 Hello, my name is Kevin Barrow, the founder and CEO of Marklabs, a software company that helps organizations effectively manage the risks associated with funding social impact projects. I'm thrilled to be your host for today's GIST Tech Connect on startups and corporations, strategic partnerships and investments. We're hosting this GIST Tech Connect live during the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition regional finals in Singapore. The Microsoft Imagine Cup is one of the world's premier student technology competitions. Since 2003, Microsoft has provided a global platform for students to turn their dreams into reality. The top teams from the Imagine Cup regional finals will move on to the world finals in Seattle later this year. Today's web chat is about how startups can effectively engage with corporations. Strategic partnerships and investment by corporations can help provide startups with the capital, infrastructure, networks and resources they need to take their venture to the next level. You're going to hear from a group of experts with extensive experience in corporations who will share their insights and knowledge and how startups successfully engage and maximize relationships with corporations. We really want to know your thoughts and take your questions during the program. So please ask your questions in the chat space next to the video player or on Twitter using the hashtag GIST Tech Connect. To all the viewing groups joining us, an extra special welcome. Please send us your picks by email or Twitter using the GIST Tech Connect hashtag. Let me begin by welcoming our panel of experts. Keith Lover is the director of student developer programs at Microsoft. There he oversees the strategic programs for building engagement and skills for students during their career goals. Giselle Cabrera is the community relations manager at the Ford Motor Company Fund. She is responsible for developing and directing philanthropic, charitable and community relations programs that meet the goals of the Ford Motor Company and the Ford Motor Company Fund. Andrew Riskovich is a strategic consultant at Monitor Deloitte. He leads strategic planning and implementation efforts focusing on innovation and market disruption with biotech companies, health systems, nonprofits and various federal agencies. And lastly, we have Michael Hauser. He is an investor, mentor, business builder and a strategist with a passion for growth and transformation. Most recently he helped build the corporate venture team at Horizon X, Boeing's business to business incubator and venture arm. Thank you all for joining me today. I'd like to start the conversation with what advice you would give to startups hoping to work with corporations. Let's start with you, Michael. So I'll say that no matter what your idea is, find a way to make it resonate with the company. If it's a social venture or it's a solution to a business challenge, find a way to make it fit for them and pitch on that. Fantastic. Andrew? Yeah, so this is a very exciting time to be engaging with corporations. As we're seeing this space become a bit busier, which means that when you enter these relationships, really you should be asking yourself, if you don't mind the analogy, are you dating or are you getting married? And so from the dating perspective, you want to make sure that you're creating a relationship that can be repeated because in this gig economy this is something that you need to consider. But if you're getting married, you have to ask yourself questions like, where do I want to live? Do I want to have kids? Do we resonate? Do we have the same values when it comes to social justice, fairness, other inclusion issues? These are very important because any problems that might be there present in the early part of this relationship will likely grow as we move forward. Fantastic. Giselle, what would you add? So I mean, I agree with both Andrew and Michael on all of their points. What I would say is do your homework. Make sure that you do your research and that you know who you're approaching and exactly what your ask is. And if it's a right fit for your company and also for the corporation that you're approaching. And also it's important to know beforehand whether or not the company that you're going to be approaching even has a venture capital arm. I can tell you, for example, Ford Motor Company, we don't have a venture capital arm, but we do have other business units that make investments in startups. So for example, the Ford Motor Company Fund, the philanthropic arm makes investments in startups through different programs that we support. So doing your homework is key before you approach a corporation for a partnership. Fantastic. Keith. Yeah, then I would say adding on to all the great comments so far is that never think of yourself too early as an innovator. So what we do is work with students and a lot of times students come up with some great ideas, but not sure what that next step is to take. Look at those companies that have great resources for you to take advantage of and find out, as earlier said, do your homework on these companies. Find out what they have for you. You'll find that there's actually a lot available and a lot made available to you to take your innovation to the next level. Even if it's something that you don't ultimately end up embarking on, it can really help you learn a lot for that next step that maybe is your start. Thanks, Keith. For those of you just joining, we are talking today about how startups can infectively engage with large corporations. Our experts are sharing best practices for how startups can successfully grow. They're ventures by strategically collaborating with corporations. Keith, Microsoft is engaged in working with early stage innovators across the globe. In what ways are you supporting them? Yeah, well, as I mentioned earlier, we think of students as those early innovators. So what we try and do is match students with the tools that they need to engage in their passion. So if you're passionate about solving climate change or maybe it's fashion and understanding how tech can relate to the fashion industry or maybe it's something just in your local community where you want to help others get skilled up on technology, maybe take advantage of it, look at the tools that we have to offer for you to be able to engage in that. And so we're really about enabling them to do more with their passion, with tools like cloud resources, with software downloads that they can take advantage of, tools that they can use to collaborate in creating software with other students. And then, of course, as they move on and they dive into that innovation, being able to leverage things like Microsoft for startups to really take that to the next level. And then, of course, we're all here for Imagine Cup, which is our worldwide competition, and that really is our ability to showcase those student innovations. Fantastic. Thank you. Now, Michael, Boeing is no mom-and-pop shop. And you started their venture capital arm. What advice would you give for corporations, for startups hoping to engage corporations of that magnitude? Yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting time now. There are so many different doors that startups and entrepreneurs can approach companies through and with. You know, in just the last few years, the number of corporations that have their own venture capital arms, and Ford may not be one of them, but they've tripled just recently. I think just last year, over half of all venture capital deals worldwide had some sort of corporate investment in them. For the first time ever, the corporate investment arms of companies are maybe not dominating the dollars, but dominating the number of deals. And so, I think it's really important as was said earlier, to know what kind of group, what kind of individual you're talking to at a company. Are you talking to a corporate VC team? Are you talking to a philanthropic arm? Are you talking to a business unit that's just looking to engage in an idea or maybe try a technology and tailor how you propose to work with them to that door. Because you may find, you meet individuals from multiple different doors at the same company, and each individual who represents a different strategy or a different point of entry for that company is going to have different goals and objectives. And you're going to have to manage some of that complexity. And so, I think the two things as particularly an early entrepreneur can do is number one, be choosy. Don't go to every door. Pick the ones that match your state of life if you're super early stage, your pre-product, your pre-revenue, or maybe you're a little bit later on and are really looking to do some collaborative learning. Choose the right door based on your stage of life. And then once you've found the door, really lean in hard and try to empathize for what the person at the corporation on the other side of the table is looking to accomplish. Are they looking to make a startup investment? Are they looking to have a successful grant program? Are they looking to educate a wide variety of entrepreneurs in a region and kind of fit what you're trying to do to that objective? And that's going to find you an early win that can then ladder up to other wins over time. Thank you so much. Just following up on that, you mentioned just what companies are doing that's incredibly exciting and I'm really excited by what's being done at the Ford Fund. And here, I understand that you're putting a lot of focus on women-led startups and even startups that have some sort of social impact mandate to them. Can you talk a little bit more about the work that you're doing? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the initiatives that we have right now for our women and girls. Yes. About three years ago, we launched an initiative called Her Impact. And what this program does is it helps women social entrepreneurs not just obtain the capital that they need for their businesses, but also the coaching and the mentoring that they need to really be successful. And so in the last three years we have invested more than $200,000 in 12 women-owned social enterprises in Detroit and in D.C. And we just recently launched the program in Miami. We're planning to, for the first time, launch the program in Brazil this year. So for all of you watching in Brazil, make sure to look at Her Impact. And our website is herimpact.net. And so the women that pitch in this competition, they can receive up to $50,000 in cash prizes for their businesses. And that's in addition to the other resources that I mentioned, which are invaluable. So that's one of the initiatives that we have. We also have a program in partnership with one of the other business units at Ford. And it is more focused on mobility solutions. So women entrepreneurs in emerging markets that are working on mobility solutions to build sustainable communities. And that program is called She Moves. And you can also find more information on shemoveshub.com. But those are two of the great initiatives that we currently have to support women entrepreneurs in addition to a slew of others that we have to support youth entrepreneurs as well. We have a partnership with Anactus that is really helping those young innovators take their ideas to the next level. So just really proud of the work that we're doing and especially with our women and girls initiatives and helping them to really take their businesses to the next level. Thank you very much for sharing that. Yeah, thanks. Andrew, I know that you've done quite a bit of work in the strategy and implementation efforts for biotech firms. And specifically biotech startups. Can you speak a little bit about how you work and engage those startups? So in the biotech space, it's a little bit more complicated than off of your data science space because it's a little bit more resource intensive. So oftentimes it sort of repeats some of what we've heard here already, which is if you're working on your technology, you really want to understand your potential partner strategy and where you fit into that value chain of the strategy. And so you really should do your research to go in and find where they've expressed their strategy and in the area where there's gaps, you should try to fill it in yourself and then see how it applies to you and make sure that it aligns with your goals. And in a data world where in precision medicine in some of these places where you do see a little bit of a less resource intensive model, that's again going to be networking. That's kind of plugging in across the ecosystem and sort of building out those relationships because that's oftentimes how people get incorporated into either a large R&D pharmaceutical company or just that network of entrepreneurs. But I'd say there another Deloitte in particular, there's a program called our group called Deloitte Catalyst. And what we do is actually start to connect entrepreneurs to these large corporations and we sort of build out this ecosystem and try to connect people. It's almost like a dating service in a way. I think I keep sticking with that analogy. But what's interesting in that is to say that as you as an entrepreneur, if you want to make yourself familiar or raise your awareness, you should be focusing on your website. Make sure your website is up to date. Have your patents listed on there because groups like us that are going to be doing their research are going to be looking at that very closely. And then I'm not saying you necessarily need to join an incubator but there are different versions of incubators and it's very good to get affiliated with them because we often go through and they'll be sort of looking through the list of companies associated with that. So I'd say this is sort of the advice that we often give to make yourself more easily findable in this what is becoming a very complicated space, particularly in the life science space, which can be fairly siloed. Absolutely. Thank you. That was really insightful. I would like to take some questions right now from our viewing audience. So please feel free to continue to send them in. A participant in our viewing group in Papua New Guinea asks what role can government policy play to help facilitate startup corporation collaboration? I'll jump in. I mean, I've seen startup communities in the Middle East and in Asia and in Central America and in the U.S. and government policies are so diverse in so many different places. But I think at its core if a government can convene a group of investors who have some free capital and provide them with the means to observe a group of entrepreneurs and kind of intermediate a little bit with maybe facilitating some problem solution fit, some product market fit kinds of exercises. It could be through meetups. It could be through incubators and accelerators. It could be through government innovation challenges if there's space for that in the ecosystem and kind of get those three legs of the stool interacting with each other. The form of government that has some of the needs, the industry partners, and then the funding mechanisms, particularly those that are local and have that all orbiting around the entrepreneur in the middle and get that to begin to ping-pong across each other. I think at its root having all of those elements working together is the key. Yeah, I think the piece that I would add there is to incorporate the universities because universities are often going to be kind of really your wealth that you will continue to go back to and it's going to be ultimately the lifeblood for a lot of these startup corporations. So I think in a way that can often be packed into the sort of government policy that's developed. Fantastic. Oh, no, I was just going to echo what Michael said that it's important to have the three sort of the legs of the stool working together, you know, the public, private, and partnership is key to helping entrepreneurs. So I agree. Absolutely. I just echo both of those points. Marklabs, our company, recently participated in a program sponsored by the UN, the Gates Foundation, Turkish government, and two large Turkish corporations. There you go. That public philanthropic private partnership really allowed for that exposure which allowed for our platform to really move that much more quickly. We have another question here. Erin from the U.S. Ask what is the best way to stay relevant to a large corporation as you foster the relationship to get to the next stage of your company's development? Wow, this is a big question. Keith, would you like to take the first step? Yeah, I would just echo what was said earlier in terms of finding out what that corporation cares about and how do you align with their goals? So, you know, you may have the next best thing since sliced bread, but if you're not aligned with what the corporate goals are, it may fall flat. So really, as was said earlier, doing your homework, making sure you understand what that corporation is trying to achieve and how you could actually be a partner to that corporation and make it a win-win situation for both of you. Awesome. To echo Andrew, you know, if the corporation wants to date and you want to get married, that might not be the best for you. Kenneth, joining us from Fiji, asks, if you live in a country without a strong start of ecosystem, what are some of the ways to connect with large corporations for strategic partnerships and investment? That's a really good question. You know, Giselle, you're doing a lot of work with women, as you mentioned earlier. You could imagine situations where you have entrepreneurs that are operating in a community where they don't have access. What would your advice be? So I think this right here is one of the great resources that you can use to connect with folks like us and just use this network to your advantage. I mean, when we launch an initiative or a program in a new country that perhaps doesn't have a strong ecosystem, we immediately assemble a group of people that are working in that space to try to do outreach and we work with the State Department and all sorts of organizations to help us promote our initiative. So I would just say use your network as much as possible. And of course, this is a huge resource for you that you can continue to use to reach people like us. Absolutely. Andrea, does your strategy mind bring to bear? Well, I think it may be a little bit less of a strategy mind and a little bit more on, look, there's a community of entrepreneurs out there that large corporations are looking to tap into, right? So how do you become a part of that community? And I think just outside of very succinctly, which is this is a great example. But there's another good example, which is the Microsoft Imagine Cup, which is these competitions, right? And when you go to these competitions and you participate in them, you can be geographically remote from where, you know, from Seattle, for example, but you still can be part of that community and you can build these ties in these relationships and it's often that reputation which will drive you to other parts of that network that might create the opportunity for you. So that's one way to think about it. That's a great point. And I think it's important to remember, if you're in a place like Fiji, that your network is so much bigger and to go where the market is. You know, you may have an idea and it's for your home market in Fiji, but think about how small that is relative to the market that's represented by the network you have and the network you can aspire to grow into. So to use something like Imagine Cup to maybe learn about other challenges that are in maybe other places around the world where you can become a participant in that from afar or maybe take the leap to go travel. You know, I think of models where, you know, there are development teams in India that are serving markets in the U.S. There are companies here in the Washington, D.C. area that are leveraging programmers and cyber experts in Eastern Europe to run infrastructure for companies in the U.S. Don't just think about what's in your home market because particularly for a startup, if you're in a nation that doesn't have a great startup ecosystem, it's probably an indicator that the market may not be tremendous for you at home and thinking about how to get resources and assets at least from somewhere else and bring those into your small endeavor at home or even serve people somewhere else, I think is pretty important. Brilliant. Another viewer in Papua New Guinea asks, what kinds of financing models do corporations typically use to invest in startups? Have you seen different financing models in different countries or sectors? Keith, do you want to take a stab? Oh, boy. I think from, again, looking at it from the student perspective, we're really about how we can enable students and a lot of that is actually free resources. So with the way we do it, at least we give away a lot of those resources and make them available for students, at least in some capacity. And then with the opportunity to grow from there into different programs that we offer, whether they be giveaway programs or partnering-type programs where we bring them into a network of partners and it kind of allow them to build partnerships with other partners that we have. Fantastic. A viewer asks, how can I learn about opportunities to partner with large corporations? So I know you hinted at this earlier, but do you have anything else you would add here? So, I mean, again, I would go back to my earlier comment. Just do your homework as much as you can about what's out there. You know, Google the companies and see if they have a venture capital arm or if they have a foundation like ours that is doing impact investing and is providing grants and other opportunities for, you know, startups to participate in different accelerators and incubators. So a lot of this information you can find online. Some of it you'll have to do a little more digging and using your network to find the information. But I think, you know, like I said earlier, this is a really good sort of jump and off point to find more information about what's out there. Absolutely. Michael, I know that as a startup, looking at a company like Boeing from the outside could be incredibly daunting. So what would be the best way of building that relationship? So I think three tips. One is all global companies are going to have local and regional offices. And those individuals there can be your best friends but recognize that they may not be in tune with all of the strategic remit of the venture capital team or the foundation team or the charitable fund or the in kind resources like a Microsoft gives. And so you may have to help them navigate back into the bigger company and find the paths to what you can benefit from. So that'd be the first tip. Go local and help them think back into the parent. The second is most companies that are investing locally that are worth any time from you will do a magnificent job with public relations and communications and get their message out. Be ready to leap because there's usually not much time to respond. The campaign that occurs is usually the last step in the process and there's a very finite period of time to get an application in or lobby to join an event or whatnot. So be very opportunistic in those and you may not see the fit. You may not have time to do your homework but go anyway because these events and these activities are valuable for companies in volume. So your mere being there to participate is gonna help you with that learning journey even if you're not ready to pitch them because you don't know their strategy or whatnot. So still show up. That'd be the second tip. And third, and it goes a little bit back to what I mentioned earlier but if you think you have something that's of value to them, let your passion come through and pitch them. If you have the opportunity to grab someone's business card give them the 30 second pitch. If you have the opportunity to get three minutes on stage give it your best three minutes. Put your best foot forward with what you know you have. And most of the time your passion and their empathy will lead to some sort of positive outcome. That's brilliant. Can I add a fourth one to that too? Absolutely. By the way, but I would also say join a community as Michael mentioned earlier it doesn't have to be a local community but can be a global community or an online community. Join a community of people who are innovators, entrepreneurs, whatever it is and ask them. You will learn a ton from people trying to do the same thing you are. And with a lot of these companies it's not like there's just one thing and once that one company gets in everyone else is out. We want to sponsor a plethora of different innovations. So learn from your peers trying to do the same thing. And one last tip which is set a news alert. So you really should have a news alert set so you read it whether it's daily, weekly and you get a sense of what's happening in the market and you can make it as general or specific as you'd like. But you'll keep it in the back of your head. You'll be getting a sense of where the market's going but you also are going to see where the successful deals were and maybe what the alignment was and how you fit into that picture. That's a great tip. I must say that is indeed a great tip for many startup CEOs out there like myself we're often so focused that we need to have that reminder to keep our heads up and keep abreast of what's going on. So we have another question which has come in. What should startups consider when planning to raise corporate venture capital? So this is not the same as your local BC or much more your friends and family or angel rounds. So if I'm going to a corporate BC what should I be thinking about? Do you like to? Yeah, I guess I'll start this. So it really depends on what your phase of life is and I know there's a lot of student teams out there and if you don't have a product if you're not on the precipice of revenue for most corporates it's just going to be too early. Now there are remarkably unique situations that are different than that. The challenge is most companies are probably going to feel more comfortable making those investments closer to their home or where their investment focus is. So I know when we went to India we put in almost eight months of work just to become registered to be an investor in India. And there are onerous processes that companies need to go through just to be able to legally write a check in many places around the world. So be patient. It may take a little longer even with the fastest corporate VCs because there are new rules that they're learning if they're going to a different country to place investment there are controls and compliances they have to live with. So I bring that all up to say know that there's some strong alignment between you and them before you start asking them for money because you'll find yourself asking for money much more often than they're willing to say yes. And it's more likely than not when you're outside of Silicon Valley that a deal isn't going to happen in nine days like they're happening now in the valley. So if you're somewhere else around the globe even in Pittsburgh or Miami let alone somewhere in Brazil be ready to have this process take a little while and be also ready to help that corporate through the process a little bit. We were ready to make investments on a number of occasions where unfortunately the startup wasn't prepared. And so that's going to mean our scarce capital is going to probably go somewhere else. So you got to be ready to receive that when the iron is hot and you're ready to strike and go through with the lawyers and the accountants and go through their processes. And frankly it's the same processes that a VC is going to have to go through particularly a global VC. So it's really not that different. Fantastic. I think if there's one thing to add when you're talking about corporate venture capital is the idea that the corporation that's associated with the venture capital likely there are some transparency there. So you do have to think about the competitive place in the market where you fit and how that with that corporations competitors factor that in because that's something that would be considered and that wouldn't be considered a traditional VC setting. Fantastic. These are really great questions. Thank you. For those of us just joining us you're watching the just tech connect on startups and corporations. Today we're focusing on strategic partnerships and investments. Our experts are here to answer your questions. So please ask your questions in the chat space next to the video player or on Twitter using the hashtag just tech connect. Now back to our questions. So what are some of the risks to creating a strategic partnership with a large corporation? Ford is a very large corporation. What are some of the issues that you can see your challenges that? I don't see it so much as a risk as a going back to your point about being patient. Sometimes we are very large corporation. As you said, we have a lot of processes that we have to go through and and sometimes it will take longer than an entrepreneur would hope for for the due diligence to be completed and the actual investment to be received. So I would say again, it's not a risk but it's a matter of we have so much processes that we need to go through that I can see entrepreneurs sometimes getting a little frustrated. And I would say that's that's the biggest sort of inconvenience. Absolutely. Absolutely. Keith, would you have anything to add to that? I would just add something similar in terms of that your first entry point into a corporation may actually not be the right one. So be patient but also keep challenging in terms of asking questions about other people that you should be connected with other programs you should be connected to. Sometimes the program that you first start in may not be quite the right fit but another program that the corporation has would be and so really asking questions to understand what all the opportunities are and maybe there is a better fit that would work for you. I hate to keep jumping in here but I would actually like to reinforce a point that Michael made earlier into what Keith was saying is that when you are working corporations you have to work on speaking two languages at the very least, right? One is going to be the business language and that's really knowing who's in front of you but some of the people that are making these decisions might be speaking the business language but there are plenty within these corporations that do speak the technology language and you need to be able to wow them with that language as well. So you as an entrepreneur unfortunately have to know both they might be able to exist in a little bit of a silo but you're going to have to know both and know who you're talking to and make sure that you do use that language. It's a great point Andrew and I think the biggest mistake I see a lot of founders make is they lose the empathy for the audience they have that day and they have the idea that this corporation is this amorphous thing. I used to hear statements like Boeing said Boeing isn't a person and Boeing doesn't say anything unless it comes out of the corporate communications arm. Who said what? So that I can help you with the empathy for what was their circumstance what was their context. I think the greatest tool an entrepreneur can use and it's straight out of Steve Blank's lean startup is something called an empathy map and it's all about who is going to be across the table the room the whatever from me and what are their interests what are they looking for and therefore how do I tailor to what they need to do and when entrepreneurs begin to think with empathy for the other person or the other group and their plight and their circumstance conversation always goes better and most of the time the people on the other side are trying to do the same thing so it makes for a better conversation. Brilliant. Thank you. You have a question from Nueza from Brazil. She founded a health tech startup and is curious about opportunities for older or retired founders to engage with large corporations. So let's start off with you Andrew. I'm trying to figure out the purpose of the older or retired question here. I don't think that age is a factor in fact if anything you've got an advantage if we're talking about a health tech that is particularly trying to insert itself into the doctor-patient relationship which is often what we're seeing these days that's actually something that you're bringing to the table that wouldn't often be there and certainly not something that's often on the other side of the table and I think that what we're finding in health tech and again I'm making an assumption here that this is somehow involved in that relationship it actually requires you as Steve Blank says getting out of the office and being able to put yourself in the shoes of that particular situation where you think you're adding value. So if you know to an older or retired I think of nothing but advantage there. And there's some tremendous things going on in that space right now. I mean elder care and health tech focused on seniors particularly in the U.S. and some other places around the world with aging populations is a booming market. You know I know AARP here in town has an innovation lab that focuses on just that. I've heard rumblings that there's going to soon be a major branded global accelerator program that's running something here with a large global foundation that's going to announce a program here in D.C. as well. So maybe D.C. is a good place to come do this I don't know. That's right. I would say come to the impact Sao Paulo event. We don't have a date yet but it's sometime in the summer so just set a news alert because we'll definitely be promoting it soon. Fantastic Keith. Well I do focus on students so typically that's not not my audience but I do want to echo what Andrew said earlier too is age is typically not a factor when I think about the programs that Microsoft offers across the board age does not come into play there so I wouldn't look at that as a disadvantage in any way shape or form. Great thank you. We have a question from Hanny from Egypt. He founded a software startup and wants to know how software based startups can strategically raise investment or build partnerships with corporations. So Hanny you're in the Middle East. There is a tremendous amount of interest and maybe the startup bazaar is a little bazaar to many in many markets in the Middle East so you know get out and find your way to some of the innovation hubs in the region that are in Egypt but also elsewhere where corporates can easily get to. I think one of the things that's tremendously hard for global investors is to be everywhere they want to go so they're going to tend to want to go to places where it's easier for them to see volume and make it worth their while to make the trip and write checks. And so you know I think about some of the things that are going on in Dubai. I think about some of the things that Qatar has started to do more recently. There are a few fledgling hubs in Saudi Arabia as well and then also you know to the north in moving up to Turkey as well which has desires on becoming maybe a little bit Singapore like in being a startup hub. It's probably easier to raise if you go where the people with checks are and that doesn't mean you can't do business back at home in Egypt but it'll be easier to raise if you go find the money. Right. The only thing I would add is so many of these corporations have innovation centers and the innovation centers themselves are not necessarily a place where you've got a bunch of instruments where people are you know trying to build something it's actually really a storefront for you to come and walk into and to have those conversations. So I know there's you mentioned Turkey. I know there's several in Turkey. You know across the Middle East you'll see these innovation centers and they're built there to attract innovators like yourself. Now when it comes to sort of the other aspects of that question I defer to Michael. Absolutely. Chazelle I think you both answered the question really well. Don't really have anything to add except to say that you know I think the news alerts help a lot and you know if we're coming into a country with one of our programs and initiatives just come out and find us where we are. Absolutely. Keith would you have anything to add to that? I would just say that well I think it's super important to go where the money is. Don't always think of the money being in what we traditionally think of as the tech startups Silicon Valley New York etc. I was just reading an article earlier today that was talking about how smaller communities now are trying to attract some of those startups and innovations and becoming themselves an innovation center just like you heard Turkey mentioned earlier. So do do your you know again do your homework and make sure you understand what's happening in your local area because there's a lot of times that either maybe NGOs are funding that or local governments are funding that and take advantage of those opportunities. So the next question is one which is very near dear to my heart when I first started my company we went through the tech stars Barclays Accelerator and a question that I had which this viewer has is will raising venture capital affect from a corporation affect how other investors perceive my startup. Why don't you take the first steps to be on the check and receiving it. Absolutely. So you know it was something which we we're really concerned about. You know receiving that in Barclays has over trillion dollars in A. U. M. when we come back to the United States how would American institutions perceive that and for us it was a major legitimizer. You know you had a very old very established organization that gave us their market of endorsement. Right. And so it was a powerful signal that these organizations can that that my startup could be trusted. I know speaking to another investor Fidelity they said that they want to see that your your startup has been de-risked. So that's a great de-risking signal to the to the market but you know I would love to hear how you think about that as well I think those are amazingly valid and probably the most important points. I think most VCs anymore will not look at most corporates as in any way endangering so long as they're not taking some sort of significantly influential role in the company it could be too high of a piece of the cap table. It could be IP rights right. There are some some some red flags that could be there that you as a founder just need to watch out for and get good legal advice and you'll do fine. The only other uncertainty is taking too many strategic checks. If you have too many strategic investors on your cap table too much of a variety of them often times VCs will look at that as a risk of and an uncertainty particularly as you raise follow on capital in B C D E F rounds and so understanding whose money you're taking and why and being able to story tell right each line on the cap table for a strategic because you know you'll get to your series D round and someone that invested you in series A still has a share in your company but there's no longer strategic alignment great there's no uncertainty there's no risk there they just help you get through a phase of life and someday they'll hopefully make some money in the exit and maybe there are some investors there in your series C that are really helping you a lot you're gonna want to network those investors with that VC to help them tell your story to raise more fun so it can only be a good story unless the list of them is maybe a little bit too long fantastic Gisela Andrew I think that's great advice I don't really have a lot more to add I mean you know the the mark of approval as you mentioned I think is extremely important but I I think this does go back to a little bit of what I said in the beginning which is are you dating and getting married and do there is a little bit of you know if you're getting married to this corporation you know they're gonna be on there until they exit so um so to keep that in mind and I I think there's an alignment again of um your I I mentioned social justice fairness inclusion make sure that you've got somebody on your you know that you're accepting money from that's somebody that you feel um matches your values absolutely Keith would you add anything? No I think your experts there tackled it all fantastic the next question is how can I ensure my startup is protected when entering into a strategic partnership with a large corporation? who would like to take the first stab? I'm gonna go juice up this is where the lawyers come in lawyers make sure you have a very good lawyer um that you know that that would just be my advice and also you know the advisors that that you have on on your board um are really key in making sure that you're protected and and can be a really great source for your company absolutely we work with a top international law from Mira Brown and when we go to the table we know that everything has been checked and double-checked and that um is a powerful signal for the corporation to take us seriously but it also gives us the confidence so making sure that you have that in place is really great uh you know Andrew well I my my first thought is just not I'm sure a lot of our listeners you know a lawyer is not necessarily someone they can put on the payroll and so I think you really have to go back to the community and you dive in the community that a lot of people have lessons learned and it's freely available and just you know take advantage of that and ask the questions I know that's not going to get you all the way there it's certainly not going to make you feel very safe at the table but at least you're not going to be coming in there completely cold and I think the other thing you can do is is limit your your access to those that are reputable on the other side there are lots of corporations that say they do corporate venture capital that don't have a corporate venture capital team they don't have a fund they're doing it maybe through the M&A processors or something else and even if you have the best advisors be it through your network or through legal counsel you may not find a willing partner on the other side of the table you've just wasted your time and that's your most precious thing as a founder is your time and so making sure you do your own diligence before you get to the stage where you're willing to entertain terms and conditions and the exchange of value around a check know that you want to go past the dating phase absolutely Keith what would you add again let me look at it from the student perspective and students to your homework you know if you're entering into a hackathon or something like a magic cup make sure that you know who owns the rights to your innovation we make it very clear in the magic cup agreement that students own all those rights we take none of that out of magic cup then we want to enable students on on that journey so so make sure you're doing your homework don't just blindly enter into some of these opportunities read the t's and c's and understand what they say and how it applies to what you're trying to protect fantastic just echoing a point that Andrew made earlier universities could actually be a very powerful tool offers pro bono you know hours where they can look at contracts a very qualified students can look at terms to a point which Keith made earlier being part of an ecosystem or a community even virtually where you can throw out questions and get advice is all really valuable and I can tell you that you're my company definitely benefited from that so the next question is what are the benefits of joining an accelerator or incubator at a large corporation tell us yeah we ran ran one built a few participated in a number of them I mean it I think it really comes down to whatever the entrepreneur needs right and there's so many different kinds of programs out there it could be daunting they're in person they're virtual they're student focus they're seed series a focused they're technology focused they're business model focused and knowing what that corporation is trying to do and asking yourself is that what I need or not you know as as a mentor and a coach to a lot of other startups a really frequent topic of conversation is he might should I join fill in the blank accelerator or incubator and nobody's going to be the font of all knowledge on every single accelerator and incubator on planet earth let alone all those in your region knowing what you as a founder need what your team what your idea needs at a given phase and then looking at the program me or not I think is the most important step there are multi-fold benefits of access and people and other ideas and opportunities for pivots and learning and money and the list goes on and on and on and on and if it fits with what you're looking to find in that mirror then it'll be a wonderful experience if it doesn't right probably shouldn't even consider joining fantastic Andrew Giselle I would say you think about your strategy if we assume that you've already aligned you know you've already asked the question where will I play and you've you said okay I know that I want to play in this particular market and and you say you know who am I going to play with this corporation now how will I win what are the strategic advantages that could come out of this and certainly if you already align you know that this is going to be the future of your company and you know at some point you need access to these markets and you're in a strategically advantageous position and so you know consider that a success because markets are sometimes hard to reach these days and that can be as a partner as a channel as a technology source as a technology exit there's many many ways you could put those puzzle pieces together so get creative that's right I would just add that you know the incubators and accelerators are helping to create a pipeline for investors and so one of the first places that we look for is in the what's coming out of the incubators and accelerators so it's a good resource for us to look for a deal flow absolutely Keith would you add anything to this? Just echoing again what I mentioned earlier is your entry point into that corporation may not be the final landing place so you know make sure you do your homework and make sure you're asking questions and understanding what are the benefits because like you've heard from the panel here many of these corporations have multiple programs and finding the right one that matches what you're trying to get out of it and what they offer is really really important so make sure you're doing that that work absolutely one thing that I would add just from my experience was that in addition to potential customers and investments being able to test a lot of your assumptions is an invaluable benefit of being part of an either incubator accelerator because many times you're finally on the same side of the table as the corporation and you're able to ask them questions which traditionally would not be allowed or wouldn't find a place in a customer sort of relationship so that's something to consider so the next question we have is I hear a lot about the importance of having an elevator pitch is this really important and what do corporate partners look for in a presentation Giselle give us your elevator pitch for an elevator pitch very short elevator pitch catchy and in you know three minutes or less I want to hear exactly what your vision is for this company and again it needs to catch my attention and I need to be able to take this back to my investment committee and and you know have them say okay well we want to review you know their financials and and so yes it's very important how many companies are you exposed to in a year a lot a lot elevator pitches so the elevator pitch is definitely a way to distinguish yourself and you know in the pitch competitions if you've got your you know you've got three minutes to pitch your business if you've got it down packed you know that's going to really catch everybody's attention so I think it's very important to have a really good elevator pitch and yes I don't know if anybody else says I need to come back yeah I mean not just an elevator pitch I think there's four foundational pitches that and I'm curious to hear your feedback on on this but we used to teach our startups four foundational pitches the elevator pitch the pitch competition pitch your investor pitch and your sales pitch absolutely and all four of those are very very different the elevator pitch is a little bit like your pitch competition pitch and it might be sort of similar to what you open your investor pitch with nothing like your sales pitch but having those four things and you have a pro a problem and and maybe looking for solution fit if you're a student and it's pretty early it's okay not to have those things but you should still have at least some version of the elevator pitch and maybe your pitch competition pitch so you can show off a little bit and practice those absolutely because you never know when you're going to need to deliver the one sentence line that summarizes your company or the 20 seconds in the elevator with the CEO version of that or the three minutes on stage that you have to give him prompt to because someone's insanely curious at least have those absolutely I would completely agree and they would add is you should be able to accordion those pitches to expand them when necessary and definitely condense them for people who are hearing them all the time and just need very quick and succinct and memorable pitches Andrew would you add anything you know I think that the elevator pitch is absolutely necessary I one of the reasons though is just to have a dialog person is that it is the way we converse in this field so you know I think about actually about emails if somebody sends me an email and I'm reading thousands of emails today and it's a long multi paragraph email I hit delete I honestly if you don't do it and the first three sentence I just don't have enough time and it's nothing to do with you at all it's just this is a time this is a factor of time we don't have a lot of it and so you know we are now learning to have dialogues in these short bits of of communication which is you know we're we're taking some questions on Twitter I mean we we should be used to it by now right 143 characters are left Keith what would you add to this? Well I think the importance of the elevator pitch is to help you drive clarity and what it is that you're what the problem is you're trying to solve your customer set how you're going to solve the the problem what innovation and if you don't have that clarity it doesn't matter if it's an elevator pitch or 10 minutes you're not going to be able to get that across to an investor or your customer or so you know we do we limited to three minutes to really help you drive that clarity on what it is you're you're accomplishing fantastic and just reiterate the importance of practice and make sure you have it down cannot be like overstated so the next question is how important is it to have a big presence on social media when approaching corporate partners this is a question which I really would love to hear the answer to as well so what is a big present I guess that's a term which we get to define so so how do you how do you understand big presence or like how do you think about social media and if you see a company which is very active of what does that signal to you versus a company that might be more quiet and reserved so I mean we definitely prefer you to have some sort of social media right I think big is kind of relative um but it should be part of your marketing strategy right and so if you have no presence on social media well then um so again big is kind of relative I am not going to say a number um but you should definitely have a presence you should have some followers um and you should be active it shouldn't be like I I created you know my facebook page for my company a year ago and I posted once and then you know I never posted anything again do you check the social media we do absolutely that's that's really good to know I'm going to give the most politically correct answer because I'm going to get ahead right if if you're a deep tech company and you're doing something and the startup needs to be in stealth mode the last thing I want to see is even like a job description on linkedin right let alone a social media presence because this thing is going to take some time to get baked is doing a big community outreach in some place around the world and PR is a big important piece of that to them then you darn well better have a presence on social media and on the platforms that matter in that region because if it's an instagram or a wechat or a whatsapp kind of world and you're on facebook leon I think that's exactly right I don't have much to add other than I'm still trying to figure out why no one visits my myspace but what sorry that's a great question keith what would you add there no that's all good I think it's so it depends know who is really writing your paycheck at the end of and make sure that you're tailoring your social towards that whether it's a customer or an investor or whoever that is absolutely absolutely so the take away I'm getting is know thyself and if it's important and you genuinely feel that your investors could be looking then it's something which you're not being responsible if you're not looking at however there are contacts where that would not be appropriate so thank you guys for your research do corporate partner programs do on potential start-up partners tell us about the due diligence let's start off with Andrea we do so yeah we said Deloitte Catalyst will do a lot of research and it won't it will be on your company will understand will try to learn what it is that you do but will also fit you into the fabric of what other companies are we identify your strategies that are within the corporations where you sort of fit into that that sort of will say market strategy where you fit into theirs but then also we look at yours and what your technology does relative to others I don't know if that really answers the question but we certainly do from our point of view we do the research it's going to get maybe more intense depending on how in-depth the relationship is going on it might just be a rudimentary quality check to make sure you're worthy of coming to an event and it may just be a glance at a website or it may simply be asking a few people in the ecosystem have you ever heard of fill in the blank as the relationship begins to deepen the diligence will get much much deeper and never presume that you know what you're going to be asked because every single question is why right and so sometimes you maybe ask something never feel ashamed to ask back why are you asking me that because there's usually a context around the question that always doesn't come across with the question and if you just answer the question you may fail the test so always ask why are you asking me this I have to agree with you it really depends on the level of investment and as detailed as going into you know the financials projections and all sorts of other due diligence so it really depends on the level of investment and when you're looking at these projections how do you decode what a start of a saying how do we decode many times they're working with so many unknowns so many uncertainties how do you think gosh this person is crazy this person is very sober we've never thought anybody was crazy I would just say that it really is our investment committee and the group that is doing the due diligence that works through all of those and if we have questions we follow up with the entrepreneur but we're really looking to make sure that the entrepreneur has the right grasp that they're not being overly optimistic in their projections and more in the conservative side with their projections so you know it just depends on the entrepreneur and the company and what we're looking to invest in I would say thank you very much Shazala Keith I just want to echo what was said earlier in terms of matching values one of the things that we look for when we're looking across the plethora of students that submit their projects to ImagineCup is there an obvious we will likely not look any further into that project and so you know take a look at the company that you are wanting to partner with and make sure that there's a value match there so that you actually can get into the deeper conversations Brilliant so you have a viewer that has an interesting question they say venture capital firms can invest from pre-seed to rounds D, E and F you know so very mature rounds at which stage does a corporate capital invest so would you like to start us off there so Ford Marta company doesn't have a venture capital arm we do make investments through some of our other business units for example Ford Mobility are one of our subsidiaries makes investments I can speak from a foundation and investing at some point we are looking at everyone from sort of early stage to series A and that's pretty much and really it has to do with the size of our fund we don't have a very huge fund so we have to be sort of conservative with the investments that we make but I can't speak from the company's standpoint what they're looking for that's a very valuable perspective which would you so first thing I'll say is these common names are not common anymore a seed round Silicon Valley is different than a seed round in Pittsburgh is different than a seed round in Mumbai absolutely so let's level set that take the perspective of the corporate and while their grading of those gradations may be a little bit different generally they're going to fall in one of a few camps they're willing to take the risk and sort of spray and pray at very early stages pre-product sort of idea let an idea kind of investments and there are lots of startup investors and corporations who will do those under the hope of let's say what Intel Capital Strategy used to be where if I go help people all around the world use computers then people will need to manufacture more computers therefore I as a chip maker will sell more chips to the computer makers who will sell more computer makers to the computer users and they'll sort of demand seed at those very very early stages so the fund that then there are those that want to be more at the sort of idea formation stage series seed through sort of series A where they want to help maybe mold the idea they want to shape it to their strategy they want to bring it inside the company either to dog food it and use the capability themselves or maybe add it to their company's capabilities and sell it to other people and then there are those investors that want to take the more scale approach of the later stages and say either manage my risks and bet on some winning horses that are likely to win or I want to put myself on a leading path to maybe an acquisition or an aqua hire or maybe I want to enter a market or a space that I'm not in and use maybe more mature startup to help me do that and each fund and some cases different corporations will have separate funds that are tailored to those different phases of the life cycle see you kind of got a look for what their investment thesis is and where they're looking to invest that's brilliant I don't have much more to add to that I mean I think there's a pretty comprehensive answer I think if you look at the market you are seeing it change a little bit so you have some of these corporate venture capital arms are willing to sort of spread the investment and not make one bet but actually sort of track multiple companies and eventually down select as they go so again everything Michael just said I think you have to throw out kind of that traditional concept that we might have had and really news alerts I mean obviously go back to news alerts see what the market's doing and I think you'll see there's at least a split in the market if not many splits as far as where people are investing fantastic Keith I think your experts on the panel that one sufficiently fantastic so we're holding it down here in Washington DC with our answers so our final question is from Fernando in Brazil Fernando asks at what stage is a start-up ready to enter into a joint development partnership or raise investment from a corporation let's start off with Keith here you know I'm so far removed from that part of it you know what I see is very early on in the process where students are coming up with innovations and submitting them into ImagineCup I can tell you from just what we've seen know your customers first of all and make sure that you actually have customers there that are willing to embark on your product in some way shape or form whether that's through engagement or through actual payment or something like that if you're not even to that point it's really hard and I see that so often and students having such a great idea but not understanding how to attach that to their customers and they just are ready for that next stage yet thank you that was a really good answer but what did you have to add to that Michael oh um so I'll tell a little anecdote here that I think were doubles that there's a founder that I worked with that was actually trying to start business at one time and um his name was Amit and you know we sat down with him and we said Amit your second product we really think this has potential but for us to accept you into our accelerator you've got to kill the other two because you don't have focus you're you're fickle you're running from thing to thing because you think everything is possible commit to the one thing I think as a founder you're ready for that kind of commitment when you're ready to commit to the thing are you ready to interplay with a corporate and do some joint development with some sort of R&D agreement or maybe some grant funding to explore some customers or what not are you willing to take an equity agreement with that company where they now own a piece of you literally um you know and they may literally own a piece of you depending on how the debt liabilities work in your country and there are some countries out there that have some wacky that you're ready to make that commitment and focus and then you're ready Fantastic Well I would so maybe I'll use this opportunity to sort of circle back particularly the part where I wasn't mic'd up so I think there's two things it's going it's really it's actually something Kevin you said which is know thyself and you know the passion that you have within you is what's going to get drive you to success or not success or am I getting married and so if you yourself aren't ready to you know sort of lock yourself into marriage then consider that dating game which would be part of that question I believe. And last but certainly not least Giselle what would you add to this Well not to answer the question specifically but just to add something else before we before we conclude I really have to echo what you said about your passion and whether it comes out in your looking for that passion an entrepreneur that really truly believes in their company and their mission and what they're trying to accomplish what solution they're trying to bring to the table and if that is not doesn't show itself either in your pitch competition or your elevator pitch or anything else that you provide then it's not that we won't invest on top of the list Passion Passion Well it looks like we're out of time unfortunately thank you Giselle Andrew Michael and Keith for joining us and sharing your incredible experience and expertise with us I also want to thank everyone viewing today especially to the viewing groups around the globe for bringing entrepreneurs together to be part of this conversation we had audiences in most business incubator in Kazakhstan Fab Lab in Mendenau Philippines Cobus Innovation Lab in Malaysia L-Space in Tunisia Youth Network for Reform in Liberia Ice Alex Innovation Hub in Egypt Innovation Village in Uganda Epic Lab in Mexico Botswano Innovation Hub in Ethiopia Epic at the American University of Armenia American Corner in Pristina Kosovo the American Cultural Center in San Pedro Solach Honduras American Center in Moscow, Russia and the US Embassy in Brasilia, Brazil even though today's program is over we do not want the conversation to end about entrepreneurship and please continue the conversation on Twitter at hashtag JustTechConnect and check back here on JustNetwork.org for information about other upcoming Just events including programs like this. Thank you very much.