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The coaching process can lead to many disappointments. Before deciding, the start-up would be well advised to ask a few questions to the manager of a support structure.

Among all the incubators and other corporate accelerators studied for the book “Open Innovation, the Corporate Incubator”, there is one case (Case E “The Art of the Pivot”, page 173) that seemed to be the one with the best starting points. On the one hand, the corporate incubator was backed by a large group that had the most important history of relationships with start-ups. On the other hand, the large group in question had been pushing the lever of open innovation for a good ten years, first within R&D and then in all its divisions.

This article inaugurates a series of 5 columns based on the verbatim reports of incubator/accelerator managers from start-up companies. The names of these managers, as well as those of the companies concerned, will remain anonymous…

« Open Innovation, the corporate incubator », ppublished in June, gave rise to numerous meetings with counterparts responsible for corporate incubators, open innovation of large groups, as well as the start-up ecosystem. Thanks to all of you!

The incubator/accelerator often has a role of mediator or intermediary with good partners… and the result is often a long time coming for the start-up. Why is this?

In a previous post ” start-up… how to drop masks? “, I shared with you the four questions that a start-up should ask to the manager of an incubator or accelerator, before “signing” … These questions concern the “structure”, the “actors”, the “tasks” and the “tools” that should be mobilized to carry out the support. Assuming that the answers to these questions are convincing (i.e. the start-up signs), I can only invite the start-up to remain vigilant during the coaching. Assuming that the answers to these questions are convincing (i.e. the start-up signs), I can only invite the start-up to remain vigilant during the coaching.

Start-ups embody a velocity and creativity that large groups envy and want to reclaim. Of course, these are often single-project structures, i.e. they are concentrated on a single solution and a very limited number of people work on it. In other words, the ability to pivot and redefine oneself is total.

We often hear about the scalability of start-ups. This notion is very often associated with the objective of raising funds… However, these funds finance immaterial or material resources, but do not provide the right contacts to transform commercially.

An overwhelming majority of start-ups will tell you: the big band is a real maze!

This book could be entitled « The Corporate Incubator: Overcoming the Trojan Horse Syndrome », with this distribution of roles…

I shared with you the concept of “Translation” and “Institutional Work”. Related articles are available both on LinkedIn and on my blog https://www.pascal-latouche.com.