Dispelling the myth of David vs Goliath... or startups vs corporations

Few weeks ago, I was invited to deliver a virtual keynote during Untold Stories Conference 2021. My objective was to talk about the need to redefine partnership in these times of change and uncertainty that we experience at a global level. In this article, I would like to share my view on why corporations and startups today more than ever need to partner and join forces in order to not only recover from the recent crisis but to thrive in the new normal.

I have been working with startups as a mentor for many years, coaching and advising startups to build sustainable business models, to secure investments and to scale. As a judge in startup competitions, I have also assessed the originality of ideas, the business plans and the team setup that would boost startup growth at a global scale.

Up to now, in the startup world the myth of Goliath and David stays strong. Large enterprises (Goliath in our story) may be successful and profitable in the long term, sometimes a bit complacent, and usually they are more rigid, slower in adopting the new trends, less innovative. On the other side, startups (David in our story) have brilliant ideas, show up courageous, but many times they are not well prepared, do not have a thorough and precise business plan, they lack the execution capability needed to scale.

But is this distinction relevant today?

A story of partnership

Over the past couple of years, the world has been impacted by a huge crisis caused by the COVID 19 pandemic. Many analysts refer to this as the “black swan” meaning an unprecedented event that was not easy to predict and that had huge global impact. While opinions about whether it could be predicted or not vary, it is true the pandemic has changed the way we do business at a global level. Both large organizations and small businesses had to adapt to a new reality. More digitization, more automation, work from anywhere, more online services for their customers.?

In the fight against the pandemic, we experienced a new partnership paradigm. The global pharma industry had to respond to the need for rapid vaccine development and the honorable cause of saving lives. The Pfizer-BioNTech collaboration was announced in March and allowed the two partners to coordinate multi-site and country clinical trials. This led to a breakthrough vaccine that was delivered globally in record time. And to an insightful case study!

BioNTech has been exploring mRNA technology for developing vaccines for cancer based on personalised medicine principles. But the COVID-19 challenge was critical and very demanding from timing and scale perspective. The partnership with Pfizer strengthened the joint team ability to navigate the complex and demanding processes of vaccine approval, to form agreements with governments globally, to produce and deliver the vaccines at scale and within very tight deadlines.

This example highlights the importance of collaborations required to achieve delivery at scale and faster time to market. Pfizer needed the expertise and innovation capability of BioNTech. BioNTech needed the delivery and commercialization capability of Pfizer. A win-win-win partnership. For BioNTech, for Pfizer, for the world.

Similar partnership models, startups joining forces with large companies, are happening in many sectors, including the technology industry. In our Microsoft news article few months ago, we shared examples of startups in Central and Eastern Europe that partnered with Microsoft in order to receive business and technical support to fuel their growth and development.

A mindset shift

As we enter a new age of deep tech, with every industry set to be transformed by new technologies like AI, blockchain, IoT and quantum, more and more agile corporates will be looking to the startup world for inspiration and innovation. On startup side, partnering with corporates will offer access to more opportunities.

There are good reasons for this cultural shift. In the startup world, resources are limited, while in corporations they more abundant. Partners share financial or other business risks – and this brings a lot more confidence on investor and founder side. While startups are valued for creativity and innovation, corporates can help them to commercialize and deliver at scale. The main idea is not any more to compete, but to increase competitiveness together.

Mindset shift: From increased competition, to increased competitiveness

What do startups today need to grow and scale?

• First, access to technology tools and knowledge. The opportunity to connect with technical experts who will support them with best practices and guidance on how to leverage best of breed modern technologies to create their innovative solutions and products.
• ?Startups can benefit most by learning from the champions. Mentoring from corporate executives on various business fields is a great gift for a startup founding team. Corporation experts can provide invaluable insights on topics such as developing a compelling business plan, securing investments, defining an impactful go-to-market strategy, building a diverse and skilled team.
• ?Connection with large enterprises is also important as it offers various networking opportunities. Big corporations are surrounded by large ecosystems – their customers and their partners. The ability to outreach into these communities offers opportunity for learning, and most importantly for business making.
• ?Finally, ambition to scale and grow can better be served with such strategic partnerships. These partnerships can open doors for startups to sizeable opportunities for growth and development that they might not otherwise have access to. Opportunities to grow cross-region even globally, opportunities to attract new customers, to expand to new industries, to enter new markets.

Founders Hub – Supporting all tech startups from idea to exit

There’s a popular quote attributed to inspirational founder Leila Janah, "Talent is equally distributed, opportunity is not." This will resonate with many startup founders as they look for funding opportunities, help to validate their ideas, access to word class technology to accelerate their time to market, and assistance in winning customers.

Why can’t we, in 2021 build a scalable, digital ecosystem that promotes opportunities and democratizes innovation regardless of where talent resides or what their background might be?

With that question in mind, Microsoft launched Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub in limited preview. This is the first step of our plan to help make startups successful at each phase of their journey, while also aiming to make the startup ecosystem at-large more representative of the world. The platform is designed to help all tech entrepreneurs innovate and grow– no matter their background, location, progress, or passions. Open to anyone with an idea, the platform helps founders accelerate product development, hit their next milestone, and learn how to secure funds to run their startup — all at their own pace.

Over the coming months we will be refining the platform based on founder feedback. In the meantime, we invite all entrepreneurs to learn more and to sign up for Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub at: startups.microsoft.com.

Redefining the myth of David & Goliath

In the new reality, David is no longer the small startup and Goliath is not the large corporation. Today, the distinction between the two is more than ever irrelevant. Both bigger companies and smaller are faced with similar challenges. While there are differences in resources, scale, innovation, adaptation and delivery capability, uncertainty and adversity present an important threat to both startups and corporates.

Uncertainty is the new Goliath.

In this environment, the myth of David and Goliath can still teach us a lot. To make a business idea successful you need to have: ??

• Courage to overcome your fears.
• Self-awareness to appreciate your capabilities and skills.
• Determination to take action.
• Humility to keep you grounded.
• Optimism to believe it’s possible.

New times call for new partnerships. Together we can!

My speech is now available on YouTube: Myladie Stoumbou - Microsoft - Untold Stories Conference Budapest 2021 - YouTube

*** Thank you for reading my article. I usually write about leadership, technology, innovation, future of work, equal opportunities, diversity and inclusion and other related topics that I think might be useful to share. If you would like to be notified about my future posts, please click “Follow” at the top of my page. ***