Ep. 185 - Stuart Willson, Radicle CEO on Insights Powering Better Corporate Decisions

Stuart Willson is the CEO and founder of Radicle, a research and advisory company that has worked with great companies like Lego, Diageo, Proctor and Gamble, and more. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside founder talks with Stuart about the new trends in the world of research, how companies are using information and data to make better decisions, and about the new venture model that companies like Prehype are using to create startups from scratch.   

Interview Transcript - To read the entire interview transcript, go to http://insideoutside.io

Brian Ardinger: On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Stuart Willson. Stuart is the CEO and founder of a company called Radicle. It's a research and advisory company that has worked with great companies like Lego, Diageo, Proctor and Gamble, and more. In our interview, you'll hear some insights about the new trends in the world of research, how companies are using information and data to make better decisions, and we talk a lot about what's the new venture model that companies like Prehype are using to create new startups from scratch.  Have a listen.

Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast that brings you the best and the brightest in the world of startups and innovation. I'm your host Brian Ardinger, founder of InsideOutside.IO, a provider of research events and consulting services that help innovators and entrepreneurs build better products, launch new ideas, and compete in a world of change and disruption. Each week we'll give you a front row seat to the latest thinking tools, tactics, and trends and collaborative innovation. Let's get started.

Welcome to another episode of inside, outside innovation. I'm your host Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest with us today is Stuart Willson. He is the cofounder and CEO of Radicle, a new research and advisory business. He's here to talk about some of the changes and trends that he's seeing. Stuart, welcome to the show. 

Stuart Wilson: Thank you for having me. 

Brian Ardinger: I am so excited to have you back. You were at the IO Summit and you had a great talk about some of the new trends that you're seeing.  Before we jump into that and talking about Radicle, I want to talk about how you got into the innovation space cause it's a little bit different than your traditional entrepreneur. 

Stuart Wilson: I like to say I have a fairly nontraditional background relative to my peers and by which, I mean I had a pretty traditional background for most of my career. I worked and investment banking out of college. I went and got my MBA and then I was looking for a job where I've been learning a lot and be challenged and get paid to be right. And I ended up at a hedge fund and for 11 years. I was an investor investing everything from media to ski resorts and ultimately starting my own fund with a partner.  

But then as is often the case in New York, my circle of friends shifted somewhat and I was introduced to and became friends with a group of people that included folks like Ben Leventhal who just sold Resy to Amex and my friend Josh Abramson, who had started College Humor, friends who were at places like Spark and Union Square, and I was the only person sitting up on Park Avenue, looking at a Bloomberg machine. And the more time I spent with them and the more I listen to what they're doing, the more I felt like I was really wasting my time and that there was this transformation happening as waves of new technologies created opportunities and democratized business building. 

But I wasn't participating in that and I wasn't really doing anything that I felt was driving value or utility for our customer. And so I decided to leave and I was introduced to Henrik Berglin, who started the incubator Prehype. And cofounded Bark, a dog focused startup, formerly Bark box. I told him what I wanted to do, which was to build something like pretty abstract. 

To read the entire interview transcript, go to http://insideoutside.io