Inspiring Great Leaders Podcast 253 Andre Laplume Spinout Ventures

Speaker A: US Federal Trade Commission banned non competes for all workers, uh, in the United States, um, with the exception of um, executives. Right, executives usually they also have fiduciary duties. They're a bit different. But for regular employees now any non compete they may have signed is null and void. That's a huge change because around 50% of workers have a non compete in their employment contract. So suddenly, if you think about it, ah, about 100 million workers in the United States are suddenly released to be able to uh, perhaps go and work for a competing firm or to create their own spin out venture that competes against the parent and they don't have that risk of uh, being litigated uh, against by the parent firm, um, if they compete. Now it's not like a total panacea because there are some other agreements like the non solicitation or no poach agreements that make it harder to take for example uh, other employees or customers, uh, along with you when you leave or non disclosure agreements that make it difficult to bring trade secrets or proprietary information.

Speaker B: How do you get 10,000 people to take a step to the left? What's behind the relentless mindset of a world champion? Why do teams of exceptional talent fail? How do you manage the pressure to perform? These are just some of the curious questions we will attempt to answer as we bring you world leaders curious minds, exceptional talent, successful CEOs and incredible human beings who know how to inspire great leaders and are inspiring great leaders themselves. I am Craig Johns, high performance leadership expert, international speaker and CEO of Speakers Institute, Corporate and world sport coach. This is the Inspiring Great Leaders podcast Where the ordinary don't belong. Welcome to the Inspiring Great Leaders podcast. Our guest today is a Professor in Entrepreneurship and Strategy at the Ted Rogers School of Management, a specialist in helping people transition from an employee to entrepreneur, and the co author uh, of the recently released book Spin Out Ventures. He has studied a Bachelor of computer science MBA and a PhD in management focusing on strategic innovation from the University of Manitoba. His career includes being a business and information technology consultant in corporate Canada, the CEO, um, and co founder of Launch Score, Associate professor of Management and Gates professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Michigan Techno uh Technological University and Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. I have the privilege of introducing you to a dedicated entrepreneurial researcher, uh, who has a particular interest in how 3D printing technology affects global value chains and is fascinated in the competitive and institutional barriers preventing potential entrepreneurs from launching new ventures successfully. Andre Le Plume. Andre, welcome to the show.

Speaker A: Thank you Craig. It's nice to be here.

Speaker B: So you're currently based in Ontario, Canada. Tell me, where did you grow up and what was the big dream when you were hanging out with your mates as a, a kid?

Speaker A: Oh, well, I grew up in, in Winnipeg, uh, which is in right in the center of North America actually. Uh, equidistant from every ocean. So if uh, you're wondering where it is, it's smack in the middle of the continent. Um, at that time I was growing up, um, I was really interested in, in startups and computer science. Um, you know, when I was a, when I was a youth I was uh, getting people on the Internet installing the Internet services on people's machines as a, as an independent uh, uh, contractor. Right. Uh, even in high school, um, and I wanted to be a startup founder, you know, and I, when I went to university I, I did computer science and a lot of the people in my cohort went on to, to found startups and I, I went to work for a startup right away after that. And, and that was the dream, you know, was um, to, to run a big uh, tech company. And at the time I think that there wasn't such a negative connotation about the big tech companies as there perhaps is today among some, certain people. Um, so it was still very much a kind of pure, uh, pure. More of a pure dream than it is today perhaps.

Speaker B: Mhm. Fascinating. And so getting there sort of more startup entrepreneurial mindset. Was that like influenced a lot by your parents or you know, were they entrepreneurs, startups or did it, was it just something that you fell into?

Speaker A: No, it was something that um, I think that I was mostly influenced I think by my peers in computer science. I think everybody who was going to computer science in those days had in mind to become the next startup, um, millionaire. It was very much the culture uh, within all of the computer science departments, I think, uh, perhaps across North America at the time. And that's what really pulled me into it. And so I went directly to go to work for a startup and um, got to work with many startups over the years and that's been a very big part of my life actually, um, even today.

Speaker B: And I'm very curious, what was your first computer?

Speaker A: Um, well my m, My first computer, uh, was, was m. I actually had a very early uh, PC that was my first computer of my own. But uh, we had some, some older computers in the house that even my mother had a Commodore, uh, even earlier than, than I had a PC. So I think, I think computers were very much a hard part of my life early on. And uh, uh, I, I think the, the startup dream kind of wrapped around the computer quite a bit. Um, in my youth, yeah, I can

Speaker B: remember having a Commodore 64 back in the day, many, uh, many moons ago. It's um, back when they had floppy disks, which is fun now. You know, obviously you've studied quite a bit there at university. Um, but you're also consultant very much in those early days balancing kind of the theoretical, uh, and looking at the education side of what was probably back then relatively new space to delve into from an education perspective versus actually being a consultant and working in that whole computer science and startup world.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean especially in academia. I think entrepreneurship was just kind of starting um, at that time as a field. Um, and um, so it wasn't, it wasn't really an established field uh, of study and there wasn't much literature and there wasn't much um, evidence to really go by. So most of what we knew about entrepreneurship at the time was based on stories, um, from successful entrepreneurs, um, and those sorts of things. And there hadn't been very, very in depth studies, you know, that look into detail, looking at large, large um, samples of thousands of entrepreneurs and trying to figure out hey, what's really going on here. Um, and so, so things have really changed I think over the last 20 years. Now we can have a, a more evidence based perspective about what entrepreneurs do and, and what their, their odds are of success. Uh, whereas in the past it was mostly kind of like witchcraft, you know, um, or, or a really kind of unknown, uh, mysterious process.

Speaker B: And you're still seeing a lot, you know, even though you know, you've had you know, 22, three years, decades of you know, fully established research now are you still finding that there's entrepreneurs and startups out there that are breaking the molds, that are coming from different angles that you know, even the literature, uh, you know, it doesn't make sense from a literature perspective how they're able to achieve what they're doing.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I think, I think that the actual world of startups usually is a little bit ahead of the, the academic world because us, the, you know, what researchers do is they, they go and they find the specimens or the examples, uh, in reality and they study them and write about them and try to better understand them so that the next generation of students can learn from them. So I think that's always true. That sort of cutting edge of startups is not very well understood and it usually takes a few years before we have some pretty good Theories that explain how it is that they're being successful.

Speaker B: Yeah. Now a lot of, you know, when we hear of startups and we hear of kind of entrepreneurs, a lot of the time people talk about uh, you know, those starting in the garage, so to speak, you know, where um, we hear of um, a company and it's gone from, you know, the dusty garage and next minute they're, they've got this big glass window and overlooking some amazing, uh, you know, amazing place. You know, it'd be the ocean or it's a, a beautiful park. Ah. But it seems to be, that's not always the case and maybe even it's, it's probably on, you know, the, the lesser percentage of actual startups come from the garage, so to speak, or even the bedroom as it would be nowadays, uh, with the types of entrepreneurs that we're seeing. But where do we see a lot of the entrepreneur and startups coming from?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I, I think you make a great point. Um, I think that what you're describing is almost kind of like the mythology, uh, of startups that's developed, um, because of some of the stars out there. Um, if you think about the starting story for Apple, Steve Jobs worked with Steve Wozniak, right, In a garage developing uh, a PC. But actually if you look at that story in detail, um, Steve Wozniak was actually working at Hewlett Packard, uh, for several years before that. And he developed the first PC while working at Hewlett Packard. And he offered it to Hewlett Packard. He went to management and said, look, I have this great idea, I have this great PC, got a prototype back me, uh, let's make this happen. We can do it as an internal corporate venture here at Hewlett Packard. But um, Hewlett Packard, they were conservative in their view and they were big on calculators and they had a direction in mind and uh, the personal computers were not something that they were interested in. And so uh, he took the idea, and actually took not only the idea but the prototype and the intellectual property for it out of uh, Hewlett Packard to start Apple. Uh, so a lot of these garage, so called garage entrepreneurship stories, when you look at them a little bit more closely, you see that some of the founders, usually one or two of the founders, have brought something really important from uh, an existing, uh, organization. And now when we look at startups at large, what we find is that the majority of startups are founded by people with those kinds of work experiences. Even if you take for example if you take the incoming, uh, Y Combinator cohort, uh, right, one of those top, uh, accelerator programs. If you look at the people, the actual founders, and you count how many of them were working for a large incumbent, uh, usually they were working for a tech company the year before. Um, most of them, 75% or more of them were actually working for a large company, uh, before they did their startup. Um, and many of them are, several of them are teams where two people left from the same company to do their startup and sometimes three people or more. So what we're looking at here, instead of thinking about entrepreneurship as something that happens kind of organically, uh, bottom up in a garage by individuals who are just kind of friends and dealing with ideas, most of the time what's happening is, um, organizations are generating innovations, generating ideas, uh, investing in R and D, investing in internal corporate ventures. But the problem is they can't do all the things, you know, they, they can't actually exploit all of the innovations that they generate. There's just too much stuff. And for them to be successful as an organization, they have to be focused, right? They have to have strategic alignment. They have to focus on just a few core businesses. Right. They can't go in all kinds of different directions. And so what's really going on out there is that a lot of these ideas that are being created within these incumbent organizations, they would, they would probably be suppressed or sort of crushed or lost or sort of lost in the file drawer, so to speak. Um, if it wasn't for the fact that there are a lot of employees who are working for these companies that often are attached to these ideas, don't want to see them suppressed, and they want to take them out of the company and do them as a startup. Right? And that's what we call spin out ventures. And what we're seeing is that, uh, they are a very prevalent form of entrepreneurship. And not only are they very prevalent, um, they're more successful, okay? And they're more successful because they are taking that experience with them. And what does that experience look like? Right? If you think about it, they're getting exposure to the network of stakeholders that are involved in the industry. They're getting that critical industry knowledge and market knowledge, right? And they're taking that with them. Um, so we're not just talking about taking with them sort of intellectual property from the parent firm. A lot of it is, uh, general, uh, market knowledge or general industry knowledge that they've picked up along the way. And also a network of people who can come along and help them. So for example, Zoom, you may not know this, but Zoom is a, is a spin out as well. When Zoom's founder Eric Wan left, uh, Cisco, he was working on the Webex, uh, platform for Cisco and he left, um, and he, over time he attracted over 40 employees from Cisco who followed him and left, uh, Cisco to join him to work at Zoom and to help build uh, Zoom. Right. So, you know, Eric didn't, he couldn't do it on his own. He needed that help to be able to build uh, that kind of technology. Because often new technologies, they're not simple. Right. They're complex systems. And so you need a lot of different people who understand different parts of them.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting you're talking there around. Normally the more successful ones may not be on their own. They might have maybe two people even more. You're talking about 20 here at, from a Zoom perspective. And in regards to being able to create that spin out, uh, the uh, power of, you know, the proximity of people around you is really important when it comes to being able to launch a startup. Whether it be a spin out or whether it be from the back garage or in your bedroom. Does it really make it like, uh, do we see a lot of individuals go on their own or is it, most times it's two or more people and putting other people around them that can sort of complement their skill sets?

Speaker A: Well, we see many of both, but, um, we see more success in the ones that manage to leave as a team because they're able to have that, um, advantage of scaling faster. Um, and so that's a more desirable kind of way of entry. But we do see some individuals as well who leave and will form a team, um, sometimes by hiring others or finding people externally, uh, to start a venture with. Um, but the ones that you would call sort of the spin outs that are more likely to sort of compete with their parent firm who are staying within the same industry, those are the ones that tend to take a team. Those are the ones who tend to need a team in order to scale up and to compete, um, more effectively. And sometimes those teams form, um, while they're still working at the company. So you can imagine that it's a little bit of a precarious scenario where on the one hand you have to be careful you're still in employment and on the other hand, uh, you're trying to create this idea for a new startup, uh, and also perhaps trying to encourage other others who you're working with to come along, uh, with you so the startup ringleaders are in kind of an interesting position, um, where they have to sort of create this new nodule of a culture. Right. Uh, and at the same time accept that they're working within a framework, uh, of an existing organization.

Speaker B: Mhm. So we're talking about different types of ventures here. And for many people spin out might be a relatively new term. They may not have heard of it. It could have been around for a long time from a venture space. If we've got spin out as someone where you've got employees that have come out of an organization and are ah, creating something similar or in the same field, uh, what other terms do we hear for maybe a, a venture that has started purely uh, outside an organizational capacity, but has got no connection to maybe the companies they worked with before versus say someone that might have just come out of university, never had a job in their life, creates a new business versus even internally inside an organization where they may create their own business within a business or venture within a business. The different terms that are good for our listeners to understand.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean that's a great point. Um, there is a lot of terminology out there now. Um, the easiest way to think about is, well, they're just, they're all kind of startups, aren't they? But um, they are, they are different and, and they have different um, success profiles and they have different challenges. And so I think it is important to sort of slice up that, that term startup, uh, and to break it up into its different components. I think that's really important, especially when we're talking about spin out ventures because they are startups. Right. But what makes them different from other startups? So when we talk about sort of the inexperienced startups, we often call them de novo startups. Right. They're starting from new. Um, so the de novo startups are the ones typically that, you know, the college dropouts or the dorm room startups or the garage entrepreneurship. And then the spinouts are the ones who um, were working for a parent company or an organization and have decided to leave, um, individually or as a small group. They're uh, not leaving as a whole business unit. Right. When that happens, we usually call that a corporate spin off. But that's like a managerial decision where the board and the managers decide that it makes sense to split off a unit of an existing organization and make it into a new corporation. And that's called a corporate spinoff. Right. Whereas a spin out is an independent decision made by an individual or a couple of individuals, um, very small team to leave and form their own ventures. And so you see the difference is it's not just, it's not taking a business out of the organization, it's just taking a few individuals and having to rebuild the business within a startup. Right. So it's um, it's quite different. And um, when we, sometimes we talk about um, there are other labels that are used as well for, for different types of startups. So if you talk about um, um, entrepreneurs that worked at universities and who are um, working with university technology and want to form a spin out around that, right. You call that an academic spin out or sometimes an academ spin off as well. So there's lots, lots of different terms that are used out there. Um, one you mentioned. So if it's purely a spin out within an existing corporation, uh, we usually call that an internal corporate venture that can grow up and maybe eventually it becomes a ah, new division or perhaps it gets spun off into uh, another uh, separate entity. But while it's growing up within that existing uh, organization we usually refer to it as an internal corporate venture.

Speaker B: There's lots of options, you know, for people who have, may have great ideas that want to kind of build out something. And I think sometimes two people are a little bit cautious of trying to or don't feel like they don't have the confidence or the backing to create even something internally inside an organization. And I think this is why sometimes they, they tend to kind of split off and, and set up their own spin out venture uh, so to speak. The, in regards to people that create spin outs and, and successful spin outs, are there characteristics that you've noticed through the research that um, allow them to be able to create those successful spin outs?

Speaker A: Well, I think, I think the, the, the more successful spin outs are the ones who have a pretty good, the, the founders have a pretty good idea of what they, what they can take with them. So they are trying to recreate some of the competitive advantage or some of the complementary assets of the parent firm. But at the same time they also want to differentiate themselves so they don't want their startup to look like a facsimile or some kind of imitation of their previous employer because they also need to differentiate their business model so that they can stand out as well. And then the other advantage of that, okay. Is it tends to reduce the potential for a hostility between the parent organization and the spin out because if the spin out is really um, imitating too closely the parent firm's strategy that can put the parent firm managers on Edge and it can even lead to the potential for a legal ah, dispute.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Where there might be ah, um, litigation against spin out, um, that's potentially um, violating some of the restrictive covenants that the founders might have signed. So for example you go to work for a company, often in your employment contract you're signing um, a non compete agreement, often a non disclosure agreement, um, a non solicitation or no poach agreement. And these are three types of agreements that can make it more challenging to do a spin out. Um, but chances are that the parent firm isn't going to try to go after a uh, spin out unless they feel a threat from the spin out. So that's why it's so important. And I think the most successful spin outs are the ones that figure out how to leverage something from the parent organization so that they've learned something right in their ahead. But they also learn how to differentiate themselves so that they're unique enough to be successful uh, in the market and not to attract too much negative uh, attention from their parent firm.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think you know, the non compete, the non solicitation, et cetera can be quite a big barrier. And I know I've worked in executive roles where I've got people signing these things and I'm like, and also being an employer where you're signing contracts with this around and you know, look, you can understand why companies do it but you're also sitting there going oh, you know, you've got young entrepreneur, uh, young people, young employees coming through who are building their knowledge space uh, along the way. But, but why should we restrict them so much? And I know we're just talking offline before we started, but there's been a bit of a change in the US and around law systems in regards to non compete. Do you want to share a little bit of an insight into how that's shifting and changing and, and how that may evolve around the world also?

Speaker A: Yeah, sure. I mean so about two weeks ago now the, the US Federal Trade Commission banned non competes for all workers uh, in the United States with um, the exception of um, of executives. Right. Executives usually they also have fiduciary duties. They're a bit different. But for regular employees now any non compete they may have signed is null and void. That's a huge change because around 50% of workers have a non compete um, in their employment contract. So suddenly if you think about it, about 100 million workers in the United States are suddenly released to be able to um, perhaps go and work for a competing firm or to create their own spin out venture that competes against the parent and they don't have that risk of uh, being litigated uh, against by the parent firm um, if they compete. Now it's not like a total panacea because there are some other agreements like the non solicitation or no poach agreements that make it harder to take for example uh, other employees or customers uh, along with you when you leave or non disclosure agreements that make it difficult to bring trade secrets or proprietary information. But I think the move to ban non competes in the US which is a major market obviously I think is a really positive uh, move um, in the direction of removing barriers to people who want to do spinouts. We've seen similar moves also um, in Canada and Ontario banned non competes just uh, about two years ago and that's the biggest province in Canada. And I know that there's also a movement um in the UK and also in Australia to try to ban non competes at the federal level. Um and so I think we're seeing a movement uh, just as you know about 20 years ago non competes started spreading around the world and it was mostly a US phenomenon about you know, 30 years ago. But then you know uh, just this year there was an article actually out of China. And in China 50 uh, percent of workers are signing and not compete right now. And for them you know it was a new, it was actually um, a practice that came from the multi, the US multinational corporations that set up business there. Right. So um, just as it spread throughout the world over 30 years, um, I think we're starting to see bands now uh, that are also I think spreading. And so I think that's a great opportunity for a lot of people and it reduces a lot of pressure for people who, who think that uh, perhaps think that they can't do a non, they can't do a spin out because of their, their contracts. Right. Um, so I think that's a really positive move forward.

Speaker B: M. Yeah. I think the way I see it is you know, from an entrepreneurial perspective if someone then goes off and is competing against me or, or against the organization in some way, whether it's working for a rival company or creating their startup, I actually feel like as an entrepreneur a little bit of honor in that and so to speak because it's like well we've helped that person be able to do something and, and it's going to help them grow. Like uh, it excites me versus worrying about whether they're going to um, out compete us or anything like That I actually encourage it to be, you know, to a certain extent when people are, if that's the way they want to go. Now something interesting that is kind of a bit of a phenomena that's happening I suppose over the last few years. A lot of people going uh, with the COVID and working from home and, and having a bit of time to themselves during isolation periods, et cetera, have gone, hey, you know what, I, I don't want to work for an employer anymore and I actually want to create my own business. And, and there's, you know, for a lot of people it seems like, oh, it's really easy and I've just gone out there and going, okay, I'm going to create my own little company now, my own little startup. We're now starting to see a number of, realize it's a lot harder than what they thought it was and it's, it's maybe not for everyone. So for those people who might even be considering creating their own startup or even their own spin out venture, what are some of the things that then you feel they need to take into consideration before they make that leap?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I mean it's no secret that a lot of startups um, are not successful. And so um, probably before taking the leap, best advice for anyone would be to understand as much as there is to know about that particular business. Um, and so there are kind of two pathways that you can generally take. One pathway is um, I think the one that's more promoted in the startup world today where you develop your, you do your customer discovery, you go out there, you talk to customers, you make sure that the opportunity is really out there. Um, you develop a prototype around that opportunity and then you validate that prototype as well.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: To be really certain that the opportunity is out there. So this is kind of almost scientific process that uh, is being promoted as a vehicle for ah, entrepreneurial education so that entrepreneurs can be really sure that the venture that they've crafted is going to be successful. So that's one pathway. Um, but the other pathway I think which is the more common pathway is people just go and work for a company that's doing something related to what they want to do a startup in and they learn the ropes from working in that uh, learning environment. Because organizations, they are learning environments. So you work for a company, work in different roles, you meet the different stakeholders, you find out what they're all about, find out what their interests are about, you learn who the players are, you develop a network and then when you go and Try to create your startup, you've got this huge advantage, right? Because you're not just starting from blank business canvas where you're trying to sort of fill out the boxes and figure out what you're going to do. Uh, for a lot of spin out founders, a lot of it is already known, a lot of it is already kind of validated. Um, we interviewed a lot of people, a lot of spin out founders where um, they saw the opportunity on the job, it was clearly defined and outlined for them and for some reason you know, they couldn't pursue it internally because the parent, you know, the company didn't want to or for there's some kind of disagreement, you know, various different, various different kinds of reasons pop up. But that's, that's a major advantage. I think that that spin out, spin out founders uh, have, is that ability to validate the idea before pursuing it. Um, which, which you know, ah, frankly de novo startups, they don't have that advantage. Right. They have to, they have to take an even greater, face even greater uncertainty because it's very difficult to validate an idea outside of an existing organization.

Speaker B: M. Yeah. And uh, I like that. You know, it's kind of like that, that test. Yes, kind of the testing melting pot I suppose in a way. How does it work? What is, what is potentially going to work? Because you can see it in action before you go and create something new. Uh, I always, I was fascinated by people who step right outside of what they've done their entire life and go, I'm creating a new startup in a space they have no experience or background. And like that's bold, right? I um, I'm impressed by those people that have that courage to go and do that because you're starting from scratch versus you know, that spin out who have got that collective wisdom already. They've, they've tested multiple things. They may be involved in creating a lot of the IP that they're you know, going to leverage off in regards to this spin out venture, um, along the way, you know, the IP kind of component and you know, we're talking about, okay, yes, you've got non compete, um, competing against them. That's one thing. You got the solicitation of employees, but the actual IP and the delicacies around how you create that and I know a lot of employees are like, well I created this. Why should the company be able to hold on to this? And why can't I take it even though I was the one who actually created that ip? So how do we navigate that space of your IP transfer into a spin out or leveraging the ip.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean sometimes it's a, they, they get an IP release so the parent firm is okay with it. Um, sometimes they give, they get a perpetual license or some kind of limited license to the, to the IP that they need. So sometimes it's actually a transactional relationship where the, the spin out ends up becoming a customer of the parent firm because they're paying for a license, um, to the technology. Um, other times the startup wants to do its own technology, doesn't want to take the, doesn't want to use the parent firm's technology. Uh, so in those cases I think it's important not to sort of transfer any of that IP in any kind of physical way. Right. Don't transfer files or any paper or anything like that from the parent firm over to the spin out, um, to try to create um, uh, the technology anew. Ah, uh, based on different principles. And what's happening now is there's a change in the culture, especially among engineers and computer scientists. Programmers. Exactly what you said. They don't necessarily want, they don't want all the IP to go to the parent firm. So what's happening now is there's kind of negotiation between the employees and the companies where some of the components that they're building, uh, they can put them out there on GitHub, right, and put them out there on open repositories. Um, and this way, um, even if the parent firm, even the company doesn't end up using those components while they're still out there for others to use. Um, and I gave the Zoom example earlier. Well one of the things that made it possible for Zoom to be able to develop the technology so quickly was that a lot of the components that they needed had already been put out there on GitHub in open source repositories. And so they were fair game to be used uh, in the development of the, of the, of the technology. And so I um, think we've seen a lot of growth in that over the last 20 years. Perhaps, perhaps it's even reached a peak point where open uh, innovation as a trend is as uh, is really spread out there and a lot of people are using these repositories and lots of different fields. Right. Um, not just in software but in other areas. So that's a way, you know, that's a way uh, for to sort of balance the IP relationship between the employees and the employer. And a lot of employers, you know, they're on board with it. Because they see the benefit too. As you mentioned the reputation earlier, um, a lot of these organizations, they want to be seen as a leader, they want to be seen as an innovator. And you can't really do that if you're going around crushing innovations and crushing spin outs and litigating, right? So a lot of them want to have that positive uh, reputation as an incubator of innovations and that helps them because they can then recruit a lot of good employees who want to come and work for a company like that. Right? Because you know, the best technical minds, they want to go and work for places where they have an open ended career. Right? They don't want to go somewhere where they're going to feel closed, uh, off. So that reputation is a major uh, factor. But there's another thing, another piece to it is when you have a positive reputation and you have a positive relationship with the spin outs, right? Um, there can also be a flow in the other direction. So what we're seeing is um, parent firms acquiring their spin outs or then, or sometimes the spinouts, uh, don't succeed and they end up hiring back the employees or sometimes they, some of the employees leave the spin out and come back to the parent firm or sometimes the spin outs develop new technology that the parent firm licenses. So there's all these vertical relationships that are happening too between parents and spin outs where they're becoming suppliers and customers of each other as well.

Speaker B: It's uh, fascinating how the ecosystem can work well in there rather than just being competing forces. How can we collaborate more effectively and are we seeing the collaboration uh, become more important in the spin out space?

Speaker A: I think so. You know, um, it's interesting that some of the, some of the companies that, like Palantir and Cisco, that have had many spin outs, there's a whole they call like an alumni network, like for Palantir, they call it the Palantir pack.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: It's a whole alumni network that work together actually to develop new startups, they fund each other's startups, they help to validate each other's startups, they join each other's startup teams. And so there's this whole ecosystem of alumni that has developed um, for those parent firms. And so there's um, a move for those parent firms who are trying to be more innovative to have the largest possible ecosystem of related ventures that they can then learn from and get knowledge spillbacks from.

Speaker B: Yeah, great. I like that. Two people might be sitting inside an organization and feeling like, look, you know, I've got this Great idea. Uh, do I, do I leave now? Do I stay? Is there a right time to be able to launch a spin out or is it like many things that you know, the best time is now?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean that's, that's a really tough question. So a lot of the people, a lot of the spinoff founders we interviewed had a kind of rule where they, they, they needed to have at least enough savings, uh, to be able to, to give themselves a salary and often salary for one other person, you know, for, for one year, for example. So um, liquidity is sometimes an issue. You know, when you're an employee. Sometimes it's nice to be an employee in some ways because you get the benefits. Right. Uh, you may get medical, medical benefits and insurance and, and, and the guaranteed paycheck. Uh, right. So there's an opportunity cost to leaving. Um, and sometimes, sometimes. Although, although spin outs tend to be more successful and more successful more quickly, there can still be a lot of runways. It might be still two, three years before uh, the, the venture is able to produce enough revenue, uh, to pay, you know, to pay significant salaries. Right. So um, liquidity events are important. What we see often is after an ipo, for example, when a lot of the, the employees now suddenly are able to sell their shares that they had received in the company right through, through stock options and things like that, or after an acquisition where um, a lot of the employee shares become, become uh, liquid. We see a lot of spin outs after those types of events. Sometimes it happens just, you know, individually, uh, people just you know, save, save enough money uh, over time to be able to do, to be able to do it. But because the uh, the market opportunity might be um, you know, time time sensitive. And so um, one opportunity within a spin out is also to find those early investors within the, the existing company. What we're seeing is a lot of, a lot of spin outs are find their first investor among the existing managerial team, uh, of the, of the parent organization.

Speaker B: Mhm. In regards to Spinel Entrepreneur, what are some of the biggest risks, um, and unique challenges that they may face that might be different to other startup entrepreneurs?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I think, I think the biggest difference or the biggest challenge that they face that other entrepreneurs don't face is that, is that relationship with uh, the parent organization and it can, and it's really kind of two different uh, worlds. On the one hand there are parent organizations that are trying to develop a reputation for toughness, right where you know, they, they diligently guard their IP and anybody who who does anything that looks like it's perhaps infringing, you know, they're going to be faced with a, a lawsuit. Right. So um, there, there are some companies that are like that, uh, um, that had been actually more, more kind of like the norm in the past. And it's only in the, in the, in the last 30 years or so that we're seeing more companies sort of open up and, and, and have a more uh, open perspective about ip because, because companies are starting to realize, you know, how innovation really happens. They used to think that, you know, you, you do internal R and D and then out of that there's going to be some innovation and that innovation is going to be your next big business that you can go with. But over the last 30 years we've uh, we know that that doesn't really happen. The most of the companies when they're doing R and D primarily so that they're staying in the loop so that their employees are able to absorb innovations from others. Right. So that, so that you can basically more effectively use innovations that are coming from outside. Right. So that's a very different way of thinking about the purpose of R and D within a company and also the genesis of innovations of where they come from. Right. Most of them are not coming from internal ventures, most of them are coming from outside anyway. So you have to sort of as a manager, accept the fact that many of the innovations that are being created in your organization are not for you, they're not for your organization. They're actually going to be exploited externally and a lot of the ones that you're going to end up exploiting internally aren't going to be created inside, they're going to come from outside anyway. Right. So the more companies start to adopt that view and see that that's how it's really happening out there. I think the more uh, spin out friendly cultures, uh, we'll see out there and the less stress there'll be on potential spin out founders who want to take the leap.

Speaker B: When you look at innovations and creativity at the moment, the speed of innovations and the change in the space is happening so fast that you know, intellectual property is just about defunct, you know, in, in sometimes months and days versus you know, multiple decades, uh, of what people perceived previously. And so I just kind of find it fascinating how people are trying to protect their IP in, especially in a technology space when it's moving so fast and it's changing so quickly that you know, what, what might have been relevant yesterday is not relevant today. And that ability to be able to keep pace with it. So I think if you're an organization that's caught up on trying to protect IP all the time, you're going to miss out because one, your IP is going to become outdated pretty quick and two, people already a step ahead.

Speaker A: I agree with that statement.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's very interesting. Now in regards to spin out ventures, are ah, there, are there any sort of, you know, along the process of starting a spin out venture? Ah, are they sort of key things that people may not always think about before they take that leap and dive? Head first they go, oh this is a really good idea, I love to do this. But what are some of the things that you've noticed that people may not take into consideration when it comes to actually launching their spin out venture?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean uh, often so because they've been employees inside of an existing company and often that company has all of the complementary assets needed to, to perform the business. So for example um, perhaps they have the manufacturing capacity, they have the distribution capacity, they have the marketing capacity. Right. And that's all you know, that's perhaps been there for a long time and developed over a long period of time. And so a lot of spin out founders, you know, when they leave and they form their spin out uh, they realize okay, well none of those business services, none of those complementary assets that we're used to having, uh, we're taking for granted within the parent organization are available to us. And so often the major challenge uh, that the spin out founders face is recreating uh, those complementary assets. And that can mean um, finding good partners to outsource some of those functions. Right. Or being able to build those functions internally within the startup which is always more challenging than people expect. Um, and that's why actually a lot of the more successful spin out founders do a good job of, of uh, building a network not just in the core innovation but in all those supporting functions as well. So that when they leave to form their spin out venture they have a network that extends into those complementary asset realms as well so that they can bring people that know how to do the manufacturing or networking or distribution or whatever it is, whichever component is that they need. Right. Um, so that's also uh, a really important part to think about. So as a spin out uh, ringleader is thinking about leaving, leaving employment to start a, a new venture, they should really be thinking about uh, forming a, a network that's comprehensive of all of the different components of the organization that they plan to build.

Speaker B: M. I think that's really important. You know, you can't do, you can't do everything as an entrepreneur on your own. And you know, you can't expect to have all the expertise required. And so being able to surround yourself with the right people is, is really important. And being able to build out any sort of company or entrepreneur or uh, pursuit in that sense. In regards to, you know, those spin out ventures. When we're looking at people transitioning from being an employee where, where you know, they're just getting to do their, their job versus running the business to moving into being an entrepreneur, what, what do you think are the biggest mind shift changes that need to occur or mindset shifts that need to occur?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it's interesting if you look at the people who actually do it, right, they tend not to be the employees that are kind of sitting there in one job, you know, for several years. They tend to be the kinds of employees who are actually doing, you know, entrepreneurial things at the company. So they're getting involved in developing new ideas and in implementing those new ideas within the parent organization. Right. So they're actually getting that entrepreneurial experience on the job as well. And I actually, I did a study, um, on that myself. Uh, we collected uh, GEM data across you know, several countries and we looked at uh, exactly, um, uh, uh, that phenomenon. Um, so I've seen it, you know, I've seen the evidence firsthand. It's very much that the people who are doing entrepreneurial work within the parent organization tend to be the ones who are more likely to leave. And so the advice I would give to someone who's trying to get some kind of preparation is don't just sit, you know, don't sit with your current job. Think about the organization that's employing you as a learning environment and think about all the different places you might be in that organization. And so think about how you can evolve your job within the organization to give you greater exposure. Right. And some jobs have a greater exposure kind of naturally. So for example, people who have job titles like a project manager, for example, within, within large organizations, well, they tend to, you know, get exposed to a lot of different, uh, project projects in a lot of different parts of the organization. Um, also people in more, more senior roles who, who get to see kind of like the, the big picture of the organization, you know, they, they, they have an advantage too. Right. So I, I, my, my suggestion would be that, you know, rather than, than, you know, sitting in one role and waiting for it to happen, you can start to make it happen yourself by, by pursuing those, those more developmental roles uh, within the employing organization on the pathway I think to creating your own venture.

Speaker B: I'm going to swing back to the executives now that might be inside an organization that want to create a spin out and we talked about before where the non compete was being, you know has been taken away say in the USA and some other countries in regards to the employee um, from an ah, from an executive point of view, if they want to create a spin out venture, what's the, what sort of other aspects do they need to kind of understand and comprehend and be aware of in regards to creating that, that you know, stepping outside of the company and creating their own thing?

Speaker A: Well the, I think one difference, the important difference with executives is usually they have what are called um, fiduciary duties. And the way to think about those I think is to think about a, they have a higher duty of honesty toward the, the their employer. Okay. So, so it becomes a lot more important that, that they don't start sort of scheming and preparing their spin out while they're still an executive working uh, you know, uh, in the interest of uh, their employer. Right. Because there's a conflict of interest. There's that lower level employees may not have because they don't have those fiduciary duties which is a higher responsibility. Um, usually what we see is when we do see a lot of spin outs by the way by executives, it's very common. Um, a couple of things. So executives usually they have more bargaining um, power when they're signing their contract. So a lot of them can avoid ah, restrictive non competes. So a lot of them don't even have this problem. Believe it or not, like lower level employees, especially engineers, they sign non competes much more readily than CEOs do. Um, the other thing is uh, they often negotiate their non competes. So rather than just accepting the clause as it's written, which most employees do, frankly they just accept the boilerplate. Uh, executives are more likely to bring in their own uh, lawyer and negotiate to make sure that if there is going to be a non compete that it's going to be very narrow and that's not going to necessarily uh, stop them from being able to pursue their venture later. Um and the other thing you should keep in mind as well, a lot of executives, they often are coming out with a better financial position when they're starting the venture. Um, and they're often able to buy out their non compete uh, if it's still valid. Um, often these things can be negotiated through a settlement, um, as well. And so executives tend to be better at that negotiation process because they tend to also know the other executives that they're going to be negotiating with that they're leaving. Right. Um, so there are some differences, but definitely spin ah outs by executives are also still quite common.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's good. Uh, so recently I've just launched a new book, Spin Out Ventures. You know, we go deep into this space. What can people expect from reading the book?

Speaker A: So what we wanted to do with this book is, is first of all, we, we need the, the world to know about Spin Up Ventures. And that's why we're so, you know, we didn't invent the term. The term was actually invented by, uh, um, a U.S. uh, professor, uh, about 20 years ago. Okay. But we're using the term and we're trying to, we're promoting the term to try to differentiate it from other, other types of entrepreneurship. And the main way we're doing this in the book, I mean the, the book, it's based on, on, on 20, 20 year review of the literature. So there's a lot of like, um, facts from academic studies in, in the, in the book. Okay. But the, a lot of this, a lot of it is stories. We have a lot of stories in there. We have, we have a dozen cases. We have cases of parent companies. We have cases like uh, of uh, you know, Intel. Um, we have cases of uh, Fairchild, we have Zillow, we have Zoom, we have Apple. You know, we have Chevrolet. We have a lot of household name type examples in the book and uh, short cases written about how the spin out happened. Okay. Because we want people to see that these are actually quite common. Not only are they common, a lot of the big companies that you thought, you didn't think were spin outs actually are spinouts. Right. And we also have a lot of interview content in there. So we interviewed, you know, two, uh, dozen spin, uh, out founders. Okay. And we asked them, you know, to tell us their story and tell us about their challenges and tell us what they did. Okay. And we, we, we have taken, you know, select quotes, probably, uh, 50, uh, 50 or 75 select quotes from, from the interviews themselves. And we've put those into the book as well. So you can hear the story not just from our perspective, right, as professors and researchers, but also right from, you know, the people doing it and, and, and you know, their recent experiences and how they did and, and what are, uh, what are the words that they use and how do they describe their experience? So I think there's really a huge wealth of stories in the book and I think that's, that's what a lot of the people, the early readers, the people who are reading the book and we're getting feedback from them. That's what they're telling us. They're telling us wow. You know we really love hearing all these stories because you know the stories are what sticks in people's heads. Not so much just the, the facts. Right.

Speaker B: M. Yeah. I love, I love how you've got stories or anecdotes and um, great case studies around that people can leverage off is it has got a lot of how to like how to create that spin up venture.

Speaker A: Yeah. So we have a chapter that goes into the process of the spin out creation process which basically takes the reader through the steps that typical spin out founders take to be able to form their venture. And we also have a spin out on, sorry uh, a chapter about how spin out founders uh, validate their ideas as well. So there is, there is some process content in there. So someone, someone reading the book not only will uh, get the facts and read the stories but they'll also get some, lots of how to uh, material in there and a lot of do's and don'ts. Um, we have a whole chapter on how to avoid parent hostility for example. Right. All the steps you can take to try to, to try to make the relationship as uh, smooth and positive as possible because that's going to be good for both the spin out and the parent firm.

Speaker B: Is there any, you know, when you talk about the kind of the how to creating a spin out venture, uh for those companies that attempt to spit out venture but they, they fail. Is there a one or two critical steps that they tend to miss that leads to the, to maybe the failure?

Speaker A: Um, so sometimes the parent companies themselves um, are trying to initiate the spin out. So this is interesting things that started happening so often it's the employees that are unilaterally just deciding to leave. Right. But um, other times the parent organization actually wants to stimulate the spin outs and actually encourage uh, them. And I know this is kind of a bit tangential to your question, but I'll come back to it. So one example is the Nokia example. So Nokia is a big telecommunications company. They went through a pretty severe shrinkage, uh. Right. A downsizing uh, event. And um, rather than just laying off hundreds or potentially thousands of employees from all their rd, uh laboratories what they decided to do was to create a spin out severance package. So what they said was Every employee that, that is in this division is, is probably going to be terminated because we're closing this division. So you all get to take one idea out of the company to form a spin out. And they provided entrepreneurial education to those employees, allowed them to take the idea and even provided bridge funding so that they could, they could leave and uh, and not be unemployed and instead actually be working on the venture. And that's, that's to the advantage not only, not only of those employees leaving so that they have some kind of lifeboat to go to, but also for Nokia because a lot of those investments that they made in their R and D, they would have been shut down and kind of disappeared. Right. But instead of letting them disappear and get shut down, they instead sponsored this whole ecosystem of spinouts. I mean some of them are more successful than others. Right. But the idea is some of them will survive and over time Nokia can then make deals with those spin outs. And so they have done that and they have relationships with many of the spin outs that they themselves sponsored. Right. So there are different ways of using spin out. So sometimes, sometimes parent uh, organizations use them actually as a tool as well. Right. So there are many different scenarios um, that can occur.

Speaker B: Ah, I find that fascinating. That's a great case study in itself. You know, the ability to empower an ecosystem that you know, ultimately long term they, they can leverage and um, be able to benefit from in the future. So fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. In regards to the future of spin out ventures, uh, you know obviously we're seeing some changes in regards to non compete happening around the world. Is there, you know, if you put your future futuristic hat on, where do you see spin out ventures going and what are the kind of big opportunities that are coming up in the next decade or two?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I think there are three big trends that are happening. So one of them we talked about the bans on non competes which I think are spreading. So we'll see more of that. So that's a big opportunity for more spin outs in the future. Um, we're seeing more an open innovation. Right. So more and more companies are allowing employees to take some of that IP they're generating and put it out there in the Creative Commons or open uh, source so that they can be used later. And the other big trend is we're seeing a lot more companies that have a spin out positive perspective where they're starting to realize that spinouts can be a good thing for them and they're starting to have positive relationships with those Spin outs. So I think with those three trends all happening simultaneously, I think we're going to see, uh, a future where we'll see even more, more spin outs happening, uh, than ever before. I mean, I think that it's always been the predominance, the predominant form of entrepreneurship. It's just that people haven't really been that aware of it. Right. But I think it's going to become even more predominant, uh, in the future, um, as a result. So I think the speech, the, the spin outs, you know, spin outs are going to be much, um, more prominent, I think, in everyone's mind, uh, in the future.

Speaker B: Love that, Love that. We all know smart people have great answers, but the most successful people ask great questions. Uh, when was the last time you did something for the first time?

Speaker A: I mean. Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, you know, I'm in my 40s and, and uh, you know, um, I think that a lot of people think, wow, in your 40s, can you really learn anything new? Um, and I learned how to play guitar actually in my, in my 40s. Went from basically zero to being able to, to play really good acoustic guitar. And what that taught me is, okay, you know, if I can do that in my 40s, hey, I can do some cool things in my 50s too. Right. I think, um, you know, in terms of entrepreneurship, we actually see the most, the most, most entrepreneurial founders now are not in their 20s. Right. Even though it may seem as if all the entrepreneurship's coming from these, these, these 20 year olds are on YouTube or something. You know, that's not really where it's coming from. Most of it's coming from people in their 40s, you know, who, who are seasoned, who, who have experience and who actually have a lot of, a lot of Runway to go. Right. People live to be, you know, 80 or 100 years old these days. Right. Um, and entrepreneurship, um, is very much something, uh, that people in their 40s and 50s and 60s do. M. It's not something that's, uh, that's primarily for the young, um, even though we get that impression. And I think that's one of the big, that's one of the big issues I think in our, in the media and in society is we like, you know, we like those Hero stories about 22 year olds who form like awesome tech companies from their garage. Right? We love those stories. They're like these great hero stories, but they're kind of like they're a myth. Right? And what they're doing is they're perpetuating this sort of mythology around entrepreneurship that shouldn't really be there. And I think when more and more people realize that what entrepreneurship really is, for the most part, is learning from experience and taking that experience to create a new venture, I think it also, it kind of like lowers the stress level for people and they realize that this is a much more kind of ordinary thing. Ah, you don't have to be a genius. You don't have to be a superstar. Actually, those, uh, are the outliers. Not. That's not the norm.

Speaker B: M For the outliers. What is the one question that you would love to solve?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, um, it's a good question. I mean, as a researcher, um, I spend my whole career, you know, trying to, trying to do research on things I don't understand. I mean, frankly, that's the way that we learn as researchers, I think, because you can just read about, there's thousands of studies, you can just read about, um, what everybody else has discovered. Right. Um, but then there are questions in our heads that just are difficult to answer. Um, I think one thing that's kind of interesting right now is that, um, one of the main causes of spinouts are called strategic disagreements. Sometimes it's like managerial friction or interpersonal conflict and things like that. But often there's a strategic disagreement where the management of the company wants to go in one direction and the employee wants to go in a different direction. And often that tension happens over technology. Okay. So, for example, the most common case, I suppose, is the employee wants to use the newest technology and the employer wants to stick with the older technology.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And if we, if we port that to the current context, a lot of that, a lot of that discussion is happening around things like, uh, the use of machine learning or AI, right, within the ventures. So I think there's an interesting conundrum happening where the, you know, a lot of the existing organizations either have to implement, you know, implement AI internally or face the reality that a lot of their employees are going to leave and implement competing, uh, firms using AI. Um, and so they need to be managing that tension, um, today. But I think the most interesting part for me is that because very few organizations really have much experience with the AI technology, with the machine learning technology. So there isn't a whole ton of technological knowledge that spin out founders can take from organizations. Basically, once they understand the business knowledge, then they have enough to be able to apply the new technology. So I think an open question in my mind, you know, is how, how many of the how many, you know, AI spinouts are we going to see? Um, and, and how badly are they going to beat their parent firms? Uh, in, in business? Right. That, that's the question that I'm curious to find out. Mhm.

Speaker B: For you, what is an inspiring great leader and who is a great example of this for you?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think I mentioned Eric. Eric Juan is a great example, you know, the, the spin out founder for Zoom, you know. You know, I think what makes him a great example is, I mean he's a great leader, there's no question about it. I mean, being able to attract 40, uh, engineers from Cisco to come and join him in this, in his new uncertain venture. Right. Pre Covid, when nobody knew that Zoom was going to do, was going to be a thing. Um, right. He definitely showed great leadership and also was very open with his story. You know, if you, if you want to learn a lot about Eric Wan, you can, you can Google him. And he's got, he's given lots of great interviews and he shares really great insights about, about his, his story, about his, his motivation and, and how, how he went about trying to make Zoom happen inside of Cisco and, and how that that didn't end up working out. Um, and, and how he was able to really be a ringleader and, and orchestrate a spin out that was quite successful. I think that's a, that's a great story, I think to follow example of a, uh, a great leader who's done a, who's done a spin out.

Speaker B: Fantastic. Look, this has been a fascinating conversation, Andre. How can people learn more about what you do and what is the best way for people to connect with you?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty easy to find. I mean it's my name, Andre Plume@gmail.com. um, I also have a faculty profile. Um, but, uh, you know, the reason we made this book is because the next best place to learn about spin outs, frankly, is in academic articles which are not that accessible. M. Most of them are not. It's not just that they're difficult to read, but it's also that they're behind paywalls often. Um, so even my own research, you know, on spin outs, um, some of it, uh, is, some of it's open, open access, but some of it, you know, is behind a paywall. So what we wanted to do was create a really accessible book, um, not an academic book, but a book that's written for employees and executives who are thinking about leaving to do their spinouts, and also for managers who need to deal with spin outs and who want to learn more about that. Uh, so really that was our goal with this book, is to create an accessible ah, manual really for people to understand, um, spin outs from both perspectives, from the managerial perspective and from the entrepreneur perspective. And the book, Spin uh Out Ventures, it's available everywhere, uh, it's on Amazon, um, so I encourage people to pick up a copy. I've got a, you have a little picture of it here too. Of course my blur is on but you can see the uh, the top there. Spin out Ventures, uh, transitioning from employees to entrepreneurs. Yeah.

Speaker B: Andre, it's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. Fascinating, uh, insight into what has been quite common for many, many, many decades is, is now really starting to find its space in the, you know, the world of entrepreneurship around that, that importance of the spin out venture and how you can use that to leverage the expertise, the innovation, the ideas that you've got and be able to translate that into a new product, a new idea, a new business that maybe not be constrained by the thinking of the parent company or that you started at and to absolutely be able to think, thrive, uh, in its own right, thrive in its own business sense. Uh, I love the fact that you've been able to really look at the literature, be able to then present this out to people and maybe dispel a m myth that everyone creates. Every entrepreneur starts out in a garage or in a dorm bedroom or on a kitchen table in someone's house and that there is actually a lot more that's been building over a period of time so that when someone starts that new business venture, they're not starting completely from scratch. There is actually some, a really good understanding of what it takes to succeed or what it takes to create something really, really special and unique inside, you know, for a product or a service line, uh, that will really be able to excel in the future. Um, thank you for your insights around the importance of being able to surround yourself with the right people and, and think about how can you approach that, that new idea in a way that can actually be successful. Uh, so congratulations on the work that you've done so far and look forward to seeing you continue to spread the word around Spin Out Ventures and get people out there thinking about, you know, what's possible when they might be sitting inside an organization going, you know what, I can do this differently or I have an idea and maybe even give them that courage to make that leap and be able to create a successful venture, uh, in the future. So thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to continuing the conversation soon.

Speaker A: Thanks Craig, I appreciate it. I enjoyed it.

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