All around the world, mothers, a.k.a. “mompreneurs,” are inventing new child-care products–so Kimberly-Clark thought, why not collaborate with them (and save the R&D budget in the process?

“I realized that the only way to do it right was to go out directly to the innovators, to the moms themselves,” [Kimberly-Clark’s Senior Director of Corporate Innovation] Steve [Paljieg] recalled. “These are the people who have the need and who have already translated it into solutions.” Steve was definitely willing to work with these “mothers of invention.” But he knew that it would be a radical departure from how Kimberly-Clark usually developed new products– and that the process would require some serious innovation in its own right to succeed.

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