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Sean Ammirati is a distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University - Tepper School of Business. But teaching is only one of the many hats Sean wears in his profession
Sean Ammirati is a distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University - Tepper School of Business. But teaching is only one of the many hats Sean wears in his professional career. He is the Co-Founder and Director of the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab, sits on the Board of a venture [...] The post Corporate Start Ups and the Importance of Entrepreneurial Thinking appeared first on Sopheon.
Sean Ammirati is a distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University - Tepper School of Business. But teaching is only one of the many hats Sean wears in his professional career. He is the Co-Founder and Director of the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab, sits on the Board of a venture capitalist investment fund, and delivers keynotes and workshops for startups and global brands. Sean is also a published author, having published his first book: The Science of Growth: How Facebook Beat Friendster - and How Nine Other Startups Left the Rest in the Dust in April 2016 which explains why some innovative ideas scale to change the world while others remain as just a good idea. Sean earned his Bachelor's degree in Computer Information Systems from Grove City College and completed his research fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University in Computer Science & Organizational Behavior. Sean joins me today to discuss the importance of encouraging and embracing the entrepreneurial culture and thinking within your organization. We discuss the differences between entrepreneurs and startups, the different types of entrepreneurial ventures, and why startup entrepreneurship is truly the only type that moves the needle for large corporations. We discuss the differences between how raising venture capital works compared to raising funds for corporate entrepreneurship projects. We also highlight the importance of creating high-quality pitch decks, how Carnegie Mellon's Corporate Startup Lab helps large organizations embrace entrepreneurship within their organizations, and the industries that are most ripe for transformational innovation. “There are a lot of problems that the world needs solved. Think about the ways you can be part of that solution by helping your company be more entrepreneurial.” - Sean Ammirati This week on Innovation Talks: What prompted Sean to write his book, The Science of Growth The definition of product market fit How to maintain the spirit of a startup as a large corporate company The difference between entrepreneurship and startups Why startup entrepreneurship is the only type that moves the needle for large corporations Sean's concerns with entrepreneurship education today Creating transformational change within your organization from the bottom up The difference between how venture capitalism and funding for corporate entrepreneurship work Why it's crucial to create amazing pitch decks How Carnegie Mellon's Corporate Startup Lab engages with organizations and how they help large companies embrace entrepreneurship within their organizations Industries that are most ripe for transformational innovation Connect with Sean Ammirati: Sean Ammirati's Website Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab Podcast: Agile Giants Book: The Science of Growth: How Facebook Beat Friendster - and How Nine Other Startups Left the Rest in the Dust Sean Ammirati on LinkedIn Sean Ammirati on Twitter This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | GooglePlay | Stitcher | Spotify | iHeart Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners, like you. For additional information around new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon's newsletter where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.
The Millennium Alliance announced its first data innovator of the year award, at our Digital Enterprise CIO Transformation Assembly and it belongs to Craig Brabec, Vice President, Chief Data Analytics Officer at McDOnalds. This #MillenniumLive episode features Craig and Millennium Alliance thought leader and advisory board member, Sean Ammirati, to talk through Craig’s career in technology, prioritizing data and data driven decisions, and the latest in artificial intelligence & data science.
The Millennium Alliance announced its first data innovator of the year award, at our Digital Enterprise CIO Transformation Assembly and it belongs to Craig Brabec, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at McDOnalds. This #MillenniumLive episode features Craig and Millennium Alliance thought leader and advisory board member, Sean Ammirati, to talk through Craig’s career in technology, prioritizing data and data driven decisions, and the latest in artificial intelligence & data science.
This episode is a little different from most others that we create here at Startup Competitors. I talk with Sean Ammirati, a VC, distinguished service professor of entrepreneurship, and director of the Corporate Startup Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. Sean shares a bit of his history as an entrepreneur and the path that he took to get to where he is today. We spend most of our time diving into the similarities and differences between traditional startups and corporate startups, the strengths, and weaknesses of each, and even discuss some of the regulatory pieces of corporate startups. This was a fascinating conversion, and I hope you enjoy it.Topics in this episodeThe trend in recent years of large companies rediscovering their entrepreneurial rootsThe importance of early customer feedback for both traditional and corporate startupsTraditional entrepreneurs don’t have to think about how their vision fits into a larger organization’s strategyFor corporate startups, one single “no” could be much more devastatingThe feedback problem with corporate startupsThe customer knows the problem. The entrepreneur comes up with the solution.Collaborating as a corporate startup with competitorsThe tools and techniques that work for both corporate and traditional startupsContact InfoTwitterWebsiteCorporate Startup LabBook, The Science of Growth
In part 2 of my conversation with Sean, we dig into the 4 specific types of events, exploring what Facebook did that Friendster didn't, How YouTube outlasted Revver, and more.Find Sean online:Social Media: @seanammiratiToday's episode is brought to you by Sales Hacker. The world's smartest community of forward-thinking B2B professionals. Grab their latest expert-created articles, webinars, and podcast episodes at www.saleshacker.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
You've heard of Linkedin, but have you heard of Spoke? You know Facebook, but do you remember Friendster? What about Tesla vs. Fisker?Oftentimes when we analyze what propels a company to success, we say things like "Facebook had this, therefore any company who has this should be successful". But that's flawed logic. What about the companies who also had that same thing and weren't as successful? This was the basis for Sean Ammirati's research in authoring the international best-seller, The Science of Growth. He had a very simple premise: When two companies with similar business models, product types, and market conditions both achieve product-market fit, what happens that enables one company to scale up and the other to stall out?To understand this, you need to understand the power of massive-growth catalyzing events. In part 1 of this 2 part conversation, Sean and I break down the pre-requisite conditions for success, and lay the groundwork for understanding this concept.Find Sean online:Social Media: @seanammiratiToday's episode is brought to you by Sales Hacker. The world's smartest community of forward-thinking B2B professionals. Grab their latest expert-created articles, webinars, and podcast episodes at www.saleshacker.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Sean Ammirati co-founded mSpoke, which was the first acquisition of LinkedIn. His next startup was Peak Strategy, which was acquired by Morgan Stanley. Today, he focuses on being a partner at Birchmere Ventures, where they invest into seed-stage SaaS and marketplace startups. Since their start in 1996, they've invested in 135 companies with 51 exits. Sean also teaches entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. “the easy advice is just do it. But we want to be more thoughtful than that. So, the way to unpack that a little bit… I think that entrepreneurs before they start the journey, they tend to think too much about the downside. And so, I would encourage you to have a rational conversation with yourself about what really are the different outcomes here. And then once you've done that… Once you've kind of thought through that and you've taken the leap and jumped into it you can never overemphasise spending time with your customers. The more time you spend with the customers and listening to them and understanding the problems they have the better off you will be”…[Listen for More] Click Here for Show Notes To Listen or to Get the Show Notes go to https://wp.me/p6Tf4b-7G5
Shift your focus from maintaining your business to reimagining. Laurie Barkman is joined by Sean Ammirati, Co-Founder and Director of the Corporate Startup Lab and Partner at Birchmere Ventures. Listen in as they discuss how mature companies can rediscover their entrepreneurial vision and develop innovation strategies to thrive post-recession. Show notes: LinkedIn - Sean Ammirati seanammirati.com Book: The Science of Growth on Amazon Corporate Startup Lab at Carnegie Mellon Agile Giants Podcast HBR article "Roaring Out of The Recession" McKinsey article, "Innovation in a Crisis - Why it is more critical than ever"
Sean Ammirati co-founded mSpoke, which was the first acquisition of LinkedIn. His next startup was Peak Strategy, which was acquired by Morgan Stanley. Today, he focuses on being a partner at Birchmere Ventures, where they invest in seed-stage SaaS and marketplace startups. Since its start in 1996, they’ve invested in 135 companies with 51 exits. Sean also teaches entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. What you will learn from this episode: Sean’s entrepreneurial journey The philosophy behind “The Science of Growth: Why Some Companies Scale While Others Stall” Why entrepreneurship is more about being obsessive with the problems your customers have than it is about an idea Sean’s 3-step framework for how companies scale-up How to adapt to a changing marketplace using Sean’s 4 prerequisites 4 catalyzing events that can help startups drive growth How to vet and evaluate potential capital partners so that you are accepting smart money for your startup Why we need a greater number of entrepreneurs now more than ever Resources: Website: http://birchmerevc.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanammirati/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/birchmere-ventures/ Twitter: @SeanAmmirati @birchmerevc Additional Resources: Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13 Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/ Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
Meet Sean Ammirati, partner at Birchmere Ventures, where they invest in seed-stage SaaS and marketplace startups. Sean co-founded mSpoke the first acquisition of LinkedIn, and Peak Strategy which was acquired by Morgan Stanley. Sean also teaches entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.In this episode, you'll hear about Sean's exits and his journey to becoming a professor and partner at a venture fund. You'll learn the importance of understanding the lean methodology for SaaS companies today, the four growth catalysts that winning SaaS companies use to scale up once they find product-market fit and how to create sustained long term growth.And finally, Sean's prediction for the SaaS marketplace in 2020. It was really valuable to hear this unique voice and perspective. Enjoy!Notes:- 03:00 Giving The First Institutional Check To Companies- 06:25 The Way Venture Funds Work- 08:50 Funds Have Different Investment Theses- 11:20 Different Funds Think About Adding Partners Differently- 16:10 What Investors Look For In Founders- 18:25 SaaS Product-Market Fit Is More A Neighborhood Than It Is A Street Address- 20:00 What Comes After Product-Market Fit?- 23:15 The Four Catalysts To Scale Up Instead Of Stall Out- 26:10 A Great Example Of A SaaS Company Applying The Double Trigger Event- 34:50 Don't Just Reopen Your Business But Really Reimagine Your Business- 38:50 Having Them Trying To Buy You vs Being In A Situation Where You Have To Sell- 40:15 Sustained Long Term Growth: Be Data-Informed But Not Data-Driven- 42:20 Next Months: A Lot Of Companies Interested In Buying SaaS Tools That Allow To Do More With Less- 44:00 Lightning Questions
In this episode we are joined by Sean Ammirati, entrepreneur, writer, venture capitalist, professor, researcher and public speaker. Yes, Sean has a lot of irons in the fire but he took the time to join us for an informative and exciting episode about entrepreneurship, how a process improves the chance of success and the impact of COVID.Most Recently Sean was COO of ReadWriteWeb, one of the most influential sites about the future of technology and innovation. In December 2011, the company was acquired by SAY Media to strengthen its technology channel. Sean was previously co-founder and CEO of mSpoke, which was the first acquisition of LinkedIn. Sean brings the unique experience of the person that has done it, the person that is in the arena now and the expert that teaches how to do the entrepreneur thing the right way. Check out this episode for valuable nuggets of knowledge!
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight. In this podcast, Sean and I talk about how long it will take until we get the economy back up and moving again.Episode 14Reimagining our companies is on Sean’s mind. We need to figure out what the right innovation strategy is. The world is going to be very different, and you need to build new products, new services, and new value to your customers. And companies need to do all that more rapidly and with more commitment than ever before.The notions of courage, commitment and vision in the face of daunting threats have been with us forever. I mention to Sean one of my favorite poems: “Horatius at the Bridge” by Thomas Babington Macaulay describes how Horatius steps forward to do what others believe is impossible as the Etruscan army is about to invade. The specific form of the challenges faced by people change over time, but the need for powerful and fearless leadership is a constant.Sean concludes with revisiting your operational plan, and how you’re investing in your assets this year. In this time of crazy transition and transformation, that’s all we have.Also in this episode:· Steve Jobs and Corning Gorilla Glass· Work from home forever!· A magical time for your business· The mirror is much closer than it appears See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight. In this episode, Sean and I talk about business model transformation and how Microsoft and FedEx are reimagining the world.Episode 13Sean talks about how we’ve gotten to a point where companies have made 80% of the investment they needed to in digital transformation (but he thinks they’ve gotten about 20% of the value from that investment). Business model transformation is not just making experiences more efficient and making your supply chain run a little smoother, but actually completely turning your businesses into digital-first models.Taking a turn, Microsoft and FedEx are partnering to combine the scale of the global digital logistics network of FedEx with the power of Microsoft’s intelligent cloud. Businesses will have an unprecedented level of control into the global movement of goods.Concluding, Sean says that we need to start looking at how do we take this situation that we're all in and use it to make our companies better, stronger, and more vibrant. We owe it to our employees, we owe it to our customers, and we owe it to our shareholders.Also in this episode:· The hen and the pig – no such thing as a merger of equals· Joint AI innovation between Microsoft and Novartis· Workday and Salesforce: Perfect together· Is it a V-shaped recession, or a U-shaped recession? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Entrepreneurship is often seen as a bastion of lean, forward-thinking startups. But these agile, early-stage businesses aren’t the only ones with the capacity to develop game-changing products and services. Join host Tony Uphoff and Sean Ammirati, author, professor, venture capitalist, and co-founder & director of the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab (CSL), as they discuss the lessons that established, large-scale businesses can learn from agile startups, the accelerating shift from digital transformation to business model innovation, and why manufacturing business leaders should see themselves as entrepreneurs to help solve industry-wide challenges. Resources From This Episode: Learn more about Sean Ammirati: https://www.seanammirati.com/ Read more about the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab (CSL): https://www.corporatestartuplab.com/ Purchase Sean’s book, “The Science of Growth: How Facebook Beat Friendster - and How Nine Other Startups Left the Rest in the Dust”: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250074294
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 12In this episode: Sean says founders are some of the most creative and innovative people. They have a combination of intellectual courage that makes them pretty remarkable. He says Larry Ellison of Oracle, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, and Mark Zuckerberg are the Mellons and Carnegies of this generation. Sean says a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. He says he’s seeing it across his companies. These are businesses that he has investments in and it’s created real tailwinds. Sean says Disney+ had a great quarter – and now they are catching up to Netflix. But Disney’s core theme parks are another issue. Sean says airline companies have taken all of their profits and plowed them into stock buybacks. He says that puts them in a very weak position. Sean thinks that transportation is less important than it was before – and we’ll figure out a way to do it remotely. He says SurfAir is a great example. They flew from regional airports, and he had a number of colleagues who were just fanatics about the SurfAir experience. But, he says, are we going to travel on airplanes are some point? He suspects they will. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 11In this episode, Sean says he hasn’t been on a plane for almost four weeks – and that’s unusual because he is always on a plane to somewhere. So he has been able to have dinner with his wife and kids, and it’s been incredible. He says it puts life in perspective, and that’s the most important thing.Sean says that his roughly 30 companies are negatively impacted by COVID-19 – but he says that’s secondary to health and safety. He says everyone is working from home. Sean says he authored a book called “The Science of Growth,” where he looked at pairs of companies and asked, why did one company take off and the other one didn’t. Why is a third of the internet running on top of WordPress? Why are people driving Teslas and not Fiskars? Why do people have a Facebook account and not a Friendster account? Sean says he wouldn’t want to be in the hospitality business today – or the travel business. He quotes Warren Buffett as saying, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” Sean says he typically uses that in board meetings when it feels like companies are swimming to close to the knife’s edge. He says it’s true of a global company, and it’s also true inside a 10 person company. He says he’s pretty proud that his portfolio companies are doing a pretty good job of making sure that they’re doing the right thing. Sean says what some companies are doing over the last five years in terms of share buybacks to inflate their stock. He says there are companies who had really good offers to raise money three months ago and held out to try to get a 5% higher valuation. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 10In this episode, Sean says Andy Jassy has been an incredible CEO of AWS. He says AWS would be one of the 10 most valuable companies in the world the day it went public. And he understands that it basically works for everybody in the world – except for Jeff Bezos. He says there are a ton of customers making very different decisions if AWS was a standalone entity. But, he says, will the CEO of Kroger compete with Whole Foods? He doesn’t think so.Sean says Microsoft and Google are doing in the cloud space exactly what retailers, healthcare companies, and banks, etc. They’re saying, “What’s our incumbency advantage, and what are we best in the world at?”I tell him that Peter Steube, one of our latest Digital All-Stars, has a 10-year trendable data from CIOs and CTOs about the enterprise purchases they’re making. Peter says there is absolutely no question that in the last six months Google Cloud has gone up dramatically – and also Microsoft. Sean says it’s hard to uncouple Google Cloud from the rest of the Google digital advertising business.Sean says AWS needs to be set free. He says that’s a prediction he’s feeling much better about here in February than he was when he made it in January. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
#millenniumlive had the pleasure to chat with Sean Ammirati, Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University and Co-Founder & Director of The Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab. Sean talked all things entrepreneurship, how he predicts ROI for machine learning will take a giant step forward in 2020, and how his passion for helping others begin startups is at the core of what he's doing at Carnegie Mellon, "everyone needs a voice for making the world what it should be."
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 9In this episode, Sean and I discuss Slack. He says Slack has basically been slashed in half – $42 a share vs. $22 a share. Its market cap is $12 billion. Sean says what would these statistics be worth inside Oracle, Salesforce, Microsoft, or Google. He says that with some of the assets Microsoft has, LinkedIn plus Slack would be a very good combination. Sean says LinkedIn bought Lynda, a corporate education company, for $1.5 billion, but so far it’s been an accretive acquisition.He speculates Walmart has the potential to buy one or two very large companies – including FedEx, which he says would be a good acquisition – and maybe Shopify too. He says we’ll see a further investment in Walmart Labs, including new business models.He then turns to Amazon and AWS. He says he just can’t wrap his head around why Amazon won’t spin out AWS this year. He says he’s seen all the denials from the management team – but it just doesn’t make sense that they don’t want to do this. Sean says how does Walmart feel about cutting checks to AWS? I say that AWS will finish the calendar year with about $38 billion in revenue – placing them among the top seven tech companies.Sean says he’s not an economist, but his conclusion is that often companies are wrong. They often deliver with confidence and that confidence often turns out to be incorrect. The market almost certainly needs to correct in 2020.Sean’s podcast is Agile Giants, and it’s on all the major platforms. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 8In this episode, Sean and I discuss how Disney+ had over 10 million people signed up in 24 hours – and they’re registering 1.2 million downloads a day on the app. He says his wife was one of the 10 million people who signed up for Disney+. And because he has two kids he says you need food, water, and Mickey Mouse.I told him about a guy who used to work for Oracle who said to Larry Ellison, “Hey Larry, we’re doing a lot of stuff here at Yahoo and we got a call from some people at Disney. And they asked if maybe we could discuss the opportunity of doing some things together. I don't know, what should we tell them?” Larry said, “Let’s see, they have the greatest movies in the world, they have theme parks, hundreds of millions of fans around the world, an incredible brand, loyal employees. You know, all these assets you’d die for. What does Yahoo have? Free news and email.”Sean says SAP is reimagining HR the transition from HCM to HXM – in other words, employees first. He says SAP is creating a whole new category, and he thinks that’s not going to be the last thing you’re going to see coming out of SAP.Salesforce and Microsoft were in a bidding war for LinkedIn, and Sean says what felt expensive for LinkedIn now feels awfully cheap with the HCM space heating up.Sean circles back to Disney+ and says the CEO of Netflix should figure out what to do to level the playing field. He says that his currency is down in the last six months, and he has less currency to deals than he did six months ago. Sean knows the history of AOL and TimeWarner. He says the world has changed and you need to scale to play in the game that Netflix and Disney+ a playing out today.The Agile Giants podcast is on all the major platforms. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 7In this episode, Sean and I kick off with a new look at the evolving WeWork and Softbank story. Sean explores what it means that SoftBank chose to invest even more money into WeWork, and now owns about 80% of the business. Plus, the fact that the former CEO is making $180 MILLION during the transition! I think we all can agree, that’s a pretty good consulting package.In our last podcast episode, Sean compared WeWork to a real estate business. Now he says it’s basically a rental car company: they buy expensive fixed assets, and then they rent them out in very short units of time. But there are still reasons for optimism. For example, Sean says, Amazon has 5,000 WeWork desks in New York alone.We also debate whether the SoftBank decision to keep WeWork running is a smart one. Are they following the sunk cost fallacy? Or doubling-down on their belief in WeWork’s ability to lead the transformation of work trend? Sean quotes hedge fund manager Howard Marks, who says, “To be a great investor you need to be two things: you need to be contrarian and correct.” SoftBank is definitely being contrarian. Only time will tell if they’re also correct.Sean and I then jump to a discussion of a few of the Cloud Wars Top 10 vendors. I have some questions for Sean about ServiceNow, which now has Bill McDermott as CEO. You could argue that it’s the #1 most innovative company in the world; it’s growing at 35% and approaching a billion dollars in revenue per quarter.Finally, we have a high-level discussion of innovation. Sean says his employer, Carnegie Mellon, has been ten years ahead of the world in AI – they were using self-driving cars in the aughts. Innovation works differently everywhere. But some recent moves by Microsoft, Amazon and Google to take a leadership position in AI indicate that the time for widespread, non-stop innovation is NOW. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 6In this episode, Sean and I discuss the pain and suffering at WeWork, which had roughly a $50 billion market cap, and is now struggling to do one-third that much. Their CEO, Adam Neumann voted to oust himself amid various scandals, and their “community adjusted EBITDA” he calls a made-up metric.SoftBank, their largest investor, was poised to push for an IPO, but Sean says WeWork was a $10 billion great idea – not a $50 billion great idea. He says this was always, at the end of the day, a real estate business, and he compares it to CB Richard Ellis – although with a 5x valuation. And Sean says it turns out that beer and kombucha on tap is expensive – and there’s a lot of that in WeWork spaces.I tell him about my experience eating seal meat with SoftBank. Sean says I should have moved it around on the plate and hope something else comes along. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 5In this episode, Sean and I discuss how he wants everybody to think about themselves as an entrepreneur – and that includes people working inside large businesses. He quotes Jim Collins of “Good to Great” fame by saying good is the enemy of great – and that’s why some entities don’t become great. Sean says that software, when done well, provides asymmetric value, and how Satya Nadella of Microsoft said that over the next five years, 500 million new applications will be written – far more than in the history of the software industry. And finally, Sean says you can go to corporatestartuplab.com and see free tools that are in development – all the Corporate Startup Lab asks for is feedback. His podcast Agile Giants is on all the major streaming networks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 4In this episode, Sean and I discuss how Microsoft and OpenAI announced a joint initiative, which they call AGI, and how $1 billion – no matter how big the company is – is a big investment. I quote from Sam Altman, Chairman and former CEO of YCombinator and now CEO of OpenAI, “The creation of AGI will be the most important technological development in human history with the potential to shape the trajectory of humanity.” Sean says Sam is not someone you would bet against, because it is the best-run tech accelerator out there. He then returns to how Bing feels like the old Microsoft, not the new Microsoft. Sean then notes that with challenge comes great opportunity, and people have some really exciting opportunities in front of them. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 3In this episode, Sean and I talk about decision-making, from a couple of angles. First, we explore the choice that giant global corporations have to make when a new opportunity comes along. Namely, do we do this ourselves, or partner up to make it happen? We also affirm that companies can walk and chew gum at the same time— meaning that they need to care about customers AND users at the same time. Sean has a podcast called “Agile Giants,” where he interviews guests ranging from CEOs, CTOs, and VCs to authors. With that unique POV underpinning his thoughts on the subject, Sean tells us that Oracle and Microsoft teaming up together makes for strange bedfellows. Later, Sean reveals that knew he wanted to be a programmer from the age of seven (!!!). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 3In this episode, Sean and I talk about how you can walk and chew gum at the same time – meaning that you need to care about your customers AND your users. Sean has a podcast called “Agile Giants,” where he interviews guests ranging from CEOs, CTOs, and VCs to authors. He speaks about how Oracle and Microsoft teaming up together makes for some pretty strange bedfellows. Later, Sean reveals that knew he wanted to be a programmer from the age of seven (?). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 2In this episode, Sean and I celebrate big, legacy businesses taking innovation “moonshots.” What about the Disney+ strategy makes it a Netflix killer. Why SAP + Qualtrics is a killer idea. And how Satya Nadella just might be the killer CEO of the decade. Sean also talks us through his belief that grocery chains, manufacturers, automotive companies, and others need to figure out what their own version of Disney+ looks like—and get started on building it. Because as Sean says, we cannot relegate innovation to a subset of the economy and a subset of society. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 2:In this episode, Sean – a Digital All-Star – and I discuss how Disney+ is a Netflix killer, how SAP and Qualtrics is a killer idea, and how Satya Nadella just might be the killer CEO of the decade. He also talks about how grocery chains, manufacturers, automotive companies, and others need to think about what’s my version of Disney+. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
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? - Inside large companies (10,000+) it’s an echo chamber. They only see direct competitors. - Need someone looking outside at competition. Expose the corporate team to new ways of startup thinking. - Startups also get exposure to see how their tech can apply to different domains. In The Startup Gold Mine Book - Understand what is going on behind the scenes. What is your corporate counterpart doing? - How is your colleague rewarded or punished? Are they paid for the home run? Are they new to the company? - Corporations have been very interested in the book to shed light on the startup side. - Reduce the language barrier between corporates and startups. To connect with Neil go to neilsoni.com or on Twitter at @therealneils. You can also get his book, The Startup Gold Mine on Amazon. If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy: - Ep. 98 – Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth - Ep. 96 – Chris Shipley at the Inside Outside Innovation Summit 2017 - Ep. 63 – Dave Knox with The Brandery and Ep. 64 – Dave Knox part 2 - Ep. 45 – Michael Docherty, Author of The Lone Wolf Innovator Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play. FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy
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? - Inside large companies (10,000+) it’s an echo chamber. They only see direct competitors. - Need someone looking outside at competition. Expose the corporate team to new ways of startup thinking. - Startups also get exposure to see how their tech can apply to different domains. In The Startup Gold Mine Book - Understand what is going on behind the scenes. What is your corporate counterpart doing? - How is your colleague rewarded or punished? Are they paid for the home run? Are they new to the company? - Corporations have been very interested in the book to shed light on the startup side. - Reduce the language barrier between corporates and startups. To connect with Neil go to neilsoni.com or on Twitter at @therealneils. You can also get his book, The Startup Gold Mine on Amazon. If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy: - Ep. 98 – Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth - Ep. 96 – Chris Shipley at the Inside Outside Innovation Summit 2017 - Ep. 63 – Dave Knox with The Brandery and Ep. 64 – Dave Knox part 2 - Ep. 45 – Michael Docherty, Author of The Lone Wolf Innovator Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play. FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 1In this episode, Sean and I discuss what innovation looks like in 2019: where it’s coming from, who gets funding for their ideas and how, and why cloud has been so transformative in terms of the business models for entrepreneurs and innovators. Sean also shares his thoughts on the recent story about Lyft and Amazon’s $8-million-per-month partnership for AWS services. (Spoiler alert: he thinks it’s worth every penny.)Sean Ammirati is a partner at Birchmere Ventures, which focuses on both SaaS and consumer internet investments, as well as their Birchmere Labs initiative. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School, and hosts a podcast series called “Agile Giants.”--Explore more in the Cloud Wars series - https://cloudwars.coListen to more episode of Cloud Wars Live - https://bit.ly/2WIYncvFollow Sean on Twitter - https://twitter.com/SeanAmmiratiFollow Bob on Twitter - https://twitter.com/bobevansIT See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 1In this episode, Sean and I discuss what innovation looks like in 2019: where it’s coming from, who gets funding for their ideas and how, and why cloud has been so transformative in terms of the business models for entrepreneurs and innovators. Sean also shares his thoughts on the recent story about Lyft and Amazon’s $8-million-per-month partnership for AWS services. (Spoiler alert: he thinks it’s worth every penny.)Sean Ammirati is a partner at Birchmere Ventures, which focuses on both SaaS and consumer internet investments, as well as their Birchmere Labs initiative. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School, and hosts a podcast series called “Agile Giants.”--Explore more in the Cloud Wars series - https://cloudwars.coListen to more episode of Cloud Wars Live - https://bit.ly/2WIYncvFollow Sean on Twitter - https://twitter.com/SeanAmmiratiFollow Bob on Twitter - https://twitter.com/bobevansIT See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
On this episode, host Sean Ammirati, Co-Founder and Director of the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab, sits down with an advisor to Cheif Innovation Officers Terri Lonier. Terri and Sean have a great conversation, including Terri's insights on: opportunities and traps around companies setting up innovation labs (starting at 9:07) the Creative Canvas she developed (starting at 12:01) the importance of having a diverse set of thinkers involved in innovation (starting at 15:47) Show Links: You can learn more about Terri here: https://terrilonier.com/ You can download the Creative Canvas she developed here: http://creativecanvas.org/ Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab https://www.corporatestartuplab.com/ Learn more about Sean https://www.seanammirati.com/
Each week, join Sean Ammirati, Co-Founder & Director of the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab, as he interviews guests who are doing the important work creating startups inside large corporations. If you already are a corporate entrepreneur, want to become one or are just looking for some advice around commercializing transformative innovation, this podcast is for you.
Sean Moffitt is Managing Director of WikiBrands and Author of WikiBrands: How to Reinvent Your Business in a Customer Connected Marketplace. He focuses on helping people develop a transformational arsenal, including skills in culture and talent, innovation and future proofing, technology and digital, and leadership/pivoting business models. Highlights of Sean's conversation with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Founder, include: What’s changing the corporate landscape: - Speed at which things are happening. 7x faster than 25 years ago. - Startups and Scaleups are much easier to create. Corporate innovation needs a wake-up call. - Leverage corporate advantages with startup innovation. - Culture eats strategy, innovation, and tech for breakfast. Keys are people. New WikiBrands Research Study - Looking at the difference in how startups, scaleups, and corporates approach things and innovation in the wild. What’s working? - Hoping to find a definition of innovation and more focus on breakthrough Innovation. - Business Models - 32 of the most competitive business models of the future. What works? - Approaches to Market - e.g. Design or Agile - Different types of modes of practice. Who is the most successful using the different strategies? - Research is based on collaborative thought, with insight from nine innovators and answers from 50 survey questions. More Information For more information or to connect with Sean, check out Wiki-brands.com and take the innovation survey. You can also search on social media under #corporateinnovationplaybook. If you liked this podcast, you should also check out, Ep. 112– Ralph Welborn, Author of Topple on Corporate Innovation, Ep. 98– Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth, and Ep 87 – Tom Lockwood and Edgar Papke on Innovation by Design Free Innovation Newsletter Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy
Sean Moffitt is Managing Director of WikiBrands and Author of WikiBrands: How to Reinvent Your Business in a Customer Connected Marketplace. He focuses on helping people develop a transformational arsenal, including skills in culture and talent, innovation and future proofing, technology and digital, and leadership/pivoting business models. Highlights of Sean's conversation with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Founder, include: What’s changing the corporate landscape: - Speed at which things are happening. 7x faster than 25 years ago. - Startups and Scaleups are much easier to create. Corporate innovation needs a wake-up call. - Leverage corporate advantages with startup innovation. - Culture eats strategy, innovation, and tech for breakfast. Keys are people. New WikiBrands Research Study - Looking at the difference in how startups, scaleups, and corporates approach things and innovation in the wild. What’s working? - Hoping to find a definition of innovation and more focus on breakthrough Innovation. - Business Models - 32 of the most competitive business models of the future. What works? - Approaches to Market - e.g. Design or Agile - Different types of modes of practice. Who is the most successful using the different strategies? - Research is based on collaborative thought, with insight from nine innovators and answers from 50 survey questions. More Information For more information or to connect with Sean, check out Wiki-brands.com and take the innovation survey. You can also search on social media under #corporateinnovationplaybook. If you liked this podcast, you should also check out, Ep. 112– Ralph Welborn, Author of Topple on Corporate Innovation, Ep. 98– Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth, and Ep 87 – Tom Lockwood and Edgar Papke on Innovation by Design Free Innovation Newsletter Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy
Changing everything while disrupting nothing John Buhl spent the last 13 years at Vanguard, innovating at all levels. He loved applying Lean Startup principles at scale and discovering what elements needed to change. Unfortunately, he hit many brick walls and found friction to make changes throughout the organization. The system of annual funding, with specific deliverables, was well entrenched. John wanted to understand, how do you shift a large company to be outcome-oriented and realize that old systems can be detrimental. Recently, John joined the Corporate Entrepreneur Community, formed by Eric Reis and Steve Liguori. Together they discovered three things: every company has the same problems, innovation is not science yet, and there’s a gap in peer-to-peer corporate community learning. One obstacle to innovating at scale is changing everything while disrupting nothing. John believes companies can succeed with incremental improvements and making it their own. On the team level, companies need to get senior leadership aligned and invested. They also need to have an excellent governance structure, manage change, and have top-down buy-in. For an individual, pushing against a culture can be risky. Try to align with a leader that allows you to experiment. You’ve got to give the leader evidence that innovation works, in addition to showing them things that didn’t work. Solving tactical barriers such as the budget process and breaking down internal silos, will also generate more speed, flow, and throughput. FOR MORE INFO To find out more about Corporate Entrepreneurship Community see Corpentcom.com or find John Buhl on LinkedIn. If you liked this podcast, try Ep 118 - Exxon Mobil's Christopher Bailey and Kim Bullock on Corporate Innovation and Ep 98 - Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth GET THE LATEST RESOURCES Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy
John Buhl spent the last 13 years at Vanguard, innovating at all levels. He loved applying Lean Startup principles at scale and discovering what elements needed to change. Unfortunately, he hit many brick walls and found friction to make changes throughout the organization. The system of annual funding, with specific deliverables, was well entrenched. John wanted to understand, how do you shift a large company to be outcome-oriented and realize that old systems can be detrimental. Recently, John joined the Corporate Entrepreneur Community, formed by Eric Reis and Steve Liguori. Together they discovered three things: every company has the same problems, innovation is not science yet, and there’s a gap in peer-to-peer corporate community learning. One obstacle for companies innovating at scale is that companies must change everything while disrupting nothing. John believes companies can succeed with incremental improvements and making it their own. On the team level, companies need to get senior leadership aligned and invested. They also need to have an excellent governance structure, manage change, and have top-down buy-in. For an individual, pushing against a culture can be risky. Try to align with a leader that allows you to experiment. You’ve got to give the leader evidence that innovation works, in addition to showing them things that didn’t work. Solving tactical barriers such as the budget process and breaking down internal silos, will also generate more speed, flow, and throughput. FOR MORE INFO To find out more about Corporate Entrepreneurship Community see Corpentcom.com or find John Buhl on LinkedIn. If you liked this podcast, try Ep 118 - Exxon Mobil's Christopher Bailey and Kim Bullock on Corporate Innovation and Ep 98 - Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth GET THE LATEST RESOURCES Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy
After years of working in startups, Sean Johnson and his team began getting approached by enterprises. These companies needed help moving on ideas, accessing specialists and understanding how to be iterative. Today, Sean's company Digital Intent works with venture-backed startups and Fortune 1000 companies wanting to be tech-enabled businesses. He is also a general partner at Founder Equity. Brian and Sean discuss a variety of corporate innovation strategies. Here are a few highlights: - Companies need to be making lots of little bets, with little bits of funds. Think like investors. Spread the risk. - Corporations innovation teams can have a similar cadence to a venture fund. Life of 7-10 years and 3 deals a year. Team churn concern. How to preserve knowledge. - Have conversations with corporate teams who are connected with customers early. Act like a startup and get realistic feedback for needs and products. - Partner with startups. Startups are getting a channel they didn’t have, but are putting in resources and time to appease the corporation. Good strategy for corporations. - Try an EIR (Entrepreneurs-in-residence). No legacy baggage. - Arm corporate startup teams with a coach. - Develop internal VC boards with members that are external and bring domain experience. - Leverage the data companies collect by understanding how to use the data. This may create opportunities for less disruptive and more incremental improvements. - Traditional service companies (law, accountancies, and management consultants) will automate significant portions of their work. Reinvent these business models. - Use more tactical growth accounting. Manage to growth metrics and experiments. To connect with Sean Johnson, follow him at @intentionally, Digintent.com or founderequity.com If you like this interview, you might also be interested in Ep. 98- Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth and Ep. 54- Robert Walcott with Kellogg on Innovation Trends GET THE LATEST RESOURCES Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy
After years of working in startups, Sean Johnson and his team began getting approached by enterprises. These companies needed help moving on ideas, accessing specialists and understanding how to be iterative. Today, Sean's company Digital Intent works with venture-backed startups and Fortune 1000 companies wanting to be tech-enabled businesses. He is also a general partner at Founder Equity. Brian and Sean discuss a variety of corporate innovation strategies. Here are a few highlights: - Companies need to be making lots of little bets, with little bits of funds. Think like investors. Spread the risk. - Corporations innovation teams can have a similar cadence to a venture fund. Life of 7-10 years and 3 deals a year. Team churn concern. How to preserve knowledge. - Have conversations with corporate teams who are connected with customers early. Act like a startup and get realistic feedback for needs and products. - Partner with startups. Startups are getting a channel they didn’t have, but are putting in resources and time to appease the corporation. Good strategy for corporations. - Try an EIR (Entrepreneurs-in-residence). No legacy baggage. - Arm corporate startup teams with a coach. - Develop internal VC boards with members that are external and bring domain experience. - Leverage the data companies collect by understanding how to use the data. This may create opportunities for less disruptive and more incremental improvements. - Traditional service companies (law, accountancies, and management consultants) will automate significant portions of their work. Reinvent these business models. - Use more tactical growth accounting. Manage to growth metrics and experiments. To connect with Sean Johnson, follow him at @intentionally, Digintent.com or founderequity.com If you like this interview, you might also be interested in Ep. 98- Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth and Ep. 54- Robert Walcott with Kellogg on Innovation Trends GET THE LATEST RESOURCES Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy
Sean Ammirati is a partner at Birchmere Ventures focused on both SaaS and Consumer Internet investments as well as their Birchmere Labs (www.birchmerelabs.com) initiative and an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School. Most Recently Sean was COO of ReadWriteWeb, one of the most influential sites about the future of technology and innovation. In December 2011, the company was acquired by SAY Media to strengthen its technology channel. Sean was previously co-founder and CEO of mSpoke, which was the first acquisition of LinkedIn. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Sean Ammirati really knows both sides of the table. He’s gone from founding multiple companies to being a partner at Birchmere Ventures and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He’s written numerous books including “The Science of Growth: How Facebook Beat Friendster” and will be speaking at the Inside Outside Innovation Summit happening May 29th-31st. In his conversation with Brian, Sean talked about his unique journey, big versus small, and tools that have helped him help others. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy
Key Terms CAC - Customer acquisition cost LTV - Lifetime Value ARR - Annual Recurring Revenue MRR - Monthly Recurring Revenue Churn Rate - % of customers that stop paying for your product/service Ned is one of two founding partners at Birchmere Ventures, which is primarily focused on seed SaaS and marketplace investments. He led Birchmere’s investment in Cvent and served on its board for 11 years. His other notable investments include TenMarks (acquired by Amazon), Neolinear (acquired by Cadence Design Systems), Peloton Technologies, Presence Learning, Identified Technologies, Modsy, Gem, Gradeslam, Mapper.ai, Ikos, SubCentral, OneKloud, Sleeperbot, and Treatspace. We cover the 101 of venture capital and how the Pittsburgh startup ecosystem has evolved. Watch the behind-the-scenes on Piper Creative’s vlog. Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter. Ned’s Challenge; Run personal experiments like intermittent fasting. Connect with Ned LinkedIn Twitter Website ned@birchmerevc.com If you liked this interview, check out episode 85 with Sean Ammirati where we discuss the science of growth and why Facebook beat Friendster. Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay
This episode comes to you from our special event series. We had the privilege of hosting a special event with Sean Ammirati. Sean is an Entrepreneur turned Venture Capitalist and Professor. He's built and sold his own businesses and now he spends his time helping others grow theirs. One of his companies was acquired by LinkedIn. He's also a professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon. I've also interviewed Sean for the Podcast before in episode #96 & #97. I'll include a link to that in the show notes. We broke Sean's talk into two parts, in this, you'll hear our question and answer session with Sean. In episode #104, you can listen to Sean's talk on his book, The Science of Growth. If you would like to purchase a copy of Sean's book, I've included links in the show notes. For ways to connect with Sean and what he's doing, go to the show notes at l3leadership.org/episode105.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/l3leadership)
This episode comes to you from our special event series. We had the privilege of hosting a special event with Sean Ammirati. Sean is an Entrepreneur turned Venture Capitalist and Professor. He's built and sold his own businesses and now he spends his time helping others grow theirs. One of his companies was acquired by LinkedIn. He's also a professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon. I've interviewed Sean for the Podcast before in episode #96 & #97. I'll include a link to that in the show notes. We broke Sean's talk into two parts, in this, you'll hear his talk from his new book: The Science of Growth: How Facebook Beat Friendster and Nine Other Star-ups left the rest in the dust! In episode #105, we'll put up our Question and Answer Session with Sean! If you would like to purchase a copy of Sean's book, I've included links in the show notes. For ways to connect with Sean and what he's doing, go to the show notes at l3leadership.org/episode104.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/l3leadership)
Dennis is the CEO and Founder of x.ai, whose artificial intelligence driven personal assistant lets people schedule meetings using plain English and nothing more than a CC to amy@x.ai. Founded in 2014, x.ai is backed by blue chip investors, including IA Ventures, Firstmark, and Two Sigma Ventures, and located in New York City. Dennis is a pioneer and expert in the analytics, optimization and big data space and has been since its inception – he is also a fully-fledged entrepreneur and successfully delivered a number of company exits. He’s an accredited Associate Analytics Instructor at the University of British Columbia, the Author of Data Driven Insights from Wiley and a frequent speaker on the subject of Analytics and Data. A native of Denmark, Mortensen currently calls New York City his home. Dennis’s Challenge; Take public transportation far away from home and walk back. Leave your phone at home so you can be alone with your mind. If you liked this interview, check out episode 85 with Sean Ammirati where we discuss startups, exponential growth, and being LinkedIn’s first acquisition.
This episode comes to you from our interview series, in which I interview great leaders and try to extract their best leadership practices. In this episode, I had the privilege of interview Sean Ammirati. Sean is an Entrepreneur turned Venture Capitalist and Professor. He's built and sold his own businesses and now he spends his time helping others grow theirs. One of his companies was acquired by LinkedIn. He's also a professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon. In this episode, Sean shares his thoughts on entrepreneurship and leadership. For ways to connect with Sean and a link to buy his book, go to L3Leadership.org/episode96. Connect with L3 Leadership: Website: L3Leadership.org LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/l3-leadership Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/L3Leader Twitter: @L3leader Instagram: @l3leadership Podcast: The Learning to Lead Podcast in iTunesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/l3leadership)
This episode comes to you from our interview series, in which I interview great leaders and try to extract their best leadership practices. In this episode, I had the privilege of interview Sean Ammirati. Sean is an Entrepreneur turned Venture Capitalist and Professor. He's built and sold his own businesses and now he spends his time helping others grow theirs. One of his companies was acquired by LinkedIn. He's also a professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon. In this episode, we talk about Sean's new book, The Science of Growth: How Facebook beat Friendster and How Nine Other Start-ups Left the Rest in the Dust! For ways to connect with Sean and a link to buy his book, go to L3Leadership.org/episode96. Connect with L3 Leadership: Website: L3Leadership.org LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/l3-leadership Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/L3Leader Twitter: @L3leader Instagram: @l3leadership Podcast: The Learning to Lead Podcast in iTunesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/l3leadership)
Sean Ammirati joined Birchmere Ventures in 2012 to as the partner leading Birchmere Labs, a seed and studio fund focused on community driven commerce start-ups. Prior to that, he had over 12 years founding, building and selling businesses in the media and software industries. Sean was previously Chief Operating Officer of ReadWriteWeb, one of the most influential sites about the future of technology and innovation. In December 2011, the company was acquired by SAY Media to strengthen its technology channel. Sean was previously co-founder and CEO of mSpoke, which was the first acquisition of LinkedIn. Sean is currently an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University. He also was a founding advisor to Innovation Works’ AlphaLab accelerator. He holds a B.S. in computer information systems from Grove City College and was a research fellow at Carnegie Mellon’s Sloan Software Industry Center. Check out his new book about how lean startups can find growth; The Science of Growth: How Facebook Beat Friendster--and How Nine Other Startups Left the Rest in the Dust Sean’s Challenge; We need to do a better job conditioning ourselves to understand that failure is not as scary as we tend to think it is. Connect with Sean Twitter LinkedIn Website If you liked this interview, check out episode 16 with Zach Malone where we discuss raising venture capital and the Pittsburgh startups scene.
We are live from Podcamp Pittsburgh 6! Rob, Mike, and Chachi recap their thoughts on the weekend's events of Social Media Unconferencing! We talk to Mike Pound AKA Uncle Crappy of the Beaver County Times about his thoughts and how his Trolls session went, the Doppleganger of @lonelysandwich AKA Matt from I Prefer Booze Hound, Carla Swank of Yahoo's Rivals.com, Norm Huelsman of Stromhuelsman Podcast and iTwixie.com, have our friends Beth Albert and Christopher Beech of ThickBikes help continue the tradition of stickers on her butt. We also talk about the discrediting of Klout, the tremendous keynotes by Jeremy Fuksa, Sean Ammirati, the origin of the show's name, Shout outs to Sticker Giant! Picture courtesy Uncle Crappy. Find more pics from Podcamp here! Join the AwesomeCast on Twitter, Facebook and be sure to follow us on iTunes in both video and audio formats, as well as YouTube, Boxee, Roku, and Blip.tv! As always, you can chime in with news, thoughts, or comments at Contact@AwesomeCast.com or 724-25-A-CAST. Trouble viewing? Try on YouTube