Why working with startups is complicated
Due to my work as a commercial lawyer for start-ups and medium-sized companies, I know that cooperation between them is not always easy. This is also due to the different “mindsets”. In this article, I would like to briefly elaborate on what this means with regard to start-ups.
Since I advise both start-ups and medium-sized companies, I am often approached by them when cooperation outside of legal relationships is not going smoothly. Roughly speaking, one of the most common accusations from start-ups is that medium-sized companies act too complicated, process-oriented and slowly.
The medium-sized companies, on the other hand, have difficulties with what they see as the “down-to-earth” approach of the start-ups and their activities, which do not always appear to have been fully thought through from the point of view of the medium-sized company.
Contents
Working with Startups: About Different Mindsets
One of the reasons for these challenges are different ways of thinking, beliefs and behavior patterns or inner attitudes among those involved, and thus different “mindsets”. These are sometimes difficult to imagine for both sides in advance.
However, as part of the cooperation, they no longer allow themselves to be ignored, sometimes to the point where further cooperation is no longer possible.
Innovative mindset in start-ups
In my opinion, a so-called “innovation mindset” prevails in start-ups. This is an attitude that allows and even demands radically new ideas, often combined with great optimism for the future and the firm attitude that all goals can be achieved despite all resistance.
This way of thinking results in a high implementation speed with as few bureaucratic processes as possible, because they only cost time. Also: A lot of activity, which is connected with a lot of trying out and a little fear of failure.
The implementation requires less thinking than doing and whoever does a lot inevitably fails more often. It’s also about dealing with the status quo in a relaxed manner, which can’t be a big hurdle, because otherwise you couldn’t change it so easily.
Challenges for medium-sized companies
This way of thinking is of course a challenge for established medium-sized companies. They have learned, often rightly so and often by paying a high price, that sometimes it is better to think first and then act than the other way around.
Nevertheless, it makes sense for medium-sized companies to deal with the mindset of start-ups in order to discover and use their innovative mindset for themselves.
Medium-sized companies, as Gunther Wobser described so beautifully in his book “Reinventing”, must no longer rest on their laurels on the laurels of the past, but must become innovative again.
The mindset of start-ups can provide valuable input here, especially in understanding that creating innovation is not something that can be learned quickly in a one-day workshop, but may require the reorganization and realignment of the company – something that start-ups have done from the start.
Six elements for an innovative mindset
I would like to show below what elements this innovation mindset consists of:
- Openness to new ideas: This means being willing to listen to others and to consider other perspectives, even if they differ from your own.
- Dealing with failure and mistakes: Failure is an inevitable part of the innovation process. Instead of being afraid of failure or making mistakes, failure should be seen as a learning process and an opportunity to improve something.
- promoting curiosity: This is about asking new questions and thus gaining new information. Because an inquisitive mindset is essential to finding new ideas and approaches.
Developing a risk-taking attitude: Innovation often requires risk-taking, whether trying a new approach or challenging the status quo. - Collaboration Support: Innovation is often the result of collaboration and teamwork. It is therefore essential to work together with others in order to develop more and different new ideas and approaches.
- gaining flexibility: Finally, a willingness to change course or adjust previous plans when new opportunities arise or when things don’t work as expected.
It follows from these elements that innovation or the ability to innovate cannot simply be “prescribed”. And it follows from this that the mindset of a start-up, which is fundamentally geared towards innovation, inevitably “bites” with the mindset of a medium-sized company if its mindset is oriented towards something else.
Working with start-ups: tips for medium-sized companies
My recommendation to medium-sized companies is therefore not just to look at “how start-ups do it”. Rather, I recommend learning to understand the means by which the innovation mindset permeated a start-up with which a medium-sized company wants to work.
On the one hand, the medium-sized company then understands better why the start-up acts the way it does, and on the other hand, the medium-sized company may recognize the factors that make the mindset of the start-up different from the mindset of their own company.
This realization is the first step towards a rapprochement in the inner attitude, which in the end often makes the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful cooperation.
Also interesting:
