Inside Outside

Taylor Ryan, CMO of Valuer.ai, talks with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, about Startup-Corporate Matchmaking. Valuer.ai matches startups with corporates, accelerators, and investors based on AI and crowdsourcing. Key points - Valuer.ai - HQ in Denmark. Taylor Ryan, from the US, is a six time co-founder, writer, growth hacker, and startup junkie. - Corporate/Startup matchmaking new to Europe. - Customized searches on Valuer.AI combines Crowdsource and data collection to find the right startups both locally and internationally.  - Uses qualitative data of founders to determine if startups are investible.  - Finding different skill sets of founders - data, block chain and finance are skills corporates are looking for.  - Internal corporate innovators can use to find new ideas.  - Need more education on looking to startups as long-term solutions for problems within corporations. - Trends in startup world - Different European hubs have different flavor. - Drift in European Tech to go

Brock Blake, Co-founder and CEO of Lendio on Financing Entrepreneurs at Scale   Interview with Brian Ardinger, Founder of Inside Outside Innovation Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast that brings you the best and the brightest in the world of startups and innovation. Brian Ardinger, founder of insideoutside.io, a provider of research, events, and consulting services helps innovators and entrepreneurs build better products launch new ideas and compete in a world of change and disruption. Each week Brian Ardinger gives you a front-row seat to the latest thinking, tools, tactics, and trends in collaborative Innovation. In this podcast, Brian interviews Brock Blake, founder and CEO of Lendio the largest online marketplace for small business loans in America. For more information and a transcript of their talk, check out http://insideoutside.io/the-feed/ Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play. Inside Out

Mike McDerment is Co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, the world’s number one cloud accounting software for self-employed professionals. Mike talks with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, about building and scaling a company, product development, and his free e-book called Breaking the Time Barrier. Mike built a simple tool to solve his accounting problem, and now 20 million people have used it. After building the first version,, Mike soon hired a software designer. They worked on the product for nine months, then added another co-founder and employees. The team valued the connection to their customers, always showing the product early in development. By understanding the market, the team knew what to build first. Bootstrapping the Company  - Raising capital is not success. A better strategy is to find customers and fund yourself - Over ten years, FreshBooks de-risked the market, product, team, and model.  - The first round of venture money was $30 million.  Obstacles and Things That Almost

Olivia O'Sullivan is the Head of Corporate Engagement at Acceleprise, a B2B SaaS accelerator. Accelerprise invests in early-tech companies building enterprise technology. Olivia's focus is on mid-market and enterprise companies interested in collaborations with startups. Her background includes work in advertising and on product and innovation teams for McDonald's and Dow Jones.  Olivia spoke with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, about corporate/startup matchmaking, trends and Acceleprise's future. Key factors in selecting startups include: - Understanding the founding team. Can they solve the challenge?  - Traction and product market fit. Want to accelerate growth.  - Thresholds and levels of expectations.  - Collaboration on the product.  Emphasis on the initial period where you make introductions. The missing piece is how to transition into providing impact.  - Make sure two groups of people are set up to participate with each other and engage in a partnership.  - Provide long

Jeff Dyer is the author of Innovator’s DNA, Innovator’s Method, and Innovation Capital. He talks with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, about innovative leaders and how they generate creative ideas.  In Innovator’s DNA, Jeff identifies characteristics of innovative entrepreneurs, including questioning, observing, networking and experimenting. In Innovator’s Method, Jeff identifies a process to test ideas for investment: 1) Generating idea, 2) Is someone willing to pay, 3) Rapid prototyping, and 4) Find right business model. Finally, in Innovation Capital, Jeff interviews innovation leaders and how they secure research and support to move on innovative ideas.   Innovative Leaders are Judged on Three Things Human capital, social capital, and reputation capital (track record).  Forward thinking, problem-solving, and persuasion.  Innovation Capital can De-risk Innovation Leadership Innovators paradox: You have to take novel risky ideas forward. Look at INC 50 each year. What are new companies,

Alain Sylvain is the founder of Sylvain Labs, a strategy and design company helping corporations like Google, Spotify and Nike, think about their future. Alain Sylvain talks with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, about how to create new ideas that solve for business and consumer needs. Innovation is evolving  - The fetishization of innovation. Define what innovation means within the corporation - e.g., transformational, new products? - Innovation groups within large companies are outsourcing their innovation needs.  - Innovation is the creation of new value. What are good or bad practices of innovation? - The company wants to be "sprint" focused. Not possible if the company doesn't have that spirit. Look at how the company changes to be more innovation focused. - When do you bring in design? Early.  Is it essential for companies to look outside and work with startups? - Necessary to look for external points of view. Innovation in a silo will not get game-changing innovation.  - Foun

Paul Skinner is the author of Collaborative Advantage: How collaboration beats competition as a strategy for success and founder of Agency of the Future. His work has always been about helping people create a collaborative advantage.  Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside founder, talks with Paul about using a collaborative advantage approach at every level. What is collaborative advantage? - Collaborative advantage is the business advantage from harnessing value creation potential outside and inside the business. It has been overshadowed by competitive advantage. Helps us to grow our businesses more quickly.  - Businesses need to be improving people’s lives, if not, why should they exist? - See customers as primary value creators or non-profits help to create social change Examples of companies/communities/organizations moving towards collaborative advantage? - Rotterdam - Connected to other cities through the port. City water scheme is a reusable water bottle with a financial contribution to water systems

Francesca Gino is a professor/affiliated with Harvard’s Business, Law, and Kennedy Schools. She is the author of Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break All the Rules in Work and in Life. She also recently published an article in Harvard Business Review on Why Curiosity Matters - The Business Case for Curiosity. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, talks with Francesca, about when rule breaking happens and what happens to people that do it successfully. Curiosity - Curiosity is an important driver behind the experience of rule breaking.  - We are born with lots of curiosity, but it starts declining at five years old.  - When people join new jobs, they have high curiosity, but in 9 months, their curiosity has dropped 20%. What can companies do to keep that high? What can organizations do to support curiosity? - Change the mindset about what curiosity can do.  - Good for business and leaders to model behavior. Ask What if we changed … - Hard to know what outcomes of questions are. As How and

Scott Kirsner is the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Innovation Leader. As a journalist, Scott spent his career covering how ideas in companies get commercialized. Five years ago, Scott launched Innovation Leader, a company focused on how innovation happens in big companies. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, spoke with Scott about emerging issues in corporate innovation. What innovation issues are tops for companies? - Innovation Leader Survey  - Solving bureaucracy and How to Tap Employee Ideas - Highest areas of Internal innovation interest - Startup engagement meaningful, but companies have only started their collaboration experiences. Why did corporates jump in and now are reassessing? - Corporates need results near term. - Successful companies focus on white space areas. Scout areas where startups can address problems areas. - Develop strategies to set up a proof of concept.  - Jet Ventures - Doing corporate VC. Need to be in it for 7-10 years  What toolset is being used at startu

James Gill is founder and CEO of GoSquared, a simple, live analytics platform for websites. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, spoke with James about product trends, design, getting close to the customer and growing a company outside the Valley. Based in London, James started GoSquared with friends, while still in school. They found success in building websites, but soon were asked how the sites were performing. Very few tools existed at the time, to answer these questions. Since then, GoSquared has created simple analytics software, on a subscription basis, for small businesses around the world. What trends are allowing you to build new things? - No code applications. - Real-time and live response.  - Everyone today wants to have an online presence or small businesses. - We always wanted to work with small businesses and integrate into similar products like Go Daddy, Wordpress, Shopify, etc - Make it as easy as possible.  How do you decide what you develop? - Everyone has a different

Laura Anne Edwards is founder of DATA OASIS and works as a NASA Datanaut, TED Resident and with SheCanHackIT. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, talks with Laura Anne about sustainable innovation and big data. Important Take Away: Sustainable Innovation is Key!  - Maintain innovation over time through systems. What you are doing, who you are doing it with, and create creative collisions.  - Key elements: Know who you’ve hired. Use innovation audit to look at information flow.  - Address process changes, information flow, and awareness about how to support creativity.  What trends and tactics are useful? - Small changes in meeting schedule, office layout, what info is shared. Eg - Donut carts bring out introverts - What can you do to create intentional and organic collisions for the team. - How to change info flow to build on introverts in the room. - What is your company’s version of prototyping? - Do you have regular airing of ideas, instead of annual sharing. Appeals to extrovert

Ben Nelson is the CTO and Co-founder of Lambda School, a 9-month online education/training program. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, spoke with Ben about Lambda School’s disruption of the education market, the creation of an online school, and the use of an Income Share Agreement. Through an Income Share Agreement, students agree to pay back the costs of their training, once they receive a $50,000 a year job. A percentage of their income, up to $30,000, is paid back over the next two-year period. New Business Model & Trends - We started as a code boot camp. Now we’re in our own category. Competitors are changing to mimic the model. Competition doesn’t usually kill early startups. - Universities are overshooting the mark. Saddling students with big debt and students are wising up. People can get in trouble financially. - Fast tech change. People need to switch in the middle of their careers. Lambda is putting elasticity in the labor market.  - More people are moving towards portfolio wo

Energize Your Company's Culture Jon Katzenbach and Gretchen Anderson are co-authors of The Critical Few: Energize Your Company's Culture by Choosing What Really Matters. They spoke with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, about why culture is important for innovation and how to tap into the behaviors and emotions that can make a significant cultural impact.  The Critical Few Their book, The Critical Few, looks at working within an organization and drawing on a company’s strengths, rather than looking at what’s not working. Lessons are written within the story of a fictional CEO, focused on a company’s culture. While there are many universal issues of culture, Jon and Gretchen recognize that all cultures are singular and unique and that people within the company impact that culture.  Traits, Behaviors, and Emotional Connectors Jon and Gretchen explain that we must identify what the cultural traits are within a company, behavior that is happening around those traits, and who the people are wi

Neil Soni is the author of The Startup Gold Mine: How to Tap the Hidden Innovation Agendas of Large Companies to Fund and Grow Your Business. Neil spent years with startups, focusing on the sales and marketing side, trying to sell into large organizations. He then moved to Estee Lauder, where he specialized in external innovation. After seeing both sides, Neil wanted to create a resource to help startups understand the corporate side and corporations to understand the startup side. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, spoke with Neil about how to succeed through corporate/startup collaboration. Pitfalls of Corporate and Startup collaboration - Different timeframes - Size of deals    Incentive structures for partnerships - How comfortable is the corporate team in innovating? If comfortable, they’ll have a higher tolerance for misses. Look at the entire portfolio. - Companies that allow intrapreneurship, give employees new outlets to thrive.  Should you expose corporates to startups? - In

Gary Shapiro is the author of Ninja Future: Secrets to Success in the New World of Innovation and president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,200 consumer technology companies and which owns and produces CES - The Global Stage for innovation. Gary has helped direct policymakers and business leaders on the importance of innovation in the U.S. economy. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, talks with Gary about innovation, creativity and how to thrive in a changing marketplace. Gary initially worked as a consultant to CES, then was hired to lead the organization. He was excited to discover that the CES board was committed to allowing anyone with an idea to get exposure. This action spoke to him. Years prior, Gary was involved in a lawsuit over the VCR. He coordinated and spoke on the issue, and now sees the parallels in the video, audio, and sharing industry. Today Gary continues to fight for innovators and breakthrough techn

Melissa Perri is the CEO of Products Labs and Author of Escaping the Build Trap: How effective product management creates value. She believes that as companies scale, they lose track of what makes them successful and they just “ship.” Companies forget to bring products back to the overall strategy and talk with their customers. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, talks with Melissa about getting out of the build trap and having a customer-centric culture.  Companies in the Build Trap - Software startup - Growing and trying to exit. Look for product managers early. Can get out of build trap.  - Enterprises - Haven’t scaled through software. Brings in others to be product managers. A new discipline. Struggles with build trap.  As companies scale, they are close to the customer. As they execute, they forget to talk to the customer. Athena Health developed a portal for user research with its customers.  Escaping the Build Trap Takeaways - Explains how to think about Product Management - S

Vivek Bedi has worked in both corporate and startup innovation. His experiences range from positions at Goldman Sachs, to running his own company. Now at Northwestern Mutual, Vivek is the Head of Consumer Experience, Digital Products, working in both New York and Milwaukee. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, talks with Vivek about Northwestern Mutual's digital transformation. Vivek's team is responsible for everything digital that touches Northwestern Mutual’s 4.3 million clients. Three years ago, 150,000 of Northwestern Mutual's customers used their digital products. Today, over 1.8 million customers are engaged in the digital experience. Culture Change Northwestern Mutual is changing the culture around digital development, innovation, and collaboration. - New York had a startup culture, but Milwaukee had subject matter expertise. Both matter. How do they work together? - Pizza Pie teams - Developed small teams across two cities, tasked with one charter and putting something out every

Ajay Rajani is an investor, entrepreneur, and author of Navigating the shift to a ‘portfolio career’ - How we should think about our professional identities — when they’re designed to change. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, and Ajay talk about building and highlighting a portfolio career. After leading Nexxt, a digital remote accelerator that helps people take ideas and turn them into experiments, Ajay launched Mural. Mural helps people create portfolios based on skills and linked assets. It also makes it easy to curate versions of yourself for different people. Defining a Portfolio Career A portfolio career emphasizes passions, curiosity, and self-actualization. Types of jobs where a portfolio may apply: 1) Someone who wears multiple hats, 2) Someone who wears one hat, but in various contexts, 3) Someone who has different passions to highlight like copywriting and animal activist, and 4) Someone who is building a portfolio like VCs and freelancers.  Portfolio Growth The portfolio tre

Michael Frankel is the Managing Director of Deloitte’s New-venture Accelerator, a strategy and operations team for new business models. He believes people need to disrupt themselves continually or they will fall behind.  Emergence of the Hybrid  The broader trend of the journey from human to tech is not happening instantly. Things that require judgment and strategy, need a hybrid solution. A lot of technology has moved ahead of the user’s ability to use them. For example, we’ve digitized everything, because companies wanted the data. Now they are suffering from death by data. Talent profiles, of those better at adapting, are the Connector and Implementor. These are people who can be super users and use the info to solve a business problem. Product managers are critical with the adaptability to collaborate across technologies.  Technology that improves Human Life Conceptual technology that improves human life is an area Michael is excited about. AI, RPA and machine learning can solve a concrete problem in

Simone Ahuja, Author of Disrupt-It-Yourself: Eight Ways to Hack a Better Business---Before the Competition Does and founder of Blood Orange, researches barriers that are preventing large companies from innovating internally. Brian Ardinger, Founder of Inside Outside Innovation talks with Simone about these innovation barriers and what managers and leaders can do to support innovators.  Highlights from the discussion: Why is it so hard to innovate? - Lack of alignment - Disconnect between senior leaders and feet on the street. Lack of knowledge in the middle. Innovation is a relatively new discipline. There's a difference in metrics and incentives. Need to establish new metrics at all levels, creating space for innovation. - Innovation is different in companies that are large and older, where culture is deep. Not specific to the industry. - Need to encourage people to put forward innovative ideas (Value-creation innovation). It’s the pathway to innovation, but not everyone has to be an innovator or intrap