The Remarkable SaaS Podcast

This podcast interview focuses on a discussion around the essence of the book ‘The Innovation Ultimatum – how 6 technologies reshape every business in the 2020s. My guest is Steve Brown, Author and Founder of Possibility & Purpose. Steve Brown is a futurist, author, entrepreneur, and advisor with over 30 years of experience in high tech. Prior to building his own consulting business, he was Intel’s Chief Evangelist and worked in Intel Labs as a futurist, where he imagined and built plans for a world 5, 10, and 15 years in the future. After leaving Intel in 2016, Steve built his own company, Possibility and Purpose LLC, which helps businesses to be more innovative, more resilient, and more profitable.  In 2018 he co-founded The Provenance Chain Network, an open standards approach to bringing transparency to global commerce. In 2020, he published his latest book, “The Innovation Ultimatum: How six strategic technologies will reshape every business in the 2020s” This inspired me, and hence I invited Steve to my podcast. We explore why the gap between those that embrace the new technologies and those that don’t is going to dramatically widen. Why it’s about agency taking responsibility and decide you’re going to participate in building the future that defines the winners. We also address what’s qualities leaders are required to develop to lead and be remarkable doing so. Here are some of his quotes: There are two pieces to the innovation ultimatum, there's one that's sort of more obvious on the surface, which is the competitive imperative, which is kind of the stick The gap between those that embrace technology, and those that don't, has always been there, but that gap is going to widen dramatically in the next decade The other side of the innovation ultimatum is the moral obligation for us as individuals and as companies to do the right thing and to create value for humans and to solve human problems. During this interview, you will learn four things: That you should ask yourself two questions. What's the future we want to build? And what's the future we want to avoid?  That to be great a leader in the 2020s you should be equipped to ask the right questions, become very clear eyed and understand the application of these technologies Why the smartest companies are thinking five or six steps ahead and then they work their way back to a starting point. That too much of the ‘innovation’ we put out is still about boosting productivity and efficiency, and that in doing so, we’re leaving so much on the table that we risk irrelevancy. For more information about the guest from this week: Steve Brown Website See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to empowers internet users and content creators with the tools to build a safer and more trustworthy internet. My guest is Sebastiaan van der Lans, Founder and CEO of WordProof and Chairman of Trusted Web Foundation Sebastiaan van der Lans has a big heart for open source. In 2006 he co-founded Amsterdam’s first WordPress agency ‘Van Ons’, which is a leading digital agency now, serving over 100M page views a year.  Sebastiaan has a strong passion for improving the playing fields of publishing, SEO, and e-commerce. In 2019, Sebastiaan founded WordProof with which he’s on a mission to restoring trust on the internet. This inspired me, and hence I invited Sebastiaan to my podcast. We explore what’s underpinning the fact the internet is broken when it comes to trust and how this is undermining our progress. We also address how to get a movement going in a situation that’s characterized by multiple ‘chicken & egg’ dilemmas. Finally, we discuss the mindset and approach required to achieve results that have remarkable impact for everyone around the globe. Here are some of his quotes: Even though the Internet has brought us so many great things, it has a deep-rooted issue. And that's what it's trustworthiness. And therefore, all sorts of obnoxious human behaviour, like theft and manipulation and fraud thrive. Normally in society, we have systems in place to make sure that those obnoxious behaviors don't thrive. But on the internet, trust simply isn't part of the internet's DNA. And that goes back to society.  So what we say is: “To save the world, we need to fix the internet, we need to make trust part of the internet's DNA.” That's what we aim for. And Wordproof is a Time Stamping tool to achieve the mission of the trusted web.  In a few years from now, if you don't timestamp your information, you’ll be considered a fraud. What are you hiding from? During this interview, you will learn four things: That just because technology isn’t scalable or mature enough is no reason to not embrace it. How to solve a business model challenge where the audience that benefits most are not the one that will pay for it. Why it requires to declare war on a specific problem to create solutions that are remarkable Why spending 1000 hours on a 1-minute pitch pays off For more information about the guest from this week: Sebastiaan van der Lans Website WordProof  Website The Trusted Web See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that enables us to rediscover the places and the people that make the area we live in or visit unique. My guest is Tom Charman, Co-founder and CEO of Nava For the last decade, he founded, been involved in, and scaled high-growth consumer-facing products that aim to solve questions relating to understanding and predicting human behavior through data.  He’s a fan of lean startup methodology and spend most of his day building products. Tom gave a TEDx on A.I. and quantum computing, advised corporates on data privacy/security, and UK and EU parliaments on data and innovation. He co-founded NAVA in 2017 around the vision to connect people together through food. Their mission to realize this through creating immersive city experiences across Europe by helping locals better understand what’s going on around them.  UNWTO recognised NAVA as one of the world’s most disruptive tourism startups. This resonated with me, and hence I invited Tom to my podcast. We explore what’s broken in the process of restaurants and venue reviews and how this is not only impacting us as consumers, but also many business owners – simply because their ‘larger peers’ have an unfair competitive advantage. We discuss how to solve both the B2C and the B2B challenge with smart technology, and how to do this in a way that fuels itself by designing for virality.  Here are some of his quotes: When you look for, say, a restaurant or a place to visit on Google, the kind of the general feeling is: ‘if it's above four stars, it's worth going to.’ But actually today, most restaurants about four stars. So how do you pick out a restaurant that's 4.3 versus a restaurant that's 4.4. And at the end of the day, that’s ignoring the kind of things that come with it like boosted posts and information to try and manipulate reviews. The general feeling here is this is a system that's flawed and fundamentally broken. The whole independent market of local restaurants, local bars, independently own places, it's such a disjointed and fragmented market, which makes it hellishly difficult to actually work. But if you get something like this working, what you're doing here is creating a global platform for independent venues to actually compete against the Starbucks, the McDonald's the all of the other big chains that are out there - giving them a level playing field. During this interview, you will learn four things: That too many business software companies say they are talking to customers, but miserably fail to do so. Why we should make it the standard rule to consume less data instead of more (without compromising quality) Why too many features can become your biggest problem and what to do about it How rapid +50% growth isn’t always an indicator you got product market fit For more information about the guest from this week: Tom Charman Website See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to avoid people that get paralyzed from having to start their lives over. My guest is Mark Daniels, Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Mark Daniel was born and raised in Pensacola. He injured his spine almost 13 years ago and have been using a wheelchair since. In 2010, Mark was asked to assist IHMC with evaluating their first powered exoskeleton, and he kept this involvement since. He has now joined IHMC as a full time research intern to work on the design, fabrication, and testing of the exoskeleton for the Cybathlon. Mark anticipates the Cybathlon to make a huge stride in technology and awareness to improve quality of life for those with loss of mobility due to injury or illness across the world.  "Every day I am confronted with the reality that I am paralyzed. Every day I face this reality to find comfort in my abilities and not anger in my disability – we all have disabilities and I encourage everyone to live unrestrained.”  This inspired me, and hence I invited Mark to my podcast. We explore the world of Exoskeleton, the major advances over the last 10 years and how the blend of hardware, software and active user involvement has been fundamental to this. We discuss what the innovation should be really all about, how to accelerate it, and what mental obstacles one has to overcome to come out as a winner.  Here are some of his quotes: I look at everything that we're doing here at IHMC and all the other exoskeletons, and the other technology that is giving mobility back to people with disabilities.  I look at all of this as hopefully, that 18 year old kid that I was. An accident will happen to him, and he will get paralyzed. And some of the technology that I'm working on or helping to push or develop will be what he's given whenever he has the same problem that I did. And he'll go back to the same job that he had and he won't have to start his life over. We notice who makes strides in the market, and who wins in that market. And it's the people that pay attention to the feedback of their end user. And the way to do that is to get somebody that's gonna want your technology and then give them a reason to want it. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why it is key to create solutions that smartly balance working with you, as much as for you That users have alternatives – sometimes radically different from what you offer. And to make them want to change you have to deliver a shift in value. Why it is key to not argue with a user whether what they want is a good idea or not.  That art and technology are not that different – and that’s where the opportunity hides For more information about the guest from this week: Mark Daniels Website IHMC See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation in the sales & marketing space that has the power to increase sales productivity by over 80%, and my guest is Ilan Kasan, Co-founder and CEO of Exceed.ai. Ilan is an accomplished product leader with proven successes in driving product, user experience, strategy and execution and building products users and enterprises love such as Webex. He has deep expertise in mobile, web, & application software & SaaS products, and built an 18 year career in general management and product management for leading global technology companies including , Cisco, WebEx, Comeet and others. Ilan has been an earlier guest on my podcast. Our first interview was back in February 2019. Lots has happened since, and what triggered me to get him back on the podcast is to hear his story about how the market has changed, how he orchestrated his organization for growth, what he’s changed to survive the pandemic, and what lessons he learned in this process. Here are some of his quotes: We learned a lot. And the biggest change: we know very well who is not our customer. We have Product Market Fit. We know that we solve a real problem. We know who we should sell to you. But we hadn’t figured out the Go to Market Fit. The Go to Market fit is one of the balance between product, sales and marketing to help us sell the product. Another way of looking at it is that's a good Go to Market fit is: If your understand how your customers buy. Your Go to Market has to fit the way they buy and not the way you sell. By listening to this interview, you will learn four things: How to move from product market fit to Go-To-Market fit Why it’s liberating to say no to prospects That products don’t only need to do functionally what it says it does – more importantly - It needs to do it in a way it delights customers Why it’s not enough to just have a good story and a good message For more information about the guest from this week: Ilan Kasan Website See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power transform education by taking out bias. My guest is Claudia Rademaker, Co-founder Dugga Claudia has worked internationally with start-ups, scale-ups and international business development in various industries. She’s worked as Assistant Professor at Stockholm School of Economics and Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University. She did her doctoral thesis within consumer media behavior and communication effectiveness. After her dissertation, she was awarded the prestigious Wallander stipend from the Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius foundation, Handelsbanken. Her work in education inspired the foundation of Dugga in March 2015. Their mission: In every school, each child deserves equal opportunities and needs to be given the right to quality education.”  This inspired me, and hence I invited Claudia to my podcast. We explore what’s broken in today’s education system – where every single day individual students get still graded on other things than their actual performance. We assess where the problems originate from and how, by breaking the norms transformational value can be created – and what’s required to do that in a way that people keep talking about.  Here are some of her quotes: The passion is that you want to make a difference. My personal mission is that I want to make a difference in education. Help young individuals or pupils to obtain equal opportunities to learn and grow. We want to create solutions for teachers to obtain a better, but also a more honest and unbiased understanding of the skills, knowledge, and abilities of their students. No one should be graded based on his or her last name, skin color, or in class behavior. More importantly, no one with a special need should have less opportunities to learn and grow. One in five has some form of special need. If you think about that, if we stand still by that fact, then it is just unbelievable that we have come this far. I mean, can you then imagine the need in just one classroom? And this can be made possible with modern technology and pedagogy During this interview, you will learn four things: What value we can unlock when we take bias out of the process.  Why actively seeking to break the norms makes it so much easier to create something remarkable How, by ‘Thinking out Loud’ can help winthe heart of your most difficult and stubborn users and unlock your tipping point Why every team member should feel like a VIP for end-results For more information about the guest from this week: Claudia Rademaker Website  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to enable wholesale and manufacturing organizations to a build the same kind of relationships online as they’ve always done offline. My guest is Michiel Schipperus, CEO Sana Commerce Michiel has been working in e-commerce since 1999 when he joined ISM eGroup.  In the years following he consulted with many distributors and manufacturers on how to successfully set up an online sales channel. These lessons learned from more than 100 B2B e-commerce cases were used to develop the Sana Commerce  concept.  In 2011 Sana was founded. Since then Michiel is pursuing two missions simultaneously: 1. Helping companies worldwide achieve e-commerce success 2. Building a company culture people love and that enables them to be their best selves. This inspired me, and hence I invited Michiel to my podcast. We explore what’s broken in the market for e-commerce and why so many companies don’t achieve the e-commerce success they hope for. We dig deeper into the question what needs to be done differently from a product strategy standpoint to solve this global challenge. Lastly we discuss Michiel’s standpoint on what’s required to build a software business that turns customers into advocates in a way that’s highly scalable. Here are some of his quotes: We learned 10 years ago that that B2B was very different from B2C. The problem for these companies if they have this very special unique relationship with their customers and they put in place a B2C ecommerce platform, is that this platform is not supporting the nature of their relationships. They run into all kinds of issues with their customers. They don't see the adoption that they would like, because these customers, they go online, they try to order but they do not see the information that they're looking for, or the information is inaccurate. So, they will not use the ecommerce platform anymore. They'll just pick up the phone and revert back to their old way of working. If they're not able to make this transition with them, and service these customers online the same way to have been doing offline, well, that will definitely damage their business. During this interview, you will learn three things: Why what customers say they need, is often not what they want. And getting this wrong could severely undermine your competitiveness. That value differentiation starts with your foundation – and done well helps you can escape the competition on feature Why you have to be more strategic earlier in your journey – to avoid things just ‘happen to you’ - especially around your value proposition.  For more information about the guest from this week: Michiel Schipperus Sana Commerce See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to give every one of us the luxury of financial freedom. My guest is Sam Abrika, Co-founder and CEO of Cash Coach. He’s an engineer, contrarian, ex-banker, and now gamifying personal finance. After he achieved his Master of Science at the Paris Sud University and MBA, he started his career as a Risk & Analytics consultant at IBM.  Sam then moved to PWC, followed by UBS where he became Head of EMEA Liquidity and Funding Risk. Finally he moved to Mitsubishi UFG Securities where he designed new liquidity analytics which allowed to save $1Bn liquidity.   He then co-founded Cash Coach, a company that’s on a mission to gamify personal finance and make the world better at managing money and more fun for the millennial generation. This inspired me, and hence I invited Sam to my podcast. We explore what’s broken in the consumer world when it comes to financial health – and how most consumer technology companies are designing to make this worse, not better.  We dig into why there are not incentives to fix this, and what innovation opportunity that really brings. We also address why having a solution is not enough – and that changing user behavior is possibly the biggest challenge to crack. Lastly we explore what’s required to build a software business that’s worth making a remark about. Here are some of his quotes: The big idea is in nowadays in our economy, you either be in debt or wealth. And unfortunately, no education or university, no one is telling that to people. It doesn't tell them how to manage their money, how to live their life financially free.  And actually, it's even quite the opposite. The whole financial industry and the consumerism machine is trying to push people to consumerism for so that they buy stuff they don't need, with money they don't have, to impress people they don't like. We want to reverse that trend. We want people to feel actually rewarded when they have good behaviours; when they're saving; when they're building their wealth; when they're achieving financial freedom.  So the big idea is to make it a game. And we want people to compete against themselves, against the friend, to being better at saving. During this interview, you will learn three things: That a lot of innovation can be found by doing the opposite of what the industry aims to achieve That making black and white choices is key, even if that means you’re going side track millions and millions of users  Why going for some ‘extremely happy’ users is so much more valuable than to have everybody lukewarm How to uncover opportunities people don’t even know they have a problem around For more information about the guest from this week: Sam Abrika Cashcoach.io See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to make artificial intelligence accessible to any business. My guest is Dr. Tom Heseltine, CEO of Aurora AI Tom has been with Aurora for over 15 years, becoming CEO in 2016 and guiding Aurora’s transition from a face-rec centric company to a successful AI specialist. He has a deeply technical background, he mentors and tutors Aurora’s Core Technology team of PhDs in solving the most difficult challenges He has a PhD in Biometric Face Recognition from the University of York, UK, following his first-class honours degree in Computer Science. Tom introduced Deep Learning and AI to Aurora’s technology portfolio, establishing Aurora’s AI Framework and instigating a step-change in face recognition accuracy. This evolution is now creating a revolution in how some of the most complex and specific challenges are solved in record time. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Tom to my podcast. We explore why the accessibility to AI is still so limited and why the results are often far from what’s expected. We discuss the options to address this – and how this both a technological as well as a business problem. Finally we discuss Tom’s point of view and experience to create a remarkable software business. Here are some of his quotes: Solving problems. It's coming up with an idea, testing a hypothesis, creating a system that puts that into practice, and then particularly seeing it being used and doing good. That's what really drives me, I want to see good ideas, being used to solve really challenging problems. It's to make artificial intelligence accessible to any business AI needs no introduction these days. It really is fantastically powerful. But it's difficult to get right. It's expensive, and it requires real expertise. A lot of people are trying it and failing. And what we're trying to do is provide application specific API's designed for a business built to specific precise requirements by a team of experts, and seeing that right through to deployment. And we're trying to do that for companies that are otherwise missing out. During this interview, you will learn four things: How you can accelerate adoption of your software products by going beyond the feature /function challenge How by bringing different disciplines together you can crack the formula to produce something exceptional That being remarkable starts with having courage, courage to adopt and change, step into the unknown and get out of your comfort zone  That solving narrow and highly specific problems will be the key to create broadscale momentum For more information about the guest from this week: Dr. Tom Heseltine Aurora AI See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to protect each of us from wasting our life by being trapped in the wrong job within the wrong company. My guest is Nina Alag Suri, founder and CEO of X0pa. Nina is a geek at heart and an entrepreneur by choice. She grew up in India, close to Mumbai, the financial capital. She worked for large companies such as ICL and Steria but was always determined to be an entrepreneur.  In 1997 she started her first company in India - in HR Consulting, which she expanded across three regions - Europe, Asia Pac, and North America.  She was voted Female Business Personality of the year Singapore, The European Consultancy of the year, European World Finance- Entrepreneur of the Year, and the list goes on. Three years ago, she thought it's time to disrupt and pivot her own business before somebody else would disrupt it. That's how X0PA was formed. X0PA is on a mission to change the art of hiring and make sure that everybody is in the right space, in the right company, the right role in the right team.  This inspired me, and hence I invited Nina to my podcast. We explore how, even in today's highly automated world, people still get hired for the wrong reasons - and what's the cause of this. We address the complexity of the problem and that it goes far beyond just fixing inefficiencies.  We also explore the big lessons Nina learned on her entrepreneurial journey and what's required to create software products customers don't want to live without.  Here are some of her quotes: I studied engineering started my career as a in a tech role. And I said, Oh, my God, this is totally not for me, people is what excited me, you know, dealing with different people, diversity of people, the you know, the different colours of people. And I wanted to be in a people business The biggest thing that really kind of spoke to me was about the subjectivity in the in the nature of hiring, you know, we've had Industrial Revolution 1, 2, 3, 4 come and go. But hiring has still been a very, very subjective process. It leads to human bias human errors. These biases tend to kind of screen people out, rather than screen people in. And I thought it would be great to use technology to make something which is very objective, very fair. And most importantly, it finds the best match between employer and an employee. You spent a fair bit of your time, in fact, the majority of your time at work. And if you are not in the right place, and the right job, you know, you're wasting your life. By listening to this podcast, you will learn three things: That real value is delivered if we move from solving 'what is' to solving 'what might be'. How solving the recruitment problem in finding the perfect fit in relevance, future loyalty, and future performance provides an approach many software solutions could benefit from. Why software companies are better of when tech-entrepreneurs apply an 'all voices are heard' approach. For more information about the guest from this week: Nina Alag Suri Website See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices