Share Your Startup’s IP with a Resource, Not a Rival

Partnerships between enterprise and startups can help tech ecosystems grow. One place where this kind of cooperation happens is IBM’s Bluemix Garage.

According to Patrick Horgan, VP, Manufacturing, Development & Operations at IBM Canada, Bluemix Garage operates on an open model that allows university researchers and startups to safeguard their IP while benefiting from the knowledge and resources of a large enterprise.

“We have a history of getting through [growth] cycles and to the world market,” says Horgan. That experience is critical to helping startups achieve success.

Why IP Is the Sticking Point

For a young company, intellectual property is often the most valuable thing it owns. It might be a patent, a piece of software, or research that took years in a university lab. That’s why many founders are nervous about working closely with a large company: they worry that sharing what they know will help a potential competitor more than it helps them.

Large companies have a mirror-image worry. If they work with a startup and later build something similar, they don’t want to be accused of taking the idea. Both sides have a reason to be cautious, and that caution can stop useful partnerships before they start.

An open model like the one Horgan describes tries to settle that question up front. The startup or researcher keeps ownership of what it brings, and the larger company contributes expertise, tools and experience. With ownership clear from the beginning, both sides can focus on the work.

What a Partnership Like This Offers

For a startup, the appeal of working with an enterprise partner goes beyond technology. As Horgan points out, a company like IBM has been through many growth cycles and has sold into markets around the world. That kind of experience is hard for a small team to get any other way.

For university researchers, the appeal is a path from the lab to a real product. Research can stall at the point where it needs engineering, customers and a business model, which are exactly the things a large company already has.

From Bluemix Garage to IBM Garage

The Bluemix name was retired in October 2017, when IBM brought its cloud services together under the IBM Cloud brand. The garage name stayed. Today, IBM runs IBM Garage, which it describes as a collaborative engagement model that brings together enterprise design thinking, agile development and DevSecOps practices.

One stage IBM describes is “co-create,” where a team of subject matter experts works intensively with design thinking and research methods to understand the client’s opportunity. Today’s IBM Garage is pitched mainly at larger organizations changing how they work, but the core idea is the same one Horgan described in 2016: small, mixed teams working quickly with the resources of a large company behind them.

What It Means for Founders

If you’re a founder considering a partnership with a large company, get the IP question answered in writing before any real work begins. Know what you’re bringing in, what you’ll own at the end, and what happens to anything built jointly. A partner that’s open about those terms from the start is far easier to work with than one that leaves them vague.

Done well, these partnerships give startups something money alone can’t buy: access to people who’ve already solved the problems a growing company is about to face.