The Incubator Revolution

Never miss a live stream fireside chat or talk that we got going on with the industry's most interesting innovators and leaders . Every single week . You can connect with KP Ready and other innovators in the AEC and CRE industry in the Shadow Partners community . Go to bitly slash Shadow Partners community to learn more . Today .

All it takes is a few clicks for you to make a difference . Welcome to the future and welcome to the Shadow Network with KP Ready .

If you're not following KP , you're missing out over on LinkedIn , kp Post sometimes multiple times a day , talks about his insights , the things that he he learns reflecting on the conversations that he has with not only entrepreneurs and startup founders , but also leaders in the AEC and CRE space , and so it's if you want to know what's going on in terms of

innovation for the built environment , you need to follow KP Ready on LinkedIn . So K Period , p Period Ready , r-e-d-d-y on LinkedIn . My name is Jeff Eccles . I am the head of marketing and a senior advisor at Shadow Partners .

Kp is the CEO and founder of Shadow Ventures and Shadow Partners , and I get to come here every week and say , kp , what were you thinking when you wrote that post ? And we do this unpacking KP . It's a lot of fun . We just dig into one of these articles , one of these things that KP has posed . So , kp , thanks for being here again this week .

So this post that I'm referencing it starts out you say , earlier this year I spoke at a Morrissey Goodale conference and met Mick Morrissey for the first time . So you and I both know , mick , we're doing some fun things with Morrissey Goodale now and you were at their conference and it was in Texas , wasn't it ?

So we're excited to collaborate and have Morrissey Goodale host the Shadow Partners Incubator demo day at their 2024 Southeast Symposium , and I'm particularly excited about that because the Incubator is one of my projects here at Shadow Partners . I love being involved with the Incubator and it will culminate this time .

We always culminate with a demo day and with this next cohort that we're running now , it will culminate , as you said in your article , at the Morrissey Goodale Symposium in Miami , and so attached to your post is the word on the street article from Morrissey Goodale . It's titled Shark Tank for the AEC industry .

It says we've added a ton of new features and content to our symposiums for 2024 . One of the most exciting additions is the Innovation Incubator for the AE industry , which showcases some of the industry's most exciting new startups and business ideas .

The concept is based on the popular TV show Shark Tank , except these are new businesses and they're focused on making a splash in design and construction industries , and we don't have anyone who goes by the moniker . Mr Wonderful , we could probably change that . I don't mean we may not want to tell Nick , but we might .

Our firms and so many of them are building internal startups and I think one of the coolest things we do with our incubator is the mashing up of traditional startups with corporate startups and I think it's pretty unique . I don't think anyone else is doing it . And I think there's a reason one . We do it because we , we it's part of our mission .

There's not really an economic reason why we do it , it's more just part of our mission . And I think as I meet with these companies and they're like oh we have these three ideas , we have these five ideas .

When I start digging into how did you come up with these ideas and how were you going to market and all the things that adventure capitalists would ask , all those questions that make everyone uncomfortable , I am finding that 0% of the time these corporate startups are doing it well . They just are not doing it well . They are not doing customer discovery .

In many cases they don't even know what I'm saying . They don't understand what an MVP is , because in many ways , a minimum viable product as a consumer of technology , they would never buy a minimum viable product . They would never . They want the whole suite , they want everything done . They wanted bulletproof , soc compliant , all those things .

I find that they tend to overinvest in their internal startups with very little evidence of the market , the market size , etc . I think the benefit of the incubators that we allow corporate startups in and not only do they get a better feel of one , they get treated in our incubator .

Maybe in our incubator maybe I'm Mr Wonderful , I think I'm just Mr Pragmatic they definitely get some unfiltered feedback around how they're approaching things and what they're doing . I think they're also in the room with other startups that are not . These founders are not getting a paycheck on the first and the 15th , unlike our corporate startups .

The culture and behavior of these startups I think our corporate startups tend to feel it , move with it and engage with it . Where I think it drives a little bit of cultural behavior , I think for our startups to meet with corporate people and see what I think . I just think it's a fantastic . It hasn't been done in our industry .

We used to do something similar to Georgia Tech , so it's not my idea . I borrowed it from when I was running Georgia Tech's incubator , but I think it's a really good system and I'm really excited to see some of the corporates that apply and also to hear from them post-fat , like the learning process .

My theory is , whether it's us or somewhere else , if you're really going to build a game-changing startup and a corporate , you got to move outside your four walls . You got to really move outside of it . Whether it's our incubator or someone else's or whatnot . I really think that at a corporate level , this is not something you can do yourself .

I've seen some companies try to do it . You just can't . It's a different mindset , it's a different skill set that you have to go through . There's a reason why there's why a combinator and then there's a Harvard MBA . They're very different .

This incubator and our incubator is focused on pre-seed stage and we do focus on customer discovery . So maybe I should take a pause there , since 0% even know what you're talking about . What does customer discovery mean ?

In fact , talking in customer discovery , if you talk about a solution F-minus you already screwed up . You should never be talking about the solution . What you want to do is be a great scholar on the problem , and part of unpacking and understanding the problem is engaging with customers To one identify the problem . Is it a real problem ? First question .

Second , is it a painful problem ? Is this a hey , we throw a Band-Aid on it type of problem ? Or oh my God , we're going to die here ? Yeah , and then the third one , the next part , is like is there a problem ? Is it real ? Is it big enough ? Lots of small problems out there , maybe not worth solving for .

And then the last one is is it keeping them up at night ? Is there an imperative around solving this problem ? And that's what you're going out to understand . And it's not 10 people , it's not 50 people . A pre-seed , if you're going to raise money , it's more like 500 . And that's when you know .

I see it with startups , it's not just the corporates , I see it with startups and the corporates . If the field of dreams model , if we build it , they will come . It's a recipe for failure Like it's just absolutely you will fail . Full stop , right .

Prove me wrong , but I think where a lot of startups get it wrong and a lot of corporates get it wrong to go out and do customer discovery . A you don't write code . B you don't have to hire anyone . That's why I love , like you know , even some of our pre-seed startups . Many of these folks have full time jobs . It's like don't quit your day job yet .

Yeah , like , go do your research . And if the research you think is talking , you know , looking on the internet and looking on Reddit , like that is not research , right , in our world , it is customer discovery . So go talk to 50 , 100 , and 500 people and guess what ? The results of this are not chartable .

This isn't about charts and graphs of 20 respondents said X , y and Z . I would say the way you interrogate I don't even call them interviews the way you interrogate the market , from your first five interviews to interview 495 to 500 , will be absolutely different . Yeah , right .

And my point is you know , in startup world we have this concept of pivot and I always say look , if you're pivoting around solving the same problem but with different solutions , that's a pivot . When the problem inherently changes , that's just a do-over Right , because there's lots of ways to solve a problem .

You know it could be solved through a consulting business , it could be solved through technology . It can be solved through an insurance policy . You know how can you reduce risk ? Well , maybe increase your premium . Maybe it's not technology , right yeah , sometimes it's finance , like , oh , just allocate more capital and you'll reduce your .

You know , you'll solve that problem . So I think this customer discovery is really about understanding the problem set and iterating it to really understand the importance of the problem set . And , unfortunately , corporates well , we're in this , we're in the environmental engineering business . Of course we know you don't know , right , right right .

And I would say the reason in the AAC industry specifically why there's just why they don't know is they are an industry that responds to RFPs . I what you're selling , the customer is very used to buying . When you try to invent a startup in your space , you bias it towards what your customer already knows .

I think what startups do is they try to sell things and build things to solve a problem where the customer does not have a solution yet . Right , I don't think you can do that . You can't invent new solutions . It's just that framework does not exist .

When you were talking about the pivot versus the do-over , one of the things that I hammer in , I mean my role is to facilitate the , essentially to facilitate the incubator . We have mentors that get embedded with the teams and we have advisors and we have speakers that come in , subject matter experts that come in over the course of the weeks of this incubator .

I think part of my role is the coach or the cheerleader , or something I say over and over and over . If you are the same this week that you were when you first started , if your example , I think , is perfect . The interrogations If the interrogation today is the same six weeks from now , you've got a problem . You didn't grow , you didn't change .

I think that is hard , maybe harder for the corporates because they're just not in that space , they're not used to that . We have people co-founders that come in that pivot . We had in this last cohort co-founders that did a do-over . They passed on the live pitch . At Shatter Summit in Atlanta .

They showed up and they said you know what we're not going to pitch . But , then they came back three weeks later , I think it was . We did the virtual demo day and they pitched it virtual and it was a do-over .

They changed it fairly completely from where they started growth A lot of growth there 100 percent At this stage , when you look at like ideation precede .

I think this idea of the first idea I think being having a deep understanding of the problem set , digging deep and really understanding whether it's the analytical side or the ethos side is super important . But , by the way , the problem doesn't always have a customer , which is something that people struggle with sometimes .

In other words , are you solving a problem for a person ? Maybe , but are you solving a systematic problem ? When you're solving a systematic problem , what happens there sometimes is that you actually have what the term is creative destruction .

In other words , if you're a structural engineering firm and you build a product to sell to architects , to structural engineering firms , whatever it is , will you ever build something that puts that customer out of business ?

Because maybe the beneficiary of solving that problem isn't who you think the customer is , would you ever do something that puts a DOT out of business ? I think there's this idea sometimes in corporate innovation is we're going to develop ideas and solutions to solve for our customers , which might be the wrong idea .

It might actually be we're going to put our customers out of business . It might be that , holistically , we're solving this problem because it's a systematic problem , because we deal with a lot of engineers . Right , whose problem is the pothole ? Right ? Is it the DOTs ? Is it the taxpayer ? Like you know , who's is it ?

And the customer is not always the customer , you know .

The question we've got to ask is is this problem big enough ? Does anybody care enough to pay for your solution ? And we see that a lot , right , it's . Oh , we've got this great solution for this problem . That's great . Does anybody actually agree with you to the level that they're willing to pay for it ?

Because , if not , that's a really nice hobby you have there , I guess , right .

We still have cable because we need internet access , and now we're paying $500 a month in streaming services .

Because it turns out people will pay $1,500 for a smartphone which was never imagined . It turns out people will spend $500 a month on streaming service . They'll pay more than what they paid on cable to have streaming services . Didn't see that one coming right . We all thought our you know one .

We thought all our cell phone bills were gonna get cheaper over time . That's not true . That's a lie . We thought our entertainment budgets were gonna go down over time . It turns out that's not true . You know , when video gaming was getting popular , the demographics said that the biggest number one threat to the movie industry was the gaming industry .

That hasn't really happened either .

You know , we had several corporates in our last cohort looking forward to seeing a lot more in this cohort , and I think , when we talk about driving change and driving innovation in the industry , the commingling of these two silos of people startups and corporates is like magic . It's absolutely magic .

That's a lot of them . That's where they eventually want to sell to , et cetera , or serve . So it does . I think it does bring a really unique energy to the incubator program , looking forward to kicking off the next or the next cohort of the incubator in January of this year .

If you want to know more , right , if you're a corporate or even a traditional founder , co-founder , reach out to me or reach out to KP . We're happy to help you navigate to the program . We do make it a competitive selection process .

We make it competitive to get to the point of pitching and , as the Morrissey Goodale article says here , shark Tank , the innovation incubator for the AE industry at the Morrissey Goodale symposium in Miami in March .

So it is competitive , but , you know , if this is something you're interested in and , most importantly , if you're interested in building a better product and understanding the customer discovery process and going through that process for your startup . Reach out to me , reach out to KP . It's a good program that you can get involved in . Kp .

Again , thanks for joining me today . If you missed somehow , if you missed the very beginning of this , we've been talking about the article or the post from KP's LinkedIn . And again , if you're not following K period , p period , ready R-E-D-D-Y on LinkedIn , you need to be there , you need to be following what KP is talking about on LinkedIn .

He says earlier this year I spoke at Morrissey Goodale the conference in Las Vegas and he met McMorsey for the first time . Needless to say , we hit it off and Mick has been very supportive of my efforts to drive innovation , the AEC space .

So we're excited to collaborate and have Morrissey Goodale host the Shadow Partners Incubator Demo Day at their 2024 Southeast Symposium that's coming up in March in Miami . So the incubator will launch . The next cohort of the incubator will launch in the late in January of 2024 of this year .

So let me know , let KP know , if you think you have a project worthy of that incubator and we're happy to talk about that . So , kp , thanks again for unpacking this post , looking forward to our next conversation , but this has been a good one .