Company Profile

Brisa is a leader in Turkish tire manufacturing and mobility industry with major tire brands including Bridestone, Lassa and Firestone as well as multiple service models and channel brands. As well as the commercial and manufacturing operations, Brisa has a very active R&D center, a museum, and an academy.

Challenge

Brisa has recently incorporated being the “Pioneers of Mobility” into the mission statements. With a strong background and success in corporate entrepreneurship, Brisa wanted to extend the Pioneers of Mobility brand to the startup and technology ecosystem. Accordingly a program was needed to structurally identify, assess and engage with startups.

Approach

Workinlot designed a startup program for Brisa with three interim cycles and a final demo day. Each interim cycle would have 3-4 challenges for startups and a demoday after the applicants are assessed, selected, and accelerated. The top startups from each round would pitch at the final event with a chance to win rewards and engagement opportunities.

The challenges throughout the program included:

• Future of the Journey
• Tire Recycling & Upcycling
• Smart Manufacturing
• Tire Performance & Lifetime Management

Each cycle would have around 20-30 days for applications, respective demodays to happen in the next 15 days.

A comprehensive communication and reputation management strategy was also designed and executed, working collaboratively with the corporate communication team and the communications agency of Brisa.

Key Tasks & Milestones

During the Pioneers of Mobility Program, two digital platforms were utilized. First was the branded yolculugunonculeri.com where the program objective, process, rules, FAQ and branding was presented. The other was the open innovation and entrepreneurship platform of Workinlot (since retired) where the challenges and digital incubation flow was housed. Prior to launching the communication for application, multiple workshops were held with the innovation and communication teams to build the content and communication strategy for both platforms.

During each of the interim cycles, 10-15 startups and projects were evaluated with the innovation team to invite finalists to the in-company demo days. Each team received coaching from the Workinlot team regarding their pitches. Demo day programming, onboarding of the jury and all communication with the project teams were handled by Workinlot.

While the interim cycles were in effect, as a trusted advisor, Workinlot team also delivered two different tasks. First was designing and facilitating a vision and expectation gathering workshop about the planned maker lab. The second was designing and facilitating a future scenario planning game / workshop on behalf of Brisa during the Global Entrepreneurship Congress which was being held in Istanbul that year. 

After the interim cycles were complete, 7 startups were invited to the final demo day. Workinlot assisted the Brisa innovation team with planning of the public attendance demo day, including programming, startup preparations, invitations, among other things. One of Workinlot partners MC’d the event.

Outcomes

2019 was the first year of Pioneers of Mobility, which became an established brand in the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem. The program became an annual event.

During and after the program, 5 engagements were initiated with the startups.

The program, which was initiated by Brisa, was endorsed by Sabancı Holding at the finals, current CEO (then head of the industry group) hosting the event at the busiest entrepreneurship hub of Istanbul.  The program also paved the way for the establishment of the holding corporate venture capital firm a few years after.