Five Essential Startup Tips for Your Corporate Meetings

Before joining Ignite, our Project Manager for Matchmakings Linn Sidahl represented a Swedish startup in nearly 30 matchmaking meetings. Through this experience she has mastered the art of closing the deal for multiple pilot projects with various corporations.

Here Linn shares some of her key learnings for succeeding in your corporate meetings:

1. Keep your Ignite Magic profile up to date

Make sure it’s clear what you’re offering AND what value that creates. This information is hugely influential in the matchmaking process. It’s simple: better profile = better matches.

2. The 20 minutes goes quickly

Plan your meeting ahead, read up on the corporates you will meet and set a goal for what you’d like to achieve in those 20 minutes.

3. Don’t just talk about technology

Find out what specific need and/or problem they are looking to solve and talk about how your technology can help them solve these and what value that creates. Try to steer the conversation towards the specific needs that you can address, instead of just talking about future innovations in general. This adds a sense of urgency to the conversation and will more likely lead to a follow-up.

4. Listen to the corporate

Ask them questions like ‘how is their problem currently being solved?’ ‘What are the main innovation areas they are focusing on in both the short and the long term?’ and ‘What could a future collaboration look like?’.

5. Talk about your expectations

Don’t forget that even though you’re a startup, you can still make some demands on the corporate to also commit to your business relationship. Let them know that you are expecting a real business case at the end and discuss how to get there. Set mutual goals and agree on the next steps already in the first call.