In the two years since Mike Zayonc founded the Plug and Play supply chain and logistics innovation platform, the Sunnyvale, California-based platform has become the world’s largest supply chain business accelerator. The program works with over 30 corporate partners and has helped hundreds of startups build their businesses. and connect with major corporate clients including Schneider Electric, Lufthansa, Prologis, Adidas, Walmart, DHL, FedEx, Shell, DB Schenker.
Mike’s innovation platform belongs to the wider network of Plug and Play, which also spans across startups in a few other verticals including FinTech, InsurTech, Mobility, Internet of Things, FMCG, etc.
With over 6,000 start-ups and 280 official corporate partners, the platform has created start-up ecosystems in many industries and their companies have raised over $7 billion in funding, and successful portfolio exits included Dropbox, PayPal and SoundHound.
Listen to the full discussion here:
Connect with the Guest:
Mike Zayonc: Linkedin
Plug and Play: Linkedin
Some of the highlights from the podcast:
- How Plug and Play connects startups and corporates in the area of supply chain and logistics
- Corporate network of 300 major multinationals worldwide
- Characteristics of a strong start-up team
- Startup culture – integrity, hard work, passion, and collaboration.
- Key to building a strong start-up team
- Success case studies
Show notes:
- [01:34] How did you end up at Plug and Play? Why specifically supply chain and starting the supply chain practice in Plug and Play?
- [04:11] What are your criteria in terms of getting a startup on the program?
- [05:20] We have 600 people, 100 of whom are Ventures Associates. They analyze and meet startups and look at them for investment as well as making introductions to our corporate network of 300 major corporations from around the world.
- [05:49] We look at the challenges they are solving, we evaluate how strong their founding team is and see how much traction they get among the corporate partners.
- [06:39] How would you define a strong founding team?
- [08:05] Tell us a little about the collaboration with corporates and the whole financial model of Plug and Play.
- [9:00] In the corporate perspective, we like to diversify the costs and just make it affordable for everyone, but for the startup perspective, we have a very unique model where we do not charge the startups anything.
- [11:00] Tell us some examples of companies that you are supporting, what do they do, that gained the most traction.
- [16:10] Are there specific areas where corporate partners are more interested in working with a startup as supposed to others? How do they decide which area they want to work with?
- [17:48] There were a lot of startups that we’ve worked with that got a lot of traction like Project 44, FourKites, Ocean Insights, Ocean tracking, and ClearMetal.
- [18:32] Did you ever get in the position where a corporate plant bought a startup by themselves?
- [19:00] 70% of the time we want to introduce potential business development engagements to the corporate partners so they can test and implement the technology.
- [20:14] What do you see makes the difference between the ones that will make it ultimately and the ones that will fade along the way?
- [20:34] We need to make sure that the team is fully engaged, that they’re really passionate about the product and that they won’t give up.
- [21:10] I think being opportunistic from the startup perspective is really important. They may not have the perfect product in the beginning. But if they can work very closely with their customers, they can be successful in the long term.
- [21:35] What are some of the mistakes you made so far that corporate innovation people need to watch out for?
- [22:53] We do like to work with these serial entrepreneurs that don’t give up too easily; that doesn’t have any choice but to make the startup succeed. Those are the kind of founders we really want to work with.
- [23:25] What are the main principles that you want to instill in your startup culture?
- [24:00] In terms of the startup culture, it is important for us to have integrity, to be hardworking, to be passionate, and have a collaborative team environment.
- [27:00] Are there patterns, advice or principles that you think are critical when it comes to hiring the first members of the team?
- [27:37] It is good to have a diverse team that complements each other. They may have different skill sets but they have the same vision at the end and working towards the same goal.
- [28:19] Are there certain core business or management people training you want the founders to go through to make sure they have the fundamentals in place in terms of running a business?
- [29:05] For a startup, it is better to move quickly than not move at all and when opportunity knocks open the door.
- [30:13] If a corporate pilot startup and it works and they have some good results, what is the typical implementation and adoption process in a big corporate?
- [31:55] What would be the best piece of advice that you would give a founder, co-founder or their founding team in terms of making their idea successful?
Quote from the Episode:
Soundbite from the Episode:
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Episode #44: Graham Parker CEO and Co-Founder of Kontainers
Episode #61: Lidia Yan CEO and Co-Founder of NEXT Trucking
Episode #63: Christian Lanng CEO of Tradeshift
