Building Out Loud #19: The Altitude Playbook
A mindset for startup and corporate partnerships that dramatically increases the chance of success
The recent Lululemon x Samsara Eco deal is a playbook for how to partner with startups for real impact.
They didn’t just announce a vague intention to work together. They painted a bold picture of what success could look like:
A world-first enzymatic recycling process for polyester and nylon 6,6
A pilot run using actual Lululemon products
A specific plan to scale the solution into a material volume of Lululemon’s global supply chain
This sends strong signals to the market:
“This is real.”
“There is demand.”
“This can scale.”
These signals do heavy lifting. They crowd in capital. They attract serious partners. They align internal teams. And they make success more likely.
This is the playbook: Start with the end in mind.
That means corporates and startups sitting down together to model what happens if it works:
What would 5–10 years of scale look like?
How will the corporate’s infrastructure, supply chain or customer base need to be deployed to make this possible?
What revenue, margin outcome might be unlocked? In deep tech this could be hundreds of millions of $.
This aligns both parties around shared possibility. It helps them think at the same altitude. It surfaces barriers early. And it energises people across both organisations.
And it gets real about value.
A corporate can ask: if this innovation scales through our footprint, what new revenue streams emerge? How does it reduce cost? Improve margin? Grow loyalty? How does it open new categories, geographies, or business models?
Startups can sharpen their thinking too. If this corporate is the first domino, what’s the market signal? What revenue pathway does that unlock? What pricing power might emerge with proof in market?
This future-casting is not just a visioning tool. It’s a commercial compass.
This requires trust. Startups are rightly protective of their secrets. Corporates are often siloed and cautious. Nobody wants to share too much.
So how do you build trust and protect value?
For most of this task, specific IP does not need to be shared. If the startup’s product does what they say it can do, corporates build their internal models with their specific knowledge, but only need to share the outcome they would like. e.g. Stage 3–2027 — Expand to European market — Volume Required Estimate: X tonnes. Forecast Estimate: $XM
Of course, some IP will need to be shared, depending on the context. For example, the startup may need to understand parts of the corporate’s supply chain or infrastructure to model their fit accurately.
Without trust, nothing happens.
Signaling involvement is the feature. When both parties signal their ambition to work together, it increases the chance of an outcome. Public signaling doesn’t need to imply a sure thing — it can reflect a collective intention based on specific shared modeling. This kind of strategic transparency invites aligned support from investors, talent, and partners.
Model what good looks like. Share just enough to imagine a world where it works. Build the trust to go deep early.
This is the Altitude Playbook: think higher, align early, and shape the conditions for transformative — and profitable — impact.