The Reboot Chronicles with Dean DeBiase

As a co-founding board member at 1871 in Chicago and creator of the Dancing with Startups program, I am always on the lookout for potential global expansion partners, like Founders Factory. They are a very dynamic startup accelerator and venture studio, launched five years ago in London by Brent Hoberman and Henry Lane Fox, on the principles of aiding founders with hands-on resources.

On this episode of the Reboot Chronicles we dig into how entrepreneurs and startups should evaluate incubators, accelerators or venture studios with Founders Factory Managing Director, Isabella Chick. With a growing list of corporate partners, 100 people (wow) and 4 global locations, they have funding from numerous organizations, allowing them to invest in and rapidly scale and transform global sector challenges—opportunistically.

How it Works

Standing out from the rest, Founders Factory provides a different perspective, separating their accelerator and venture studio, enabling a more direct operating approach. Moving beyond the typical "cohort" model, over 200 startups have been in their six-month accelerator factory—68 in 2020 alone. Most of these ventures have received bespoke tailored services and advice focused on growth—with a keen understanding about the (land mine) spaces between retail and brands. Another secret sauce they provide founders is coveted all-access passes to world-renowned companies like J&J, M&S and L'Oréal who has a strong CVC group.

The venture studio program allows entrepreneurs to start with funding and some de-risking. Isabella shares the two ways the venture operation works: either Founders Factory develops an insight or target area with a corporate partner and brings talent into the mix, or founders bring their concepts to the group and pitch for inclusion in the program.

Corporate Partners

Isabella points out, the importance of relationships with their corporate partners across multiple sectors, including education, media, beauty, travel, finance, AI & big data, retail, and home. This is not the typical demo-day/corporate entertainment format, but a more serious corporate commitment program. Within these sectors, the industry relationships they have, plus the corporate partners clout, have been crucial market accelerators for the entrepreneurs and startup teams. These corporate partners often de-risk too, as they can engage with the startups ahead of investment. Once a vote through the investment committee has been determined, based on the relationship momentum, concept feasibility and other insights, they can commit. With L'Oréal alone they have run over 200 pilots with entrepreneurs and startups!

Next-Gen Media, Entertainment and Leadership

On this episode of the Reboot Chronicles, fresh out of my COVID-19 recovery, I discussed one of my favorite sectors, the entertainment industry, with Jacqueline Parkes, CMO, and SVP of Digital Studios Entertainment Youth Group and ViacomCBS.

Responsible for overseeing marketing, creative and digital content, and social media for MTV, Comedy Central, the Paramount Network, Smithsonian Channel, popT.V.V, and CMT, Jacqueline has rebooted some of TV’s most famous brands. She and her team have made many creative moves, including rebooting original content to build new brands and digital audiences.

Not Your Dad's MTV

In 2020, Jacqueline's team took a hard and fast look at their assets and identified what they could do, in their role as a global media company, to best help consumers (people). With a 93% reach in 18-34-year-old audiences and an impressive 750 million followers across platforms worldwide, they quickly went to work. With the goal to create information that would provide lasting impressions within the minds of existing and new consumers, they developed the first digital campaign. The idea was to hit home in young people's hearts, educating and informing them on the virus—and to help slow the curve. The provocative campaign was a great success, and in partnership with the Ad Council, her team developed over 1000 pieces of cross-platform content.

Digital Content Partnerships

Content, especially digital content, has shifted dramatically in 2020. Now more than ever, content creation matters, and brands need to be ready to step up to the plate and place society considerations into the forefront of their brands M.O. Moving forward CEO's and CMO's must follow the everchanging habits of consumers, and be mindful of these radical shifts, in order to stay ahead, draw consumers in and resonate with their audiences. One of the partnerships Jacqueline shares is with Twitter, is a prime example of consumer consideration. In preparation for a prior VMA show, Jacqueline and her team worked with the social media giant to produce a unique product to drive business to the brand and give fans insight into the show. It turned out to be a quarantine hit and a direction we will likely see more of in the future—partnerships creating unique perspectives and products to benefit both partners and the audiences.

Advice To Gen Z

Generation Z is one of the most socially-minded generations—and more demanding of brands and on businesses. Those graduating from college, looking to pursue media or content related careers should look to a organizations and brands that they best resonate with. For those looking to start their own company, remember to put the clients or consumers first, think of what they need and ask yourself ... is there really a need for what you want to develop? Step up to the plate and do not conform, but rather create relevant, original products, services and content.

Can we Crowdsource Government?

NASA’s Deputy Director for the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI), Steve Rader, joined me for an episode of the Reboot Chronicles, to discuss how our government went from “not-invented-here” to crowdsourcing and the art of Dancing with Startups.

Founded in 2011 by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, NASA's CoECI goal was to drive crowdsourcing programs to further research and development efforts, assist other federal agencies in solving mission-critical projects, and bringing a new level of co-creation and open-innovation culture to NASA.

This decade’s overused buzzword, co-creation, was introduced into NASA's culture a decade ago by Dr. Jeff R. Davis, NASA's prior Director, Human Health and Performance. During a time when NASA was experiencing heavy budget cuts with increasing R&D needs, Jeff found he could expand his resources in various industries, through open-innovation challenges. He took this discovery, and often without permission, ran pilot projects with entrepreneurs and startups to prop-up research projects—and the rest is history.

NASA was able to elevate the center to the agency level, tasked to teaching other government agencies to understand how to re-frame problems and reboot their closed mindsets. Similar to what I teach students, executives and board members at Kellogg School of Management, through my Dancing with Startups Program, NASA has guided the US Space Program and over 30 other agencies, on how to discover better solutions by driving more open-innovation, co-creation and crowdsourcing. Listen in here for some good stories here or tune in wherever you get your podcasts.

Why did Accenture Stock rise 24% in 2020? Leadership, talent, digital and focus— and with record earnings for its software products and services, management has just increased their fiscal 2021 outlook from 2%-5% to 4%-6% revenue growth.

Sitting as Number 279 on the Fortune 500 list and about $43 billion in annual revenue, Accenture is one of the world's largest consulting companies, with over 500k employees companies, helping over 6k clients in over 120 countries reboot their businesses and brands. Today, the company has over 4.8k patents and about 2.5k pending, with a very robust partner network of nearly 200 organizations worldwide, while growing their digital footprint through high-profile acquisitions like the agency Droga5.

Rotating to the New - Digital

Since Julie Sweet became CEO of Accenture a lot has changed under her remarkable leadership, from transforming their market approach and culture to reinvigorating their service platforms and brand. Today, 70% of their business has rotated to the "New": digital, cloud and security, all supported by Accenture's biggest brand relaunch in a decade, spearheaded by Accenture’s dynamic CMO Amy Fuller, who joined us for an episode of the Reboot Chronicles to talk about what’s new and what’s next.

Speed, Scale and Agility

During the 2020 pandemic, consumers have moved dramatically toward online channels, and companies and industries have responded in turn. Today, more than ever, organizations have to accelerate the pace of transformation to supplement and further strengthen their relationships with clients. Most of the companies who have overseen a digital transformation were fraught with challenges: they wish they had - and could have- moved faster. We see companies that emerge stronger from the crisis are those that innovate through it, using the current crisis as an opportunity to transform their company digitally. In short—2020 lit a fire under corporates and acceleration has been good for Accenture and a few of their peers.

The rapid shift to working from home is a good example. A vast number of companies were forced to move to digital channels and communication platforms, like  Microsoft Teams, to work remotely. Accenture, for instance, has converted more than a million NHS people in a matter of days - onto Teams. Similarly, retailers are going through the “digital makeover” to adjust according to customer changes and preferences. Grocery delivery is now the norm for many people who wouldn’t bother in the past. In light of this, Walmart, for the first time, activated and scaled curbside pickup at a mass scale.

Optimal Experiences

With Accenture’s deep industry knowledge, they have discovered recently that the problem lies in understanding how humans interact with technology. And for many clients, the biggest concern was how to interact with advanced technologies and make the most of it. In a world of uncertainty, businesses have to deliver promises of consequence that drive everyone's purposeful change through experiences. Accenture Interactive, the consultancy giant's agency arm, connects deep human and business insights with the possibilities of technology to define and deliver new experiences that can make lives more comfortable and more rewarding.

Should you get the COVID-19 Vaccine?

I’ve been off the air for a while—personally recovering from COIVD-19—and with Pfizer shipping vaccines to a provider near you today, kicking off the largest vaccination rollout in U.S. history, I talked with Dr. Nicole Saphier about the question on the year: should you get the shots?

Author of the new book Make America Healthy Again, Fox News guest anchor and board-certified radiologist at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Nicole has unique perspectives about who should get the vaccine, why she will not, why her husband (also a doctor) will, and what about their children.

Before you (U.S. listeners) head to your local CVS, Walmart or Walgreens, you should know Pfizer and Modernaare two shot deliver systems and require the second injection two or three weeks after the first. According to Pfizer research, the immunity skyrockets after that second injection to about 95% effective. Nicole states that there will likely be a limited supply of coronavirus vaccines at first, so "determining who has already had COVID-19 is crucial.”

According to the recent studies, antibodies for people who have been exposed to the virus, like me, would likely be present for about four to five months, at least. And with limited vaccine supply, we want to make sure that we are vaccinating the vulnerable, those who have no level of immunity to this virus and who are most at risk for being hospitalized or dying, starting with caregivers, health care workers and other people deemed as "essential" employees.

Luckily, children are less vulnerable to coronavirus's effects, but they can still be infected. According to Nicole, kids can also transmit the virus, but children have not been included in the clinical trials that are being put forth right now. Therefore, Nicole recommends children not to take the vaccine now–but rather get the flu shot to help keep people and children out of hospital.

Older adults and patients with underlying health conditions should get first dibs on a new vaccine because, for them, getting sick is more likely to be serious or fatal. She also adds that frontline health care workers, nursing home residents and high contact essential workers will get the first doses, like Long Island Jewish Medical Center nurse Sandra Lindsay, who said “I feel hopeful today. Relieved,” after she was the first one to receive a shot in America.

"I would encourage as many people as possible to get the vaccine, especially if you are over the age of 55. If you are over 55 and have comorbidities and obesity, you should absolutely get the vaccine," says Nicole.

How The World’s Largest Company Can Be The Most Innovative

From its beginnings as a discount store with a simple way of helping people save money and live better lives, Walmart, with 2.2 million employees serving 265 million customers weekly and annual revenues over a half-trillion dollars, has become not only the world’s largest retailer, but the quintessential example of the traditional retail approach.

Now, they are looking to turn that approach on its ear and reboot the future.

Tom Ward, Walmart's very thoughtful Senior Vice President of Consumer Product, and a key figure behind Walmart’s “digital makeover,” joined me for a “look-under-the-hood” episode of The Reboot Chronicles. Tom took me through how Walmart today is running on all cylinders and how they are driving some serious growth initiatives and timely partnerships that are pivotal to their future.

Juggling a Bizarre Christmas Season

I think 2020 will be the strangest Christmas season we have ever seen, morphing Black Friday into hybrid events—which started in October with Prime Day and will last all season long! Before the pandemic, people would line up and crowd into stores, but now companies must make sure that the way customers engage and shop with them is smart and safe—but still easy.

With contactless delivery becoming a prerequisite across industries, people have become reliant on online grocery delivery and pickup options to safely obtain necessities. In light of this and in preparation for the holiday season, Walmart, for the first time, will be activating curbside pickup at a mass scale.

But Tom says the retailer knows the in-store experience is still a significantly important experience. Certainly, as the omnichannel approach has changed forever, retailers must bridge online and physical worlds to include hybrid touch-point solutions. Instead of one big Black Friday event, they have three so far and will be extending hours, which should help flow control for you late night shoppers like me.

Target ‘s CEO Brian Cornell has echoed this, following Walmart’s lead to close for Thanksgiving Day, stating that they are taking a “completely new approach to Black Friday, minimizing the event-day shopping behavior that is typical for this time of year.” You can now check wait times online,  make reservations  at Target.com/line, use  contactless checkout and make last minute pickup time changes.

Tom in our conversation frequently referred to the focus on solving customers' problems, regardless of the channel that they select. To that end, Walmart's app is going to play a leading role in the physical shopping experience—whether it's about navigation, scanning, drive by pickup or payment—helping to remove pieces of friction that traditionally slowed the retailer down.

There is much more going on here, with many co-created innovations coming to a store near you soon...one common denominator seems to be a need for speed! "I think it is going to a huge lift in speed and convenience as a focus. I'm always excited and keen to see what the next innovation is going to be around the corner, and whom we can partner with to accelerate that," says Tom.

To the Future and Back

On this episode of the Reboot Chronicles, I invited Ian Ginsberg, third-generation President of C.O. Bigelow Apothecaries, to join me for an action-packed episode about the past, present and future.

Founded in 1838 by Dr. Galen Hunter, Bigelow is the oldest apothecary in the United States, with some amazing history. Ian and his ancestors have stayed true to the company’s traditions of focusing on personalized products, services and formulas. Two centuries later, a Bigelow experience seems to transport us back in time and into the future simultaneously. Today, the company has been rebooted itself from the historical landmark in NYC into a vast global platform with over 10,000 personal care products, gaining the attention of multi-generational e-commerce shoppers.

An Essential-Connected Business

Unlike most companies that were founded after WWII, Bigelow has undergone some extreme times like two world wars, the Great Depression, 9-11 and COVID-19.  Deemed essential during the 2020 lock-down, they reacted quickly, never closed and continued prioritizing emotional connections with wary shoppers—something they are good at in good times and bad.

Not Your Father’s Store

Ian continues to expanded the brand, including a rebooted retail business which still has the original functioning pharmacy, an expansive commerce site, and Bigelow Trading, which imports and distributes several brands.  Having been on a few large family-enterprise boards myself, I like how Ian, who runs one of the oldest US family companies himself,  seeks out and represents other family brands and products, who also have multi-generational heritage stories.

Focus and Passion

Ian provides some advice to aspiring entrepreneurs to set your sights on something you love. Many of us have set out to disrupt markets mostly for profit reasons, which can limit results. He prefers to focus on creating something you are very passionate or even obsessed about. Starting a business should be for the right reasons first and often things will fall into place financially. It is important not to get sidetracked, so listen in here, or where ever you listen to podcasts, to find out what type of sign you should hang up in your office to remind you of just that.

Challenges of the Female Entrepreneur in the Beauty Jungle

In this Startup Stories episode of the Reboot Chronicles, I talked with Franziska Leonhardt, co-founder of AVE + EDAM, an award-winning company based in Berlin, that offers tech-enabled personalized products. As you may have guessed, the company's name is a play on Adam and Eve and was founded in Silicon Valley at Stanford University, on the principles of influencing change in the beauty industry.

Levels of Personalization

Personalization of beauty products and experiences are increasing in popularity. A recent survey found that eight in ten consumers stated they had purchased personalized skincare products, with 35% spending around $100 on customized products. With that, is personalization here to stay—or is it a fad? Looking at the past, Franziska notes that products started off being highly personalized, as they were developed from the pharmacy, but were not available to everyone for price reasons. She believes personalization will grow, and could become a standard across many categories, if it can be developed and delivered at affordable costs.

However, given mass-scale issues, I do not see the big brands moving quickly to introduce custom formulations. To unpack the real trend, it is important to understand two different levels of personalization: SKU level personalization and formula level personalization.

SKU Level Personalization: Using AI/selfie skin data and analysis, brands and retailers recommend currently available products—potentially narrowing a search from 50 to five specifically targeted SKU’s.

Formula Level Personalization: Using the same AI/selfie skin and data analysis, brands offer custom-formulated products targeted to a person’s specific profile data.

Personalized customer journeys and product/service choices can be achieved by partnering with AI solutions providers like Revieve.

Female Entrepreneur Challenges are Real

Starting a company, in what industry experts call “The Beauty Jungle,” has been a huge challenge for Franziska—especially when it came to differentiating herself and brand. In the beginning, she had her hands full with all the startup challenges entrepreneurs face, while being a single mom. She experienced fundraising issue with European investors, who saw her as a single mother rather than an entrepreneur. Given the strong women in tech movement in America, especially in Chicago with programs like WiSTEM at 1871 where I mentor CEO's, she eventually found supportive U.S. investors.

It's a remarkable story that is still evolving, and Franziska’s passion and determination is contagious

The Rise of Luxury Indie Brands

In another Entrepreneur Indie-Brand episode of the Reboot Chronicles, I invited KYPRIS Founder  Chase Polan to discuss emerging luxury in the booming global skin care market.

As many know, skincare is one of the fastest-growing segments within the beauty industry with high demand for quality product formulations and self-care. According to the NDP Group, skincare sales within 2020 have risen $1.4 billion and are expected to continue growing by 2023, with an estimated 3.5% annual increase reaching $180 billion in global spend by 2024. 

With over 15 years of entrepreneurial experience, Chase proves to be a natural-born leader as she has founded two of her own companies. The first being the Beautiful Minds Group, founded in 2005, a comprehensive educational consulting and support program for students K-12 grade and college; the program provides a new approach to better educate students. Also, she founded KYPRIS, a high-performance luxury skincare line of organic and sustainably sourced ingredients to ensure a unique and safer beauty experience for consumers. In creating the brand, she saw a niche in the market for a safe and quality ingredient skincare line.

Breaking Barriers

With buzzwords like “natural," "clean" and "non-toxic" trending, they are increasingly being used by brands to entice consumers—but are they all authentic? Navigating through such a saturated market, filled with these claims, is often difficult, especially for consumers who are not well-versed. Talking with Chase, I learned her thoughtful approach with KYPRIS. She instilled trust within her clientele base by creating a safe space to educate and provide superior sourced ingredients—going beyond the industry natural standards. The strategy is paying off and momentum is building, with the newly restructured and energized Nieman Marcus adding KYPRIS to their ecommerce lineup.

Falling Cactus

Sustainability and an ethically sourced supply-chain play heavily into KYPRIS. One brand ingredient, prickly pear (yes it exists), is locally sourced through a practice known as wildcrafting, aka the practice of going into the wild and strategically collecting an ingredient. Chase mentions the challenges that go hand in hand as there is a high risk, but is known for being an ethical and beautiful practice.

The Pillars of Growth and Innovation

The growth and innovation process for any brand is crucial; KYPRIS has a great guide to the seven core pillars they stand by. There should be no harm; this is really the brand's overarching motto they use to guide innovation—I expect others will follow.

What’s an Indie-Brand To Do

For all the entrepreneurs out there, it is important to focus on where the opportunity lies, especially in today's current climate. Although the market seems saturated, and retail stores and sites looking more like a “beauty-jungle”—there is still much room for innovation. One Indie-brand tip: rather than only hopping on the current trend bandwagon, that are likely to be short-lived, entrepreneurs should seek to develop out-of-the-box ideas to revolutionize the market—like in the areas of technology and personalization. Whatever you decide, do it authentically well.

Driving Cadillac's Tech Innovation

On this episode of the Reboot Chronicles Podcast, Cadillac’s CMO, Melissa Grady, and I look at how they are driving innovation and technology—and what's next for the auto market.

Arriving Home - Back in the Auto Industry

Coming out of grad school, Mellissa started her career in the auto industry, and the years, she has been on the digital industry's leading-edge, from starting her own companies to Motorola, MetLife, and now Cadillac. Since appointed CMO of Cadillac, Melissa has been driving the future of the luxury automotive brand. She's launched various campaigns, including the "Make Your Way", which debuted the 2021 Cadillac Escalade addressing COVID-19 and the unprecedented times we are going through: stating the brand has its consumers' backs.

Building the Next-Gen for the Next-Gen

A lot has changed since I took digital pioneer Autoweb public, when I was their CEO. The automotive industry remains a bit fragile in 2020, with sales down anywhere from 10 to 30%, depending on the brand and country. Unlike other automotive companies, Cadillac has gained momentum to accelerate growth and scale up the manufacturing process. While, my fav, the Escalate launch has been slightly delayed, the company has moved forward towards an electric future 'with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions, and Zero Congestion' and has launched its new and exclusive platform.

Unlike Baby Boomers and Gen X, the latest up-and-coming generations are less car crazed and prefer shared mobility—at least before a global pandemic hit the world. Now, as economies gradually reopen, we are seeing significant changes in drivers' behavior. The coronavirus has led to a sharp rise in new car use patterns as commuters, like you, shun public transport. Cars have become the ultimate form of personal protection, understanding that people are comfortable in their "own germs" at home and in car.

Personalization Technology

We live in a time when technology has never been more critical in consumer segments, including luxury cars, and Cadillac is no exception. Melissa believes that "the two things that are important right now are technology and personalization:  Technology brings a whole new level of vehicle personalized experience to life—from the performance driving to advanced AI & AR. Cadillac is known for its high standards, and the company continues to innovate, define and take advantage of tech trends. I was fascinated by the number of different features they offer, like huge OLED screens, 36 speakers and next-gen augmented reality elements to the navigation display.