Inside Outside Innovation

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Allison Weil, Senior Associate at Hyde Park Venture Partners. Allison and I talk about some of the latest trends in venture capital in places outside the Valley. And we dig into some of the tips and insights for new founders.Inside Outside Innovation is a podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat to what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started.Interview Transcript with Allison Weil, Hyde Park Venture PartnersBrian Ardinger:  Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. We have Allison Weil; she is a Senior Associate at Hyde Park Venture Partners. Welcome to the show, Allison. Allison Weil: Thanks for having me. Really excited to chat today. Brian Ardinger: Have you, we've had a chance to work together a little bit. You were panelists at the IO 2020 summit and helped look at a lot of the startups that we had at the startup showcase. And you and I were on an investor panel for the Pipeline Entrepreneurs about a month ago. I realized we hadn't had a chance to sit down and talk more in depth about the life and times of venture capital here in the Midwest. So, I figured I'd have you on the show. How about you tell the audience about Hyde Park Venture Partners and what do you focus on? Allison Weil: Yeah, absolutely. So, Hyde Park Venture Partners, we are a seed through Series A, venture capital fund, based in Chicago, that exclusively invests in companies in what we call the mid-continent. And we define that as the traditional Midwest plus Toronto and Atlanta. Most of our investments are in software companies. A lot of it is SaaS, but we're also investors in marketplaces and tech enabled-services and companies that we invest in can be anything from free product, you know, with a great team, all the way through a few million dollars in annual-recurring revenue.Brian Ardinger: The new world that we're living in, the post COVID world, let's take a step back and over the last year, what have you seen? That's changed the dynamics of venture capital in this now post COVID world. Allison Weil: Yeah. Great question. So, I think, you know, the first and most obvious thing is the shift to entirely remote investment. You know, prior to this past year, we really actually emphasize meeting our founders in person.You know, you learn a lot when you meet someone in person that you can't over Zoom call, you know, or a phone call. And I think that's still true for the record. So, it's not a thing that I think is going to stay permanently. I'm not on a perma-Zoom bandwagon, but you know, obviously that was kind of the first thing is a shift to fully remote investing and investing without meeting our founders in-person at all. The thing that, that enabled that's been different particularly in the Midwest, is it means that investors and founders don't have to be in the same city or location, which makes it easier for coastal investors to spend time with interesting companies in the Midwest. And so that's been a trend that we've certainly noticed a little bit.The other thing that we've noticed, frankly is that investment hasn't slowed down at all. It might've slowed down for a little bit in March and April is everybody, ourselves included, took some time to like orient ourselves to this new world, like personal life, professional. Like what in the world is going on right now? Let's figure it out. What's going on with our portfolio companies, get everything stabilized. But past that, investment's been going on rapidly and at high valuations, and the markets are shockingly hot. All of that is what I'm seeing, which is certainly, probably not what I would have anticipated, if you would have asked me, you know, the second or third week of March, like what's this next year going to look like.Brian Ardinger: A number of questions come to mind after what you just talked about, one being, so you mentioned investing remotely. What have you learned about how you can read a person or what specifically is different about investing remotely versus in person and how have you adapted? Allison Weil: What investing remotely requires you to do is spend a little bit more time just on having those conversations with folks over Zoom, right? So typically, you'd invest in person. You might go to lunch with somebody or dinner, you know, in the city, and just build that rapport. Right? Early-stage investment report is actually pretty important because you're building your relationship that can last a really long time. And so, you don't want to cut that time short. You still want to spend lots of time with the entrepreneur. You still want to get to know them and you can do that over Zoom. Right? Like you can still learn about like who are you as a person? How do you lead a team? You know, how do you interact with people who are different than you? How do you make decisions and all of these things that are still important, you can pick it up via Zoom.There is some stuff that you can't. I think some of like the interpersonal chemistry is a little bit different over Zoom versus, you know, in-person, but you still have to spend all of that kind of time getting to know folks. It just might be more sporadic than the concentration that you had, you know, when you traveled to their city.Brian Ardinger: Have you seen founders address it differently or different ways that they've come across better in that particular environment?Allison Weil: I rely more on quality decks than perhaps I did in the past. So, in that first conversation, if it was in-person, it's a little bit easier to interject and kind of read the room a little bit more and people over Zoom, the really good founders, are doing that over Zoom effectively. So, they are using a deck, but they're using it as a prop rather than as the center of their conversation. Right. They're still reading my facial expressions. They're still figuring out, you know, if I have a question that needs to get asked or where to pause and where to keep going and things like that. And they're effectively guiding the conversation much more so. I prefer those kinds of intro conversations to be more like a conversation than a pitch.Like I prefer folks to tell me their story, rather than walk me through their pitch deck. And so the best founders are using Zoom and are using their pitch deck to enable them to really tell their story, versus tell the story of their pitch deck. Those are two different things. Brian Ardinger: Are you seeing more cold outreach than that? Or are you still seeing the same deal flow from other founders recommending or other venture partners and that recommending? Allison Weil: I'm probably seeing marginally more cold outreach right now, but I don't think that that's a function of Zoom. I think that's a function of just some other things that we, as a funder doing and I'm doing.  So, most of our deal fl...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Jason Birnbaum, Senior Vice President of Digital Technology at United Airlines. Jason and I discuss what it takes to innovate during a crisis and how United continues to adapt to evolving customer, employee, and market changes. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help you rethink, reset, and remix yourself and your organization. Each week, we'll bring you the latest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses, as well as the tools, tactics, and trends you'll need to thrive as a new innovator.Interview Transcription of Jason Birnbaum, Senior Vice President of Digital Technology at United AirlinesBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Jason Birnbaum. He is a SVP of Digital Technology at United Airlines. Welcome to the show, Jason, Jason Birnbaum: It's a pleasure to be here. Brian Ardinger: Jason, I am excited to have you on the show. You are in an industry that is in the midst of disruption as we all are. But I think the travel industry is even facing more dilemmas. So, I wanted to get somebody on who's focused on innovation in this trying times, to see what it's like to be in the trenches in this world. So, tell us a little bit about what's your role at United and how it deals with it.Jason Birnbaum: I really am responsible for all of the technology associated with our employees, but also all the customer experiences that you would have at the airport, on board, really anywhere that you're physically involved with United Airlines. So, if you like the kiosks or you don't like the kiosk, that's what we do. All the signage in the airports moving you around. That's all part of my team as well. So wide scope, but lots of fun. Brian Ardinger: And when we had a chance to be introduced, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show is because the United Airlines takes a broad approach to innovation. You know, I think a lot of companies focus on innovation and think about it from a, like a product perspective only, but you seem to focused on more holistic. Talk a little bit about how you perceive innovation and what goes into making those particular types of decisions.Jason Birnbaum: First of all, when you think about the airlines, our product is the airline. And so our product is the employees. And the product is the experience, and so for us, almost every part of it, including people that actually work and fix the airplanes, people that actually, you know, load the bags and all of those are so intimately connected to the whole experience, that we have to think of innovation in a broad way.And so, when we started thinking about it, we realized that we needed to enable our employees to deliver great service. And connect that to the way our customers traveled. So, a lot of our innovation was really employee focused so that they could deliver great service. And when you start thinking about it in that thread, it really opened the door for a lot of really, really amazing innovation, whether it's freeing up employees, so they can actually spend time with customers. Right. Or it's just giving them information or data to anticipate your need, or if it's making that technician able to get the plane going faster. So, you are not late, like all of that fits together. And the way we think about innovation, Brian Ardinger: I imagine you get bombarded with new ideas and challenges and problems that are coming from their employees or from your customer set saying, hey, fix this or make this better. What's the process to go about looking at, across the ideas, and doing something about them. Jason Birnbaum: Yeah. Well, it's a, it's a great question. There is a lot and we do get bombarded. You know, I, I think one of the pivots we made as an organization was moving from thinking of more of a traditional information technology organization that really took orders, got prioritization lists, to thinking of the whole group as a really like a product development organization. We had a much stronger opinion as to what the next steps were going to be. And really partnered and drove an agenda. And so, for us, the transformation was really about, I have a team of product designers, design thinking experts, people who help us build those roadmaps, whether the product owners are on our team or in some other place, and really lay out, not necessarily a prioritization process, but what's the road map.And then from there we've moved very quickly to how do we prototype, test the theory, move quickly, move in small pieces, to get to the product. We've tried to get away from two-year projects. Four-year projects. You know, we try to think about how do I solve a problem, get something going, start it and empower.And I think when a big company, especially companies have been around for a long time, you know, they built a lot of control mechanisms and we've really worked to strip those out and say, hey, if you're the decision maker, if you're in the front, You've got the product. Make the change, see if it works, and let's move forward from there.Now that's certainly for the customer experience and for efficiency, obviously, you know, when I think about things like safety and those things, obviously all those controls are really important, and we take those very seriously. But there's a lot of places where experimentation can really lead to innovation.Brian Ardinger: Can you talk about some examples of where you've deployed technology and some of the changes that you've made over the years to make the experience better for employees and customers? Jason Birnbaum: Yeah, no, we have so many great examples. I'll hit two things. The first thing we realized, and this was a few years ago is none of our employees sit behind a desk. They, none of them have seats. Yet we built all these applications and all these tools for them on a PC. And so, we started to say, well, how do we un-tether is the word we used, our employees from these desks. And so, we rolled out one of the first innovations was creating and building a mobile ecosystem for our employees. Where, whether you're a gate agent, a technician, you're on the ramp, pilot, flight attendant, you had a mobile device and that mobile device, first and foremost, gave you tools to do your job. So, you could board a plane, help a passenger, take an order for a drink. That was like the base case. Then we said, well we've got this mobile ecosystem, what else can we do? And the second thing we said was how do we give people data to anticipate what they're going to need to do? So now I've got this delivery mechanism. How do I say all right, this passenger is getting ready to reach a milestone on their mileage. So why don't we thank them? Or this passenger has had a couple of bad flights. Take care when you're on this flight. So, we started giving that information. And then lastly, and this is where the real excitement came in. We connected everybody via just communications and chat functionality. We created a product, we call it Easy Chat, that connects everybody involved with the flight. The pilots, flight attendants, the gate agents, the catering company, everybody together i...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Elliott Parker, CEO of High Alpha Innovation. Elliott and I discuss why innovation is getting harder and what to do about it, as well as new models for tackling transformative and disruptive innovation.Inside Outside Innovation is podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started. Interview Transcript with Elliott Parker, CEO of High Alpha InnovationBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of inside outside innovation. I'm your host, Brian Arbinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. With us this week is Elliott Parker. He is the co-founder of High Alpha and CEO of High Alpha Innovation, which is an Indianapolis based corporate venture studio, which partners with organizations to create and launch new ventures. Welcome Elliott to the show. Elliott Parker: Hey Brian, happy to be here. Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you here because you and I have crossed paths a couple of different times with the stuff that you've been doing in startup and corporate innovation work outside the core tech hubs. And the stuff that High Alpha has been doing. Over the last decade we've seen a lot of changes and innovation, and a lot of innovation has actually come to the work of innovation. Can you give us a brief history of an evolution of High Alpha and this venture studio model? Elliott Parker: Yes. So High Alpha is a venture studio based in Indianapolis. What that means is we're a combination of a build function with a source of capital. Think about it as a venture capital fund that builds companies. I'll make that small correction to the intro. I'm not a co-founder of High Alpha. I actually joined about three years ago. High Alpha has been around for five years. It was started by some friends of mine five years ago. They'd been working together in a company called Exact Target, that our managing partner at High Alpha, Scott Dorsey, founded about 20 years ago.They exited Exact Target in 2014 and decided they enjoyed starting companies. And so wanted to go build a studio. Investors said you ought to raise a fund to sit alongside the studio. And this idea of a venture studio came together. That combination of build plus a source of funding. So, our team at High Alpha has gotten better and better at launching new companies over the last five years.This year 2020 has been kind of a breakout year in many ways for us, despite all the challenges. In the end we'll get, the count 10 or 12 companies launched in 2020, but we will soon launch company number 29 out of the studio. And we've invested out of the fund in another 30 plus companies. All B2B SaaS focused. And along the way, as we've gotten better at this systematic building of new ventures, we've had a lot of scale enterprises, big companies come to us, and say, can you help us do what you're doing in your venture studio?I mean, there's been a lot of interest just recently in the venture studio model with big companies, either starting their own form of a venture studio or looking to partner with an external studio. And initially that was not part of our approach. We were focused on building startups inside of High Alpha, but it makes a lot of sense to team up with scaled enterprises to do this. Because although it may take us longer together to build a new startup than it might if we were doing this on our own. You know, we can launch a new startup every four weeks, but Hey, if we can build a startup with a bigco as a co-investor with us and potentially as a first customer or distribution partner for that startup, that startups got to a much better chance of getting to scale and getting to scale quickly.So, we're very, very excited about teaming up with big companies to do this. So that's the LSD, the impetus behind High Alpha Innovation, which we created earlier this year to focus specifically on applying this venture studio model with partners like university corporation. Brian Ardinger: So, we've seen this happen where corporations are looking at the startup realm and saying, Hey, how can we move as fast and how can we launch things that we're seeing out in the market that these disruptors and that, why do you think it's so difficult for corporations to get that innovation mojo and to the launch new starts in the way that the startup marketplace actually is doing it?Elliott Parker: For a number of reasons. I think Clay Christiansen hit the nail on the head with the Innovator's Dilemma at 23 years ago now. And I spent many years working at Clay's consulting firm InnoSight where we tried to help companies overcome this challenge. And one of the things I learned is that to pursue innovation requires a certain set of processes and governance, the right incentives, the access to the right kind of talent. And when you're building a scaled enterprise, you're not optimizing that scaled enterprise for learning and innovation. You're optimizing that scaled enterprise for execution. So you develop a certain set of governance, talent, process, and incentives that help you execute to do so at scale. And to take that operating model and say, now we're going to try and deploy this model to go learn. It doesn't work. On the other hand, what we're seeing out in the market is that startups are designed to learn, to innovate, to move very, very quickly and to disrupt. And so what we try to do in the venture studio models, we've created an out of the box off the shelf collection of the right governance process, incentives, and talent that we can deploy to drive systematic innovation and to do so quickly. So, in scaled enterprises. It's very hard to take what they're so good at and to redirect it for something that they're not optimized for.Brian Ardinger: So, talk through maybe an example of how a company would come to you and say, Hey, we want to innovate. We have some ideas that are on the shelf, but really don't know how to get that done. Why would they come to High Alpha? And how would you walk them through that process of launching or building something?Elliott Parker: Yeah, most of the companies he's come to us because they are dissatisfied. To some degree with the quality and quantity of their innovation output. Things are moving too slowly or it's not disruptive or transformative enough. It's no wonder, right? Innovation is getting harder inside of big companies for a number of reasons.And there are certain types of innovation that are both necessary for big companies to pursue. And at the same time, impossible or near impossible to pursue internally, it's a real challenge. And so most of the time, the companies that come to us are saying, Hey, We need to move faster. We need to get some points on the board, some meaningful points on the board.And over the course of three or four months, we can launch a new venture backable startup and put some meaningful points on the board that way. So, it's the way to do something pretty rapidly at a cost that in many cases is lower than what it costs to do internally or certainly many times lower even than it would cost to go build a proof of concept with an existing st...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with April Rinne, author of Flux: Eight Superpowers for Thriving in Change. April and I talk about what it takes to thrive in a world of constant change and uncertainty and explore some of the skills and tactics you can use to better prepare yourself and your organization for a world of flux.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help you rethink, reset, and remix yourself and your organization. Each week, we'll bring you latest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses, as well as the tools, tactics, and trends you'll need to thrive as a new innovator.Interview Transcript with April Rinne, Author of Flux: Eight Superpowers for Thriving in ChangeBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger and as always, we have another amazing guest. With me today is April Rinne. She is the author of a new book coming out called Flux: Eight Superpowers for Thriving in Change. Welcome April. April Rinne: Thank you, Brian. Glad to be here. Brian Ardinger: I'm super excited to have you on the show. When I got a preview copy of the book, I started going through it and it's like, ah, this resonates with everything that I've been talking about, and our audience has been talking about. This whole idea that the world is changing. I think we fundamentally or theoretically understood that 18 months ago, but now every individual has felt that we are in flux.So, this is an amazing book. You start off the book with a gut-wrenching story that gives you immediate insights into what's required to live in a world of flux. And I don't know if you can share that story and maybe its impact on your life and your career and how you got to this place. April Rinne: Yeah. Sure. So, it's interesting. Just picking up on what you just said, which is I was actually working on this book for a long time. Long before the pandemic or lockdown. I like to say that the book itself was about three years in the actual writing, but it was more than three decades or close to three decades in the making. And that relates to my earlier story. But it is kind of interesting where over the last 12 to 18 months, people are like, oh, world in flux, you know, welcome to my life. But I'm sort of looking at this saying, Hm, there was a lot of flux before and there's going to be a lot more moving forward. But my entry into a world in flux or what I, what I sometimes call like my baptism. But my baptism into flux happened more than 25 years ago. I was in college, and I was a junior and I was studying overseas, and I'd had this kind of life expanding mind expanding year.And just as it was wrapping up, I received a phone call and basically at age 20, both my parents were killed in a car accident. And that was that moment where whatever you think your future is going to be, whatever you think the world has in store for you. However you think the world works, like it just all changed.You know, I would not have imagined back then that I would write a book about this sense of like, what do you do when you just can't control constant change. But that's when the seed was really planted. Brian Ardinger: Whether it's the loss of a parent or a major job change or a pandemic. A lot of folks are in that space right now. Like they're trying to understand what I thought the world was going to be is different. So, I think the book helps outline some of the things you can think about or some different ways to approach it. So, tell me a little bit about the book and why a person should pick it up. April Rinne: Yeah, absolutely. And you really nailed it. That sense of like, that was my version, but everyone has today I believe their own version. And what's key is the future is not more certainty. It's not more stability. The future is more uncertainty, more change, more flop, and are we really ready for it? And so the crux of the book is exactly that. That's sense of, you know, on the whole humans, we tend to love change that we opt into. You know, exactly. But we tend to really, really struggle with change we don't. The unexpected change. The change that waylays you. The change that is unwelcome. And yet that's the world we live in today. There's more, not less of that. And so, the fundamental premise of Flux the book is that in a world in constant change, we need to radically reshape our relationship to change from the inside out. I can add. In order to have a healthy and productive outlook. So, we're good at a slice of change, but we're really, really bad at a big chunk of it. This is where I get excited because also individually, this plays out. Organizationally, this plays out. And societally this plays out. So that's the basic punchline of the book, but the eight superpowers are the kind of how to. Brian Ardinger: Talk us through, like, how did you come up with those eight and maybe an overview of those. April Rinne: Sure. This is one of my favorite framing devices, which is, you know, Flux is both a noun and a verb. As a noun it means constant change. I think we all kinda get that. It's also a verb and as a verb, it means to learn to become fluid. So, the way I like to put it as the world is in flux, and we need to learn how to flux. To become fluid in our relating to all kinds of change. And so, I'll be really candid. The Eight Flux Superpowers evolved through a lot of hard work and thinking and post-its and reframing and structuring, you know, all of that.And I will admit now, you know, the book's been written for some time. It's obviously in the publication process. I haven't yet found the ninth one. So, I feel pretty good about that right now. But in short, the eight flux super powers, the first one is run slower. The second is see what's invisible. The third is get lost. The fourth is start with trust. The fifth is know you're enough. The sixth is create your portfolio career. The seventh is be all the more human and the eighth, one of the more provocative, although they're all provocative I think in some way. The eighth is let go of the future. Each of those kind of relates to different themes, you know, run slower is a lot about anxiety and burnout and so forth. And start with trust is obviously about trust. And letting go of the future is not about giving up or failing. It's actually about our relationship to control. So there's a lot more packed in each of those, but that's a quick summary. Brian Ardinger: Absolutely. The first one you start off with in the book is run slower. And I think a lot of people, when you talk about innovation, and you see what's out there in the press and that everybody talks about acceleration and speed of change and that. And the obvious antidote people think of is well, I've got to run faster. I've got to go, go faster and that. So, it's kind of a contradictory approach to that. So, talk about what you mean by run slower and let's unpack that a little bit. April Rinne: Landing on this particular superpower did result from a range of sources. But one of which was my many, many years as an advisor to companies, many of them were startups. But also, governments and think tanks and nonprofits. Organizations ...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Robyn Bolton, Founder and Chief Navigator at Mile Zero. Robin and I talk about her experiences in the world of corporate innovation from her days at P&G to Innosight to today. And what are some of the stories and things that she's learned to help companies navigate the world of disruption.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help you rethink, reset, and remix yourself and your organization. Each week, we'll bring the latest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses, as well as the tools, tactics, and trends you'll need to thrive as a new innovator. Interview Transcript with Robyn Bolton, Chief Navigator at Mile Zero on Corporate Innovation and DisruptionBrian Ardinger: [00:00:30] Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another guest. Today we have Robyn Bolton. She is the founder and chief navigator at Mile Zero. Welcome to the show, Robyn. Robyn Bolton: [00:00:53] Thank you, Brian. Thrilled to be here. Brian Ardinger: [00:00:55] Well, I'm excited to have you here for a number of different reasons. You've spent your career at the forefront of corporate innovation. So, you worked as an intrapreneur at P & G. I believe you were part of the team that launched the Swiffer and the, and the Swiffer Wet Jet. So, congrats on that. You were a partner at Innosight, Clayton Christensen's growth consulting firm, and now you're the founder of Mile Zero, which is an innovation consulting and coaching firm.You have been around corporate innovation, both inside corporations, doing it, helping companies grow and innovate. And then outside as a consultant. Where have you seen the most progress from companies when it comes to the concept of innovation? What has happened over the last 10, 15 years that hopefully makes these companies interact and do innovation a little bit better.Robyn Bolton: [00:01:40] There's actually that, as you can imagine, a tremendous amount of change that's happened over the past decades. So, when I started in innovation at P & G in the late nineties, innovation hadn't yet really become an industry. Entrepreneur was still synonymous with unemployed. I mean, it was just, it was before the first dot com bubble. Innovation was really just a company launching new products.Now there's a whole industry around innovation. You have admittedly consultants like me. You have venture studios; you have incredible firms that do market research that do prototyping. You have corporate venture capital. There's this entire industry and ecosystem that has been built up to support companies who want to innovate.The other thing is innovation has just become part of the corporate language. Right. I don't think you can tune into an analyst call. I don't think you can read an annual report without seeing, or hearing innovation over and over. So, it's just become part of the language and the lexicon of business. And what executives think about. Brian Ardinger: [00:02:51] Do you think a lot of that is due to the part that the world itself is changing so much and disruption is happening at a faster pace? And then therefore companies have to adapt to this, or is there something? Robyn Bolton: [00:03:04] I think it's very much that the world is changing at a faster pace. It is easier to start a company than it's ever been before. So, you're just seeing a lot more traction amongst startups. And you're seeing disruption as Clay Christiansen, coined the phrase. It’s happening more and more.It used to be that it took decades and generations for disruption to happen. Now you just think about the last 10 years. And all of the industries that we've seen disrupted. So it's become less of, I would say this nice thing to do, and more of a business imperative. Brian Ardinger: [00:03:39] One of the things that I'm seeing out there is even though it's becoming much more part of the lexicon and people are thinking about it and trying to do some things around it, it doesn't seem to be actually impacting corporations. There's still a lot of failure when it comes to innovation. Can you talk a little bit about why companies are still having struggles around innovation? Robyn Bolton: [00:04:00] That's actually the question that has plagued me, and I think a lot of folks who work in innovation. Innovation has been around, been talked about being worked on for decades, but nothing's really changed when it comes to that success rate. And why is that? It's a lot of things. Companies got big by doing the same thing over and over and doing it better and better. And innovation is the opposite of that. It's doing something you probably never done. And making mistakes and learning from them. So, it's just the complete opposite of what a company is.I think there's also this very human element of companies are filled with human beings. And as human beings, we respond to incentives. And we respond to the things that benefit us. So just any rational human being in their role within a company is going to say, okay, what do I get paid to do? What do I get a bonus for?Honestly, the tenure enrolls has so reduced it. I think it's now like two years. That why would I spend time and resources and political capital on something that if it works, it will come to fruition maybe in five years when I'm long gone. Versus spending all of those resources and political capital on something that will most likely yield results in six months, when I'll get the rewards for it. So, there's just all of these human elements that are a challenge. Brian Ardinger: [00:05:35] I'm curious to hear your insights into what's changed over the last 18 months. COVID radically accelerated virtually everything, and probably you and I have been talking about disruption in that for a long time. And now it seems when you go into a boardroom, the executives, get it more than a theory, but they actually understand like, oh yeah, my entire business may have to change overnight. How has that affected people's take on innovation. And what have you seen over the last, maybe 18 months? Robyn Bolton: [00:06:03] I've really seen this just enlightenment and this opening up to the realities of innovation, because what makes innovation so hard is it requires change and change is uncomfortable and change is uncertain.Well, COVID required to change literally overnight for a lot of companies. And suddenly leaders had an experience of change. And they experienced the learning process and they experienced all of these things that go along with innovation, and they realized they could do it. And that it wasn't as scary as they thought and that it was okay to make mistakes and then learn from them.And so, all of these things that you experience when you're doing innovation that seem very scary and that you want to avoid, they suddenly did them and survived. And are thriving. In that way with every dark cloud has a silver lining. The silver lining of COVID is the companies now have a greater belief in their ability to innovate and to change and a greater openness to try new things.Brian Ardinger: [00:07:14] Who's doing it well now. And have you seen a shift in how companies are em...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with two innovators from Dole Packaged Foods, Dr. Lara Ramdin, Chief Innovation Officer and Barbara Guerpillon, Head of Ventures. We talk about Dole's new venture fund, its open innovation initiatives, and how it's tackling global issues from nutrition to sustainability. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started.Interview Transcript with Dole Packaged Foods' Dr. Lara Ramdin, Chief Innovation Officer and Barbara Guerpillon, Head of VenturesBrian Ardinger:  Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have some amazing guests. Today, we actually have two guests coming from all around the world. We have Dr. Lara Ramdin, the Chief Innovation Officer and Barbara Guerpillon, Head of Ventures at Dole Packaged Foods. So welcome to the show. Lara Ramdin: Thanks.Barbara Guerpillon: Glad to be here. Brian Ardinger: Excellent. Well, I am so excited to have you both on the show together. The two of you are at the forefront of Dole's transformation and focus on innovation. And so, we wanted to have you on the show to talk about some of the new initiatives that you unveiled in the recent months and why they're so important. How does Dole define innovation? Lara Ramdin: Innovation is, it's a very broad term, right? And it can often be overused in our case, it's at all touch points. So, from the farm to the fruit, to the product, to the way the consumer uses it, to the way the consumer disposes it. So, it's actually end to end, innovation can occur them, any of those points.And that's obviously why we're here because we're trying to broaden our horizons in all of those aspects. It's time that we thought about Innovation beyond just a formulation and a pack. Barbara Guerpillon: It's also about innovation in ways of working and Lara and I is a very great example of how we are working on Innovation. It's just different approaches as well to solving problems. Brian Ardinger: So, let's talk a little bit about those different types of approaches. One of the things I wanted to talk about is you've unveiled this new Dole Promise. These are six promises that you're making to the world that by 2025 you're going to make some big changes and transformation. So, Lara do you want to talk a little bit about the Dole Promise and what it is all about? Lara Ramdin: What's really interesting about Dole and both Barbara and I are new to the company, right? So that's also new for Dole in terms of Innovation, having a Head of Ventures and the Head of Innovation, is that they sort of set their stool out and said, if we're really, really going to make a difference, where we're going to make a difference is by actually closing this nutrition gap, which we see happening all over the world and happening, not just in developing countries, but in developed countries.And so, it's our mission to make nutrition accessible and affordable. And also, as part of this wider innovation agenda, try and get nutrition to people in different ways. Right? So that's the first thing. That's really the first big promise pillar. And then underneath that, we're really striving. For access to sustainable nutrition for 1 billion people. And then also we're looking at our current portfolio and saying, how can we make those better? And how can we take out processed sugar? And how can we take out the things that we know you don't need? Right. And how can we give you the things that we already make in this period school? So that's one big nutrition pillar, Brian Ardinger: Barbara, what are your thoughts?Barbara Guerpillon: I'm specifically looking at reducing our carbon footprint. As Head of Venture, my role is to bring the outside in. Identify technology, startups, and entrepreneur we can work with. And if you look at the massive agenda on reducing carbon footprint, we know, we cannot do it all alone and we need to partner and we have innovators with new technology, and therefore reducing our carbon footprint, we'll start from, it will have to be a closed loop.It will start from the farms, to our package product, to the way we are shipping the product to the way we are packing them. So, we also have a goal on a zero-footprint based plastic by 2025 in our world packaging, but it's not only on the packaging and so everywhere where there is today for based plastics. It also includes within our farm. So, there is a big interconnectivity between all our Dole Promises, which will be mutually beneficial. We are really looking forward to exploring those partnerships and those new developments with entrepreneurs. Lara Ramdin: There's a big recognition Brian that we want systemic change. And if we want systemic change, we can't do it on our own. Right. So actually, we're in this position, and I think Barbara alluded to earlier, because we want to innovate in the way we work. And actually, Dole's saying, hey guys, we can't do this on our own. Come help us. That's already really innovative for us. Right. And I think we are embracing open innovation in its truest form in that way. Brian Ardinger: And that leads to my next question. So, you were both new to Dole. I was going to ask, how are these initiatives different from the way Dole approached Innovation in the past? Obviously, you said it's much more open than before. Why do you think this is a different image for Dole and why are you going to go on this path? Barbara Guerpillon: I think I'm going to start because my answer is going to be way shorter than Lara's.  One, the Head of Venture and the Venturing Team is a new team, and it hasn't been done before. And I really, really focus on working with startups and young companies. So, the answer is quite easy because this did not exist before. It's a new initiative. It has been launched about a year ago. So that's a simple answer. Lara Ramdin: And then building on that. I would say that Dole has been in the past quite traditional about how it focused on Innovation. Right? So, it innovated on what it knew how to do already. And actually, we're expanding our portfolio beyond the canned Pineapple.  And so, we're saying, we want to go beyond that. We know fruit, we are the experts in food, but we want to get fruit and nutrition in fruit and vegetables and plants to people in different ways. How can we do that? If we don't know how to do it, let's go and find somebody that can, that's the other part of this sort of innovation continuum that I'm doing, is that person over there can do supplements, sell it. Cause we've just launched supplements. Let's go and work with them to launch fruit-based supplements, for example. So, I think that's why I'm saying it's really open innovation in its truest form.Brian Ardinger:  That leads to my question, Barbara, about Dole Ventures and I believe you have a ne...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Melissa Vincent, Executive Director of Pipeline Entrepreneurial Fellowship. This recording was part of our IO Live series and Melissa and I sit down and talk about the people, the resources, and the companies making the Midwest a great place for startups to grow and prosper. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation, is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started.Interview Transcript with Melissa Vincent, Executive Director of Pipeline Entrepreneurial FellowshipBrian Ardinger: Welcome to Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have another amazing guest with us today. This is part of our IO Live series, which is our virtual conversation series to talk innovation and entrepreneurship. Part of our Inside Outside platform, where we have our podcast and newsletter and ongoing events like this. So I'm super excited to host Melissa today. Melissa is a good friend. She's the Executive Director of Pipeline. So welcome to the show, Melissa. Melissa Vincent: Brian, thank you so much. I love it when I get to chat with you. Brian Ardinger: I'm excited about this conversation. Before we get too far. I always like to thank our sponsors. Today our sponsor is the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. They are a private nonpartisan foundation based in the Kansas City, Missouri. They seek to build inclusive prosperity through entrepreneur focused economic development. They've been a huge help to a lot of things going on, including Pipeline. I believe they're a sponsor for. If people are interested in finding out more about Kauffman, go to kauffman.org or check them out @KauffmanFDN on Facebook and Twitter.And so huge shout out to our sponsors for making things like this happen. And having conversations that make Midwest Entrepreneurs even better. I was gonna say, you're new to Pipeline, but you were new from the standpoint of you started working at Pipeline right before the pandemic. It seems like that's a short time ago, but it seems now we're what, almost two years into this thing. So it's exactly, exactly the pandemic years. But I wanted to have you on, because I think Pipeline has been one of those proven things in the ecosystem that has helped entrepreneurs across the Midwest here. And I wanted to get you on to talk about, you know, what have you seen? What's different and, and more importantly, what's going to happen moving forward. So maybe let's start the conversation with, tell us a little bit about what Pipeline is. For those who may not know that and where we're at right now. Melissa Vincent: I would love to. Yes. So I have been there for, as you mentioned, it'll be two years next month. So it's kind of crazy because it feels sometimes like six months and other times it feels like 10 years because of the pandemic. So you never know. So Pipeline is a fellowship for high- growth entrepreneurs in the Midwest. We are industry agnostic. So we do everything from Bio to Ag. You name it, everything in between. And do not take equity in the organizations that we work with. And so we're different in that way as well. And we focus on serial entrepreneurs because they have the greatest economic impact on the region, when you focus on someone who's going to get right back up, if they have a failure. And if they succeed, they're going to get back up, start another company and invest in the community. Brian Ardinger: Pipeline's been around for a number of years. It was actually started even prior to me starting Nmotion and that. I think you have over 140 or a 150 entrepreneurs that have gone through the program. Had had an economic benefit. 2,700 employees I think are, are based in Kansas and Missouri and Nebraska because of the founders that have been part of Pipeline. Your founders have raised over $600 million in capital since joining Pipeline. And it's a flywheel approach. So, you know what started 10 or 15 years ago. Now we're seeing some of the fruits of that payoff. So tell us a little bit about how you got involved in Pipeline. Melissa Vincent: Pipeline was started 14 years ago. It was started by Joni Cobb and a number of key people kind of in the Midwest. She was the CEO. And the idea was that there was such, as you mentioned, like 14 years ago, we were in such a different place.There weren't all the entrepreneur support organizations that we have now. And so, you know, when she started the organization, it was around this idea that if you came and you brought resources from the coast to the Midwest. And you focus specifically on serial entrepreneurs to have a massive impact on the region because of what we talked about earlier, they're going to reinvest, they're going to get back up, start another company. And that was really true. So over the last 14 years, our members are not just creating jobs. They're creating really high paying jobs. So average salary for an employee of one of our members is $52,000. So they're creating great jobs. They're creating a lot of them. And they're raising capital and they are staying here in the Midwest.And so really over 14 years, that whole concept that we were seeing, if it could be proved or not, if you bring in these resources, what impact would that have if you focused on serial entrepreneurs is proven. So it's like, okay, successful, we've done that. That's really amazing. But then it becomes the question of 14 years later, how things changed. Like to your point, we've had, with the pandemic and we've had social injustice that's been ongoing that really came to a head last year.So we have all these different things that happened over the past few years. And so I think for us as an organization, we've really looked at well, how do we respond to that? And I think there's a lot of other entrepreneurial support organizations that are doing the same. How do we step in. How do we be a part of that progress and change that really needs to happen? That's where Pipeline is headed. But we couldn't have gotten there without the legacy that was started 14 years ago, by bringing in all these resources and creating some amazing fellowship programs. Brian Ardinger: It's been a very important piece of the puzzle. When I started Nmotion, I think it was 10 years ago, ish. It was the first accelerator in Nebraska at the time that's a equity based accelerator. But we quickly wanted to tie ourselves with Pipeline and get our founders an opportunity to move through the Pipeline. And you find those early stage founders. You get them a little bit of capital. You surround them with mentors and investment capital.We help build that. And then you also then connect them into a wider network. I think that was one of the most important things about like an Nmotion is, you know, we started in Lincoln, Nebraska. But we realized quickly that you can't build a startup ecosystem by yourself. In just...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Dr. Ben Bensaou, Professor at INSEAD and author of the new book Built to Innovate. We talk about some interesting case studies and essential practices that companies can use to make innovation accessible to everyone in the organization. Let's get started. Inside Outside Innovation is a podcast to help the new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started.Interview Transcript of Dr. Ben Bensaou, Professor at INSEAD and Author of Built to InnovateBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have another amazing guest. Today, we have Dr. Ben Bensaou. He is the professor and former Dean of Executive Education at INSEAD and author of the new book, Built to Innovate: Essential Practices to Wire Innovation into your Company's DNA. Welcome to the show, Ben.Ben Bensaou: Good morning, Brian. And thank you for having me. Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you. And I understand you're in Japan right now, so we're different sides of the world. You've got a new book out called Built to Innovate. But I wanted to step back and talk about how did you get into the field of innovation research.Ben Bensaou: Well, actually, as a matter of fact, I got into the field of innovation starting where I am right now. I did my PhD looking at Japanese firms. And I had lived in Japan before, but my PhD at MIT Sloan was on the way that Japanese firms were actually developing production systems. And a production system was the quality management movement.So, I was in Japan at the time. And then when I went back and joined INSEAD, I continued my interest in Japanese firms, but this time I want to know what they were doing in the field of innovation. And this is how I got involved with companies in Japan and outside of Japan. Mostly its established firms who are trying to become more innovative.Brian Ardinger: One of the things that we think about is corporations, it's hard for them to innovate. Maybe now it's a little bit more thought of is, you know with all the disruption from everything from COVID to new technologies and that. Companies are a little bit more aware of the fact that they need to be innovating and that the world is changing around them. Can you talk a little bit about how your research and your experience in the field of innovation has changed and evolved over the years? Ben Bensaou: Yes. I would say that one thing that I've noticed over the years, I've been doing my teaching innovation and also helping firms is that I noticed that number one, a lot of people, a lot of organizations equate innovation with launching a new blockbuster product or coming up with a life changing new business model.Many also think that you need to have a genius leader or to be a startup by a matter of fact, to be innovative, to be able to innovate. But I found out that it's not true. I found in my research established even centuries old companies are able to innovate. How did they do this? Well, they don't only focus on industry changing effects, but also for small important changes, very often in unexpected places.And for this, what they do is that they rely on continuous and systematic innovation. Innovation of all kinds. And innovation driven by everyone in the organization. And that's what Built to Innovate is about. It's really about how do you embed continuous innovation inside an organization using a systematic approach.Brian Ardinger: I think that's so important because a lot of corporations that I've talked to want innovation to happen somewhere else. Or like they have their teams and they're executing on their business model and they're optimizing that, but they want innovation to happen somewhere else. So, they create an innovation lab or something and they throw the idea over to someone else to execute. But what I've seen, and I think what it's apparent in your book, and the examples you give is that again, to survive in this changing world, we all have to become innovators. And it doesn't mean, like you said, you have to come up with the next electric car, but you have to find problems and take those early ideas and then innovate them and execute on them so that they become value creation, parts of the business.Ben Bensaou: Absolutely. Absolutely. I find so many people expecting that the innovation is going to come from the leaders. Or, you know, like you say, they create a skunkworks, or they create specialist units that are supposed to do all the innovations for the company. And I think many organizations, and I found this very innovative companies in my research, are able to enlist and leverage the capability of everyone in the organization. For this, what they do is that that they create what I call an innovating engine. Which is a protected, fully legitimized and organized space within the company where everyone can innovate. Not just the specialist. You can innovate in everything you do. I mean, you can innovate of course, in your products and services, but you can innovate in your processes as well, or your internal functions. You can innovate in HR and legal. And you can make innovating a regular habit. Not a sporadic kind of burst of creativity when there's a crisis. And that's what I think I've seen some of these innovative companies do is to create this innovating engine. And leveraging everybody's inate capabilities. Brian Ardinger: So, what do you think are some of the common myths or mistakes that companies make when it comes to executing or putting these innovation initiatives into place.Ben Bensaou: I think it's always the same thing is that many of these organizations, like you were talking earlier about startups, don't have the problem of size. When they start, they're all innovating in a sense innovating mode. Everybody is in contact with customers. But as soon as you grow, you start to be dominated by an execution logic. And the execution, what I call the execution takes over. And the execution engine takes over. And the execution changing is very much about control. It's no surprise that many organizations, established organizations, develop hierarchies and vertical silos focused on supplier side view challenges. And innovating in a sense is less about control. Is more about delegating and is more about collaboration. Is more about teamwork. Horizontal structures that are focused on the customer. Like you said earlier, I think this is a very important word. You said innovation is about problem finding. What kind of new problems do we need to find to solve for the customers. And execution is very much about problem solving. It's a very convergent mindset.And I think this is where a lot of companies fail. Is that they don't realize that when you move into innovating and what I'm saying is that when you create an innovating engine, you allow for every employee to be able to spend time doing some innovating activity in the space of the invading engine. And at that time, they ne...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Karin Hurt, Co-author of the new book, Courageous Cultures: How to Build Teams of Micro-Innovators, Problem Solvers, and Customer Advocates. Karin and I talk about the difficulties and opportunities with creating a culture that values innovation and curiosity, and how companies can develop productive micro innovators. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, founder of InsideOutside.IO. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat to what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started. Interview Transcript with Karin Hurt, Co-Author of Courageous CulturesBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have another amazing guest. Today, we have Karin Hurt. She's co-author of the new book, Courageous Cultures: How to Build Teams of Micro-Innovators, Problem Solvers, and Customer Advocates. Welcome to the show, Karen. Karin Hurt: Thank you so much for having me. Brian Ardinger: Karen, I am excited to have you on the show. I just got a chance to read through a preview copy of the book and excited to dig into that. Tell me a little bit about how you got interested in this particular topic.Karin Hurt: Yeah. So, I run a company called Let's Grow Leaders. And we work with human centered leaders all over the world with practical tools and techniques. So we were noticing a consistent pattern. As we were going into organizations, we'd be working at the very senior levels of organizations. And we would hear things like why don't more people speak up. Why don't people share ideas? Why do I stumble upon a best practice? Why are people sharing them with one another? And then we would go into do leadership training at the supervisor level. And we would hear things like nobody really wants my ideas. Last time I spoke up, I got in trouble. You know, why bother nothing ever happens anyway. We thought, are you all working for the same company? So, you know, most leaders really do want ideas and employees have great ideas to share. So why was there this disconnect? So, we partnered with the university of North Colorado on an extensive research study to answer that question. When people were holding back ideas, what kinds of ideas were they holding back and what was preventing them from speaking up and sharing ideas to improve the customer experience, the employee experience, or productivity in a process. That's a little bit about why we got so excited about this research. Brian Ardinger: So, let's dig into it. What makes a culture courageous? Karin Hurt: You know, our favorite definition of culture comes from Seth Godin, the marketing guru, who just says culture is simply people like us do things like this. And so, when you're talking about a courageous culture, people like us speak up. They share ideas. The default is to contribute. People are coming to work every day saying, huh, how can I make this better. And managers are proactively going out and asking for those ideas and responding well when people share them. Brian Ardinger: So clearly that is not the case in a lot of organizations, at least the ones that I've worked with and have been around. It's not always courageous. What do you think makes it so difficult for people to speak their truth or overcome that particular fear? Karin Hurt: Yeah. So, Dr. Amy Edmondson of Harvard who wrote the Fearless Organization, you know, she's really a pioneer of psychological safety. And she talks about people are more likely to hold onto a negative experience than a positive experience. And that really played out in our research as well. We would ask people; we did a whole qualitative set of interviews in addition to the quantitative study. And we would say, okay, if you're holding back an idea, you know why? And they would say, well, because you know, something bad happened in the past. Was okay, how long ago was that?And you wouldn't believe it. Sometimes people say, well about 10 years ago. And then we would say, well, was it at this company? Oh, no, no, no. I was away at some place completely different. But it was enough to teach them that speaking up is scary. So that's one piece of it. And then, you know, other things that came out in our research, 49% said, I'm not regularly asked for my ideas. Something as simple as that.And when we got underneath that binding, the managers are saying, well, I told them I have an open door. And the problem with an open door is it's passive. And for some people, especially if they've had a bad experience in the past, it still takes some level of courage to walk through that open door. And another thing that people said, which the most surprising finding quite frankly for me was 56% said, they're not sharing ideas because of fear they will not get the credit. And, you know, as fascinating. As I've been sharing that statistic people like aha. Yeah, well that happened to me too. And  so, I think that really resonates with folks. And then another statistic that I thought was really interesting was 50% said nothing will ever happen. So why bother?And sometimes that nothing will ever happen. Isn't actually true. Something has happened, but the loop isn't closed. Right? So, people think their idea went into this black hole, you know, and because we're not circling back. So, whether it's an employee survey, it's a suggestion box. It's in a one-on-one meeting. Are we closing the loop and what we call responding with regard to the ideas that are coming forward? Brian Ardinger: That's a fascinating insight, because I see that a lot when we talk with corporations and what are their innovation efforts. And a lot of them say, well, we're doing these hackathons. Or challenges and asking for employee feedback.And that's great to do that, but what they fail to do is put the process in place and what to do with those ideas after they come through the funnel. And like you said, be able to either close the loop or have a process that moves those particular ideas forward. So, you don't have this environment where people throw things in and, and again, like you say, the black hole of nothingness. And they get discouraged to do it again.In the book, you talk a lot about this loop between clarity and curiosity, kind of back and forth. Can you talk a little bit about that and why that's so important? Karin Hurt: Yes. So, when you're building a courageous culture, it really does start with clarity. And that's clarity around two things. One clarity that you really do want people's ideas. And we found this to be really, really critical as we were testing the different tools and techniques. Clarity about where you need a great idea. So, you know, not just going out and saying, hey, do you have any ideas to improve the business? Or what do you think we could do to improve productivity? Tha...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Todd Embley, Senior Startup Advocate for Agora. Todd and I talk about the new technologies and trends from no-code tools to embedded audio and video platforms, that affect how we see, hear, and interact with each other. We also explore how companies are tapping into startups and startup ecosystems to enable founders to build and impact the world more effectively. Let's get started. Inside Outside Innovation as the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. I'm your host Brian Ardinger, founder of InsideOutside.IO. Each week. We'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started. Interview Transcript with Todd Embley, Senior Startup Advocate for AgoraBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today, we have Todd Embley. He is a Senior Startup Advocate for Agora and a formerly with China Accelerator. So welcome to the show, Todd, Todd Embley: Thank you, Brian. It's good to be here. Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you because we've met a while back early in my startup days when I was running NMotion. You were in China. And we met at some global accelerator network conference. I think it was in San Diego, perhaps. So, you spent a lot of time in Asia, as I did. And recently moved back to the states, working for a interesting company called Agora. We had a chance to run into each other again in Lincoln. Todd Embley: Yeah. Thanks very much. I actually did come back from China and moved to the U.S. but now I'm back in Canada. I am Canadian and I'm living in Western Canada. Brian Ardinger: I wanted to start the conversation with the most recent company that you're with is a company called Agora. It's an interesting company for a couple different reasons. And it's a real-time engagement platform that a lot of popular companies are using to build on top of like Run the World, which is something that we've used for our IO Conferences and that. And some of our IO Live events. I think you guys provide like the SDKs and the building blocks to enable these types of startups to build off of. So, I I'd love to get your take, not on just Agora, but you've got an interesting role there as a Startup Advocate. So, what is a Startup Advocate? Todd Embley: It's a great role, for those of us who aren't necessarily adept at selling. And we fall under marketing. And the role is really, if I were to compartmentalize everything that we're about and our ethos and thesis. Is go out into startup land and be as helpful as possible. Try to integrate. You know, we sponsor. I run workshops. I meet with lots and lots of entrepreneurs all the time, and we're just out there trying to be as helpful as possible. And the great thing that the company and the founders and senior leadership have all gotten behind is just be out and be as helpful as possible. And wear the t-shirt while you're doing it. That's almost the be all and end of it. And for those that are really interested in what Agora is and what Agora does, then we can get into that. But essentially, we're not trying to put it in front of everybody and not trying to blast everybody with, with Agora specifically. The team is comprised of people who have been entrepreneurs, been in startups, been in VC, run accelerators. And who have just a lot of empathy for startups and that's kind of where it begins and ends. Brian Ardinger: We see a couple of different companies use this approach of startup advocate type of program to help build their business. Walk me through like, what are the benefits and the reasons why a corporation would want to put together some type of program around this.Todd Embley: You know, I think AWS and what they've been doing for as long as they've been doing it are kind of the benchmark. And they were, I would say the pioneers, at least the most famous pioneers of running programs like this. Our senior leadership had an opportunity in China to talk to the heads of AWS Activate in China.And they divulged some interesting statistics, which I think were the precipice of Agora wanting to build their own startup team as well. And that was that after 15 years of them having a program, they will now attribute up to 65% of AWS revenues today to the activities, you know, over the last 15 years, of their startup program.And what we're trying to do is invest in our future huge customers. Knowing that the world's next billionaire companies, trillion-dollar companies. The unicorns of the future are still just startups today. And if we want to align ourselves correctly with what it takes to build a startup and how hard it is, let's maybe try to get out of their way at the early stages while they're trying to cross the early chasms of, you know, and the difficulties of what it takes. So, from a revenue perspective or from a cost perspective, let's give our stuff for free. You know, until you, their revenue. You can't get blood from a stone. So, while they're still searching for product market fit and revenue, let's let them use our software for free until such time as they are then finding product market fit and then able to start generating revenue. And only at that time, should we then start to talk to them about actually paying for the service? Brian Ardinger: That makes sense. And obviously it seems to be working. I think I read on your website, you've got over 50 billion minutes of engagement on the platform. Probably going up as we speak. I don't know if you can speak to any specific use cases or specifically what you do when it comes to helping these companies get up and off the ground. Todd Embley: Sure. As you alluded to, there are some famous companies that have been using us, especially in the real-time audio space. There are a few NDAs in place. So, you could mention who those companies are. And by all means it's pretty widely known. I necessarily can't speak directly to who some of those more famous ones are. But the nuts and bolts of the program essentially boils down to free minutes. So, my Director, Tony Blank. He and another friend of ours, Paul Ford, used to do this at SendGrid. And that's where they were a big supporter of the Global Accelerator Network where you and I met in the beginning and then the Twilio acquisition of SendGrid. So, he was there. And they were doing a great job as well. And leading on some of the data from their experience there, or Tony's experience there, and then understanding our business and the data that we had over the years that Agora has been thriving. We positioned the amount of minutes at 1 million, we figured 1 million minutes of Agora should be enough for most companies to achieve product market fit and revenue.If you haven't achieved product market fit and revenue, after using a million minutes of Agora, you may have some underlying other issues that are getting in the way of that. But we really feel that upwards of 80%, even 90% of companies who do achieve and use up the million free minute...