Gerben Klop About The Dynamics Of Corporate Startups And Innovation
“A corporate startup is maybe a hundred times more difficult than a startup.” – Gerben Klop
HelloMasters
With this podcast, we continue discussing corporate innovation and innovation labs similar to how we covered it in our latest podcast. Together with host Ellen Bark-Lindhout, former Global Innovation Manager at Heineken and now co-founder of accelerator Collider, we speak with our guest Gerben Klop. Gerben is the former CEO of Tessa, a corporate scale-up of Unilever, and currently Founder & Managing Partner of THEBLUEGARAGE.
Corporate Startups
We asked Gerben about his experience as the CEO of a corporate startup, and what dynamics he faced being in such a dynamic environment. Gerben states that the execution of a startup within a large corporate can be very tricky: “A corporate startup is maybe a hundred times more difficult than a startup. You have to solve a problem for your mother, and you have to find an idea worth executing while finding money.”
However, further elaborating, Gerben emphasizes that corporates will not always solely have monetary motives: “The return of investment in euros might not be important if the initiative contributes to the value perception of that corporate. That can be a reason to keep it alive.”
Ellen fully agrees with this, pointing out the importance of looking beyond financial outcome: “If you look at the financial outcome from the very beginning, this can be a trap. Because often, it is very difficult to be sure about the business case. Which means potentially killing something that never really had the chance to prove itself”
Importance of a team
Discussing the importance of a good team and the difficulty of finding a fitting team, Gerben is clear: “I think that’s the far most difficult topic to crack for me.” Echter, gelooft Klop wel in een outside-in approach: “Outside in is always good. No matter what team, after a certain amount of time, blind spots do occur.”
T-Shaped Marketers
We also briefly touched upon the concept of a T-shaped marketer – someone with a broad width of knowledge, accompanied with a deep understanding of a few areas of expertise – which is deemed incredibly difficult by Ellen: “You have to have immense wide shoulders if you want to be a true t-shaped marketer. […] It’s impossible to harbour every marketing discipline into one person nowadays.”
TOPICS
[00:00:00] Introduction HelloMaaS
[00:00:28] Introduction Gerben Klop
[00:02:30] Introduction Ellen Bark-Lindhout & Collider
[00:03:10] Motivation and reasoning of Gerben
[00:03:30] Why innovation?
[00:03:45] Why is innovation necessary? Is it rather a goal than a means?
“For me, innovation is to optimize a current revenue model, and to find, activate and secure new revenue models. From that perspective, it’s needed simply to expand the lifespan of corporates.” – Gerben
[00:04:35] Ellen on her background and Heineken – in-house vs outside
“You do really need to understand what you want, and what your scope is, on the inside, before you can go outside.” – Ellen
“We know quite a lot, but we also realize there is more knowledge outside of the company. So how do we leverage that?” – Ellen
[00:07:45] Gerben about his experience with Tessa & Unilever
[00:08:30] Gerben & Ellen about a startup operating under a corporate
“If you look at the financial outcome from the very beginning, this can be a trap. Because of often, it is very difficult to be sure about the business case. Which means potentially killing something that never really had the chance to prove itself” – Ellen
[00:10:35] Corporate innovation vs corporates expectations
“If success is return on the euro, go with M&A and joint ventures. There are completely different values attached when you start an internal innovation program.” – Gerben
“The return of investment in euros might not be important, if the initiative contributes to the value perception of that corporate. That can be a reason to keep initiates alive.” – Gerben
[00:12:48] Co-creation with audiences/customers
[00:14:00] What is innovation? vs Ideation
“The biggest challenge I faced is execution and to get the proper team in place.” – Gerben
“A corporate startup is maybe a hundred times more difficult than a startup. You have to solve a problem for your mother, and you have to find an idea worth executing while finding money.” – Gerben
[00:15:00] Fundraising for corporate startups
“In a corporate startup, the validation phase is too long.” – Gerben
[00:17:30] What are corporate startups exactly?
[00:17:50] Importance of the support of the C-Suite
“I still have to find a corporate where governance is a hybrid team. Most often, the governance of these initiatives are done by internal people.” – Gerben
[00:18:30] Adding additional resources
[00:19:30] Statement: marketing is the instigator of innovation
“A lot of innovation is consumer insight, or market driven […] but that doesn’t mean it can’t come from technology side.” – Ellen
“At the heart should be consumer insight, with innovation. But we shouldn’t drive complex innovation ideas by marketeers. Rather strong project managers” – Ellen
[00:21:55] Building a good team inside a corporate startup
“I think that’s the far most difficult topic to crack.” – Gerben
[00:23:35] T-shaped marketeers
“You have to have immense wide shoulders if you want to be a true t-shaped marketeer. […] It’s impossible to harbour every marketing discipline into one person nowadays.” – Ellen
[00:24:45] Why HelloMaaS
[00:25:30] External input into teams
“Outside in is always good. No matter what team, after a certain amount of time, blind spots do occur.” – Gerben
[00:26:42] Tools and Methodology
“Hardly at an accelerator do you find something that is completely new and has not been done before. So then it’s more about how you deliver it.” – Ellen
“As long as the team works together and is able to collaborate, I’m fine.”
[00:33:00] Gerben about product/market fit.
“Ask less and listen more.” – Gerben
[00:35:10] Predictions & trends
[00:39:45] Outro
[00:40:00] Speak to advisors
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