Inside Outside Innovation

Brock Blake, Co-founder and CEO of Lendio on Financing Entrepreneurs at Scale   Interview with Brian Ardinger, Founder of Inside Outside Innovation Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast that brings you the best and the brightest in the world of startups and innovation. Brian Ardinger, founder of insideoutside.io, a provider of research, events, and consulting services helps innovators and entrepreneurs build better products launch new ideas and compete in a world of change and disruption. Each week Brian Ardinger gives you a front-row seat to the latest thinking, tools, tactics, and trends in collaborative Innovation. In this podcast, Brian interviews Brock Blake, founder and CEO of Lendio the largest online marketplace for small business loans in America. For more information and a transcript of their talk, check out http://insideoutside.io/the-feed/ Inside Outside Innovation Summit - Talent, Technology, & The Future Of Innovation Mark your calendars for October 20th -22nd, in Lincoln, NE. Experts from the world of Disney, Facebook, American Express, and Nike, will talk about innovation, disruption, startups, and the world that we live in today. Check it out at the theiosummit.com For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Mike McDerment is Co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, the world’s number one cloud accounting software for self-employed professionals. Mike talks with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, about building and scaling a company, product development, and his free e-book called Breaking the Time Barrier. Mike built a simple tool to solve his accounting problem, and now 20 million people have used the tool. He could see the value of the tool, but he hadn’t built and scaled a company. It was the great unknown which excited him. Suddenly, Mike saw the value of the tool for everyone. He wanted to bring it into the world. After building the first version for himself, he soon added a software designer. They worked on the product for nine months to a year, then added another co-founder and hired employees. Mike’s team became very connected to their customers, always showing the product early in development. They started to understand the market and the most impactful parts of what to build.   Bootstrapping the Company  - Raising capital is not success. A better strategy is to find customers and fund yourself - Over ten years, FreshBooks de-risked the market, product, team, and model.   - The first round of venture money was $30 million.   Obstacles and Things That Almost Killed FreshBooks - Check out Blog post: https://www.freshbooks.com/blog/7-ways-ive-almost-killed-freshbooks  - Listen to advisors, but trust yourself.   - Sometimes you move fast, but some areas you need to slow down, especially with product-market fit. Don’t Rush.   Breaking The Time Barrier - Breaking the Time Barrier, Mike’s book for his customers doing client services work explains how to price services.   - Focus on value-based billing instead of on the number of hours worked. Understand how big the problem is and how expensive it is.   - Nobody cares about tech. They care about the value they get from tech.   Product Development  - Better to focus on building benefits like time savings, revenue generation, or performance. Brings more value for your customer.   - Frame pricing on value. e.g., $50 a month will save 20 hrs, or for less than a cup a coffee, you can have this service.   What’s different for a company at scale?  - Culture - How does a company respond when challenged with something? - Customer-obsessed How do you maintain the freshness of a company? - Combo of direction and constraints for motivation.   - Creates a condition for taking chances. For More Information For more information on Mike McDerment or FreshBooks check out freshbooks.com.  If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy: Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play.   FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Olivia O'Sullivan is the Head of Corporate Engagement at Acceleprise, a B2B SaaS accelerator. Accelerprise invests in early-tech companies building enterprise technology. Olivia's focus is on mid-market and enterprise companies interested in collaborations with startups. Her background includes work in advertising and on product and innovation teams for McDonald's and Dow Jones.  Olivia spoke with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, about corporate/startup matchmaking, trends and Acceleprise's future. Key factors in selecting startups include: - Understanding the founding team. Can they solve the challenge?  - Traction and product market fit. Want to accelerate growth.  - Thresholds and levels of expectations.  - Collaboration on the product.  Emphasis on the initial period where you make introductions. The missing piece is how to transition into providing impact.  - Make sure two groups of people are set up to participate with each other and engage in a partnership.  - Provide long-term strategic support.  - Innovation doesn’t happen in a silo. Need a long-term strategy. Participate in the ecosystem before you see change.  Corporations are in different places in innovation - Companies wanting roundtables and market intelligence. - Companies with established processes and venture teams.  New Trends  - Ten years ago, there were lots of corporate accelerators. Now a lot of established independent accelerators doing great work.  - Now more meaningful partnership doing co-collaboration with startups. - Financial services companies are partnering with startups.  - Health tech - Unlocking the power of data in the health world.  What are the core skills for entrepreneurs? - Long-term vision and steps to get there.  - Someone who will get the work done to get over hurdles.  - People who are connectors on the corporate innovation side.  What’s next for Acceleprise - Kick off upcoming programs in SF and NY - Investing in another 20 companies. Already invested in over 100. - Opening office in Toronto.  For More Information For more information on Acceleprise or to connect with Olivia check out https://acceleprise.vc If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy: Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play.   FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Jeff Dyer is the author of Innovator’s DNA, Innovator’s Method, and Innovation Capital. He talks with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, about innovative leaders and how they generate creative ideas.  In Innovator’s DNA, Jeff identifies characteristics of innovative entrepreneurs, including questioning, observing, networking and experimenting. In Innovator’s Method, Jeff identifies a process to test ideas for investment: 1) Generating idea, 2) Is someone willing to pay, 3) Rapid prototyping, and 4) Find right business model. Finally, in Innovation Capital, Jeff interviews innovation leaders and how they secure research and support to move on innovative ideas.   Innovative Leaders are Judged on Three Things Human capital, social capital, and reputation capital (track record).  Forward thinking, problem-solving, and persuasion.  Innovation Capital can De-risk Innovation Leadership Innovators paradox: You have to take novel risky ideas forward. Look at INC 50 each year. What are new companies, with new business models, doing?  Social Capital Most people think your strongest 150 ties are most important. Your weak social ties are likely to be much more important. How do you connect to those weak ties?  Human Capital Innovation skill sets are becoming more important because it’s critical to know how to move ideas forward and create value.  For More Information: For more information about Jeff or Innovation Capita, check out https://innovatorsdna.com/ If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy: Ep. 137 – Deloitte’s Michael Frankel on Growth, Hybrid Talent & Corporate/Startup Collaboration Ep. 136 – Simone Ahuja, Author, Disrupt-It-Yourself: Eight Ways to Hack a Better Business Ep. 124 – Amy Radin, Author of The Change Maker’s Playbook & FinTech Guru Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play.   FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Alain Sylvain is the founder of Sylvain Labs, a strategy and design company helping corporations like Google, Spotify and Nike, think about their future. Alain Sylvain talks with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, about how to create new ideas that solve for business and consumer needs. Innovation is evolving  - The fetishization of innovation. Define what innovation means within the corporation - e.g., transformational, new products? - Innovation groups within large companies are outsourcing their innovation needs.  - Innovation is the creation of new value. What are good or bad practices of innovation? - The company wants to be "sprint" focused. Not possible if the company doesn't have that spirit. Look at how the company changes to be more innovation focused. - When do you bring in design? Early.  Is it essential for companies to look outside and work with startups? - Necessary to look for external points of view. Innovation in a silo will not get game-changing innovation.  - Founders mindset vs. corporate mindset. At Patagonia, innovation comes from the founder's perspective of the end user.  How essential is the C-Suite vs. individuals within the organization? - Both perspectives are important. Low appetite for risk. Can you create a culture of innovation where all ideas are valid - Create an open culture of ideas. Enable people's side hustles to thrive. - Acceptance of failure. Pull out what worked. Fear of risk is internal perception. The test is in the marketplace. For more Information For more information or to connect with Alain, check out sylvainlabs.com If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy: Ep. 136 – Simone Ahuja, Author, Disrupt-It-Yourself: Eight Ways to Hack a Better Business Ep. 120 – Digital Intent’s Sean Johnson talks Corporate Innovation Strategies Ep. 86 – Carie Davis, Your Ideas Are Terrible   FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Paul Skinner is the author of Collaborative Advantage: How collaboration beats competition as a strategy for success and founder of Agency of the Future. His work has always been about helping people create a collaborative advantage.  Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside founder, talks with Paul about using a collaborative advantage approach at every level. What is collaborative advantage? - Collaborative advantage is the business advantage from harnessing value creation potential outside and inside the business. It has been overshadowed by competitive advantage. Helps us to grow our businesses more quickly.  - Businesses need to be improving people’s lives, if not, why should they exist? - See customers as primary value creators or non-profits help to create social change Examples of companies/communities/organizations moving towards collaborative advantage? - Rotterdam - Connected to other cities through the port. City water scheme is a reusable water bottle with a financial contribution to water systems in other parts of the world. Then you get access to refill bottle from city pipes. Pipes provide business sponsorship opportunities. Also, Rotterdam has a gym called Pay More/Train Less. However, If you work out more, you pay less.   What are the obstacles to embracing collaboration? - Including collaborative advantage in strategies and having a collaborative framework. - Idea of competitive advantage has become so dominant. Can hold us back. Too often a 0 sum game. Can extract value from both businesses or can be used to prioritize shareholder advantage. Most significant disruptions don’t come from competitors. - The dominant story of competition and competitiveness causes us to miss advantages. Reinforces that only value is created inside.  - Value can be created by customers and is a collective process. Orientate ourselves around our customers so we can co-create value.  Collaborative Advantage Framework - “Outside In” Framework - Audit provided within book.  1. Find Common Purpose - See as an enabler of change instead of a deliverer of change. What do we do to enable people to do better? E.g., Amazon changed the competitive model and let customers choose between all the options.  2. Make innovation more useful - Structure right opportunities for people to pursue that purpose. Put it at the heart of divisions or missions. e.g., Argentinian Shopping Center - Instead of an advertising campaign, they built a world-class bridge.  3. Make engagement more effective by designing an environment conducive to the purpose you are enabling - Choices are influenced by the environment like the social, customer, and internal environment. 4. Iterate and accelerate - Work with early adopters to better understand and respond to their needs as revealed in practice instead of what people say that they will do. E.g., Coke 5. Build partnerships to help us scale over what we can do alone - Look outwards in the same direction. Clearly understand the end-user purpose. Align interests around purpose. Adapt over time to unlock collective value. Does adopting a collaborative advantage framework have to be top-down driven? - Collaborative advantage begins by defining our core purpose differently. There is a role for leadership to play. Better to mobilize towards this mission. Can be applied at all levels of an organization.  - Evaluated sustainability programs at Eden Project, an Eco-Tourism development in Cornwall. The most exciting part of the presentation was by the cleaning staff. They bought into the sustainability mission. They knew the most sustainable ways to clean a toilet. Made adjustments to make cleaning processes to be more environmentally friendly.  For More Information To find out more about Paul Skinner or his book Collaborative Advantage, conn...

Francesca Gino is a professor/affiliated with Harvard’s Business, Law, and Kennedy Schools. She is the author of Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break All the Rules in Work and in Life. She also recently published an article in Harvard Business Review on Why Curiosity Matters - The Business Case for Curiosity. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, talks with Francesca, about when rule breaking happens and what happens to people that do it successfully. Curiosity Curiosity is an important driver behind the experience of rule breaking.  We are born with lots of curiosity, but it starts declining at five years old.  When people join new jobs, they have high curiosity, but in 9 months, their curiosity has dropped 20%. What can companies do to keep that high? What can organizations do to support curiosity? - Change the mindset about what curiosity can do.  - Good for business and leaders to model behavior. Ask What if we changed … - Hard to know what outcomes of questions are. As How and What questions. Are there different ways to measure curiosity? - Intuit has innovation and failure awards (lessons learned and comes with a party). - Wake for Startups ending - A company gave 1 hr for lunch and 1 hr for culture. Then opened a library in the manufacturing plant.  Rebel Talent - People who challenge rules for positive change - Talents include curiosity, novelty, perspective, diversity, and authenticity. - You can foster each trait. Releasing a sculpture from a block. Don’t have to be born a rebel, but bring those traits out.  Can curiosity be effective in moving an organization forward?  - Thoughtfulness by leaders.  - Develop Performance Goals and Learning Goals.  Obstacles to overcome? - Leadership level. Sense of fear. If you allow for curiosity, you’ll end up in chains. Allowing curiosity says I trust you.  - Employee side - Change starts with each one of us.  How do you hire Rebels? - Pay attention to answers matching skills. E.g. - Hiring people with different perspectives than you. If you want to find out more about Francesca or her book check out rebeltalents.org. There is a FREE test, with no email required, that tells you which type of Rebel you are.  If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy: Ep. 126 – Barry O’Reilly, Author of Unlearn & Lean Enterprise Ep. 117 – Nicole Rufuku, Author of Hiring for the Innovation Economy Ep. 109 – Greg Larkin, Corporate Entrepreneur and Author of “This Might Get Me Fired” Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play.   FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Scott Kirsner is the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Innovation Leader. As a journalist, Scott spent his career covering how ideas in companies get commercialized. Five years ago, Scott launched Innovation Leader, a company focused on how innovation happens in big companies. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, spoke with Scott about emerging issues in corporate innovation. What innovation issues are tops for companies? - Innovation Leader Survey  - Solving bureaucracy and How to Tap Employee Ideas - Highest areas of Internal innovation interest - Startup engagement meaningful, but companies have only started their collaboration experiences. Why did corporates jump in and now are reassessing? - Corporates need results near term. - Successful companies focus on white space areas. Scout areas where startups can address problems areas. - Develop strategies to set up a proof of concept.  - Jet Ventures - Doing corporate VC. Need to be in it for 7-10 years  What toolset is being used at startups, that could be used in corporations? - Slack, GitHub, 3-D printer, landing tables, quick websites, Airtable, Coda, crowdfunding, etc.  How can the rise of new tech play out in corporate innovation? - Companies are becoming aware of how business can apply new tech. Creating comic books, videos of vision, etc. - Have more conversations and lunch and learns in your company to explain emerging tech and how the company can apply. Ask for engagement and put dots on the radar screen. - Innovation teams shouldn’t be only ones tracking new innovations. Spread far and wide in company. - Challenge of Innovation officer - change culture and training or build stuff and prototype. Execute the ideas.  What are you most excited about? - New events, research reports, magazine covering top cities around the world for corporate innovation, and awareness of best practices in big companies.  - Don’t need to start with a white paper. Lots of innovation resources available - Inside Outside Innovation podcast, Harvard podcast, Innovation Answered podcast. For more Information For more information or to connect with Scott, check out Innovationleader.com, on Twitter see @innolead and listen to Innovation Leader's Innovation Answered podcast.  If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy:  Ep. 128 – Aaron Proietti, Author of Today’s Innovator & Transamerica Innovation Champion Ep. 120 – Digital Intent’s Sean Johnson talks Corporate Innovation Strategies Ep. 118 – ExxonMobil’s Christopher Bailey and Kim Bullock on Corporate Innovation Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play.   FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. 

James Gill is founder and CEO of GoSquared, a simple, live analytics platform for websites. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, spoke with James about product trends, design, getting close to the customer and growing a company outside the Valley. Based in London, James started GoSquared with friends, while still in school. They found success in building websites, but soon were asked how the sites were performing. Very few tools existed at the time, to answer these questions. Since then, GoSquared has created simple analytics software, on a subscription basis, for small businesses around the world. What trends are allowing you to build new things? - No code applications. - Real-time and live response.  - Everyone today wants to have an online presence or small businesses. - We always wanted to work with small businesses and integrate into similar products like Go Daddy, Wordpress, Shopify, etc - Make it as easy as possible.  How do you decide what you develop? - Everyone has a different process depending on what works for each company. Some use tons of Data. Data creates lots of confidence in decisions. - We use our insights and engage with our customers. E.g., Onboarding - Do a lot of user testing. Make it fun. We show the visitors to your website instantly. Gamification. How do you introduce new products and services? - Software is being adopted from bottom up, before senior management even knows about it.  - Solving problems wins. Trend in B to B software. See small business/startups as early adopters. - Use new tools for Corporates that don’t need IT support. Cheaper and faster.  Ability to get close to the customer. - GoSquared changed dynamics to get immediate feedback from customers.  - Test out ideas immediately. E.g., Landing pages and Payments - Zapier and Airtable. What was it like to build a tech company outside of the Valley? - We didn’t make a choice. Left school and stayed in London. Thirty-seven signals/BaseCamp inspired us.  - We build great products and tell our story and what we’ve been learning. We don’t spend much on Marketing. We share what we learn. Building trust. Sharing what we learned on our Blog.  https://www.gosquared.com/blog/ What’s Next? - Training for the London Marathon in April - Introducing Free Tier soon - More new product improvement to help customers grow. For More Information For more information on James Gill or GoSquared see gosquared.com, @GoSquared or @Jamesjgill on Twitter.  If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy:  Ep. 130 – Canopy Insight’s Victoria Gerstman on Culture’s Influence on Brands & Semiotics; Ep. 129 – Paul Jarrett of Bulu on New Trends in Collaborative Marketing; Ep. 122 – Jeff Rohrs, Yext CEO and Author of Audience: Marketing in the age of subscribers, fans and followers; Ep. 114 – Canva’s Cameron Adams on Democratization of Design; and Ep. 113 – ProfitWell founder Patrick Campbell on Growth, Pricing and SaaS Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play.   FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Laura Anne Edwards is founder of DATA OASIS and serves as a NASA Datanaut, TED Resident and with SheCanHackIT. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, talks with Laura Anne about sustainable innovation and big data. Important Take Aways: Sustainable Innovation is Key!  - Maintain innovation over time through systems. What you are doing, who you are doing it with, and create creative collisions.  - Key elements: Know who you’ve hired. Use innovation audit to look at information flow.  - Address process changes, information flow, and awareness about how to support creativity.  What trends and tactics are useful? - Small changes in meeting schedule, office layout, what info is shared. Eg - Donut carts bring out introverts - What can you do to create intentional and organic collisions for the team. - How to change info flow to build on introverts in the room. - What is your company’s version of prototyping? - Do you have regular airing of ideas, instead of annual sharing. Appeals to extroverts and performance.  - Can’t keep doing same five things. - Look at who you have and what you are trying to do.  Have trends and tactics changed over time? - Don’t just put creativity into tech teams.  - For diversity, look at age, race, and where people come from, but go deeper. Look for different ways of thinking. Understand your people. - Product managers act as facilitators, instead of driving the product. How do you measure if the company is on the right path? - Retention of talented teams and ability to use teams to understand and be a feedback loop.  - We’ve applied industrial tactics to human assets. Need new set of processes and facilitation.  How does open data change the way we create and build new innovative ideas? - By connecting and making available the silos of open data, it solves the last mile problem.  - Apply new big algorithms and computing powers to open data. Currently there is no tracking of doctoral research.  - We don’t have a data arch. What information is most important to us? - Data Oasis creates an index of data sources and wikis. Models of gathering info around subfields. Marrying it with AI.  To find out more about Laura Anne Edwards or about Data Oasis contact her at lauraanneedwards.com, on Twitter, or through Brian Ardinger at brian@insideoutside.io.  You can also check out her TED Profile (https://www.ted.com/profiles/845) or this article on her work at NASA (https://open.nasa.gov/blog/data-discovery-mapping-nasa-dataverse/)  If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy:   Ep. 135 – Nara Logics CEO and E.N. Thompson Lecturer Jana Eggers on Artificial Intelligence’s Past and Future Ep. 130 – Canopy Insight’s Victoria Gerstman on Culture’s Influence on Brands & Semiotics Ep. 107 – Azeem Azhar, Author of “Exponential View” Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play.   FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy