This is reassuring enough for an organization faced with the unknown to be able to blame someone in advance in case of failure. It seemed to me a good way to bring the external “family” (of start-ups) closer to the internal “family” (of the established company). The corporate accelerator and its small team (two people including myself) had to and was going to enter unknown lands that had nothing to do with marketing, sales or even the idea that one had of business techniques.
I.4. Design and launch
A few rules were set (three months of acceleration), a few priorities for start-ups, a few legal frameworks, a few services to be offered to start-ups against the backdrop of a business objective clearly stated from the outset. In a way, the entire design part of the corporate accelerator was forged in a few days, two weeks at the most. The best way forward for me was to learn by advancing and systematically asking myself the following questions: How do I serve the purpose through what I do? How is what I do profitable/dangerous for my company and for start-ups? Do I have the resources to act? I never consciously questioned who I was, what my values were. However, we will see later on that this is important, even of fundamental importance, when we want to forge a structure.
A website, a Twitter account, a few tweets to announce and maintain the first call for applications, and in February 2014, the first season of acceleration was launched. This launch was, in my opinion, as much in the realm of improvisation as it was in the realm of reflection, and I am quite unable to say what was prevailing at the time. Action took precedence, with all the risks that this entailed and with confidence in our desire to succeed. In fact, I remember the launch day (with media support). Originally, neither I nor my collaborator were foreseen being in the “photo” or to telling our story…. A curious approach on the part of large groups to hide those who had done things in reality.
Since
