1. WHEN?

Establish: Is this the right time to engage?

As stated in section 2.2, startups are not yet suppliers. Treating startups as suppliers is where most of the disconnect occurs in brand innovator relationships. Startups are starting out, you may both be on a long journey before they reach their destination.

In section 3.3 we highlight how traditional material innovation timelines are measured in decades. Historically those are based on chemistry, without the added complexity of biology. So understanding the timeline of each bio innovation’s product roadmap is essential to learning when and how to support.

If you are looking to solve a product need for next season or maybe even next year, working with an innovator who has yet to scale their process is unrealistic.

If you are taking a long view, looking for replacements or new product opportunities that you are betting could be strategically important to your future supply chain, start by understanding where the innovator is in their journey and how long they expect to take.

• Understand where they are in the product development roadmap - how does this line up with your brand goals timeline?

• Understand what the key technical challenges are - this is more likely to reside with the core technology - do you have technical expertise that can contribute here?

2. WHO?

Build the right support team

A key challenge for startups is having the bandwidth to interface with dozens, if not hundreds, of interested potential brand customers. The smaller the team the more challenging it is for them to cope with a tidal wave of brand interest.

Add to this on the global brand side, the potential for outreach from multiple departments within the same organization causing confusion and wasting valuable resources for the startup trying to navigate the incoming. It is not uncommon for a startup to be contacted by a designer reaching out for samples, but also the investment team, the innovation team, the sustainability team or the sourcing team. This kind of uncoordinated, duplicative approach is inefficient for all.

Start by implementing an internal chain of command for innovation projects. Ideally, assign a relationship manager to the startup. This person should coordinate the project sharing with other teams within the brand, as well as be a single point of contact for the innovator.

• Assign a relationship manager for the innovator project (or a single team)
• Encourage the startup to also assign a dedicated person to build relationship with you
• Assign a technical liaison who works closely with the innovator and your project lead
• Ensure the rest of your org knows to interface with this team, not the startup directly
• Facilitate and support interaction between startup and supply chain partners

Later in the process you may add supply chain partners. These partners need to know why this is an important project for you. Don’t step back at this point, the startup will likely need you to champion their cause with the supply chain partner. There will doubtless be challenges here that the brand at the center can influence positively in both directions.

3. HOW?

Aligning on the target

Once you’ve identified the core team who will interface with the innovator, ensure everyone is clear what the material specification target is. This should be a collaborative effort. In some cases a startup may be working on a ‘drop-in’ solution, but in others they may have a novel material that needs new learning all round.

You may have specifications for analogous materials but how far do they fit this new material? What are the non-negotiables for performance, and where might your current materials be over performing? Understand every step of the technology, where are the challenges? Which part of the process is least developed? Do you have access to resources that could assist in any of those steps?

• Build a strong partnership to encourage transparency, it may be a long journey!
• Jointly establish the target specification for the material, technically, aesthetically and with impact targets in mind
• Support by sharing specifications and or samples for similar materials if appropriate
• Be clear about what you care about, but also consider areas of potential compromise
• Find a common language
• Can you supply testing protocols or even access to testing facilities?
• Ask the innovator what would help them
• Demonstrate long-term commitment (including financial) to bring material to scale
• Be patient and mindful of the time and complexity for novel material development

Sampling

As mentioned in multiple places here, startups are not yet suppliers. The process of receiving samples needs to be understood in the context of a developing technology. In many instances, a material may still be years away from being ready for commercial implementation into your supply chain.

This means that, initially, samples should be interfacing with the team responsible for testing whether materials achieve the technical specification expected by the product team. There is no sense sending samples to the design team for feedback on touch or color if fundamentals such as tear strength or elongation to break have not been met. Subsequent development on composition or chemistry may also change look and feel and take months or years.

Design teams are used to seeing final materials that perform in the function for which they are intended. They expect to be able to request aesthetic changes, e.g. to color or finish. With fully developed materials that may be an easy iteration, for materials still in development that may be a distraction from more fundamental issues that still need solving. There may be limitations around what is possible in the short term and they may need to get comfortable with such restrictions.

• Establish a process for receiving, testing and feeding back on samples
• Understand and agree a realistic cadence of sample shipments
• Start by testing samples against baseline performance targets
• Once performance targets are satisfied move on to manufacturability tests
• Be prepared for samples to look ugly, inconsistent, or all the same, depending on what the innovator is trying to solve at the time
• Do ask about experimental plans and development timelines: what are the remaining technical milestones?
• Do not engage the design team in sample feedback until the material has met the core technical and manufacturing specifications

Product Manufacture

Once consistent material samples reach the minimum performance criteria, in a regular quantity and size to make a product, it’s time to start prototyping.

If your manufacture is in house you will have insight and control over every stage of production with the ability to provide detailed feedback. This can be more difficult if the material is being sent to a remote manufacturer where English is likely not the first language, and where the nuance of failure may not be captured. Your manufacturer may be used to explaining product design failures but not the level of feedback an innovator needs to assess the composition or formulation of their material.  

Understand the types of product application you’d like to target with a particular material (e.g. shoe, bag, small leather goods, garments). Share the typical production processes for each so the innovator can understand where and how their material may encounter stress and undertake development with this in mind. Prototyping is iterative and it will likely take many attempts to take a new material through a manufacturing process until you are happy with the end result. By establishing a formal feedback channel, learning will happen faster and solutions will be more readily found.

• Assign a dedicated team to the prototyping stage of the project - include a consistent representative from the innovator, brand and manufacturer - to enable collective problem solving over time
• Provide specifications on each manufacturing step if possible: what manufacturing conditions will the material need to tolerate? e.g. max temperature, humidity, pressure, solvents etc
• Work with the innovator to create a simple feedback form that the manufacturer can complete so the innovator has data to work from when problem solving (even if it’s subjective)
• Get the manufacturer to take video or photos where possible to show where and how the material is failing in manufacture to share with innovator
• If your innovator already has experience of prototyping with their materials they may already have identified the best needle, thread, glue or process that is compatible - ask them to share any such learnings up front