Startupification

Matt and Steven recorded live at Turing Fest 2022. The big topic of conversation was the announcement of the Scottish Government's Tech Scaler contract to Codebase (disclosure: Steven works for Codebase). Hear questions from Matt and the audience about this and get the inside skinny from Steven on what it is, and what it might mean for the Scottish tech eco-system.

Timestamps:2:30 The three types of people into web36:00 web1 vs web2 vs web311:00 What actually is decentralisation? What tech has enabled it?22:30 To what extent is web3 replicating web2?27:30 The value of digital ownership39:00 Wait, what is ownership?45:00 Thinking beyond greed57:00 Community first: geodesic vs geodetic

Timestamps:2:00 Touchlab - making skin for robots6:00 Uses in manufacturing and logistics10:00 The state of manufacturing13:00 Is Touchlab building deep tech or a product?22:00 Reverse engineering nature26:00 Robots: To be feared?30:00 How do Deep Tech companies get funded?37:00 Finding amazing people in Deep Tech

Timestamps:2:15 A bit about Ooni and where the idea came from6:45 The true value of a £7.5k crowdfunding campaign12:30 Enabling communities to do cool stuff16:30 Creating a new product category and iterating on hardware24:00 Staying innovative and understanding customers 28:30 The difficulty of productising the Tartine and working with influencers41:15 Impact led entrepreneurship - what drives it?

Timestamps:3:00 Big trends in AgriTech from the last 13,000 years8:00 What are vertical farms? 12:00 The economic benefits19:00 Emerging business models - farms-as-a-service 21:30 Investment in vertical farms and areas of innovation26:00 Local food supported by global innovation29:00 The market - just how big are farms?35:00 The software behind AgriTech - how do farmers feel about FaaS?41:00 AgriTech adoption - where we are on the S curve44:30 Cybersecurity in AgriTech50:00 What does the competition look like?

Timestamps:2:00 Bill's intro, and his interest in scientific policy3:30 The future of hydrogen, both green and blue11:00 Is blue hydrogen really environmentally friendly?21:00 Building innovation into EnergyTech31:00 What opportunities are there? 35:00 The macro optimism of VC mapped to energy and why energy companies need to innovate45:00 Renewables and/or carbon capture52:00 Can we become the decarbonisation capital of the world?57:00 Where should people look to learn more / train in this new world?

Timestamps:2:00 What are NFTs?6:00 Creating scarcity in digital 11:15 How this affects real life scarcity15:30 Why bother adding scarcity to digital? 22:00 Conspicuous consumption25:00 The fungibility of art29:00 Why do we care so much about how art is made?35:00 Who’s driving this change?42:00 The fractional participation hellscape46:00 Whataboutism53:00 Other collective fictions

Timestamps:1:00 Michael - from local news to nationals to codeclan to instagram to conde nast to beams7:00 Beams - building communities on social media11:00 How do you build a community product in 2021?20:30 Clubhouse as a platform for VCs and German hip hop30:00 Old media vs Substack38:00 Curation45:00 Building in values to a product

Timestamps:3:30 Introducing Zara and EdVenture 7:30 What’s involved on the EdVenture programme12:00 The role of business schools, knowledge transfer partnerships, etc. 20:00 How student debt is holding back the entrepreneurial ecosystem24:30 Risk in entrepreneurship at University28:00 What EdVenture is looking at - VC and Impact31:00 Gen Z and the future of startups37:00 Building things that should exist42:00 How VCs are learning about the world46:30 Gender in student ventures55:00 Finding your entrepreneurial energy

Timestamps:1:00 A bit about Daisy.3:55 Zebras and Unicorns 10:00 Do current playbooks solve the right problems?14:00 Where innovation in finance will come from17:00 Bankification20:30 The role of PE in the future28:00 Where is money getting pumped from in the future?34:00 Expanding local maxima40:00 Infusing positivity into a movement that criticizes the old way48:00 The opportunity to be ahead of the game in Scotland50:45 Are Zebras also just following SV playbooks?52:00 Memesis54:15 Is VC changing?55:30 What does success look like for a Scottish entrepreneur? 1:00:00 Being communitarian

Timestamps:2:00 The current Boeing accelerator programme5:30 Innovation in aerospace, and lack of playbooks for sustainability10:00 What drives innovation in aerospace?11:30 What makes an industry specific accelerator successful?15:15 CVC in aerospace17:00 VCification21:00 How should an incumbent support startups?26:00 Education in corporates29:30 Where is industry 4.0 heading?35:00 Contrasting failure in startups vs incumbents41:00 Do companies need to move at the pace startups do?47:00 Industrial ecosystems reinventing themselves53:00 Missing institutions57:00 Iterating around hardware

0:45 The origin of the word accelerator, and the origin of the Edinburgh tech ecosystem3:00 The early days of VC blogging9:30 The Boulder Thesis and creating startup ecosystems16:00 Complexity in communities25:00 Playbooks vs Complex Systems30:00 Topophilia and the love of place38:00 Is there a need for a new institution within ecosystems to help understand complexity?40:30 Inclusivity in ecosystems

2:00 Where the term bundling comes from.5:00 Telecoms: Triple play and quad play6:05 Being bundle blind11:00 Is bundling just an enforced cross sell?15:00 Homogeneous vs heterogeneous bundling20:00 Is it up to startups to unbundle?24:00 Apple One30:00 Cultures created via bundles33:00 Unbundling and D2C37:00 .. and back to culture.42:00 Not everyone is the same - the benefit of not bundling48:00 Rome with no coffee51:00 What does bundle thinking do to help you for PMF, exiting, etc.

Timestamps:3:00 The state of LawTech6:30 Where does innovation in LawTech come from12:30 Does the partnership model being so immovable make innovation impossible?15:00 Internal and external empathy19:30 Rejigging law firms to encourage innovation24:30 Building products internally29:00 Solving productivity gaps, curation of new products, and law eating software31:00 Has “legal tech” underdelivered so far?37:00 Will there be a new persona for the lawyer enabled by tech?42:00 How much the law drives change

Timestamps:13:00 Introducing Gary4:30 Intrapreneurship vs entrepreneurship6:30 Corporate vs startup playbooks9:00 Working with startups11:00 The role of corporate support for startups17:00 Do startup business models gel with corporate sales?21:00 The importance of having a Systems Integrator27:00 Does the SI route work in the UK?29:30 Case study: Dropbox and Box33:00 The long sales cycle of corporates41:00 Incubators and accelerators role in educating startups on all this43:00 Understanding what a corporate needs from a startup

Timestamps:1:55 Mark’s CV, startups, Cisco, Skyscanner and beyond3:15 Unicorns, ecosystems, and education4:40 The Logan Report5:15 Unicorns8:15 The startup/scaleup funnel and education12:30 Playbooks, frameworks, and models16:30 Heuristics and creativity24:00 The place of Silicon Valley in playbooks28:00 Solving the cold start problem of an ecosystem34:00 The value of iteration in an ecosystem42:00 Tipping points47:30 The top of the education funnel - making computer science exciting for kids55:45 Antifragility

Timestamps:6:00 Genevieve’s CV8:00 Introducing the Autonomy, Agency and Assurance Institute (3Ai)10:00 What it’s like running a startup in a University16:00 What is the vision behind 3Ai20:00 Technical fetishism26:00 The importance of history and place in how things get built31:00 Avoiding getting bogged down in mimicry - of other places, or the past.36:00 What is the ontology/building blocks of 3Ai?38:00 Getting out of normative notions with feminist/queer theory - how do you encourage playfullness in a system?40:00 Is credentialism changing?

Timestamps:1.45 What is GPT-3? The ultimate autocomplete tool.2.45 A bit about the creators of GPT-3, OpenAI7:50 How does GPT-3 work?12:15 What are they spending all that money on?16:30 What’s the driving force behind it?21:00 A few examples of what GPT-3 can create26:15 GPT-3 and the Turing Test35:00 Understanding analogies36:45 The consequences for society (and developers)42:00 GPT-3 and NoCode47:30 The future of work for data scientists49:30 GPT-3 in the Stack53:00 Ethical concerns

Timestamps:1:45 The big Twitter hack6:45 How did it happen? Was it an inside job?7:50 Types of hacks14:00 Potted history of cybersecurity and the current metaphors22:00 Cybersecurity in the time of the cloud28:00 The kill chain and why people are the route of entry31:30 The evolution of the cyber criminal33:30 Is there more talk of cybersecurity these days?34:00 Why it’s easier for cybersecurity companies to get product-market fit37:00 Retrofitting cyber security with Darktrace44:00 Staying agile to beat the bad guys46:00 Are innovation and cybersecurity pulling in different directions?51:45 Having a risk framework - NHS Digital vs DeepMind55:30 How do we build security into the startup stack?

2:00 What are Growth Loops?5:30 Growth Loops vs Funnels7:00 Non linearity in growth9:00 The platonistic breakdown of growth loops12:45 User generated content loops15:30 Uniqueness in growth loops - linking in channel, pricing market, product etc.21:00 The background of growth loops - Brian Balfour, Andrew Chen and David Skok25:30 Harry Dry28:00 HubSpot and the new marketing31:00 Viral marketing modeling41:00 Picnic’s growth strategy45:00 Picking the moment of highest return on a loop48:00 When is it important to think about growth loops?53:00 Leveraging other platforms for growth loops55:00 Are growth loops a new thing?

Timestamps3:00 What is NoCode?6:30 The NoCode “movement”8:00 Who is NoCode for?10:00 Indie hackers vs established businesses14:00 The new Stacks18:00 The economics of NoCode22:00 Constraints in NoCode25:30 .. and the creativity that fosters.29:00 Matt’s NoCode Tunnock’s Project34:00 NoCode creating tech inclusion42:00 Where does the value lie in NoCode?48:00 NoCode as curation53:00 Will we just end up with loads of broken companies?1:00:00 NoCode as Pulp Fiction

Timestamps1:35 What is B2D?3:35 Is it a product strategy or a go to market playbook?4:30 A brief history of B2D6:00 GitHub, Twilio, and Stripe12:15 The empowerment of developers14:30 B2D vs other tools, ie why isn’t Slack B2D?19:00 .. and Slack vs Microsoft Teams22:00 Startups + corporates participating more in the world of developers28:00 B2D curation and onboarding34:00 IT and developer culture37:00 The shift to bottom up adoption, ie Adobe38:45 A look at the biggest B2D company56:00 B2... IT?

Timestamps1:30 An overview of the healthcare landscape, 10% of UK workforce work in health and careNHS biggest employer in Europe, but healthcare hasn’t gone through the tech revolution that fintech etc have.5:15 Big areas - Digital Transform, how Healthcare is delivered (and unbundling), BioInnovation in therapeutics and treatment, Computational modelling, Robotics and Automation (maybe).8:15 Startups selling to the NHS10:45 Telehealth12:45 The story of Incredible Health and unbundling17:30 Taking a part of healthcare and reimagining around modern practice, eg PillPack21:50 Public vs private healthcare markets, the Venture Capital view on healthcare35:15 Apple and Google in healthcare37:30 .. and Amazon’s acquisitions and healthcare explorations44:00 PillPack, iteration and sustaining innovation.51:00 Computational modelling, data science and privacy57:00 Therapeutics - is it a space for tech startups?1:01:30 Return to startup thinking, and venture capital

Timestamps2:00 Context: Marc Andreessen’s essay, It’s Time to Build5:45 Further context: Why Software is eating the World11:00 It’s Time to Build - Things aren’t being built, coronavirus is showing that we can build faster, stagnation,18:00 Why is everything moving so fast in the world of bits, but not the world of bricks? Lack of desire, inertia20:30 The politics of the post22:00 What the opportunity for non software companies looks like25:00 Short term responses to Covid-19 vs jobs of the future30:00 Critiques of the Marc Andreessen’s post33:45 Ezra Klein’s response - the problem with the current political setup, inertia and vetocracy39:00 Building in a world of atoms - sustaining vs iterative42:30 Why do we have Twitter and no flying cars?49:00 The need to create mechanisms for safer bet investments that are better for society52:00 Allowing for failure in the world of atoms57:00 Creating new priorities and venture building1:00:00 Where will these new priorities come from?1:04:00 Does he mean it when he’s challenging the left to prove a superior model?

Timestamps1:50 What is a go market strategy?3:00 Tactics and execution - what is your clever plan to get your product bought? Level 0 - Build it and they will come. Level 1 - Have ANY sort of plan. Level 2 - Have a CLEVER plan. Level 3 - Use someone else’s plan.5:36 Setting the scene - Sales and Marketing - Lesley’s Compass12:00 Toothpaste vs Jet Engines16:00 Distribution Strategy - Zero Touch, Low Touch, who the buyer is21:00 Disruption vs Diffusion - Facebook spitting out startups33:00 Go to market strategies in an era of Bring Your Own Device and Human Avoidance Software42:00 Channel partnerships46:00 How do you get started with a go to market strategy?57:00 Should you build a channel partnership early?References:https://firstround.com/review/leslies-compass-a-framework-for-go-to-market-strategy/https://tomtunguz.com/b2d-go-to-market/https://a16z.com/2017/06/09/distribution-channel-partnerships-alex-rampell/

Timestamps:2:30 The difference between AR and VR.4:30 The Future of Work - Immersive training, Augmented Intelligence, Making remote work less isolating12:00 Are we all going to be using VR to work in the next 5 years?17:00 Is AR a good interface?21:00 Google Glasses and fashion25:15 AR, VR and dystopias - security, liberty, privacy, and health30:00 VR as a step up in remote sales36:00 The future of leisure41:15 Crossing the Chasm of VR47:00 Back to AR: HoloLens and Magic Leap50:00 Apple’s eventual takeover of the AR space57:00 The rise of AR/VR in China

2:00 Startup programmes saturation, Google, Twilio, IBM, YCombinator, ..3:00 The Graph, explained6:00 Which verticals are on the left or right of the graph?9:30 What does each space look like? Startups - fizzy, bootstrapping, failure. Lots culturally though. Scaleups - shedding generalisms, getting rid of playbooks, making your own playbooks. Big companies - you lose the learning/growth, get into maintenance mode.14:50 Riffing on the galleon metaphor18:00 Microsoft as a “startup”21:30 Loonshots, Safi Bahcall. How can you be a startup and a big company at the same time?24:30 How startups work with big companies29:00 Levels of corporate engagement: Level 0 - we should do a proof of concept. Level 1 - we’ll do a POC, but it’s mostly for our learning. Level 2 - The startup is learning, and there is exchange of value. Level 3 - very clear POC, with accurate milestones.35:00 Why do big companies do POCs?39:30 Should big companies be aspiring to be lean? IE launching MVPs, iterating, etc..43:00 SpaceX vs Boeing as a case study - mentality, culture, and fail whales. Why vs How.

Timestamps:3:30 What is unit economics? The gross margin on a per unit sale. Value creation vs value capture. SaaS, recurring revenues, ..7:00 The startup path to understanding unit economics, through the lens of an investor. [Link: a16z’s views on investing in unit economics (vs team, product etc.)]12:00 Case Study (of bad UE) - Casper, the mattress people. An IPO as a moment of truth.16:00 Pricing as a reflection of a founder’s experience/cultural values/confidence/ambition20:00 The UE of how to build a $100 million business (Christoph Janz & Boris Wertz)32:30 Turning an understanding of UE to action - LTVs, CACs, no touch sales, inbound marketing35:30 Moz, content marketing, #whiteboardfridays41:00 The need for sales people (and pricing high)43:00 Churn, Net Negative Churn, and Churn in B2C [David Skok (Matrix Partners)]46:00 Bebo, the the viral coefficient, and capturing lifetime value48:00 Cohort analysis in churn51:30 WhatsApp, and hunting amoebas53:00 Why is noone hunting elephants?57:00 Hiring misfit sales people

Timestamps:3:00 Jobs To Be Done, and the influence of Clayton Christensen4:50 A History of JTBD - what it is, the Innovator’s Dilemma, disruptive vs sustaining innovation12:00 Making things that customers actually want15:00 JTBD for startups & corporates (& VCs)17:00 The famous JTBD milkshake example25:00 Turning JTBD into action.30:00 Jobs as progress, or jobs as activities35:15 Kodak picking the wrong Job41:00 User stories vs JTBD46:30 “Does it deserve to be?” - JTBD from a developer/product manager’s perspective48:00 How does JTBD tally with software products?55:30 Translating JTBD interviews into sales and marketing

Timestamps:2:00 Product Market Fit - what is it?04:30 “You’ll know when you don’t have it, you’ll know when you do have it”06:20 Where does PMF start?13:30 Product User Fit, CEO Magic,19:30 Who is the CEO before and after PMF?24:10 PMF with respect to products & services27:00 Pivots pivots pivots36:00 Favoured approaches to finding PMF40:00 Superman’s approach to understanding PMF47:00 PMF in B2B vs B2C48:00 European attitudes to PMF

Timestamps:2.19 What are network effects?4:05 Where does the idea of network effects come from?10:10 The crystallisation of an ecosystem as network effects15:25 Return of the Stack17:30 Network effects in startups20:30 Types of companies that have network effects24:25 Network effects as moats, and why VCs love them.28:00 LinkedIn as a case study34:10 When do network effects fail?38:00 When network effects happen accidentally - or not43:05 The long tail of network effects46:40 The cold start problem49:00 Virality vs network effects53:30 Do network effects imply the formation of monopolies?56:00 Fortnite as a worried monopoly1:01:20 Internal vs external networks, and the future of Slack

Timestamps1:54 What do we mean by X-Tech?4:50 Matt’s categories of X-Tech8:05 Why do some new types of technology not get an X-Tech?12:05 Neologisms to help communication14:05 Is X-Tech just another word for digital transformation?18:10 Can a Y-Tech company take lessons from an X-Tech company?25:40 Deep dive into PropTech, WeWork, opportunity, and failure35:00 Is X-Tech even important?39:34 Will the future of X be defined by X or Tech?41:30 Is X-Tech just software applied to the service sector?48:20 X-Tech in corporates51:15 Z-Techs - what’s still to come?55:45 What can be done to create more X-Tech startups?

Timestamps:3:42 What is the Stack, and where does it come from?12:57 Stack dissatisfaction, and its overuse16:50 Startup vs corporate understanding of the Stack .20:52 .. and how it is lost in translation. The Stack is about interfacing between layers24:12 Why isn’t the Stack based on a hierarchy of needs?26:32 The overuse of computational metaphors without engineering rigour31:17 Value chains vs the Stack35:12 Breaking Bad as disruption of the Stack and/or value chain37:20 Creating actions from the Stack ..42:40 .. and building a business with knowledge of the Stack50:12 Understanding your place in the Stack, and moving through it52:52 Antifragility

Timestamps3:00 What is Deep Tech?4:49 Is Deep Tech a market failure?11:09 ARM vs Apple as Deep Tech case studies11:25 Startups & Deep Tech14:20 Deep Tech waits for a product to make it shine 16:32 When Deep Tech companies think they're Product companies21:29 (Deep Tech vs Product) vs (Product vs Feature) 26:03 What does the world with AI look like? 35:10 Deep Tech in Ecosystems38:37 Funding in Deep Tech 47:50 Return to Ecosystems: Deep Tech towns and Product towns 56:00 What cities want to be?1:01:17 Is a Deep Tech city anchored on a University?1:06:15 Where should Deep Tech companies start up?

Timestamps1:05 What is a playbook?4:39 Where does the idea of a playbook come from?6:22 Theory vs practice7:55 Stripe’s B2D playbook11:07 A playbook as an allegory13:21 Memesis (again)18:05 When you’re no longer following - Samsung vs Apple1:16 Atlassian’s team playbook21:23 Checking the impossible is still impossible31:52 Comparing ecosystems to playbooks33:55 Replacing playbooks with narratives39:15 Creating (and iterating) a culture playbook, Netflix through to HubSpot41:35 Is a playbook just how people learn stuff?43:25 First Principles Thinking49:27 Fake it until you make it with Aristotle54:20 Playbooks as a learning modelFurther resources:Stripe’s B2D playbookAtlassian’s Team PlaybookApple’s Walled GardenNetflix’s Culture DeckFirst Principles Thinking

Timestamps:5:00 What is an ecosystem?9:31 What have you got without entrepreneurs (as opposed to service companies) and investors10:43 Quality of funding - what makes investors good investors?18:00 How the state can derisk an ecosystem23:24 Operator angels - people who are in a fast growth startup but also actively investing27:10 Startup talent - what’s the experience level of your ecosystem?32:25 The value of success stories, and local maxima36:10 Academia and the role of Universities42:33 Corporates47:00 Mimesis50:00 Cities and being good citizens53:16 Ecosystems as a network effect1:00:25 The future of ecosystems - how software is changing the world1:00:33 What cities globally will thrive?