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For start-ups, even securing an initial meeting with a corporation can be tough — let alone establishing a partnership. To understand what works, the authors attended 150 one-on-one meetings between start-ups and corporations such as IBM, Sony, SAAB, L’Oréal, Scania, Toyota, and AstraZeneca. Our observations helped identify five best practices to help start-ups generate corporate interest in collaborating after the meeting: 1) Have clear but flexible goals; 2) Address existing problems and needs; 3) Address ease of integration and collaboration; 4) Present use cases and new value propositions; and 5) Assemble the right team.