The Innovators Studio with Phil McKinney

This weeks show takes a look at Boomtown – a next generation startup accelerator that has greatly improved the accelerator model. Boomtown startups currently enjoy a 96% survival rate and 78% of them are generating revenues.

Guest: Toby Krout of Boomtown

Toby Krout is an entrepreneur, investor, and startup coach. He co-founded Boomtown, a startup accelerator in Boulder, Colorado in 2013 where he currently serves as the Executive Director. Boomtown’s mission is to understand and continuously improve the modern accelerator model for the benefit of entrepreneurs. His startups currently enjoy a 96% survival rate and 78% of them are generating revenues.

You can find more info at boomtownboulder.com

Guest: Aiden Chopra of Bitsbox

Bitsbox is new way to teach kids how to program computers. The Bitsbox system has two halves: First, a website where kids as young as six can program apps that run on real phones and tablets. Second, a monthly subscription box that arrives in the mail. Each month’s box contains dozens of programming projects to keep kids engaged.

The management team consists of Scott Lininger as CEO and Aidan Chopra as chief product officer. They worked together for eight years at SketchUp, Google and Trimble Navigation.

You can find more information at bitsbox.com

Guest: Aquiles La Grave of Visibl

Visibl believes in a world where the size of your idea matters more than the size of your budget. They democratize video advertising by giving users large and small the same access and reach that giant advertisers have online. But we do it without needing million dollar budgets or advanced math degrees.

Get more info at getvisibl.com

Killer Question/Brain Hack

What will future customers’ buying criteria be?

A big part of my business is being aware of, and responding to, the life cycles of my industry and my customers. Some of these are easy to see; you only need a cursory understanding of the effect of OPEC on gas prices in the early ’70s to understand why cars became more fuel efficient in that decade. Other reasons are harder to see. Some criteria can be “faddish,” based on things such as color or brand. Others are based on external influences. For years the cell-phone industry fought to offer the smallest, thinnest possible phone. That’s what customers wanted. Now those same customers are prioritizing access to the web over the size of the phone. This has reversed what was seen as a key and unshakable evolution trend toward smaller phones. Now customers want larger phones with bigger screens. Sometimes trends can be reversed by something completely outside your control. Something that changes the buying decision. What will these same consumers want as they get older? Will full web access and streaming music and video be a priority, or will their needs change as their eyesight and hearing fade?

Remember the cycle part of “life cycle.” You may lose the connection with your customers at certain stages of their lives but regain it later. It’s like the young man who buys a sports car when he gets out of college, trades it in for a minivan when he marries and has kids, and finally reverts back to sports car as an empty nester. Don’t assume that a customer is lost forever just because they’ve shifted their allegiances for the time being. If you can maintain some kind of link during the years they are not using your product, you still have a good shot at winning them back again when their needs and your services match up better.

Sparking Points

* What are the ways your future customers’ lives are changing?

* How will that influence what they buy?

* What will they abandon and no longer purchase as their lives change?

To get connected,

Toby Krout is an entrepreneur, investor, and startup coach. He co-founded Boomtown, a startup accelerator in Boulder, Colorado in 2013 where he currently serves as the Executive Director. Boomtown's mission is to understand and continuously improve the modern accelerator model for the benefit of entrepreneurs. His startups currently enjoy a 96% survival rate and 78% of them are generating revenues.

Toby has an MBA from Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. He is a co-founder and partner at Boulder based creative agency Atomic20. He was previously the Program Director for Governor Hickenlooper's Colorado re-branding project. He has co-founded dozens of startups over 20 years and currently serves on the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship Board of Directors at the University of Colorado.

You can more info on Toby at …

Toby on LinkedIn

On Boomtown

At Boomtown on Twitter

 

[social align=”center”]

Guest: Peter Guber

Peter was the guest on the September 27, 2015 show

Topics:

Storytelling

* Why are stories so important?

* What's the difference between a good story and a great story?

* How should we think about audience and the relationship we have with them?

* Have you ever been surprised by a story that you thought was great but the audience didn't get it?

* What are the three things every listener should do for better storytelling?

Partners and Partnerships

* Why have partnerships been such a key part of your business activities?

* What is the criteria you use to select a partner?

Bio

Peter Guber is Chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment. Guber’s most recent films from Mandalay Entertainment include The Kids Are All Right, Soul Surfer, and Bernie. He has also produced Batman, The Witches of Eastwick, and Flashdance. His films have earned over $3 billion worldwide and numerous Academy Award nominations.

Peter is also a co-owner of three professional sports teams: the Golden State Warriors (NBA) , the Los Angeles Dodgers (MLB) and theLos Angeles Football Club (MLS).

Peter is Chairman of Dick Clark Productions, which produces the American Music Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and other programs. He is a professor at the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television and the Anderson School of Management and an Entertainment and Media Analyst for Fox Business News.

Peter most recent business book, Tell to Win – Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story, became a #1 New York Times bestseller.

Connect with Peter on:

* Peter Guber on Twitter

* Peter Guber on Facebook

* Peter Guber on LinkedIn

Killer Question/Brain Hack

How can I take advantage of emerging trends and fads?

“Weak signals” are the equivalent of a canary in a coal mine. They are the unspoken needs and wants of your customers, and they are also the arrows pointing to what your customers are going to need and want in the future, even if they themselves don’t know it yet. If you pay attention to the weak signals, they’ll give you the heads-up that something radical, and possibly uncomfortable, is coming your way.

You’re not going to find them on the front page of a newspaper or in an industry analyst report.

[social align=”center”]

Internships and Reverse Mentoring

Summer is long over and now we are getting into the fall. This time of year always makes me look back on the summer internships. I’m a big believer in “internships” as a way for people to “learn”. Each summer, we bring in interns across a wide range of disciplines: technical, legal, marketing and this year social media.

This years interns were impressive.

Over the years – I use interns to be my pulse on what is happening in the education system. In my previous role, I would select two and have them stay at my house. For their internship, they would report to someone else. At night – it was the barrage of constant questions. Why must we do something a certain way? Why aren’t we doing this?

Most people think I’m nuts for even doing this. I learn so much. It’s a process I call “reverse mentoring”

And what did I learn??

While there have always been over-achievers,  the “mass” of the students are not being prepared for what I call the innovation or creative economy.

The world is shifting from the information/knowledge economy to the innovation/creative economy. Its about have a workforce that can “invent” solutions to the worlds problems then having the other people “manufacture” what they invent.

To be successful in the innovation economy, students must have:

* Critical thinking skills

* Problem solving experiences

* Entreprenurship / Instrapraneurship skills

* Have confidence …

* Understand the process to create and idea and then take it forward through execution

So how do we give future generations that experiences they need?

In my mind, we need to raise the visibility and prestige for our top academic students to the same level we give athletes. One person is doing that is Dean Kamen, Founder of FirstRobotics  whose missions is:

.. to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

Dean and I have a met a few times at different events and I can tell you he is passionate about giving every kid the experience and opportunity to discover their passion.

Guests: Peter Lierni and Mark Varricchione are co-founders from STEMlete

Peter Lierni and Mark Varricchione are co-founders from STEMlete (a play on the word “athlete”) who saw that there were a number of online communities for the self-promotion of student athletes seeking to: exhibit their athletic excellence; share their knowledge; improve their performance; get recognized; establish a following; and be recruited and succeed; however, there was nothing analogous for those individuals who have a passion and brilliance in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM).

They are a on a mission to change the focus; build a new kind of community; identify the world’s most promising STEM talent; and enable innovation by providing an online platform with an unprecedented collection of free capabilities to enable “STEMletes” to globally connect; communicate; collaborate; and create. In particular, they hope to give academia, industry, and others globally the opportunity to get an early line-of-sight into the world’s most promising STEM talent.

You can connect with them at STEMlete.org

Brain Hack/Killer Question

How will you identify and locate customers in five years?

Every hot trend reaches a point I like to call the “Uncle Larry moment.” When one of your older relatives announces he’s taken up something that had seem...

What goes into creating an idea that can impact 100’s of million of people?

If I polled most people they would say it’s the “idea”. The core of the “idea” is table stakes but it does not guarantee success. Others would say PR and marketing. While PR and marketing are important – it does not guarantee success.

So what are we missing?

I have a saying I use:

” ..the different between a good innovation and great innovation is the timing”

In most cases you can’t control – much less predict — timing. So what do I mean by “timing”?

* Market conditions

* Customer readiness

* Channel readiness

* Social expectations (changes)

* Competitive changes

* Government / regulatory

So what can you do to make sure the timing is right ?

Guest: Bill Geiser on wearables and smart watches

Bill Geiser is a smartwatch pioneer with 20+ years focus on wearables & smartwatch innovation. He is a serial entrepreneur / intrapreneur with a talent for identifying lucrative, market opportunities and the ability to harvest them evidenced by the fact that he founded two technology start ups acquired by publicly-traded firms.

His most recent company he founded was Meta Watch –  a smartwatch technology and services company with offices in Espoo, Finland & Dallas, Texas. Formed in August 2011 via spin off from the Fossil Group, Inc., the Meta Watch management team brought together over a decade of experience helping companies like Fossil, Microsoft, Palm, Sony Ericsson, adidas and others enter the smartwatch category.

You follow Bill on LinkedIn

Brain Hack/Killer Question

What industries are analogous to ours, and what can we learn from them?

No matter what business we are in, we are all fighting essentially the same fight – no matter the industy. We are all designing a product that a customer will prefer over that of our competitor.

To do this, don’t just look to other widget makers to get a sense of how you are faring in the global business space. Look at other businesses & industries that have similar key elements in common with you.

I find the airline industry endlessly fascinating. It, like the tech industry, has gradually found ways to make its core products less expensive and more accessible to the general public. In return, their customers have had to accept a vast reduction in services and expectations. It’s an interesting seesaw between what the customer truly wants and what they are willing to give up in order to get it. In the center are the core essentials: a safe, convenient flight at a low fare. Everything else falls away in relevance as long as the core criteria are met.

What are the fundamentals that have to be in place in order to maintain an ongoing and happy relationship between you and your customer?

Suppose you were the head of operations at a megachurch like Chicago’s Willow Creek or Joel Osteen’s church in Houston. Joel Osteen’s church seats almost 16,000 people, and runs four worship services plus various meeting groups every Sunday, which means that there are up to 64,000 people. High odds of getting into fender-benders, gridlock, and potentially dangerous traffic in the church’s parking lot increases as one congregation departs and the next one arrives.

So what do you do?  Where do you go to learn the mechanics of moving that number of vehicles, and that number of human beings, in an efficient and safe manner?

You go to the Disney Academy at Disney World.  Sixty years of crowd management has made Disney operations the undisputed champion of event control and coordination. By working with Disney, these churches could learn a few things about integrating their system of traffic flow and parking.  Fender-benders would go down, customer satisfaction would go up,