Everyone Wants Innovation Until It Is Time to Trust It

Everyone says they want and look for innovation, until it is time to trust a startup with something that important.

"Startup" is one of the most powerful labels an organisation can have, yet also one of the most limiting.

Now, hear me out. On one hand, people associate startups with innovation, speed, and fresh thinking. On the other hand, the moment actual collaboration comes into the picture, a completely different set of questions appears. Will they survive? Can they scale? What happens if they disappear in two years?

If I play devil's advocate here, the hesitation is not irrational. The startup world has given companies enough examples of promising players disappearing overnight, getting acquired midway, or simply failing to scale operationally.

That is what creates a gap, albeit an interesting one. A lot of established companies say they want innovation, while startups underestimate how much trust matters in an industry where failures have real consequences.

I strongly believe some of the most interesting progress happens when startups and larger players stop looking at each other as risks and start looking at each other as accelerators.

One great example is how BMW Group collaborated with DeepDrive in 2021 and eventually invested in them in 2023 for their e-motor tech.