How UNICEF mHealth Project Uses Design Thinking to Innovate - Lauren Serota

In Chapter 13 of 18 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, interaction designer and researcher Lauren Serota shares how her frog design team assisted UNICEF to further develop African mobile health - mhealth - projects. Focused on the last mile of health care in rural areas, frog helps UNICEF plan how to address the motivations of community health workers - CHWs - in context of the project design. Ultimately, frog provides visual aids to help socialize and unify pilot project participants. Longer term, the tools and ongoing relationship will help the project scale more thoughtfully. Serota is an interaction designer at frog design - http://frogdesign.com - and a professor at the Austin Center for Design - http://ac4d.com . She earned her bachelors degree in industrial design from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

The 6 Stages of the Entrepreneur Journey - Bijoy Goswami

In Chapter 8 of 15 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami shares the six (6) stages of the entrepreneurial journey. The first step is the "You" stage. This is the beginning of using skills and abilities. The second is the "Question" stage where entrepreneurs find what specifically they seek to answer. Stage three is ideation, answering the question and birthing a product, experience or cause the world needs. "The Valley of Death" is stage four, where the entrepreneur must sell to a customer. Stage five is the "growth phase" or sustainability. Here what was the founding team becomes culture and scale questions must be answered. Stage six is "Re-Bootstrap" where the business must continually re-invent itself. Goswami cites Apple as the best example of a company rebootstrapping itself continuously over its lifespan. Goswami lives in Austin, TX, where he develops models, including MRE, youPlusU, and Bootstrap, to help others live more meaningfully. He teaches his models through community activism, lectures, writing, and online communication. Previously, he co-founded Aviri Software after working at Trilogy Software. Goswami graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Computer Science, Economics, and History.

How the Startup Story is the Modern Hero's Journey - Bijoy Goswami

In Chapter 9 of 15 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami shares why startups fascinate him. He sees entrepreneurs and startups as the modern "Hero's Journey". Playing on the Joseph Campbell metaphor, Goswami shares how the startup is where entrepreneurs confront themselves, learn, and develop personally. He continues with his interest of how we can apply what entrepreneurs learn to a broader audience. Goswami lives in Austin, TX, where he develops models, including MRE, youPlusU, and Bootstrap, to help others live more meaningfully. He teaches his models through community activism, lectures, writing, and online communication. Previously, he co-founded Aviri Software after working at Trilogy Software. Goswami graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Computer Science, Economics, and History.

How Problem Solver Finds Purpose in Product Design - Chris Hinkle

In Chapter 1 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, product designer and software engineer Chris Hinkle shares how problem solving has helped him find purpose in his professional pursuits. In his product design work, he constantly looks for ways to improve existing processes and make things more efficient. Hinkle currently designs products and develops software for The Barbarian Group digital marketing services company. Previously, he worked at HUGE and R/GA digital advertising agencies. He has also founded a product incubation laboratory, The Hinkle Way.

How Software Engineer Embraces Non-Traditional Education - Chris Hinkle

In Chapter 4 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, product designer and software engineer Chris Hinkle shares the ups and downs associated with building a high tech career without high school or college degrees. Hinkle notes the recruiting and interviewing challenges presented when a large company learns about his non-traditional education background. He also notes the upside and how his alternative learning approach has allowed him to tailor an experience learning education around his interests. Hinkle currently designs products and develops software for The Barbarian Group digital marketing services company. Previously, he worked at HUGE and R/GA digital advertising agencies. He has also founded a product incubation laboratory, The Hinkle Way.

How Creating Products Motivates Software Engineer - Chris Hinkle

In Chapter 5 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, product designer and software engineer Chris Hinkle shares how he uses technology as a means to an end to solve problems and create positive consumer experiences. Hinkle enjoys getting to results quickly, and as a result is drawn to software engineering. He notes he is not the type of coder that enjoys solving big scalability issues nor is he the pure creative coder. Instead, he falls into the middle and reconciles the tedious nature coding often presents with the ability to create products and associated user experiences. Hinkle currently designs products and develops software for The Barbarian Group digital marketing services company. Previously, he worked at HUGE and R/GA digital advertising agencies. He has also founded a product incubation laboratory, The Hinkle Way.

How Temp Job Leads to Computer Programming Career - Chris Hinkle

In Chapter 6 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, product designer and software engineer Chris Hinkle shares how his computer programming career began working at a temp job. Watching an inefficient process occur, Hinkle traces the inefficiency to the source and makes adjustments to save the company time and resources. This leads Hinkle to start programming and create process efficiencies. Hinkle currently designs products and develops software for The Barbarian Group digital marketing services company. Previously, he worked at HUGE and R/GA digital advertising agencies. He has also founded a product incubation laboratory, The Hinkle Way.

How R/GA Agency Culture Fosters Creativity and Innovation - Chris Hinkle

In Chapter 7 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, product designer and software engineer Chris Hinkle shares how he learned creative thinking in digital media working at R/GA advertising agency in New York City. The company sets aside research and development to look for new problems to solve. It results in a culture of product research aimed at learning new technology and making new products before there is demand for them. Hinkle currently designs products and develops software for The Barbarian Group digital marketing services company. Previously, he worked at HUGE and R/GA digital advertising agencies. He has also founded a product incubation laboratory, The Hinkle Way.

How Software Programming is Both Art and Engineering - Chris Hinkle

In Chapter 8 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, product designer and software engineer Chris Hinkle shares how programming is both engineering and art. In programming, engineers are thinkers and technicians are the doers. Hinkle notes the class system between both. From an artistic perspective, Hinkle details how programming or engineering is an expressive medium that takes people's thoughts, desires, and wills and manifests them in a piece of software. Hinkle currently designs products and develops software for The Barbarian Group digital marketing services company. Previously, he worked at HUGE and R/GA digital advertising agencies. He has also founded a product incubation laboratory, The Hinkle Way.

Why Creatives Should "Always Be Making" - Chris Hinkle

In Chapter 9 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, product designer and software engineer Chris Hinkle shares why he takes an "Always Be Making" approach to product design. He notes the important early phases of ideation and design requirements, but cautions others not to get caught in these early phases and overlooking the importance of actually building or creating something. Hinkle currently designs products and develops software for The Barbarian Group digital marketing services company. Previously, he worked at HUGE and R/GA digital advertising agencies. He has also founded a product incubation laboratory, The Hinkle Way.

How to Convince Corporations to Take Creative Risks - Chris Hinkle

In Chapter 10 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, product designer and software engineer Chris Hinkle shares what he has learned about encouraging and helping large corporations to be more creative and less risk-averse. He notes the challenge, based on British anthropologist Robin Dunbar's number. Dunbar found once a mean group size reached 148 (commonly rounded to 150), it becomes more difficult to maintain stable social relationships. Hinkle sees the challenge encouraging corporate creativity Hinkle currently designs products and develops software for The Barbarian Group digital marketing services company. Previously, he worked at HUGE and R/GA digital advertising agencies. He has also founded a product incubation laboratory, The Hinkle Way.

Why to Design Product as Iteration and Not End Result - Chris Hinkle

In Chapter 11 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, product designer and software engineer Chris Hinkle shares why products should be treated as iterations and not end results. He notes software design is a continuous process. At some point, software has to be good enough to be released, whereupon developers can decide whether to iterate on the next version or shift focus to another project. Hinkle currently designs products and develops software for The Barbarian Group digital marketing services company. Previously, he worked at HUGE and R/GA digital advertising agencies. He has also founded a product incubation laboratory, The Hinkle Way.

How Ad Agency Jobs Inform Product Design Ambition - Chris Hinkle

In Chapter 12 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, product designer and software engineer Chris Hinkle reconciles the pros and cons developing software and designing projects in advertising agency environments. This leads Hinkle to create an entrepreneurial venture - The Hinkle Way - to incubate new products outside his agency work. Hinkle currently designs products and develops software for The Barbarian Group digital marketing services company. Previously, he worked at HUGE and R/GA digital advertising agencies. He has also founded a product incubation laboratory, The Hinkle Way.

Joe Stump on How to Manage Hypergrowth at an Internet Startup

In Chapter 6 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur and SimpleGeo CTO Joe Stump shares how management continues to challenge him as his company quickly grows. In his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, Stump noted how general management challenged him as he started his business. In this 2011 interview, after securing multiple rounds of financing and building a larger team, Stump finds new levels of challenges across hiring, company structure, and culture building. Stump is the co-founder and CTO at SimpleGeo (www.simplegeo.com), a San Francisco-based mobile location infrastructure services company. Previously Stump was Lead Architect at Digg. He programs in PHP, Python, Django and enjoys scaling websites. He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems from Eastern Michigan University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What has been most challenging about growing and starting this business?

Joe Stump: Oh, it has to be management, by far and away. The team grows really, really quickly and unlike I think a normal person that is a manager at a normal company, the company is always established, you get high engrained into the culture probably because you fit into it, where as in a startup, we went from zero to fifty employees in about three months. And so not only, you know in that other scenario there are two structures in place already as well so in a startup you have to define the structure, you have to hire the people, set the cultural tone and all of that stuff and that all needs to happen literally in days.

Like, so you pay more attention, like at SimpleGeo we establish what we call a cultural creed, which is like ten rules that we as employees agree to live by, we all participated in creating that, and then once you have fifteen employees you have to do things like establish PTO policies, and like follow them and once you hit twenty five you have to do sexual harassment training and the list just goes on and on, but I would say my biggest struggle has been setting up the team, setting up the structure, establishing culture and then essentially kind of, once you’ve done that getting them all pointed in the same direction and on board with the same vision, has… it’s something we struggle with even today.

We’re constantly getting better but we still have people in my one on ones that are “I really don’t, where are we going with all of this?” and it’s like, “Ok well clearly all of the things I’ve done to satisfy that question for everybody else aren’t working for you, let’s talk through it,” so yeah, it’s a constant struggle.

Joe Stump on How Intrinsic Motivation Shapes Startup Success

In Chapter 7 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur and SimpleGeo CTO Joe Stump shares why startup leaders tend to be intrinsically and not extrinsically motivated. He notes the challenge creating, running, and sustaining a business without intrinsically motivated leadership. Stump uses Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg as an example, noting his style was about solving a problem - i.e "scratching an itch" - and not making money. When Zuckerberg did become financially focused, Stump still believes it was about company and vision control and not reward driven behavior. Stump is the co-founder and CTO at SimpleGeo (www.simplegeo.com), a San Francisco-based mobile location infrastructure services company. Previously Stump was Lead Architect at Digg. He programs in PHP, Python, Django and enjoys scaling websites. He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems from Eastern Michigan University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What has your entrepreneurial journey taught you about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation?

Joe Stump: I think what it’s taught me is that there are fundamentally two types of people. Those that are intrinsically motivated and those that are extrinsically motivated. You can’t viably create, run and sustain a business if core, key people are extrinsically motivated.  Because you’re really in a startup – I think really the greatest startups that are in existence and have thrived are the ones where the people scratched an itch and were really very passionate about it and didn’t really pay attention to the dollars and the cents as they were going along.  

The only time I’ve rarely seen entrepreneurs that are intrinsically motivated act in an extrinsic manner is really around control of the company, and that’s driven I think entirely by passion for the product.  So, like the amount of control that Mark Zuckerberg still has at Facebook, I don’t believe that that was because he was fundamentally a money grubbing kind of guy.  I just don’t – I’ve talked with Mark a couple of times and that just doesn’t seem like the type of guy that he is.  I think he did it so he had utter control over the product and the direction of the company as it moved forward.  So, that’s probably the main lesson I’ve taken away from that.

Joe stump on How Leadership Ambition Becomes Longer-Term Focused

In Chapter 8 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur and SimpleGeo CTO Joe Stump shares how his ambition has shifted from shorter to longer term focus as he has built his company. In his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, Stump noted his preference for short-term sprint projects. Since, as an entrepreneur building a company, Stump learns the startup journey is filled with consecutive challenges that build upon one another. As a result, Stump adapts both his personal and professional approach to think longer term. Stump is the co-founder and CTO at SimpleGeo (www.simplegeo.com), a San Francisco-based mobile location infrastructure services company. Previously Stump was Lead Architect at Digg. He programs in PHP, Python, Django and enjoys scaling websites. He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems from Eastern Michigan University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How has your passion for doing sort term sprint projects played out as you’ve built your own company.

Joe Stump: The thing that has really changed and that has surprised me is when I first started SimpleGeo, I was like, “Well, I’m going to come here.  I’m an early stage guy.  I probably won’t fit in very well once we raise like a big round and decide to go big and what not.”  So, the thing that has surprised me is that as I’ve gotten further into it and as we get closer to what I thought would be the end game, is that there is a whole new set of challenges and it basically rolls and comes in phases.

Where as in the me from two years ago that just started SimpleGeo would probably say, “By the series B, that will probably my clean exit point.”  And now we’re getting real close to probably raising a series B and potentially over the next six months.  And if that does happen I want to stay another year because I have a whole new set of goals.  And it’s uh… where as in I think before my normal thing would be to come in, fix the stuff and work the things I wanted to and once I kind of hit that finish line, look for something else and move on.  

Now, quite frankly, you know I started it, my name is attached to it in a fairly significant way, I have a pretty large, obviously, equity stake in the company and so it’s constantly changing.  SimpleGeo is completely a different company in every way, shape and form than it was six months ago and it’s going to be, again, a completely different company six months from now.  So, it’s kept me engaged in a way that I probably wasn’t expecting.

Joe Stump on Working With Investors as a New Entrepreneur

In Chapter 9 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur and SimpleGeo CTO Joe Stump shares his experiences learning to work with startup company investors. In his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, Stump shared how he developed a "tell it like it is" approach. He carries this into venture capitalist and investor meetings. Surprisingly, he finds his transparent and honest approach well-received. Stump is the co-founder and CTO at SimpleGeo (www.simplegeo.com), a San Francisco-based mobile location infrastructure services company. Previously Stump was Lead Architect at Digg. He programs in PHP, Python, Django and enjoys scaling websites. He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems from Eastern Michigan University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How has your approach of telling it like it is went over with the investment crowd?  

Joe Stump:  Uh, surprisingly well, actually.  I think that the things that investors hate the most is the unknown.  They’ll talk about the more information that they have the better investment decisions that they can make.  And so I really don’t sugar coat anything, I tell them exactly what is going on and exactly how I feel like I fit in, and it’s resonated pretty well.  They know exactly what they’re getting and they know exactly where they stand on the whole thing and where I stand.  So, it’s gone over a lot better.  It’s a fine line between being overly abrasive and being honest and open.  And as long as I stray more on the open and honest and away from the abrasive, it’s gone mostly fine.

Erik Michielsen: What were you expectations going into those conversations and what has played out in reality?

Joe Stump: It’s really funny, I thought that basically a tattooed, t-shirted asshole who doesn’t filter himself coming into those offices on Sand Hill Road will basically get me thrown in jail and it’s been the direct opposite. I think what really resonates with them and I think actually terrifies them is that I’m okay with things failing because my failure is a lot better than most people’s.  

My failure is to go have a nice, cushy salary at Facebook or Netflix or something like that.  So, I don’t really care and that resonates with them but it also scares them because they know that a lot of other entrepreneurs that don’t have that possibility, particularly younger ones, the investors in part rely on the fact that if they fail that they go back to the ground floor and have to work their way up through the system.  And with me I’m like failing one rung down.  Like, it’s not a big deal.  So, I think that is good and bad for them.

Joe Stump on How to Manage Venture Capital Investor Feedback

In Chapter 10 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur and SimpleGeo CTO Joe Stump learns to work with venture capitalists (VCs) after taking a Series A financing round. He shares the VCs provide a strong checks and balances feedback system that helps a business accelerate growth and refine product. He notes that while criticism around products is usually valid, acting on the feedback should be a startup team responsibility and not a VC responsibility. Stump is the co-founder and CTO at SimpleGeo (www.simplegeo.com), a San Francisco-based mobile location infrastructure services company. Previously Stump was Lead Architect at Digg. He programs in PHP, Python, Django and enjoys scaling websites. He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems from Eastern Michigan University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How has taking venture financing affected what you do and how you do it?

Joe Stump: I would say as far as day-to-day operations, it hasn’t changed what I do that much.  The venture-funding thing has been interesting to say the least.  I think what it changes is it - that influx of cash puts everything into overdrive and also creates a balance – a checks and balances kind of system between what the company is doing with the people that put in the money, which I think is good.  

I think most entrepreneurs would be like, ‘Oh, our VCs stink and all they try to do is screw up the product.”  And there are definitely VCs out there that will do that, but I think that’s an exception to the rule and not the norm.  Most of the time when they are telling you you’re doing something wrong, you probably are doing something wrong. The thing with the investors and the VCs in particular, when they say you’re doing something wrong, they’re almost always right that you are doing something wrong.  Where they tend to I think overstep and overexert is how the problem should be fixed.  I don’t think that VCs and investors are in a good position to force a specific fix.  I think that needs to be done from within the company.  And I think that’s where things to tend to go off the rails pretty frequently.  Like when a VC is like, “There’s a problem.”  

And at first the people and the company will be like, “Well, there’s no problem.”  And they’ll have a little fight over whether or not there is a problem.  Usually there is a problem.  And then they’ll come up with two totally separate solutions on how it should be fixed.  I think it’s fine for there to be problems, I think it’s great that VCs point out those problems, where it’s bad is when the VCs attempt to force their specific fix.  I think it’s pretty rare that the company, once that they recognize that there is a problem, that the company will come up with an inferior fix compared to the VC’s.  I think it will usually be a superior fix.