Why Open Innovation is Essential for Your Startup’s Success

It’s dangerous to go alone — create a virtuous cycle with your ecosystem

Many entrepreneurs-to-be believe they are just One Good Idea away from really Making It. This is rarely the case. As we’ve so often seen in the corporate world, the early bird rarely gets the worm. Those with innovative ideas will often do the R&D grunt work… and will then be outdone by a better operator.

One way to beat these odds is to create a company culture of Open Innovation : transparently seeking out and incorporating external ideas, while also taking care of the wider ecosystem. It will take care of you in return, rather than merely copy what works.

Below is a guide to Open Innovation 101, based on my decade-long experience as a strategy consultant.

Lesson 1: In what context does Open Innovation Exist?

Open Innovation is part of a larger trend within the Open Business world. This concept has a fairly simple definition : create value trough connections. If we go a little more in-depth, Henry Chesbrough (prominent Business Wiz) defines the Open mindset as a division of labour to create greater value, leveraging external ideas and using key assets, resources, or positions not only…