Startups and SMEs often want to work together. But turning that intention into a partnership that actually delivers? That’s where things get tricky.

At the Swiss Startup Days, we launched the Startup-SME Collaboration Playbook during the session “Better Together: Startup-SME Success by Design”, together with Ypsomed, whose real-life experience helped shape the Playbook from day one.

On stage, Simon Michel, CEO of Ypsomed, Andreas Schneider, Head of Innovation Delivery Systems at Ypsomed, and Vincent Irrling, Managing Director of KAPSLY and Healthtechpark Zurich-Schlieren, expert in Corporate-Startup collaboration (Venture Clienting), shared what it takes to move from good intentions to good collaboration: clear expectations, strong internal sponsorship, fast decision-making, honest communication and a shared understanding of what success looks like.

Because let’s be honest: collaboration sounds easy. In practice, startups and SMEs often move at different speeds, speak different languages and work with very different constraints. The Playbook is here to make that easier.

It brings together 10 practical principles for building better startup-SME partnerships — from choosing the right collaboration model to setting up governance, aligning incentives and keeping momentum after the first pilot.

While the Playbook was developed with strong input from the medtech world, the lessons apply far beyond one industry. Whether you are a startup looking for your first corporate customer, or an SME trying to innovate faster with external partners, the message is simple:

Better collaboration does not happen by accident. It is designed.

Curious how to make startup-SME collaboration work in practice?

Watch the Session about first experiences with the Playbook.

Thanks to our partner in this project: