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Coming up with something new isn't the hard part. Getting somebody to use it is.
Every second Thursday, Fabian Dudek talks to people inside large companies who find, test and adopt technology they didn't build. What they tried, what it cost, what they'd never repeat, and the system that made it stick.
Plenty of shows tell the founder's story. This one takes the customer's side.
It's actually crazy when you think about it. You
basically can help everybody on the
organization. You're connected to all
relevant stakeholders.
Legal purchasing, it even works council. It's an
insane knowledge you have.
When I talk to startups, they say, oh wow,
it's amazing you exist.
This moment they realize and they know I'm the go
to guy and I guide them through
the whole organizational processes, especially
when I talk to startups from the
United States. Venture clienting is
not there yet.
They would love that this methodology also
is in the stage, right?
Or would exist in the States. Welcome to another
episode, this time with one of my
longest lasting relationships in the
venture client space.
Mathias Weber I think I got to know 8 or 9 years
ago when we started working
together at the BSH Startup Kitchen, which
by now he is heading.
Mathias is an awesome guy that I think
also on a human level.
A lot can be learned from, especially also when it
comes to human nature and culture
and the understanding that innovation is not first
technology, but it's human first.
Very much looking forward to this.
Mathias, great to have you.
Thanks for having me. Let's start in easy. You meet
someone in the elevator and they
ask, hey, what do you do? I would say I'm kind of
the Tinder for corporates and
startups. So I make the matches between two
parties, who look for each other, but
they don't know each other. Not yet. And, yeah, I
just help them to find and to
date. Do you do that for many different
corporations or are you currently working
somewhere where you're doing that? Yeah, I do it
for BSH Home Appliances Group.
So it's part of Bosch. You probably know, located in
Munich in Germany, and we do it
for eight years now, and I personally do it
for three and a half years.
But indeed, the two of us, we know each
other. What now?
Since seven, eight plus years, you've been part of
the early gang defining and
developing venture clienting. Yes, was just a lucky
shot, I think, to be there in
the beginning of venture clienting when venture
became not only a name, but a method
approach for corporates. Yeah. Was just
lucky to be there.
And since then I was lucky enough to see
different positions within venture
clienting. Yeah, I look forward to
getting much deeper there.
But let's start at the beginning. Who are
you, where you're from?
How did you end up where you're at right now?
That's a good question.
So I'm Mathias, I'm 34 years old. I'm from Munich,
but a couple of years, I was gone
from Munich, so I studied in Regensburg. So it's
still in Bavaria, so I couldn't
leave Bavaria behind me. Right. So I also did
my master's then there in
entrepreneurship, but yeah. And this in the end of
the Masters, I ended up with
venture clienting. And then I moved
back to Munich.
Give me a bit more detail on, okay, how did you
end up in venture clients?
It was with Capgemini, if I'm correct. Right. The
first step or was there something
before. In the end of my master's actually
had no clue what to do?
Starting my career with. Right. So I was looking
for a master thesis topic, and I
actually was because within this master program,
we participated in a TechBase.
So it's a entrepreneurship startup ecosystem,
tech based thing in Regensburg.
We participated to build our own startup. It was
about something about fashion.
So totally different for me personally.
But it was interesting.
And it was right before Corona hit the world and
there I was looking for some other
methods to collect money, right,
for our startup.
And this was the time when I came across
venture clienting as so.
And I found out there are other ways, not only
getting a loan or calling some VCs.
So I learned about venture clienting. Yeah. Who would
have thought that you can also
just make revenue and get money like
that? Get some clients.
Right. Yeah. Even. Our startup idea was for
B2C and venture clienting.
Obviously it's for B2B, but still,
this idea. Right.
In the beginning was just an idea. I
found it fascinating.
It just made click and so much sense. Right. And
then I found out about 27pilots,
right. Who was one of the early
ones in the game.
I also learned about this startup kitchen back then
and maybe a little shout out to
Ion Hauer, former venture partner of
Startup Kitchen.
An investor in GlassDollar. Exactly. So I just
wrote an email saying, hey, I'm
interested in this topic. I would love to
write my master's thesis.
And this was actually the starting point. So you
wrote your master thesis within the
startup kitchen, which was really one of the early
ones that at least referred to
themselves as venture client unit. Right. There was
hub:raum and Telefónica, Wayra,
some. There were definitely a few innovation
hubs that were earlier.
But I feel with a really dedicated process, the
understanding of you start with the
problem, the dedicated fast track procurement
process, supporting projects end to
end. But I would now say venture clienting
encompasses the BSH Startup Kitchen was
among the first and since we also are working with
them since a long time, I can say
probably one of the best learning
grounds. Yeah, definitely.
So. And I didn't know that by then. Right. So I
just reached out to the kitchen
because I thought it was interesting to first of
all write my thesis with a
corporate. Back then It was interesting because I
wrote about a topic which drives
me still today. So it was business
impact measurement.
As we all know, it's not trivial to
get to this number.
So the financial business impact coming out of the
startup collaborations we do all
day long and back then. So the task was to define a
framework, a methodology KPIs,
how to measure it, actually a differentiating
between product and process
innovations. Why is that so important to
measure the impact.
To me now it's obvious. Right. But in the end of
the day, you got a show or got a
proof what you do and what's the
benefit out there?
Because also we as BSH, we have done other
corporate venturing approaches, tools,
methodologies. There was an
accelerator incubators.
Exactly. So there are other tools, and I think all
of them have maybe a good reason
to be there or to be there in the past. Depending
always what your goal is, what you
want to reach. Right. But there was this point, I
think back then, people ask
themselves, okay, what's the most efficient way to
actually deliver this impact?
Right. To me, to be really fast with as less
as possible risk involved.
And to be innovative as possible. And I think with
this venture clienting process,
it's basically it's just a process. But it's
much more we know that.
But so you can just repeat innovation in a very
efficient way with less risk.
Yeah. I would say to add on that, in the past, and
I would still say to this day,
innovation teams are the first ones to be cut.
When the economic situation gets
tight, why are they so at risk of being cut?
Because in the past they've not been
able to quantify in any shape or form what impact
they're actually creating.
And so whenever you look at really just the checks
and balances and pure data, if
you don't have that data available, you're at the
mercy of the people taking these
decisions. For me, that's really
where it came from.
This need to. Yeah, to be able to quantify the
impact that is being created, to
illustrate to the organization up and down,
that it is important for this
organization to exist. What a large lever really
there is that could be pulled.
And I think also very important to understand
that we don't drive projects
ourselves. Right. So we don't have an own
innovation agenda.
So we basically support business units with their
innovation needs challenges.
Right. And so they have their own agenda
priorities roadmaps.
And so we are kind of basically an in-house service
consulting unit supporting our
colleagues. For me personally, it's not
about us and me.
Right. I always let the other ones shine when we
have a successful projects because
then everybody realizes, okay, there's
really a value of it.
And I think this is also important. I think, to
this day there, you mentioned
27pilots before, obviously, there's
GlassDollar, there's still Capgemini.
There are also some other service providers. And I
think why that proposition still
exists to this day is because to get the initial
momentum, to have the operation
running, it's very difficult to do that with
just internal resources.
Where are you going to get the people from? How are
you going to train them versus
if you can lease someone like you that has already
experienced the BSH Startup
kitchen and then helps me to set up these processes,
then think I shortcut probably
about 1 or 2 years. And maybe you don't have to make
the same mistakes like we did,
right? Or I would say maybe all of the units do,
because you can kind of find out
what's your setup in the organization. I would say
you just cannot copy and paste
the same setup. Yes. The process is quite maybe
similar I would say, but still it's
a different process and different
stakeholders maybe.
But I think there's a lot to learn
from other units.
What worked? What didn't work, what kind of people
you need in the organization?
I think start setting up a unit. You still have to
prove yourself in one or latest
two years. So it's important to have the right
projects from early on to show
management. Hey, this process works and we actually
can prove there's great impact.
Yeah, I feel that in general. Right. It's a venture
client thing when you talk about
it, I think back to the outset just seems
so abstract, right?
You're talking about a process that can enable
almost every area of the
organization, right? It could be we optimize
this production process.
It could be we integrate this sensor in
a product of ours.
It could be we improve how we filter new
candidates and hiring processes.
So it really only becomes concrete once you
actually look at the projects.
But it is important otherwise to take that meta
level, because otherwise no one
works on that process. That makes it easier than to
improve all of those areas in
the business. It's actually crazy when you think
about it, because you basically can
help everybody on the organization and some process
who nobody else knows because
you're connected to all relevant stakeholders
legal purchasing it even works
council. Nobody knows all of them by heart and
the processes by heart.
Yeah. In the same time, you just are connected to
all other business departments
locally, but also globally. It's just an insane
knowledge you have in the
organization. This is maybe the hub venture
collecting knowledge, the process of
your organization. But then you get to know so many
stakeholders business units, and
you can even connect all of them. Also helping
them if they don't know what the
organization knows. Right. Is it a in German
there's Spinne im Netz?
I'm not sure if it translates to just spider in
the web, but yeah, you're the
central node connecting it all. And also the
external world, right?
Every founder, every business developer, every
engineer that is working on something
relevant for BSH. You also are
supposed to know them.
Of course you can't know everybody. So when I think
of the first reaction when I
talk to startups, they say, oh wow, it's
amazing you exist, right?
Because they know this moment. They
realize and they know.
Okay. I'm the go to guy and I guide them through the
whole organizational processes.
Especially when I talk to startups
from United States.
Venture clienting is not there yet. And they
say, oh, they would love that.
This methodology also is in the States, right? Or
would exist in the States.
When we started GlassDollar, we had a bunch of
interviews with founders, before we
even understood that we wanted to concentrate on
venture client things, so
specifically the matchmaking of them with
large corporations.
And yeah, we're just having very exploratory
interviews where we then ask them, what
do you think of innovation teams? It was the most
bipolar answers you could ever
imagine. There were some that were saying, they're
the biggest noobs and biggest
losers ever. If they're wearing white sneakers and
they will talk to you for ages,
but in the end, nothing happens.
Waste of time.
And then there were the others that said, oh my
God, these guys so helpful.
They helped me take the right route within
these corporations.
Without them as a champion, I would have
never landed this client.
I feel by now, over the last 5 or 10 years,
the innovation teams have
professionalized and by now their impact
measuring impacts as a huge example.
Right. It's not valuable just to make an
introduction or talk to them.
It's valuable only if real learnings can be
generated, and in the best case, working
solutions are integrated into our
supply chain.
And I wanted to do the project myself. So I wanted to
talk to the startups actually,
and I wanted to help the business units myself and
to see what comes out of the
projects. So it was just perfect timing again, that
back then there was this opening
within the kitchen, I joined as a
venture manager.
And since then I'm back with the team and I'm so
happy because, yeah, it's one of
the, I would say, still quite most mature units
where I still can learn a lot every
day because every project is different. Right? So
you always work with different
stakeholders on different pain points, and trying to
figure out how to solve it the
best way. I also have to say BSH Startup Kitchen for
GlassDollar in itself also has
been monumental. Was, we've learned so much
through our collaboration.
I think by now it's five years or so. And
especially now because the majority of
units are rather immature. They're still in
maybe the validate setup phase.
There are a few that are thinking about
how do we scale this.
Right. How do we, we now know we have a great
offering for our colleagues, but we
don't understand. We don't know yet. How can we make
sure that everybody knows about
it? And when everybody knows about it, that there
is actually the capacity to
support all of those requests? I think
it's important.
And when I talk to other units, I almost always
realize it's a different how you
define scaling. So for me, scaling in venture
clienting is totally different than
maybe to other units. And I would say for me it's
not doing more necessarily.
But in the end, scaling also means from the
beginning, supporting.
So filtering the right requests, bringing them all
the way through the process to
POC and hopefully finally to scaling, because then
these are the solutions which
matter the most. Right. So and I think there's no
maybe right or wrong, but I
personally believe scaling is more about doing the
right projects, not necessarily
more. I feel it's both depend on each other. How are
we going to be able to select
better projects. If you know from the beginning
which requests or leads doesn't
matter how you define it, which come in, have the
highest possibility or for
conversion. Right. And there are some tricks
how you can assess this.
This comes with experience of course is
the budget for POC.
But also is this request so strategically
relevant for the organization?
And is there already a solution owner defined
right from the beginning?
Because most of the times when a business unit
reaches out to us and we 95%, I would
say we do the pull mechanism. So we push
also interesting startups.
But most of the times we pull. Right. So stakeholders
reaching out proactively to us
there's the problem owner and they are interested in
finding the solution and they
are interested. This POC flies and is
successful and then they're happy.
When this solution gets adopted. You only know what
the good opportunities are if
you have out of what you are aware of, you don't
have the unknown unknowns.
And so they're ultimately scale means you have the
awareness of all the challenges
that the organization faces right now. Because if
we take VC, for example, right.
For them it's the same as well, right? It's 1 or 2
outliers that in the end return
the fund. But if the VC knew before which ones those
were, they wouldn't invest in
the other eight. I think the biggest difference is
if you have, I don't know, let's
say 10 million funds, you can maybe invest of a
handful startups then even and with
venture clients, the average cost for
POC is around 30 K.
So in with this amount of money, you can do so
many POCs, right, with existing
solutions. And then if this flies, you just can
continue to use to adopt the
solution. So with much less capital and risk you can
try out more and more startup
solutions. So the probability of having success is
much higher than I would say VC.
Still, don't get me wrong. VC still
makes sense.
And with Robert Bosch Venture Capital we also have
with a Bosch and VC arm and we
also do invest. But I personally like to think of
venture clienting maybe beforehand
of venture capital. So maybe as a
due diligence.
Right. Working with the startup, really getting to
know the people working at the
startup. Can they actually, when you talk to so many
startups, you get a feeling for
startups, right. Is everything can they actually
deliver what they claim and promise
on the website? This is one thing. The other thing
is working with the startup.
Right? And when our experts because we in the
unit, we are not experts, right?
We are more generalists. But when our experts in
the business units work with the
startups, they really can. They know what
they are talking about.
So they really can evaluate,
validate the solution.
And when these experts say, hey, this is so amazing
solution and great innovative
solution, then maybe it also makes sense
to invest, right?
The success rate of venture client projects is
higher than that of VC's, right?
In VCs we talk about what 10, 20% are the
really successful outliers.
And I think of more established venture client
teams is 40 to 50% implementation
rate. After a POC. We have around 40% adoption
rate and 20% scaling rate.
I always say maybe it's not innovative or
innovation anymore.
If you have 40% scaling rate, right?
It's still innovation.
What we do and we differentiate between
adoption and scaling.
That's also maybe important to understand. I want
to switch gears a bit, and talk
about a topic that you've been writing
about a bunch recently.
You've been framing innovation is translation. Can
you elaborate a bit on that?
What do you mean when you say that? I think
there are two parts to it.
So I think one part is when I talk about
translating is corporate language to
startup language. Maybe you might think it's why
it's so important to translate
between two worlds. But I would say still it's
very different worlds, different
mindsets, different ways of thinking,
different approach.
It's just two very different worlds, how
you can actually work.
Right? And different cultures in different
organizations, more processes, less
processes. And just to translate both worlds and say,
hey, this is quite normal for.
So I would say start up, hey, this is quite
normal for corporate.
So don't worry, I will manage. And to the other way
to my internal colleagues I will
say, hey that's okay. When a startup tells you that,
we know this for other projects
and they are still successful. So just giving also
this feeling from experience that
this is a normal behavior or normal way of working
and just maybe to take out the
fear a bit, what people might have in this
process because everybody is under
pressure. They want to deliver, they have some
KPIs to reach some goals.
And this is maybe the translating part
between these two worlds.
Right. And then I think what I also realized doing
this job for a couple of years is
translating internally between business units
because it's also very important to
keep in mind that different business units have
maybe different targets or goals to
reach. And it's not maybe so much about translating
but aligning, getting everybody
on the same page, trying to help everybody to
understand the other perspective in
the end for the company's goal. Right. So in the end
that the company is successful.
This is everything what counts for me personally
that I'm happy, I'm satisfied.
If BSH as a whole is successful. I know you also
are a mediator or you've done a
mediation. How much is a translation and how
much is it also therapy?
I wouldn't go that far, to be honest. It's more,
yeah, it's just more trying to
bring everybody on the same page, always making
sure, hey, we have the same goal
here. And how can we work together
in the best way?
I like that you're really taking
out the drama.
Because I feel in the past, or in some dynamics, it
sometimes feels it's one blaming
the other. May it be the innovation team, blaming
business units or blaming startups
or startups. Blaming innovation teams? In the
end, it's we're looking for
constellations that create value. Yeah. I have been
in some projects in the past
where some, even some emotions where
they're right.
And emotions are in a corporate
environment. My God.
What? And actually, this is not a bad thing because
this just tells you one thing
that they're really fighting for the project. But in
the end, maybe it doesn't bring
value because everybody's just frustrated, and gets
out of the meeting or the call,
and the project doesn't move. Right? I don't know,
it's just my nature that I always
like to talk to people, understand the perspective,
to understand the perspective,
and also give the other person the feeling, hey, I
understand you, but please listen
also to my role. And then just work it
out from there.
And what we are, what always helped me is that
there's always this person.
Right. And then the role. And it's never
against the person.
It's always because they fulfill a certain role
within the corporate or the startup.
And then it just helps me personally to realize,
okay, this is just the job.
They just do the good job. And I always do my job
and then trying to solve it.
I also think actually that emotions are, it's a good
sign that they're there because
indeed, as you say, that means that
people care.
And I feel too much now. Has work become
something that we oppose to life?
That for most of the week we look
forward to the weekend.
So I think no matter if someone is angry or
frustrated or it at least shows that
there's still that level of human connection to what
they're doing, which actually I
think, yeah, it's also something a cultural
element that venture clienting and
working together with younger, more agile companies
actually brings, that all of a
sudden I can also feel young and in a context
again, where things are possible,
where I can wake up tomorrow and feel, oh, maybe
they've already made that change.
I'm excited about that. Yeah. So we just, it's
interesting because we just do
LinkedIn campaign with venture clients we worked
with together in the past.
So we call it BSH Voices. And there we always ask
the question, what actually did
you learn from startups and what do you think
startups bring with value to the
organization short term and long term. And
it's really interesting.
And it's always basically the same that this we can
do mindset the agility right,
how they work. And it's just when you talk to these
internal colleagues, they always
have a smile on their face. And also, I love what
you're doing there of the BSH
Voices because now it's what, 15 plus years ago for
me that I discovered the word
startup and built my first one, which obviously was
a consumer startup because most
of them were that back then. And most people that
start out are building something
for consumer. I feel if now, still now I look at the
narratives and stories that are
being told within the startup ecosystem. It's very
much around the founder and the
investor. It's almost, okay, the typical story is
there's someone that has a great
idea and is able to execute. Then comes an investor,
gives a bunch of money in, and
then it's a success. What I feel we're completely
omitting from this story is
actually that between the idea and money being
invested, which also, of course,
happens in multiple tranches and doesn't even
necessarily need to happen for a
company to be successful or those customers, those
voices you, many other people
that are continuously working on with creating long
lasting, sustainable deals for
new companies that are being founded. And so to
make a long story short.
We're doing this format and in general also, I feel
a mission with GlassDollar also
is very much to celebrate the early customers of
the startup ecosystem because
without them, that wouldn't exist.
Think about it.
Every VC wants their return on their
investment, right?
So otherwise they wouldn't invest in
the first place.
And what does the startup need? As you just said,
they need clients and not just any
client. So imagine Bosch is your first client. We
sometimes write reference letters
to the startups when they have a next
round for raising money.
It's really important to show for other investors
say okay, they actually have a
very satisfied big corporate client. And then it's
just easier for them to gain more
clients. And this in the end helps the VC
again to get the return.
So without us, there's no return. It's like you
said at the beginning that it was
you realized later that getting clients maybe is
also a way to finance a startup.
For me that's crazy. Of course I understand
with consumer versus B2B.
But from my perspective, really my recommendation to
99% of entrepreneurs is find a
path that lets you bootstrap, find a path that lets
you finance your journey with
revenue as much as possible. Because typically
also the first products that you
develop are not going to be the ones that you
ultimately truly end up scaling.
Often it's in our case as well, okay, you
start out with a service.
While delivering that service, you learn about what
the customer really needs and
then start to create more systematic, more
scalable products if the market and
customer allows. But I also have to say, back then in
university, you're always told
that finding investor is so important
to have this money.
To have this. Yeah. To free money to invest,
to build your product.
And yes, it makes sense but. So we
were not told that.
Oh, maybe the first 2 or 3 clients, we
don't need an investor.
Of course. It's the chicken egg problem. So you
need kind of the money to build.
I think there are two reasons for that reason.
Number one is it's true, in the past
it was immensely more expensive to develop
a technology product.
But now writing code is cheaper than ever. Sensors,
chips, all of that has gone down
so much in cost. So I think that's less true, that
you need a lot of money up front
to be building something. And I think, secondly, who
are the people that determine
the narratives in the startup Ecosystem. Well, the
people that benefit the most from
it and that have the most time to
influence those narratives.
Every founder is busy building their company and
is maybe partially seeing
themselves as part of the startup ecosystem, but to
a larger part, they are part of
the market that they're operating in. May that be
logistics or whatever, fintech,
whatever else. So I think it's also because VCs, if
they're not looking at deals
they're working on, build, getting more deals in
and building that startup
ecosystem, which is their pool they can
ingest their capital into.
That I think those are the two main reasons that
lead to this and also lead, are a
bit I feel even counter to how in the past, what
was German entrepreneurship was,
Familienunternehmen, very organic growth and
development, very long lasting
relationships with customers and team. Very opposite
actually, to this venture kind
of path. And I don't think one is
better than the other.
But I think, yeah, because it's so sexy and
because the narratives are there so
much, that bias definitely gets introduced. And I
think what we can productively do
is indeed be BSH Voices and creating platforms to
celebrate the early customers.
Back then, when I did my master thesis, I looked up
at the BCG study, and there was
number one rated by startups. What they're
looking for was money, right?
But just last year for University Talk, I looked up
again the same numbers and now
it's clients. So this was the
number one rated.
So maybe still they need money right. To grow
faster to beat the competition.
I get all of this and it still might make sense
but maybe not only right.
So having clients also helps you to get traction in
the market and to validate your
solution. It's first hand feedback from the industry
to actually realize what does
my product need to even scale more. Do you have a
favorite POC in now your many
years of a couple? It's always unfair, I would say to
pick your most favorite child,
but yes, I do have maybe one. Yeah. So it
was in purchasing.
So I would say it's a perfect venture
client case for me.
So actually not very innovative, but a huge major
step when we look from our
internal processes. So it was a challenge we had
for years a very manually done
process. Because due to EU regulations, we needed
to collect all materials and
product data from our suppliers and
suppliers of our suppliers.
And you can imagine when you reach out to all of the
suppliers you maybe don't have
the contact information of the people and the
response rates are not so high.
It's really difficult to have all
the information.
And then we look for startups. And I just love this
case because there have been
startups exactly offering this exactly. Having a
solution where you can customize
your questionnaire as a corporate, reflecting all
the EU regulations you need to
have or the information you need to have to
fulfill these regulations.
You send us this questionnaire to
your suppliers.
They fill it in. You just can access it via this
platform, download it, fill it in
in your internal Databases. And because this is not
core BSH, it's just a perfect
venture clienting process because obviously there's
a challenges where I say, okay,
maybe there's even a startup, but we do have
this expertise, this knowledge
in-house. So why should we partner. But there's so
many case like this that just
makes sense to partner with a solution which is
already there, which has been proven
with other corporates. And since then it's just
a very successful project.
Their relationship has turned out to
be very cool.
Great, cool people to work with. And also they
grow the startup with us.
Right. How did you calculate the
impact of that?
First of all, it's the time saving. So cost savings
because you don't have to do
this manual investment now all the time. And then
on the second layer, this was a
huge layer. And the second layer was the
quality of the responses.
So we were able to actually, now because since
this regulation came closer and
closer, you need to be able to fulfill all this
information, right, or this
regulation. This is one layer we even didn't
calculate, but this quality of the
information which came back. This is
also one layer.
We were talking before about scaling or that scaling
doesn't necessarily just mean
more projects but better projects. If you kind of
look ahead or initially now say,
okay, in the, there's the hype cycle, but generally
also in your assessment of the
maturity of what venture client now is
and where it could be.
Yeah. Where do you think we will be
in ten years?
And maybe you can also make that concrete at the
example of the BSH Startup Kitchen.
I strongly believe venture clienting will
be there for sure.
In some way. Maybe in a very similar way.
It's here right now.
First of all, I think it will be more connected with
different corporate venturing
vehicles. What I said in the beginning, venture
clienting and then venture capital
and M&A, maybe this is one part. The other part
is I still believe it's very
relevant to have this internal capacity this
consulting part, just to support the
units. But with all the AI coming into place.
There are so many pieces of the
venture clienting funnel which you can automate
and make it so much easier and
faster and more efficient. I don't see fully the
idea of decentralized everything,
because this sounds interesting topic to
discuss, but we just introduced an
ambassador network last year within our
startup kitchen.
So globally to be more connected, regional to our
offices in the regions globally,
from India to United States and China, for
example, just to name a few, and to
generate more leads and to scale
the solutions.
So this is the main reason behind it. I don't
see where a business unit, a
stakeholder having his 100% job doing his or her
thing and then also aligning with
legal and IT and purchasing on a POC, of course you
can standardize your templates
and stuff, but there's always new regulations coming
in, new requirements internally
from the processes. And since we collect all of it
in one place, this is where we
can support. I am 100% convinced as well
that it's not either or.
That if you're 100% centralized, you don't
have access to the needs.
On the other hand, if there is no one that's there
centrally, no one takes care of
the process of reporting on impact, of creating
these platforms of BSH Voices that
you mentioned before. I think both of them
are very necessary.
And it's a question of, and what balance will they
actually exist because will a
venture client team still exist in the past?
What is a digitization team?
What is the sustainability team? What is it? Those
are strategic fields that are
supposed to be advanced, where you have a central
team that advances that agenda.
Do you think in ten years it will be an established
corporate function that every
corporation has? Doesn't necessarily mean that it's
called venture client, or that
it is even at that level. Maybe it's also just
innovation procurement within
procurement, for example. But do you think that
what we're doing here actually is
establishing a corporate function?
Yes for sure.
So as I said or as you said, it's not necessarily
called venture clienting but maybe
innovation partnering, innovation
purchasing. And we see it now.
It doesn't have to be always a startup. And there's
not even one definition of a
startup. It also can be a scale up or a company
who's in the market for, I don't
know, ten years. For us, it's most important that
it's the best fitting solution.
So in the end, maybe, yeah, it just makes sense
that in the future I think
companies, corporates, at a certain size, it just
makes sense to have this corporate
function in-house. Combined with the software for
scouting and project management.
What role does in your mind? AI software in general
play to advance venture clients
to its next level of maturity. It already has a
huge impact on our process.
So is it maybe the scouting, right? You can use so
many as all the LLMs to make it
more efficient, to make it more concrete
for the assessment.
AI comes into place right for the benchmarking
and for concrete sizing.
Also the need the challenge in the first place
from the stakeholder because not
always easy to or sometimes it's helpful for the
stakeholders that we help them to
criticize their pain point from yeah guiding our
venture managers throughout our
process we have built our own GPT and to tell the
venture manager, okay, what's the
next step in the process? Okay. There's
personal data involved.
So now you need this template and you need to
align with this stakeholder
internally. Defining POC agreements. All the KPIs
success criterias, calculating
business cases, creating content for marketing
purposes internally, externally.
There's so much. I would like to close out with
looking at venture clients as a
career. Yeah. How are you thinking about it as a
career to both advance towards more
senior management positions as well as a skill in
itself that or an expertise within
which you could theoretically
always go deeper.
It's interesting. Because being with the position for
years, I have seen a couple of
colleagues coming and going. And it's just
interesting to see this jumping board,
let's call it the BSH Startup Kitchen. And for
these colleagues internally and
externally, because internally, it's just you
have so much attention on your
position and you get to know so many different
business unit stakeholders.
So you're very visible, let's say,
within the organization.
So it's quite good for your career to
make a next move.
Right. Not only the visibility but also all the
skills you need for this role.
So this project management skills this drive you need
to have to really kick through
the projects because there has been no project
which was just done like this.
If there's one headwind and you would say, okay,
let's not do it, then we would do
no POC, right? So this one part, the other part,
externally, when you come from
venture clienting, there are many ways, right? You
can go again to a provider.
So on the service side, you could go to other
company, build a venture client unit
from scratch. You can go to the start up side.
You can go to the VC side.
I have seen basically everything and also other
industries I think, which haven't
maybe heard about venture clienting by now. It's
also maybe interesting to look.
Which ones. Energy pharma or the
public sector space.
So maybe there has not been so much the pressure to
innovate so efficiently in the
past. But maybe it will be there in a
couple of years as well.
The pressure to innovate is an
important point, actually.
I think that's why telecoms, for example, was
very early because there were
WhatsApp, Skype, etc. they were attacked early in
a way or they were feeling
attacked. I don't think that anybody created
WhatsApp because they didn't like any
of the telecoms companies. I think venture client
ultimately has not invented
anything new, right? It is describing the
professionalization of the qualification,
identification and ultimate adoption of new
partners and solutions.
Every software developer does venture clients on
a daily basis, looking for
different modules and components. They can
just place in there.
So I think also what we're kind of seeing is that the
industries that have been very
late and have been very process oriented, have
developed now this methodology that
allows the ones that have innately done it from the
start to actually do it a bit
better rather than in this just, yeah, almost
random, but okay, random process.
Because in the end, everybody was benevolent
and motivated to do it.
I feel that's really also an element or something
that where we're seeing of, Okay.
Germany. Why does this originate from Germany? When
so many other countries feel
there's so much more advanced when it comes to
innovation, adopting and being open
and celebrating new technologies? But I
think it's exactly that.
It's a the need at one point has
been so strong.
And the culture so much of a form of, okay, we do
things well and understand what
we're doing and where we're doing it, that ultimately
it has been the birthplace for
the full definition of the methodology, but not the
place where that type of work
and or that type of collaboration
was invented.
Of course. Maybe. One part that because I think we
Germans, we love processes,
right. But also these processes just make
it now a repeatable.
And it's just a great offering for providers to
build this service, but also for
internally to have a nice offering to
support colleagues.
And I wouldn't say other countries or corporates,
they don't do it, but maybe they
don't do it so efficiently or they even don't know
they have this capabilities
in-house, right? Maybe not bundled
either. Yeah, completely.
We launched the report. What now? Beginning of the
year, where by now we found, or
collected 500,000 real reference, public reference,
customer relationships between
startups and corporations. And the majority of them,
those venture clienting teams
were not aware of they are actually
working with.
In the end, you only hear this one short success
story and you don't ask, okay, how
long has it done or did you need for
it to get there?
Right? Nobody asks these kind of questions. If you
have a successful proof point in
project. Right. But maybe it's a
very, on this way.
It was a very painful experience for the
whole organization.
Right. And nobody would maybe care too
much in the end.
But maybe just with the processes we have in
place, you just get all this
distraction and maybe pain out of the process and
still have the same success you
can show. Plus and there comes again, of course,
what you mentioned before.
You also then help in the coordination of adopting
and scaling the working solutions
better. Right. Because if everybody just does their
own thing, nobody is aware of
ah, look, in Turkey, we've already
figured this out.
Let's also use that in Italy. Exactly. It's
something we don't report so much yet,
but when we receive a new request, first of all, we
look internally within BSH and
Bosch, if there's an existing solution and there
are cases where we find exactly
that solution in a different place, and then we
just connect these colleagues.
So it kind of takes one lead out of our table. But
in the end, it's great success
because we have been able to connect people and just
scaling an existing solution.
It's also one part of our job. And one part of
what you can deliver to the
organization. Mathias, this was so fun. I have many
more points, but also now we're
already in quite deep. Maybe in my Munich visit, we
just do another conversation in
person, next to each other. Not
exactly. This was great.
Thank you so much, Mathias, for taking the time
and sharing so many of your
insights. Yeah, this was fun. Thanks
for the invitation.
And thanks for having me, Fabian.