1%

That's the ratio of small technology companies that successfully generate business from big telcos in any given year. I attended the Silicon Valley Telecom Council annual event focused on carriers. Many of the big carriers (e.g., AT&T, Orange, Swisscom, SingTel, BT etc.) presented their innovation strategy and provided a roadmap for how smaller companies can best work with them.

Here is some example math: a typical telco will have 500 meetings on average (not inquiries but real in person meetings), narrow down the list to 50 companies of interest, and typically lead to business with only 3-5 of them.

The math is brutal but yet I came away impressed with the open mindedness of these carriers and willingness to consider changing their operations in a bid to be more innovative. They were very aware of their traditional inability to be innovative and work with smaller vendors.

I was also impressed by the fact that many of these telcos have or are opening offices in Silicon Valley. Yet another indicator that while innovation can come from anywhere, The Valley continues to be the global leader and ground zero for where innovation happens.