S02E03 - Incremental Ideas Make Money with Thomas Storteboom

[00:00:00] Hallo Dreamers, thinkers en duizenden, welkom bij Ideate Florian. In dit moment we discovererden

[00:00:11] were good ideas komp from, wether het is voor een nieuwe feature product of company.

[00:00:16] Ik ben jouw hout Florian Hoornaar, voor over 25 jaar werk ik met kleine en medium-sized

[00:00:21] companies in engineering, sales en management.

[00:00:24] Durant de tijd, ik ben net met veel professionele zoveel te groen. Dat makes me

[00:00:28] om te gebruiken in de gegeven momenten met jouw, dus laten we het gaan.

[00:00:32] Episode 3

[00:00:35] Incremental ideas maken geld met Thomas Sotterong.

[00:00:38] In dit episode van de Ideate Florian podcast, we hebben er een proficial

[00:00:45] met een beest van een grote verantwoordige cooperatie.

[00:00:48] Deze vanaf de verantwoord, Thomas scherpt zijn in de

[00:00:52] de drijfing innovatie met in de kompans. We hebben het geleden en de

[00:00:56] energiën van de innovatie van de responsuele voor de innovatie met in de

[00:01:00] kompans, om de grootte, functieel en de dynamische. Thomas

[00:01:03] derde het in het both incremental en disruptief innovatie.

[00:01:06] Schelling Light on Why Incremental Innovation is most

[00:01:10] likely to yield success. Thomas discusses de

[00:01:12] culturel aspect van de volstrengen innovatie met een organisatie,

[00:01:16] totgengen op de need voor een shift in mindset en

[00:01:19] en interne processus.

[00:01:21] Voor het gevoelige conversatie van Thomas,

[00:01:24] een innovatie kooprote culture

[00:01:26] en de interkezies van te brengen

[00:01:28] om grondbrengen de idea te leven.

[00:01:34] Thomas, welkom, welkom te te zien.

[00:01:36] Thanks for it, it's great to be here.

[00:01:38] Today we're going to talk about innovation.

[00:01:40] Typically my background is more in smaller companies

[00:01:43] en startups,

[00:01:44] en dat is niet voor jouw expertise.

[00:01:47] Voor het gevoelige conversatie van Thomas,

[00:01:49] en mijn background is voor het gevoelige conversatie.

[00:01:51] En ik was in een woonbeord van de wereld.

[00:01:53] De meeste wereld werd gevoerd.

[00:01:55] De meeste wereld werd gevoerd om 35 jaar.

[00:01:57] Ik goudt op de behoorde gevoerd in een city called Dearborn,

[00:02:00] en dat was voor het gevoerd.

[00:02:02] Ik goudt op een behoorde historische home.

[00:02:04] Het was een deelde historische home

[00:02:06] en het gevoerd was de huis in 1920.

[00:02:09] Ik ging naar het Zuid-Hijschool.

[00:02:10] Our mascot was de Thunderbird.

[00:02:12] En ik kon een historische klasse,

[00:02:14] en die was in de prototype van de design.

[00:02:16] Dat was een heel groot meegekeven van de gevoerd.

[00:02:18] Ik had 10 jaar geleden gevoerd.

[00:02:20] Ik lovde er een minuut over.

[00:02:22] Maar dat was waar ik op de behoorde gevoerd in verbanding in corporate-america.

[00:02:25] Dat was een vaste, multiteindelijk beelden door de beelden van de Wereld.

[00:02:28] Dat was een verbeelden door de beelden van de beelden van de wereld.

[00:02:30] Dat was een verbeelden door de beelden van de beelden van de beelden van de beelden van de beelden.

[00:02:32] Dat was een verbeelde gevoerd.

[00:02:34] En ook innovatief.

[00:02:36] Ik denk dat we allebei en de zonbelen in het jaar

[00:02:40] is als een mascot van de innovation.

[00:02:42] We hebben een hele mooie verhaal.

[00:02:44] Ik ben heel erg eager om te zien op deze moment waar we het innovatie en we

[00:02:49] het ideatie en we starten nieuwe rekenkomen, want ik wil hier,

[00:02:55] uit te zien en dit is de verhaal, we kunnen hebben.

[00:02:57] Ik hoop dat we de oportunities voor de kleine kopen hebben.

[00:03:01] Hoe doen we de laagdekoppers innovatie?

[00:03:04] Hoe doen we het, wat we de trektjes voor het trait, wat zijn we goed dat en

[00:03:08] En misschien ook, waarom hoogt de bal en versie een oportuniteit voor smaller company?

[00:03:14] Dus kan je het begin van de stichtpaintepictuur?

[00:03:17] Like in everyday, vooral of wat je doet met een company?

[00:03:21] Ik help company's find better ideas in het leven.

[00:03:25] Ik ben inderpen in consultant.

[00:03:27] Ik werk met company's dat er stuggen om te groen door de innovation.

[00:03:30] Dat er gewoon bad idea zijn dat er in de market in is.

[00:03:34] en ze zijn er stuggevallen om de ideeën door hun procesen te maken en te te maken om te maken.

[00:03:39] Ik helpen de deuren die bestekken, maar het is een goed ideeën.

[00:03:43] En dan te leren van de zateringen dat de consumers en de deuren die er in zijn leven zijn.

[00:03:48] Dat is mijn sweet spot.

[00:03:49] Ik werk in innovatie en strategie.

[00:03:52] Ik help met brainstorming, ik doe een innovatie en training.

[00:03:55] Dat is de meeneere is dat ik dit geeft.

[00:03:58] Wat organisatie is die we typisch consult met?

[00:04:01] Dat is een hele grote company, het is best leuk, omdat de meeste in de

[00:04:04] meer dan een milie in de dollar is, maar nu focus ik op

[00:04:07] de mooie company, ik heb dat geval om het te helpen, ik kan er

[00:04:12] heel veel valueren.

[00:04:13] Het is een ruimte, veel mensen die niet hebben de expertise

[00:04:16] dat een van de deel van de andere company hebben.

[00:04:17] Dus ik denk dat ik over 20 jaar in Corpor America en

[00:04:21] de kleine company van de kleine ingeving heb.

[00:04:23] Wat kinderorganisation is dat?

[00:04:25] We hebben het gezet dat ten mensen in een company honderd

[00:04:28] wat een kleine jeugd is.

[00:04:29] Ja, het is honderd.

[00:04:30] Dus het is 10-100, het is niet 1000, het is 10-1000.

[00:04:35] Het is 10-10 mensen, 200 mensen.

[00:04:38] Some of them don't even have an innovation group or a product group.

[00:04:41] Some of them do that they just need some help

[00:04:44] or some guidance, or some extra strategy.

[00:04:46] Usually sweet spots, let's call it 10-100 million dollar in revenue.

[00:04:51] We can go larger but that's kind of the sweet spot.

[00:04:54] OK.

[00:04:55] So in this smaller company, typically I mean,

[00:04:57] I really talk about the startup here.

[00:04:59] You meet and speak to the CEO, the chief product officer,

[00:05:03] the CTO, the founders at least.

[00:05:06] So in my mind, bigger companies, you call them smaller.

[00:05:10] We're talking about tens of people, hundreds of people.

[00:05:13] It's relative, it's all relative, right?

[00:05:15] Yeah, it's all relative, it's a matter of perspective.

[00:05:17] So in those companies who have grown out of this startup phase,

[00:05:21] who's responsible for innovation there?

[00:05:24] So for me, it all starts with the president or the CEO.

[00:05:28] It's the same people.

[00:05:29] Right, because if the president or the CEO isn't behind it,

[00:05:31] it's not going to happen.

[00:05:32] And here's the reason for it.

[00:05:34] And this is what I've learned in big companies.

[00:05:36] Is innovation is an all-skate and everybody has to participate.

[00:05:40] It's not an option.

[00:05:41] So we can't put innovation in one group

[00:05:44] and hope the company's going to be innovative.

[00:05:46] The whole company needs to be innovative.

[00:05:48] And so when we're looking at evaluating and developing

[00:05:51] and bringing ideas to life, everybody's going to be involved.

[00:05:53] Sales, marketing, finance, manufacturing, operations.

[00:05:57] They all need to be a part of it.

[00:05:58] So if that president is not focused or the CEO is not focused

[00:06:02] on being innovative, the company's not going to follow.

[00:06:05] And you can't put innovation in one group

[00:06:07] and hope that it gets through when you get something new out of it

[00:06:10] because that's just not the way it works.

[00:06:12] It's everybody has to play together.

[00:06:14] Everybody has to come together to get the idea done.

[00:06:17] And they need to be along for the journey.

[00:06:18] They need to be along that whole process.

[00:06:21] Now they have different roles to play in different amounts of time.

[00:06:23] But if they're not involved in the whole process, it breaks down.

[00:06:26] And I see that time and time again.

[00:06:28] So to me, innovation starts at the top.

[00:06:30] So there's another finance team and an HR team

[00:06:32] and a product delivery team and an innovation team

[00:06:35] that's not how it works.

[00:06:37] Yeah, there's a team that can lead innovation.

[00:06:39] But if I come in and they tell me, there's the innovation team

[00:06:42] but they don't interact with anybody

[00:06:43] and they're not bringing in the finance team

[00:06:45] and they're not bringing in accounting or sales

[00:06:47] or marketing or operations, then that's the problem.

[00:06:50] You can have somebody who's in charge of it and leading it

[00:06:53] but if they're not working cross functionally, it will break down.

[00:06:56] I guess that's the same in a really small company as well.

[00:06:59] It's a team effort.

[00:07:01] You need to have all the disciplines

[00:07:03] and all the skill sets from technical skills

[00:07:07] to marketing skills, from finance skills.

[00:07:09] You need to combine them.

[00:07:10] So that doesn't change a company size.

[00:07:14] No, it doesn't.

[00:07:15] For an example, I joined a company once

[00:07:17] and they had a brand new product

[00:07:19] that the engineers had developed.

[00:07:22] So the engineers had gone off and developed this great product.

[00:07:24] They were part of the marketing team at this company

[00:07:26] and they developed a marketing launch

[00:07:28] and they had honestly they had made cookies

[00:07:31] to announce this new product within the company.

[00:07:33] So this thing is pardoned upon but it was well baked.

[00:07:37] This product was done and ready to go.

[00:07:40] And then they showed it to the operations team.

[00:07:42] Right.

[00:07:43] They had done all this work gotten it already.

[00:07:45] Then they showed it to operations and operations

[00:07:46] and said, well, it doesn't work in our equipment.

[00:07:48] We can't do it.

[00:07:49] And it died.

[00:07:51] Multi-million dollar investment in this new product

[00:07:54] died because they hadn't bothered to talk

[00:07:56] to the people who were going to live with the product

[00:07:58] on a day-to-day basis.

[00:08:00] And so that's the thing you really want to avoid.

[00:08:02] Everybody's got to come along for the journey.

[00:08:04] Everybody's got to have a part in the story.

[00:08:08] So when it gets their role to take it over to manage it,

[00:08:11] they've already bought into it.

[00:08:13] And that's the beauty of working

[00:08:15] doing innovation cross-functionally.

[00:08:16] Otherwise you're fighting an uphill stream,

[00:08:18] trying to get every new department

[00:08:20] to accept your idea.

[00:08:21] And it's just a battle and you can't get things

[00:08:25] out the door that way.

[00:08:26] So if we would keep a list of the problems

[00:08:29] that logic corporations struggle with innovation,

[00:08:32] is this like a number one

[00:08:33] that you have to do with cross boundaries,

[00:08:35] cross functional cross teams?

[00:08:37] And that's hard by itself.

[00:08:39] Yeah, that is one of the hardest things.

[00:08:42] And it is one of the top things that I see.

[00:08:44] And part of the problem is the companies,

[00:08:47] certainly as you get bigger,

[00:08:49] the companies start to incentivize

[00:08:51] the different departments to do their own thing.

[00:08:54] So think about if I'm the manufacturing team,

[00:08:56] I'm running the manufacturing team.

[00:08:57] Well, the incentive or the metric

[00:09:00] I'm going to get for the year

[00:09:02] is going to be to reduce costs by 10%.

[00:09:05] So I am focused on that.

[00:09:07] Well, you're the innovation team now comes over and says,

[00:09:09] hey, I want to do this new thing that's going to cost money.

[00:09:11] Well, I don't want to hear about it

[00:09:12] because that goes against what I'm getting paid to do.

[00:09:15] Right.

[00:09:15] And my bonus and all my incentive is

[00:09:18] to make everything cost less.

[00:09:20] Your new widget is really cool,

[00:09:22] but it's going to slow me down

[00:09:23] because I haven't been doing it for 10 years.

[00:09:25] I got to source all new parts technology

[00:09:27] that I haven't been buying in bulk

[00:09:29] that I can't get cheap.

[00:09:30] Right?

[00:09:31] I mean, there's all these things

[00:09:32] I got to add labor because your process isn't refined.

[00:09:34] So the incentives, naturally within corporations,

[00:09:38] start to split teams apart

[00:09:40] because they start to focus in on doing their own thing.

[00:09:44] And that's what drives the division.

[00:09:45] So if you're not bringing those folks in very early

[00:09:49] and getting buy-in,

[00:09:50] you've got to break all of those hurdles

[00:09:52] as the innovation team every time you go talk to somebody else.

[00:09:55] I mean, the sales teams the same way.

[00:09:56] Their sales incentives are set up based on volume and revenue.

[00:10:00] And you come and say, hey, I got this new product.

[00:10:02] Yeah, we hope it will be 2% of revenue next year.

[00:10:04] Nobody in sales wants to talk to you.

[00:10:06] I mean, it doesn't help them hit their bonuses.

[00:10:09] They don't have a funnel yet for the new product,

[00:10:11] but they still need to hit their sales column, right?

[00:10:14] Yeah, so why spend time on that

[00:10:16] or spend time on the big thing

[00:10:18] that already makes all the money

[00:10:19] and I already have a row of decks of 500 people

[00:10:21] I can call to sell more of those.

[00:10:23] Right.

[00:10:24] So that's where the big companies start to struggle

[00:10:26] is that cross-functional dynamic.

[00:10:29] You know, they see innovation as a thing.

[00:10:31] We have an innovation team.

[00:10:32] The innovation team is doing their thing.

[00:10:33] Great. We're now in a bit.

[00:10:34] So the last organization that I have worked for was

[00:10:37] we were three and a half thousand people.

[00:10:39] And after that, I think the max was about 100.

[00:10:42] So that's my experience.

[00:10:45] I always look in awe at the sheer unlimited budgets,

[00:10:50] unlimited manpower that corporates have.

[00:10:54] Am I looking at corporates in a do-rozy way?

[00:10:57] So in response to that, I would say like when I was at Ford,

[00:10:59] one of my key memories of my 10 years Ford was

[00:11:02] they had all the toys.

[00:11:04] Like they did have all the toys.

[00:11:05] So they have all of the resources to do great things.

[00:11:09] And I think that's why you can see large corporations

[00:11:12] really good at incremental innovation

[00:11:15] because they got the, they can get the process down

[00:11:18] to refining and adding features and changing

[00:11:22] and incrementally doing new things

[00:11:24] because they can research and study it

[00:11:27] and dive into it better than anybody else.

[00:11:30] And then incremental, incremental

[00:11:32] innovation that is like we built this widget

[00:11:35] and now we're getting better at building that widget.

[00:11:38] Right?

[00:11:39] Exactly.

[00:11:40] So incrementally step by step driving down costs

[00:11:43] and improving quality.

[00:11:44] Okay, yeah.

[00:11:45] So let's talk about incremental innovation

[00:11:47] a little bit with an example that everybody can use.

[00:11:49] So we're up to the iPhone 15 now

[00:11:52] and if you think about that's 15 versions of the iPhone

[00:11:55] and again, it just holds true for the Android phones

[00:11:58] or whatever platform phone you want to use.

[00:12:00] It's an incremental innovation from iPhone 1 to 15.

[00:12:03] Fundamentally we haven't disrupted the smartphone market

[00:12:06] since the smartphone came out.

[00:12:08] The smartphone was a disruption

[00:12:09] but the next 15 years have not been disruptions

[00:12:13] but it has been improved so much

[00:12:16] that you would not want to use an iPhone

[00:12:18] from 10 years ago anymore.

[00:12:20] So if you think about all the incremental innovations

[00:12:22] that Apple did to get us from one to 15,

[00:12:25] along the way it's become such a better product

[00:12:28] that you don't want to go backwards

[00:12:29] and that's when we start talking about incremental innovation.

[00:12:32] That's what we're talking about.

[00:12:33] Similarly, if we go back to Ford

[00:12:34] because I love the auto industry,

[00:12:36] you don't really want a car from 30 years ago

[00:12:39] in terms of horsepower convenience,

[00:12:41] connectivity for your technology, fuel mileage, safety,

[00:12:45] it's just not a car you want to drive

[00:12:47] and that's all incremental innovation

[00:12:50] and again, Henry Ford was disruptive to the marketplace.

[00:12:54] He didn't invent the car

[00:12:55] but his manufacturing processes were disruptive

[00:12:58] in a way that he could offer more people cars

[00:13:00] so they could get off of horses

[00:13:02] which is a huge disruption, right?

[00:13:04] To leave horses to get to cars

[00:13:06] but if we think about that, the next 100 years

[00:13:09] because Ford is well over a 100 year old company at this point

[00:13:12] has all been incremental innovation.

[00:13:14] So there's a, I'm wandering from your topic here a little bit

[00:13:17] but there's a ton of money to be made

[00:13:19] in incremental innovation versus the disruption.

[00:13:22] The disruption happens once

[00:13:24] but Ford has made, I mean, I don't know

[00:13:26] how many billions of dollars, maybe trillions of dollars

[00:13:29] over the next 100 years incrementally innovating

[00:13:31] and offering the customer a better product

[00:13:34] within the same product category.

[00:13:36] Right, and now you're nailing the topic of the show, I think,

[00:13:40] is that going from iPhone 1 to iPhone 15

[00:13:44] is incremental.

[00:13:46] Now you increment from one to two, from two to three, et cetera

[00:13:49] but the other type of innovation

[00:13:51] that you mentioned is disruptive innovation

[00:13:53] and that's where you go from zero to one

[00:13:55] and it's at this point, it's really hard

[00:13:57] to not mention Peter Teels book from zero to one

[00:14:00] which I think is an excellent book

[00:14:02] and the other book that we can also mention here

[00:14:05] when we talk about disruptive versus incremental

[00:14:08] is the innovators dilemma.

[00:14:10] We're not gonna talk too much about that

[00:14:11] because that's a different author

[00:14:13] but the theme and the terms are clear, right?

[00:14:17] Disruptive, go from zero to one,

[00:14:19] incremental from one to 15

[00:14:22] and what he'll say is that large cooperatives

[00:14:24] they are better equipped

[00:14:27] to go incremental than disruptive

[00:14:29] or maybe even they are from naturally inclined

[00:14:34] to do incremental setup disruptive.

[00:14:36] I would also add they are probably,

[00:14:38] so I grew both those but I would also add

[00:14:40] they're incentivized to do incremental.

[00:14:42] Right.

[00:14:43] So it goes back to the conversation we had earlier

[00:14:45] once you get going on a certain product

[00:14:48] each organization is incentivized around that product,

[00:14:50] the CEO becomes incentivized around that product.

[00:14:53] Again, I have a product that's making millions

[00:14:56] or hundreds of millions of dollars in a marketplace.

[00:14:58] I'm gonna spend my time there

[00:15:00] as opposed to spending my time on this thing

[00:15:02] that's zero to one.

[00:15:03] There's a whole lot more money to be made

[00:15:05] in their mind at the moment

[00:15:07] in the current product,

[00:15:09] the large product that they have on offer

[00:15:11] than there is on the disruptive innovation

[00:15:13] that again if they only sell one or two of next year, right?

[00:15:17] It's not even in the same category.

[00:15:18] So there's an incentive that gets built

[00:15:20] around the key product categories

[00:15:23] which is one of the reasons it's harder

[00:15:26] for big companies to disrupt themselves.

[00:15:29] Incramentally they have all the experts

[00:15:31] they can buy all the toys, they can do all the research

[00:15:34] and you can justify all kinds of spending

[00:15:37] to incrementally make something better next year

[00:15:40] because it's very easy.

[00:15:40] There's a direct ROI and you can see it.

[00:15:43] Right, and then where you mentioned time

[00:15:45] you have to mention, I guess in my mind

[00:15:47] I think immediately short term long term.

[00:15:50] Right?

[00:15:50] So in the short term you can make more money

[00:15:52] in incremental small steps

[00:15:55] and this doesn't mean

[00:15:56] and I'm filling in blanks here

[00:15:58] that in the long term disruptive

[00:16:00] would give you more proceeds?

[00:16:02] So disruptives give somebody new

[00:16:04] an entrance into the marketplace

[00:16:07] to restart that incremental curve over

[00:16:10] if that makes sense.

[00:16:11] So once you have a disruption

[00:16:12] that whole, who's going to make money

[00:16:14] off the incremental start over?

[00:16:16] So Apple introduced the smartphone

[00:16:19] but there's been a whole bunch of other people

[00:16:20] that have incremented the Android phones

[00:16:22] and so forth.

[00:16:23] Samsung's made a ton of money

[00:16:25] off of Apple's disruption.

[00:16:27] It's not just the person who does the disruption

[00:16:29] but then everybody has to chase each other

[00:16:31] to keep up on the incremental scale

[00:16:33] or you get left behind.

[00:16:34] So if I'm mining a current project

[00:16:37] and I think the right term is to you have a cash cow

[00:16:40] that you're caching out.

[00:16:42] You get this cash cow

[00:16:43] just this project that is generating money.

[00:16:45] That makes sense to do that

[00:16:47] but then you also know that the cash cow

[00:16:49] will one day die off

[00:16:52] and then you need a next cow

[00:16:53] and to get that next cow

[00:16:55] you would need disruptive innovation

[00:16:57] but that is long term

[00:16:59] and companies by themselves

[00:17:01] through their shareholders

[00:17:03] they are incentivized for the short term.

[00:17:04] Are we on to something here?

[00:17:06] Absolutely, you are completely on to something

[00:17:09] and it goes back to that zero to one.

[00:17:11] Going from zero to one

[00:17:12] there's not as much money as the cash cow

[00:17:14] so what gets my time,

[00:17:15] what gets my intention,

[00:17:16] where am I being incentivized?

[00:17:18] All of those things are leading us

[00:17:19] to keep the cash cow going

[00:17:22] and not come up with the disruption

[00:17:24] the new disruptive innovation

[00:17:25] which is why a lot of times

[00:17:26] disruptions happen outside of companies.

[00:17:29] I mean you can go back to Kodak

[00:17:30] the film company.

[00:17:31] I mean they had the patents

[00:17:33] for the digital camera long before it was released

[00:17:37] but they were so focused on the cash cow

[00:17:38] and the quality was so much different

[00:17:40] they couldn't see people adopting to the digital.

[00:17:44] Right.

[00:17:45] And they got left behind

[00:17:45] because even though they had it

[00:17:48] the cash cow was so much bigger

[00:17:49] and so much more important in the moment

[00:17:52] they couldn't see this product being a disruption.

[00:17:57] And are there companies on the other side

[00:17:59] corporates who actually

[00:18:01] did take a more disruptive innovation?

[00:18:03] I'm thinking about Netflix for instance

[00:18:06] is that a good example?

[00:18:07] All right so let's talk about companies

[00:18:09] that have disrupted themselves, large companies.

[00:18:12] So Netflix itself was a disruption

[00:18:14] to Blockbuster.

[00:18:15] A lot of people give them credit

[00:18:16] for being a disruption

[00:18:17] because they went to mailing versus in store.

[00:18:22] One of the biggest things Netflix actually disrupted

[00:18:25] that Blockbuster couldn't get over

[00:18:27] was Netflix eliminated late fees

[00:18:30] and people don't talk about that a lot

[00:18:32] but that is actually a huge customer pain point

[00:18:34] that Blockbuster had

[00:18:35] that Netflix eliminated.

[00:18:37] And I think I'm gonna get the number right

[00:18:39] I think it was somewhere between 10 to 20%

[00:18:41] of Blockbuster's revenue was late fees

[00:18:43] and they had the opportunity

[00:18:45] to buy Netflix very, very early on

[00:18:47] and didn't.

[00:18:48] I think it was like for 50 million

[00:18:49] they could have bought Netflix for 50 million early on

[00:18:52] and did not buy them.

[00:18:53] Partly because they were so stuck

[00:18:55] on this cash cow of late fees.

[00:18:57] Now Netflix offered a different level of convenience

[00:19:00] to sell, I was an early Netflix adopter myself

[00:19:02] to some extent it was less convenient

[00:19:05] than Blockbuster

[00:19:06] because I had to wait a couple days

[00:19:07] to get the movie I wanted

[00:19:08] and I had to think ahead of as opposed to,

[00:19:11] oh I'm just gonna go grab a movie

[00:19:12] but the late fee thing was such a big deal.

[00:19:15] It was one of the reasons they gained a lot of traction.

[00:19:17] Now it's going back to companies

[00:19:19] that disrupted themselves.

[00:19:20] Netflix has done a good job of that

[00:19:21] by moving from the mailing

[00:19:24] and sending out DVDs to moving

[00:19:25] into the on-demand video streaming

[00:19:28] and so that is a company

[00:19:29] that has done a disruption on itself

[00:19:31] and fundamentally changed kind of who they are

[00:19:34] but they themselves were the disruption to begin with.

[00:19:36] So let's say that I'm the CEO

[00:19:38] of a large corporation, I see the market,

[00:19:41] I see my company,

[00:19:42] I know exactly what we're doing.

[00:19:43] We're milking the cash cow.

[00:19:45] I also see that my cash cow

[00:19:46] is at the end of the product life cycle.

[00:19:49] I need a next thing.

[00:19:50] I come to you as I Thomas help me do disruption

[00:19:54] but it's the plan.

[00:19:55] What's the step number one, two, three, four?

[00:19:57] How does that work?

[00:19:58] Yeah so if you're gonna take on

[00:20:01] and try to disrupt yourself,

[00:20:03] it's a really big challenge.

[00:20:04] So when we talked about innovation before

[00:20:06] I said big corporations

[00:20:08] we gotta be cross-functional.

[00:20:08] Everybody needs a cross-functional

[00:20:10] to get things out the door.

[00:20:11] When you start talking about disruption

[00:20:13] it's you almost need to pull it out.

[00:20:15] Like it almost needs to be a separate entity

[00:20:17] for all the reasons we just talked about.

[00:20:19] If you come up with an idea

[00:20:21] you think is gonna disrupt your cash cow.

[00:20:23] You need to start incentivizing people

[00:20:24] like a startup.

[00:20:25] So this is where it starts,

[00:20:26] you need to start putting that startup mentality

[00:20:28] within the corporation.

[00:20:30] So you need to incentivize people

[00:20:32] to get this new disruption out the door.

[00:20:35] They need to spend 100% of their time on it.

[00:20:37] They need to be totally focused on the customer

[00:20:40] and relentless on that particular customer

[00:20:42] who's gonna help them disrupt the market.

[00:20:45] And when we talked about the barriers earlier

[00:20:48] it was time, it's incentives,

[00:20:50] it's all those kind of things

[00:20:53] that need to be changed

[00:20:54] for a group of people

[00:20:55] to get that disruption into the marketplace

[00:20:57] and that's where big companies really struggle with it

[00:21:00] is because they don't incentivize people

[00:21:02] to bring the disruption out.

[00:21:04] It starts to compete with a cash cow

[00:21:06] and it will never win.

[00:21:08] So we can come up with the big ideas.

[00:21:10] I think when we talk about,

[00:21:11] I think this might be interesting for your listeners too.

[00:21:13] If you wanna come up with a disruptive idea

[00:21:15] one of the easiest places to start

[00:21:18] is finding out customers' pain points

[00:21:21] with the existing product.

[00:21:22] So if you can start to eliminate pain points

[00:21:24] with either the product or the business model

[00:21:26] or the service, now you're on to something.

[00:21:29] Figure out what the number one customer problem is

[00:21:31] and go after that.

[00:21:33] Right.

[00:21:34] Know is it how do I pay, is it how do I get it,

[00:21:35] is it how do I receive it, how do I consume it?

[00:21:38] If you can challenge that

[00:21:39] you've got an idea for a disruption.

[00:21:41] Then if you're talking about being in a big company

[00:21:44] you need people who wake up

[00:21:45] and are focused every day,

[00:21:47] 100% of their day is how to make that thing succeed

[00:21:50] because that's what the startup mentality is.

[00:21:51] I mean those are, right?

[00:21:53] If you're in a startup

[00:21:54] that's what you're doing every day.

[00:21:55] You're waking up every day,

[00:21:56] every day's a do-or-die,

[00:21:57] I have to make this work

[00:21:59] so that it can get out there.

[00:22:01] And you need,

[00:22:02] that's hard to get in a corporate environment

[00:22:04] where things compete with a cash cat

[00:22:05] which is why I say when you start to do disruption

[00:22:07] in a large corporation needs to be separate.

[00:22:09] Right.

[00:22:10] That's also what Clayton Christianson

[00:22:12] the author of Innovators Lemma says

[00:22:14] that it needs to be a separate entity

[00:22:16] either on it exists and you buy it

[00:22:19] or you set it up.

[00:22:20] I think that's also in line

[00:22:22] with what Steve Jobs once said is that

[00:22:24] you have to start with the customer in mind

[00:22:27] and you can't say,

[00:22:28] okay this is what we invented

[00:22:30] and this is some new technology.

[00:22:31] How can we bring that to the customer?

[00:22:34] Now you have to start with the customer

[00:22:35] and then think back from there

[00:22:38] like what do we need to build

[00:22:39] to actually deliver value to them

[00:22:42] and that is not gonna happen

[00:22:44] within an existing structure.

[00:22:46] So is this also where the word entrepreneur comes from?

[00:22:49] Entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs?

[00:22:51] Yeah, from trying to do on the inside.

[00:22:53] So what's your experience with entrepreneurs?

[00:22:55] What kind of people are those?

[00:22:56] They are one relentless.

[00:23:00] Okay, they need to be,

[00:23:02] because there's a lot of corporate inertia

[00:23:05] that they're fighting against typically.

[00:23:07] They definitely can see a vision

[00:23:09] that other people don't see

[00:23:11] but they also have to be able to lead people to that vision

[00:23:14] and they have to be very good at bringing people along.

[00:23:18] So not only sharing the vision

[00:23:19] but bringing people along that journey

[00:23:21] and bringing them along on that story

[00:23:24] to help get the thing out the door.

[00:23:25] The future of work is flexible.

[00:23:29] If you are being mandated to return to the office fear not,

[00:23:34] there are things that you can do

[00:23:36] to create flexibility for yourself

[00:23:39] and there are things that you can do

[00:23:41] to prepare for the inevitable flexibility

[00:23:44] that is coming your way.

[00:23:46] Colleagues, I think you're right.

[00:23:48] The inevitable flexibility that is coming your way.

[00:23:51] Collaboration Superpowers helps people and companies

[00:23:55] work better together from anywhere

[00:23:58] and we've got a free remote working success kit

[00:24:01] to get you started

[00:24:02] from personal user manuals to team agreements,

[00:24:05] virtual icebreakers

[00:24:06] and more, download the remote working success kit

[00:24:10] at collaborationsuperpowers.com.

[00:24:13] We'll see you online.

[00:24:17] What I think of entrepreneurs,

[00:24:19] I always think about disruption

[00:24:21] and I think of people who just go to brick walls

[00:24:24] but what I hear from you now

[00:24:26] is that they're more diplomats.

[00:24:27] There's some that are just rogue

[00:24:29] that run through every brick wall

[00:24:31] and believe that just wild by nature

[00:24:34] in terms of their ideas

[00:24:35] and what they want to come up with which is great.

[00:24:37] But if they want to actually succeed,

[00:24:39] then you've got to play within the system

[00:24:41] to some extent or play around the system

[00:24:43] within the company

[00:24:44] and you're still dealing with everybody else in the company.

[00:24:50] And so you can't go totally rogue

[00:24:52] and totally on your own

[00:24:53] but you can do things that are different

[00:24:55] within the system that make people

[00:24:57] that change the way things happen.

[00:24:59] That's really working a tightrope

[00:25:01] because your task is like,

[00:25:03] okay, go do something new

[00:25:04] but don't forget they have to do it within our structure.

[00:25:07] Is that a fair representation?

[00:25:09] Well, you've got to do something new

[00:25:11] but you can cheat the structure.

[00:25:12] So I'll give you an example.

[00:25:13] So this is a very small example

[00:25:15] but at one point I was in charge

[00:25:17] of changing the culture in a company

[00:25:19] and making it more innovative.

[00:25:20] And so we decided we were gonna do some,

[00:25:23] let's call them iconic things

[00:25:24] and just do things people would remember.

[00:25:26] We're just gonna do some things people

[00:25:28] and we were doing a lot of innovation training

[00:25:29] within the company at that time.

[00:25:31] You know, we trained over 500 people

[00:25:32] in the company on innovation

[00:25:34] and one of the things we wanted to do

[00:25:35] was rather than give them a handout

[00:25:36] at the end of the training,

[00:25:37] we wanted to have an app.

[00:25:39] Okay.

[00:25:39] So I mean, this was early days we're talking,

[00:25:41] I don't know, 15 years ago,

[00:25:43] maybe somewhere around 10 to 15 years ago.

[00:25:45] And I hired a kid out of college who was a summer intern

[00:25:49] and he wanted to learn how to make apps

[00:25:52] and I said, look, I need an app.

[00:25:53] So I paid him a couple grand as an intern

[00:25:55] to create this app

[00:25:56] and it was just basically a story card app.

[00:25:58] You flipped them and it gave you new information.

[00:26:00] That was the whole app.

[00:26:01] Okay.

[00:26:01] But the IT department told me it was gonna be $80,000

[00:26:04] right to do the app.

[00:26:05] They didn't have an app

[00:26:07] and today it was gonna be six months.

[00:26:09] Well, this kid knocked one out for us in like,

[00:26:11] I don't know, is it like six weeks?

[00:26:13] I think because again, so simple he would learn in

[00:26:16] and then we figured out,

[00:26:17] he talked to some people behind the scenes in IT

[00:26:19] and we figured out how to kind of bootleg it

[00:26:20] through the system so that people could download this app.

[00:26:23] I mean, I got an all kinds of trouble for it.

[00:26:26] Like let's be honest.

[00:26:27] But at the end of the day,

[00:26:28] everybody was really impressed

[00:26:30] and we started to,

[00:26:31] the company started going,

[00:26:32] oh these apps are our real thing

[00:26:33] we should get into apps like we need to develop our own.

[00:26:37] All because yeah, we operate it within the system

[00:26:39] but kind of next to the system

[00:26:41] we went around it where we couldn't work with it

[00:26:43] if that makes sense.

[00:26:44] That makes sense, yeah.

[00:26:45] So it's a little bit of knowing

[00:26:47] and being able to play with the system

[00:26:49] but play around the system

[00:26:50] where you get stuck.

[00:26:52] So when you build an app for $10,000 instead of $80,000

[00:26:58] that the IT department quoted,

[00:27:01] you gotta get some corners.

[00:27:02] I can also imagine that

[00:27:04] not everyone's gonna be happy with it

[00:27:06] because they'll be ridiculed.

[00:27:08] Like, oh you need $80,000 for it.

[00:27:11] How can you, you know?

[00:27:13] Okay, okay, look at this guy

[00:27:15] doing a way better job than you.

[00:27:16] How does that work?

[00:27:18] Just in general corporate

[00:27:19] not not the specific incident

[00:27:21] of course don't want to focus on that but like in general.

[00:27:24] Here's key to that.

[00:27:25] I had air cover.

[00:27:26] If you're gonna have an entrepreneur in a company

[00:27:29] you've got to give them air cover

[00:27:31] to do new and different things.

[00:27:33] Did I take some heat?

[00:27:34] Absolutely, I took some heat.

[00:27:35] But at the end of the day was

[00:27:37] I worried about my job.

[00:27:38] No because my boss loved the fact

[00:27:41] that I was challenging the organization.

[00:27:43] And you've gotta have the air cover to do it.

[00:27:47] So whatever level you are at as an entrepreneur

[00:27:50] you've gotta have somebody above you saying,

[00:27:53] I want you to go push buttons and change things.

[00:27:56] That is absolutely huge.

[00:27:58] You could try to be an entrepreneur on your own

[00:27:59] but I think people will get sick of you

[00:28:01] because you're just always messing things up

[00:28:03] and you're always doing things differently.

[00:28:05] But if you've got some air cover

[00:28:07] and somebody above you sees the need to change

[00:28:11] then you have a lot of freedom

[00:28:13] to go do new and different things.

[00:28:15] So take over years also

[00:28:17] if you're gonna be an entrepreneur in a corporate

[00:28:19] don't expect that you're gonna make

[00:28:21] a lot of friends immediately.

[00:28:23] No, you'll get a lot of attention

[00:28:25] and a lot of people will be interested

[00:28:26] in what you're doing

[00:28:28] because people naturally wanna know

[00:28:30] what the future looks like.

[00:28:31] And so if you're the one who is out there

[00:28:34] working on the future all the time

[00:28:36] it's very interesting to people

[00:28:37] but you will upset some people

[00:28:40] and you've gotta be good.

[00:28:41] You gotta fix it.

[00:28:43] You gotta be resilient

[00:28:44] but you need air cover

[00:28:45] because if you do it without air cover

[00:28:46] then you're just kind of the jerk

[00:28:47] in the company telling everybody

[00:28:49] to do things differently.

[00:28:50] Right, yeah, this is rogue element

[00:28:52] that needs to be eliminated.

[00:28:54] You're just virus

[00:28:55] and that is invading the body

[00:28:57] and the body of the kid rate of naturally.

[00:29:00] Yeah.

[00:29:00] No, you still take heat.

[00:29:01] I still screw things up.

[00:29:02] Other entrepreneurs are gonna screw things up

[00:29:04] because then you're trying things

[00:29:05] in a system that's not used to somebody

[00:29:07] trying things, you're failing at something

[00:29:10] and so you've gotta be willing

[00:29:11] to fail in front of people and go.

[00:29:13] That didn't work.

[00:29:14] We'll never do it again

[00:29:16] or unless we only come back

[00:29:18] so let's go over here now.

[00:29:19] And so there's a lot of that

[00:29:21] that again I think it's a lot

[00:29:23] probably similar to the startup world

[00:29:25] but you're just doing it

[00:29:27] with a lot of headwind

[00:29:28] and the headwind isn't

[00:29:30] I don't have resources

[00:29:31] or I don't have people.

[00:29:32] It's the rest of the company

[00:29:33] who wants to squish me out

[00:29:35] to some extent.

[00:29:36] So there's different challenges

[00:29:38] but similar I think mindsets.

[00:29:40] Yeah, you're tearing down walls

[00:29:41] that all the people put up there for a reason

[00:29:44] or that have been there for decades.

[00:29:47] Nobody knows where they're there

[00:29:48] but they used to,

[00:29:49] they're being a wall now

[00:29:50] and you're tearing down that wall.

[00:29:52] Yeah and sometimes that wall is their safety net.

[00:29:54] Right and that's where you need to diplomacy

[00:29:56] you know, you don't diplomatic skills

[00:29:58] of being able to work with a lot of people

[00:30:01] and having that air cover

[00:30:02] from high repressing

[00:30:03] and out this guy's actually he's doing

[00:30:05] I'm gonna take the heat for him a bit.

[00:30:08] Yeah, I launched a new product

[00:30:10] within a company

[00:30:11] that had been around for 20 years

[00:30:12] and never launched a new product.

[00:30:14] So I launched the second product

[00:30:15] in a company's 20 year history.

[00:30:17] Okay, let's talk about it.

[00:30:19] They gave me 10 months to do it.

[00:30:21] Are they been around for 20 years?

[00:30:23] They had been in this country for 20 years

[00:30:25] and hadn't they have one product.

[00:30:27] Okay.

[00:30:28] And it's actually a billion dollar company.

[00:30:29] Okay.

[00:30:30] It's fantastic.

[00:30:31] Chep palates in the US.

[00:30:33] It's a multi billion dollar global company.

[00:30:35] In the US, they manage 70 to 80 million

[00:30:39] or at least when I was there, 70 to 80 million palates

[00:30:41] in the US, they rent them pool them

[00:30:43] and they collect money on them

[00:30:45] and they're in the US system all the time.

[00:30:47] There's a global company

[00:30:47] but in the US we're talking about

[00:30:48] a billion dollar business

[00:30:50] they had been in the US for 20 years.

[00:30:51] And we talk about the wood pellets, right?

[00:30:53] That you use for trucks

[00:30:55] that you transport stuff on them.

[00:30:57] Yes, you can see them at Walmart

[00:30:59] your big home good stores like Home Depot,

[00:31:02] the big warehouses, those kind of stores.

[00:31:04] So they wanted to come out with a new product.

[00:31:07] They had 70 million of these things

[00:31:08] they treated as one SKU.

[00:31:10] They treated them all the same

[00:31:11] and they gave me 10 months

[00:31:12] to introduce SKU number two in this company.

[00:31:15] Okay.

[00:31:16] It's going to be good.

[00:31:17] It's fantastic.

[00:31:18] So I spent the first month recruiting people

[00:31:22] to the point where the guy who sat in the queue

[00:31:23] next to me asked me if I had a psychology degree

[00:31:26] for the number of people I talked off the ledge.

[00:31:28] Right.

[00:31:29] Right?

[00:31:30] Like no, no, no, we're going to do this.

[00:31:32] You're going to come along and help me

[00:31:33] because I can't do this myself

[00:31:35] and the product was probably the simplest part

[00:31:39] of the whole thing

[00:31:40] because again, we're talking about pallets

[00:31:41] with nails and fasteners

[00:31:42] right?

[00:31:43] It's not an airplane.

[00:31:45] It's not a rocket ship.

[00:31:47] But we broke every system in the company.

[00:31:50] I mean you think about it

[00:31:51] we have a 20 year history of managing one SKU

[00:31:54] but now I don't know how to invoice.

[00:31:56] I don't know how to let the customer order.

[00:31:58] I don't know how to do a truck load of mixed things.

[00:32:02] We don't know how to sell it.

[00:32:03] We don't know how to market it.

[00:32:04] And the biggest challenge wasn't the product

[00:32:07] in that standpoint.

[00:32:08] It was getting everybody else to participate

[00:32:12] and help get that product out the door.

[00:32:14] That is so interesting.

[00:32:15] It's such a good reminder

[00:32:17] that you can have the product with a small B

[00:32:20] like just a physical thing or whatever you're selling

[00:32:24] but then there's the full product

[00:32:26] like everything that supports that product

[00:32:29] actually going to the customer,

[00:32:31] going from sales, going to finance.

[00:32:33] That needed to be reinvented as well.

[00:32:36] Absolutely and that was the hardest part.

[00:32:38] It wasn't, I mean with the product done

[00:32:40] I think by month five or six out of 10.

[00:32:43] It was everything else that took all the time

[00:32:45] and where my stress level was.

[00:32:47] I mean, and at the end of the day

[00:32:50] when it was done and we launched it

[00:32:52] I sent out a little token.

[00:32:54] I went back and compiled a list of everybody

[00:32:56] who had significantly helped on the project.

[00:32:58] So significantly put time and effort into the project.

[00:33:02] And I sent out the little tokens

[00:33:04] that people have, as a memento of the project

[00:33:07] to over 105 people.

[00:33:09] Wow.

[00:33:10] I had recruited, I mean,

[00:33:11] I had nobody working for me.

[00:33:13] Like I was an individual contributor

[00:33:16] and nobody weren't reported to me.

[00:33:18] And we had at least 105 people

[00:33:20] from all different disciplines

[00:33:22] and organizations that put significant time

[00:33:24] and energy in making it work.

[00:33:26] And can you share what the product is?

[00:33:28] This does Q number two?

[00:33:30] What's the second product ever?

[00:33:32] Yeah, I don't even know if they still offer it

[00:33:33] but it was a half palette.

[00:33:35] So we literally cut a palette in half.

[00:33:37] Wow.

[00:33:38] That's a big set of dynamic tickets.

[00:33:41] Isn't it amazing?

[00:33:42] So I mean, but there were some innovations

[00:33:44] we put into it.

[00:33:45] We used instead of all wood.

[00:33:46] It's got some metal blocks to allow it

[00:33:48] to work with different material handling equipment.

[00:33:50] We've got some, there were patents on it.

[00:33:52] But think about that, right?

[00:33:53] The issue there was not the product at all.

[00:33:56] It's the internal processes and the culture of,

[00:34:00] yeah, actually doing something new I guess.

[00:34:02] Yeah.

[00:34:03] But when it comes to the culture

[00:34:05] of doing something new,

[00:34:06] you have a hilarious anecdote

[00:34:08] that you shared with me

[00:34:10] about an innovation training

[00:34:12] for a global leadership thing you did.

[00:34:14] Yeah.

[00:34:15] So what I think I mentioned earlier on this call,

[00:34:17] I used to do innovation training

[00:34:18] as part of a culture change piece.

[00:34:20] So when we were trying to start up an innovation program,

[00:34:23] we focused on three things.

[00:34:25] Changing the culture, getting ideas that are people

[00:34:27] and bringing those ideas to life.

[00:34:28] Right?

[00:34:29] So we want people to think differently.

[00:34:31] So you've got to empower people

[00:34:32] to think differently.

[00:34:33] And the best way I could come up with that

[00:34:36] to do that at scale was to start doing innovation training

[00:34:39] and just kind of talking people through what does it look like.

[00:34:41] How do you have a conversation around being innovative?

[00:34:45] How do you come up with new ideas?

[00:34:46] I mean, basics that people haven't thought about

[00:34:50] for decades sometimes.

[00:34:51] And so we would just go around

[00:34:53] and we used this what we call the training class

[00:34:55] to just have that conversation with people.

[00:34:58] And so we called it innovation training

[00:34:59] but it really was a conversation

[00:35:00] and it was a chance to let them

[00:35:03] in some extent use a crayon again

[00:35:05] that they haven't used since they were a kindergartener.

[00:35:08] I mean, it's that re going back in

[00:35:10] and thinking, oh, I can come up with new ideas.

[00:35:13] I have the knowledge to question why I do this

[00:35:17] and it's okay.

[00:35:18] I'm frustrated every day.

[00:35:19] Why don't I question how to do this better?

[00:35:22] Right.

[00:35:23] You know, it's just giving people that.

[00:35:24] So we had started doing this process

[00:35:26] and we had gained some traction

[00:35:28] and we started to create a buzz in the company

[00:35:30] and so we got invited to do various teams

[00:35:33] and one of the teams we got invited to do

[00:35:35] was the leadership team for one of the global regions.

[00:35:39] And we found out kind of on our way there

[00:35:42] somebody gave us an insight that this leadership team

[00:35:44] comes from all different countries.

[00:35:46] They met in the same hotel every quarter.

[00:35:48] They met in the same conference room

[00:35:51] in the same hotel every quarter

[00:35:53] and they sat in the same seats in that conference room

[00:35:57] for every meeting they've ever had.

[00:35:59] And how they gonna be innovative?

[00:36:00] Yeah, and now they asked us me

[00:36:02] and another guy that worked with me doing this training

[00:36:05] and now they asked us to come and talk to them.

[00:36:07] So we got there and we're like,

[00:36:09] well, this has not happened.

[00:36:10] Like we are just, this is not gonna go down

[00:36:13] like they think it's gonna go down

[00:36:14] and that's gonna be okay.

[00:36:15] But we wanted to signal to them early on

[00:36:17] that this is gonna be a different conversation.

[00:36:19] So we got to the conference room early

[00:36:21] pushed, you know, had the typical conference

[00:36:23] you shape layout with the chairs around.

[00:36:25] Right, right?

[00:36:26] Right, right.

[00:36:27] I mean everybody does it, right?

[00:36:27] So we shoved all that.

[00:36:28] We tore the room apart, shoved all that to the side

[00:36:30] folded the tables down

[00:36:31] and just had a semi-circle of chairs.

[00:36:34] No names, no table.

[00:36:35] It was a semi-circle of chairs.

[00:36:37] Me and my training partner sitting next to me

[00:36:39] in a flip chart and then we turned on music.

[00:36:42] So we had some rock and roll go

[00:36:43] or something I can't remember.

[00:36:45] And every person that joined, that came to this.

[00:36:48] Now again, they stay in the same hotel

[00:36:50] they go the same conference room.

[00:36:51] They sit in the same chair every single time.

[00:36:53] They know where this conference room is.

[00:36:55] Every single one of them walked in the room

[00:36:57] and we knew these people.

[00:36:58] These were not people we had never met before.

[00:37:00] We knew these people.

[00:37:01] They walked in, looked at us

[00:37:03] and they would back pedal out of the room.

[00:37:05] reread the name on the door

[00:37:08] to make sure that you were in the right conference room

[00:37:10] and then walk in and say good morning.

[00:37:12] Like just floor them all,

[00:37:14] they just couldn't, it was so different.

[00:37:16] They couldn't deal with it.

[00:37:17] Right.

[00:37:18] They're so used to doing the same thing

[00:37:21] over and over again,

[00:37:22] just a slightly better everyday

[00:37:25] that when you do something completely different

[00:37:28] they're completely off key.

[00:37:29] Maybe it was too much.

[00:37:30] Maybe we pushed it too far.

[00:37:32] But you know, the mentorship,

[00:37:34] and it was a great opening to a conversation as well.

[00:37:36] Like hey, why are you struggling with that?

[00:37:40] Like why are you not used to new things?

[00:37:42] Let's talk about the fact

[00:37:45] that when things change it's okay.

[00:37:46] You know, but yeah, that was one of the,

[00:37:49] like I said,

[00:37:50] I was given a lot of air cover at one point

[00:37:51] and was allowed to change and push buttons.

[00:37:54] Yeah, you're like to be a fire,

[00:37:57] is that good?

[00:37:58] Yeah, it's fun.

[00:37:59] It's fun when you have the air cover to do it.

[00:38:01] When you don't have the air cover to do it,

[00:38:02] like I said before,

[00:38:03] you become a jerk.

[00:38:05] You got to figure out what the right way to do it.

[00:38:08] So how do you see the relationship between corporates

[00:38:11] and startups?

[00:38:13] So I think they have a lot to learn from each other.

[00:38:16] So I don't have a ton of startup exposure, right?

[00:38:18] But I think a lot of it would start up struggle with

[00:38:20] big corporates are probably good at

[00:38:22] in terms of processes

[00:38:23] and understanding how to do things systematically

[00:38:25] and get good results and innovate incrementally.

[00:38:28] But I think big companies get stuck in their ways

[00:38:31] and I think startups excel at adapting

[00:38:34] and moving around challenges

[00:38:35] and eliminating challenges and jumping over things

[00:38:38] in ways that big companies can't or don't know how to do.

[00:38:41] And so I think there's a lot they can learn from each other.

[00:38:45] I always cringe a little bit when a big company buys

[00:38:49] a startup or buys a small company

[00:38:50] and then they proceed to integrate them, right?

[00:38:53] Because I think you lose a little bit of what made

[00:38:58] that startup great.

[00:39:00] And I think at some point, you know,

[00:39:02] the startup might get big enough on its own

[00:39:04] that integration makes sense.

[00:39:06] But when they're certainly when they're small

[00:39:08] and they get bought up to me,

[00:39:09] a part of the startup died.

[00:39:11] Yeah, what you see with Microsoft,

[00:39:13] they bought a few years ago

[00:39:15] the body company called GitHub.

[00:39:16] I'm not sure if everyone is familiar with it,

[00:39:18] but it's basically a version control system for your software.

[00:39:22] So if you write code,

[00:39:23] you want to press control S for save that code

[00:39:26] but then you also want to store it in the cloud

[00:39:27] and that's what GitHub does in a simplified way.

[00:39:30] But the status status is a separate brand.

[00:39:33] No, it's not all sort of Microsoft GitHub.

[00:39:36] No, it's still GitHub.

[00:39:37] So that's what you mean with state.

[00:39:39] Keep it as a separate entity.

[00:39:41] And I think the same is true for a company like LinkedIn

[00:39:44] which is also, again, bought by Microsoft like years ago

[00:39:48] but also stayed their own entity.

[00:39:50] The other one I would say is dark sky.

[00:39:52] I don't know if you're familiar with dark sky.

[00:39:53] It was a weather app.

[00:39:54] Okay.

[00:39:55] One of the better weather apps out there.

[00:39:57] And they had, and I think they were using

[00:39:59] a different technology to get their weather information

[00:40:02] but it was great.

[00:40:03] I mean, I paid three bucks for it

[00:40:04] because it was so much better than the weather channel

[00:40:07] or whoever else Apple or Google were using it at the time

[00:40:10] and Apple bought them.

[00:40:11] And a couple years later they shut dark sky down.

[00:40:14] And I don't know if they ended up taking the technology

[00:40:17] and sticking it into their own weather app

[00:40:19] but certainly for those of us who loved dark sky

[00:40:22] it just seemed like it ended.

[00:40:23] And maybe that technology was integrated

[00:40:25] but maybe it wasn't.

[00:40:26] I don't know, but it seems like that was lost.

[00:40:29] That way of doing things differently

[00:40:31] and providing a better service to the customer

[00:40:33] maybe it was integrated well.

[00:40:35] I don't know, but it's gone.

[00:40:36] Yeah, it's definitely a way out for startups.

[00:40:39] I mean, every startup has to do an IPO

[00:40:42] in the public offering where you get stocks

[00:40:44] and it's basically wherever one cash is out,

[00:40:47] bankruptcy, definitely popular option under startups

[00:40:51] and then there's the strategic, right?

[00:40:53] Yeah.

[00:40:54] The startup is being bought by a large company

[00:40:57] for some strategic reasons that the technology has been developed

[00:41:01] or access to a new group of customers.

[00:41:04] And that's what I hear say when you say

[00:41:07] that corporates can be innovative by buying startups

[00:41:10] but not make the mistake by integrating them fully

[00:41:13] but that them say his own entity

[00:41:15] and support them with resources

[00:41:17] but don't take away dire their processes

[00:41:20] and culture.

[00:41:21] Absolutely, because once you try to make the startup

[00:41:24] fit into your culture,

[00:41:25] you lose a little bit of what made the startup great

[00:41:28] and then it becomes more like just what you're doing.

[00:41:31] Now if you're buying it to add it into a system

[00:41:34] or a process that you currently have, okay,

[00:41:36] maybe that makes sense,

[00:41:37] but if it's competing with your cash cow

[00:41:39] bringing it into your system,

[00:41:41] you're gonna lose a little bit of what it made it great.

[00:41:44] Right.

[00:41:45] Yeah, and that's probably also why you buy a startup

[00:41:48] as a corporate because it's in a market

[00:41:51] that is extremely adjacent to your cash cow

[00:41:54] because you wouldn't do something

[00:41:56] that is completely off topic.

[00:41:58] I mean, Ford will never go start an animation studio.

[00:42:01] Disney will buy an animation studio

[00:42:04] but Ford won't do that, right?

[00:42:05] And that will cannibalize on your own products.

[00:42:09] Yeah, so cannibalization internally

[00:42:12] is always tough to deal with

[00:42:14] because it goes back to incentives and time

[00:42:16] and where are we focusing our efforts?

[00:42:18] And if you're buying a startup,

[00:42:20] it's incrementally way smaller than the cash cow

[00:42:24] you're dealing with today.

[00:42:25] So it's always gonna lose.

[00:42:26] Like where are we gonna invest money?

[00:42:28] If I invest a million dollars in the startup

[00:42:29] or in the cash cow,

[00:42:31] which one do I get a better return on?

[00:42:32] Yeah, and short term, right?

[00:42:35] That's the topic here.

[00:42:37] Yeah, short term thinking rules the day, absolutely flooring.

[00:42:40] Well Thomas, I had an absolute blast talking to you.

[00:42:43] We're gonna wrap it up for this episode.

[00:42:46] I'm really glad that we got the perspective

[00:42:48] of large corporates in this season

[00:42:51] of how do you ideate as a small company?

[00:42:53] Because this given a perspective

[00:42:56] on where the opportunities are,

[00:42:58] where you have to be careful

[00:43:00] even all the way through the end

[00:43:01] like that a corporate could be an exit for a startup.

[00:43:05] So it was brilliant. Thank you.

[00:43:06] No, thanks for having me.

[00:43:07] It's been a pleasure and I've enjoyed the conversation.

[00:43:09] I've enjoyed getting to know you today as well.

[00:43:12] And if you work on Folks Reads You,

[00:43:13] if they later want to get in touch with you.

[00:43:16] Yeah, so there's two great spots.

[00:43:17] One is look me up on LinkedIn

[00:43:19] and then the second is my website www.itwe.solutions.

[00:43:24] So those are both places I spend my time

[00:43:26] and happy to connect with anybody

[00:43:28] who's interested learning more.

[00:43:30] And I will add those to the show notes

[00:43:32] so you can just click a link

[00:43:33] and go see Thomas again. Thank you.

[00:43:37] Yeah, thanks for it.

[00:43:38] It's been a pleasure. Thanks for it.

[00:43:41] And there you have it.

[00:43:42] Another inspiring episode of the IDIATE with Florian Podcast.

[00:43:46] As always, I encourage you to visit our website

[00:43:49] at ideatewith Florian.com

[00:43:51] that is id8withfloorrian.com

[00:43:55] Here you will find links related to this episode

[00:43:58] as well as all the episodes.

[00:44:00] My name is Florian Hornat

[00:44:01] and I hope this story inspired you.

[00:44:03] Thank you for joining me and until next time.

[00:44:10] Bye.