The article breezes over how they got their foot in the door, but I would imagine it happened gradually (bigger and bigger customers) and then...

"Their big break came when they approached Rotodyne..."

Have to be careful not to compare how they do business now, with how they did business when they were operating from a "garage". I would assume that they (the co-founders) were essentially their own world-class sales team in the beginning and their reputation now replaces that function entirely.

It's a lot of networking. A lot of IDs are people that have spun away from large companies (like Nottingham from GM), or have worked in an ID shop and then gone out on their own.

Like any other consulting, you develop a reputation working on smaller projects and then you start getting approached by larger firms. And if you have a contact on the inside it's also easy to design something on your own and then get a chance to present it to the megacorp.

I've known a fair number of people in the toy design business and it works pretty much the same way. It's just industrial design with a different audience.

No, just show them how they can make money and management will listen. Next get a demo/prototype in their hands and go from there.

>‘It’s amazing that the most innovative ideas that General Motors has come up with have come from the outside, small companies.’

Many corporations have an 'idea submission' form buried somewhere on their website - even Google: http://www.google.com/intl/en/patents/opportunitysubmission/...

SPI had a good episode on exactly that:

http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/how-to-get-paid-for-your-i...

http://traffic.libsyn.com/patflynn/SPI126-How_to_Get_Paid_fo...

For product development, they could focus on a few companies and cover many brands... Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, etc.

Also, once you have their reputation, I bet companies come to them.