Lessons from an 80-year-old startup

Shruti George, Avery Dennison's senior director, Strategic Innovation Platform, shares her perspective on expediting progress and the need to accelerate innovation. Through key learnings from her time inside one of the world’s leading manufacturers, Shruti lays out how we can progress and support start-up culture in a globalized world.

In 1935, Stan Avery introduced the world’s first pressure-sensitive sticker. Off the back of a $100 loan from his then-fiancé Dorothy Durfee—an early VC investor, you might say—he created and patented the world's first self-adhesive die-cut labeling machine, and The Avery Dennison Corporation was born. Fast forward 87 years and we are now looking at how we can replicate Dorothy’s commitment to innovation through our own accelerator program, AD Stretch.

With more than 80 years of experience under our belt, and born through the spirit of innovation, ambition and sheer determination, we look to the lessons we have learnt along the way and how we can best support the next generation of start-ups.?

Lesson 1: Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. While our company was founded by Stan Avery and his singular invention of the self-adhesive label, today’s reality is that innovation relies on collaboration. It will rely on the coming together of multiple minds, disciplines and approaches, united by shared goals. The fact is that in a world facing common challenges, we can’t rely on localized solutions. The next frontiers for innovation are collective: being sustainable—to ensure that we leave behind a planet worth inheriting for our next generation; bringing transparency to supply chains—helping consumers make informed decisions; and enabling a better customer experience—personalized but not invasive.?

Lesson 2: Successful collaboration lies in knowing your strengths. And in terms of partnerships, that means understanding what each party brings to the table. Understanding your own strength and how it will contribute to a more meaningful outcome is the first step. In my role at Avery Dennison, I have spent a lot of time looking at the balance required to affect tangible progress. With the recent launch of AD Stretch, our startup accelerator program, we’re looking to partner with startups so that we can match our scale, structure and financial security with their agility, entrepreneurial mindset, and no-holds-barred approach. We can combine our established R&D teams’ long-standing expertise with their fresh insights. The types of companies we have in mind sit at the intersection of the physical and the digital. We also want applicants who are actively engaged in solving the pressing needs of both today and tomorrow: climate change, enabling more transparency and making sure it’s done in a cost-efficient manner.

Lesson 3: Progress happens at a snail’s pace and then all at once. The first electric car, for example, made its debut in 1890. Due to its inability to compete on range and speed with the ICE engines as well as production costs (GM’s EV1 a century later), electric cars never took off. It wasn’t till the early 2000s when the Toyota Prius and then a small Silicon Valley startup called Tesla were able to create viable electric vehicles spurred on by the snowballing effects of better battery technology, infrastructure investments and a growing concern about our environmental footprint. Fast forward to less than 15 years later and electric vehicles are de rigueur for all big carmakers.

This stop-start-acceleration cycle is especially true in well-established industries such as ours.? While slow progress is still progress, as a company that is at the forefront of the physical and digital convergence—in packaging generally, and labels specifically—we want to bring the best minds to the table to accelerate the pace of this process. The years (decades, in Avery Dennison’s case) of learnings, expertise and the established supply chains, customer bases and reputation mean we can expedite the ideas of smaller companies far quicker than if they were going it alone.?

While these are just some of the things we’ve learned in our innovation journey over the decades, we’re always looking to learn more—as we believe that is another of the most important aspects to innovation. Ceaseless curiosity, and the willingness to search out new partners, new ways of thinking and doing, are what will enable us to meet the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead of us all.?

To apply to Avery Dennison’s accelerator program, visit ADStretch.com