The claim that there's one "right" way to bring new business ideas to market is one you won't see executives at leading corporations make today — particularly those who embrace various types of open innovation.

Many large companies work collaboratively with external partners to turn problems of interest into changes to their products and services. The goal is often to address customer concerns and needs and market opportunities.

In other words? These corporations tap into internal R&D resources and intellectual property to find ways to make their offerings more valuable for customers and potentially introduce new ones to existing and adjacent markets.

Now, though, scaled organizations are creating entirely new startups with outside help, not just enhancing their core business models.

Specifically, they're partnering with dedicated venture builders who help corporate partners (along with universities and public-sector agencies) and have proven startup-creation playbooks.

Venture builders are far from the only party involved in open innovation initiatives.

But these business-building partners are a forcing function that keeps corporate innovation programs moving full steam ahead and enable large enterprises to move beyond closed innovation to unlock growth and transformation.

The open innovation model: More than just for core-business improvement

“Most innovations fail. And companies that don't innovate die.”

This insight from "Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology," the renowned book released almost two decades ago from University of California, Berkeley, Faculty Director at the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation Henry Chesbrough, is spot on.

Taking chances on internal ideas from employees — ones either developed in research and development or internal innovation programs or brought forth by other teams — is a gamble for any scaled organization.

But open innovation isn't just a 'volume' game. Rather, modern open innovation involves making bold bets on select, tested-and-validated internal and/or external ideas that can:

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• Potentially transform the core business model to better serve existing customers
• Create products for entirely new markets separate from the core business altogether
• Lead to new external innovations (e.g., a startup the company can invest in/be a customer of)

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Consider how some companies approach the concept of open innovation today:

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• Some lean heavily on agencies to conduct audience research and consumer interviews to provide qualitative and quantitative feedback.‍
• Others crowdsource ideas from their customer and user base to get relevant and timely insights they can then share with their R&D teams.‍
• And many work with consultants to analyze the current state of business operations and pinpoint inefficiencies and areas of opportunity.

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Henry was curious enough to follow up on his open innovation theory 20 years later to see if corporate C-suites who welcomed the idea at their organizations saw their desired return on investment from it.

The answer?

"We've seen some companies enjoy great success with this approach and witnessed the difficulties of others," Henry wrote for MIT Sloan Management Review in 2023. "One surprising insight 20 years on is that the biggest barriers to successful open innovation are inside, not outside, the organization."

Translation? An open innovation strategy offers another optimal route to revenue growth, reduced costs, increased development productivity (notably for software firms) and business expansion for large companies.

What's more, it provides them the chance to test and validate company concepts at scale to create new startups that could be highly profitable (possibly even as much as the core business, in time) through venture studios.

"There are certainly circumstances when closed or internal approaches based on in-house innovation 'challenges' are absolutely called for," said High Alpha Innovation Director Rob Kimball. "That's particularly the case when you are are innovating close to the core and can rely on your own expertise and capabilities."

However, Rob added there's a downside to solely looking inward for novel ideas to potentially act on.

"Once you get farther away from the core business, though, dealing with new customers, markets, or business models, an open innovation model can invite new perspectives, identify and challenge deeply held assumptions, and uncover new, eye-opening insights that can future-proof the company," Rob noted.

A venture-building partner's role in your corporation's open innovation ecosystem

Time to market is a common metric for gauging the initial success of venture-building programs. As it should be.

Launching novel startups before competitors do is key to capitalizing on what could be a narrow window of opportunity to strike on an original, potentially groundbreaking idea.

Leadership is often fine investing in work outside the core business. But their patience gets tested when they don't see results quickly. In the case of venture building, that means seeing new startups launch ASAP.

Consider what Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship Ron Adner wrote for Harvard Business Review all the way back in 2006.

"Getting to market ahead of your rivals is of value only if your partners are ready when you arrive," said Ron.

The purpose of an open innovation ecosystem is for internal and external stakeholders to collect, analyze, and act on data to explore opportunities and ideas. (Specifically, cutting-edge opportunities and ideas.)

Structure and speed are ideal for success. But that's not all that's required. The level of collaboration with outside partners also impacts the effectiveness of partnerships between large enterprises and venture builders.

"[A] genuinely integrated innovation ecosystem not only develops individual connections to customers, suppliers, partners, academia, researchers, and the startup community, but it also looks to create a unified framework that involves, learns, and correlates the data across the entire structure," HYPE Innovation's Ludwig Melik wrote.

And he's right.

With a proven venture builder that has a lot of experience in launching new companies alongside corporate partners involved in your company-creation efforts, you greatly enhance your odds of startup success from day one.

"So much of what large corporations are doing under the guise of innovation doesn't work," High Alpha Innovation CEO Elliott Parker shared on the Inside Outside Podcast. "It doesn't produce the meaningful change they seek. And it often leads to disappointment. We need to fix that."

The best way to fix that? Work with a venture builder.

Notably, one that knows corporate leaders' goals and mindset.

There are a few ways a venture-building partner can turn your corporation into a more resilient, value-creation engine. (And maybe even help you set up your very own venture studio to launch many startups at scale).

Insights from idea-sharing can lead to new (and big) revelations

Our business is all about structured, expansive ideation.

We adopt an analytical mindset to help partners map out ideas and solve big problems. But it's only when partners openly share the issues they want to solve for that we can then thoughtfully research the challenges in question.

Once we know them, we can assess the viability of business ideas.

Then, we can deliberate with our partners to plot a path toward bringing one of/or many ideas to market.

Stronger startup concepts from collaborative problem validation

After vetting and testing ideas and testing critical assumptions regarding them with partners for a few weeks, our team moves into the Sprint phase with a couple ideas we and corporate partners agree are the most viable.

So long as we all have conviction that the concepts in question are likely to have the biggest desired impact in the industry/focus areas, our team has a playbook to expedite the business model-planning process for the finalists.

During this time, we evaluate the pros and cons of both options and look for areas to poke holes in. (That is, possible business-design flaws. This is the only way for to unearth venture-backable ideas.)

Though exhaustive, this process — one many of our partners find difficult to execute on their own —  ensures the chosen company is a near-surefire bet to make a splash in the market and attract VC investment.

Support to turn the best concepts into sustainable businesses

Our team doesn't wash our hands of the open innovation process with corporate partners once a startup idea is picked. We maintain a dedicated, hands-on approach. That's what sets us apart from other startup-creators. We:

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• Help our partners find the right co-founders to lead their tech startups
• Connect them with entrepreneur and channel partner networks
• Assist with go-to-market planning (sales coaching, investor pitching, etc.)

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In other words? Open innovation partnerships don't end at launch.

It's an ongoing effort. Founders take the reins to run day-to-day ops in time. But our team offers regular, ongoing guidance and direction to ensure the fruits of our collective open innovation labor are realized.