Innovation in Practice - The HuB
- 1. Innovation in Practice Lisa Szaraz & Kat Wilson
- 2. What is The HuB? The HuB is a creative and collaborative space and community where entrepreneurs come together to develop ideas and contribute towards building a new economy and culture in Sarasota, FL. The HuB is a “social enterprise” active in building a more dynamic community.
- 3. overview - intro to Creative incubating - locating staff and talent - gauging competition - business model - brainstorming process - innovation process - critical path development - the hub’s ventures - dealing with failure - srq’s creative economy - Strategic partnerships - competitive advantage - intellectual property - maintaining creativity in the workplace - going forward
- 4. The creative Incubator A "creative" incubator embraces the organic (and sometimes serendipitous) process of entrepreneurs coming together to create something great. Unlike other incubators that focus almost entirely on commercializing R&D, the HuB is focused on finding and developing a new class of entrepreneurs. Their new 3,000 square foot facility will open next month to house some of Sarasota’s leading entrepreneurial creatives, complete with several lounge areas, multi- purpose rooms, conference rooms, kitchen, event space, video editing rooms and sound booths.
- 5. Ventures
- 6. Rich Swier Jr. Founder and CEO, The HuB Graduated from University of Florida Majored in Math Created the first internet provider in Sarasota during the 1990’s Created the first cable modem Revolutionized broadband service for Comcast
- 7. How do you go about locating your staff and talent? “The interesting and coolest thing about the Hub is that everything is organic. We don’t recruit, we don’t seek people. Every single person here walked through that door. Usually what happens is, like a beacon, we put out a vibe in the universe and they just come, through either a party or campaign, something funny or community-oriented, Facebook... People who get it, walk through the door.”
- 8. How do you gauge your competition? “It’s no competition here. It’s not a traditional business, we’re a facilitator of ideas, so in reality, there is no competition. There’s a lot of people who do what we do, but at this level in the game, we don’t even think of it as competition.”
- 9. What is your business model? “The ‘Non-Plan Plan.’ Some guy can walk through the door tomorrow and say “I want to start a company,” and if it makes sense and we have the talent to help him do that, and there’s a market and we can validate it, that’s what we do.”
- 10. What is your business model? “I’ve never asked anyone to come here, it’s how it should be. Any other business model would fail because you’re trying to force it; make people think something. If it’s organic, and you let it grow, and you’re patient enough to do that, it actually becomes stronger because it’s real. We think of ourselves like a college. We get an entrepreneur and we want to develop that entrepreneur, and my theory is, that entrepreneur is going to have 50 big ideas in his lifetime. If you bet on the entrepreneur instead of the idea, you’ll do well. As long as they continue to learn and develop, they will hit something big.”
- 11. What is your brainstorming process? “includes everyone that wants to be involved. we go over what we need to do, bring up ideas, use improv techniques like word association, generally get people excited. typically booze is involved, especially when brainstorming business ideas. we’ll surf youtube for ideas. basically whatever the project feels where the answer might be.”
- 12. What is your innovation process? “The way I go about innovation is kind of problem solving, but I had this concept of ‘what can be disruptive?’ You want to completely change the way its done, like completely implode the structure of what it was, and transition from sustainable innovation to disruptive innovation. Another thing that entrepreneurs don’t do is, and something to get out of your head, to stop thinking like an inventor. Think like a practical human being and think about what you’d embrace, think of it like you’re a consumer and not like something else. The only true way to be innovative is to continue looking through the looking glass as a consumer.” Rich’s 3 Elements to Innovative Problem-Solving 1. Find an important problem 2. Find a disruptive way of solving the problem 3. Don’t think like an inventor, think like a consumer
- 13. “...you put your plan together and then we measure that plan against whatever the goals are, and then really boiling it down to a quantitative thing, and then hitting those targets. After that, everything really becomes easy. Because if they know they come to work everyday, I know what I have to do by next month by reaching those target goals. As long as they hit those goals, we’ll make enough money.” critical path development
- 14. critical path development 1. Idea Review 2. Execution 3. Review Cost Requisition 4. Set Targets 5. Execute Targets 6. Reach Goals 7. Retain Profits
- 15. critical path development “What typically happens with companies, you’re going down this critical path, and something happens - something didn’t work the way it did, you have to be able to pivot. Adjust your business to what might come. A lot of things that we do here are very organic. If you find yourself pushing and pushing against this wall and nothing is coming, you have to pivot. And I think I’m good at giving people the confidence to do that.”
- 16. do you believe entrepreneurs are born or made? “Well I think it’s both, I certainly believe I was born one...” “...because I feel like when I was a kid, or when I was in college, people would ask me, ‘what are you going to do in life?’ I’m like I don’t know - I’m more of a “renaissance thinker,” so I felt like I was born one. You’re definitely born with that gene, think about it like being a vampire - you’re gonna hunger for it and you’re not going to be happy unless you do it. It’s that thirst for blood.”
- 17. In your article,“10 Reasons Why Sarasota Isn’t Number 1,” you discuss your thoughts on the lack of “love” for the city. Since your venture with The HuB, have you seen a change? “Yes, I think so. Especially amongst my age and younger. I think its just an oasis - Sarasota is a desert for young people. There’s really few places where you can go and feel like “this is fun” or somewhere they can be themselves. It’s nice to have a place, a small place, where you can go with like-minded people or people who are cool that you can be yourself and be creative. It’s a sense of community, which everyone wants to be a part of.”
- 18. “You need somewhere where there’s enough degrees of separation where you don’t feel like you know everyone, but there’s not too much separation where you don’t feel like you’re not important. It’s an interesting dynamic. I feel like we’re closer to that than anything.” In your article,“10 Reasons Why Sarasota Isn’t Number 1,” you discuss your thoughts on the lack of “love” for the city. Since your venture with The HuB, have you seen a change?
- 19. Out of all the HuB’s ventures, which one was the hardest one to start? The hardest to get going - in an interesting way they’re not hard to get going because that’s when you’re passionate about it and they’re fun. The hardest and the most difficult ones are the ones who don’t have an alignment of morality or passion but it’s when the entrepreneurs aren’t really hardcore passionate about what they’re doing. Those are the toughest because what happens is there’s nobody there to center the passion. Nobody wants to help, when you have someone who’s really passionate and loves, no matter what at the end of the day, it builds this energy and everyone wants to be around it.
- 20. In Peter Drucker’s The Discipline of Innovation, he states that “there are clearly people who are more talented as innovators than others, but their talents lie in well-defined areas. Innovators rarely work in more than one area.” Would you agree with this? Do you have employees that have a broad range of endeavors? “Sometimes projects consume you. I’ve had that happen. It’s not that I don’t believe in one way or the other, I just feel that it’s a mistake to be doing multiple things. It’s something that you have to learn how to do. A lot of people don’t know how to do that, and sometimes things will overwhelm them and you can easily fold underneath that pressure. I would equate it to juggling. If you can juggle, if you can learn how to juggle, and you’re comfortable juggling, then great. But it’s not necessarily something I encourage or discourage.
- 21. when an idea is dragging, how do you deal with it? “We kill it.” “Because it just pulls on everyone. Even when I say kill it, I wasn’t killing the person, we’ll put the person on something else if he’s a good entrepreneur. Ideas come and go, products come and go, tomorrow you might think something is the greatest thing on earth, but the entrepreneurs - as long as they stay with it, if you continue to learn and develop, they’ll come up with a great idea.”
- 22. “I encourage failure, I think it’s awesome.” “People fail quickly because the quicker you fail, the less time you’re wasting. Acknowledge failure, don’t be afraid of it. Fail, fail, fail until you minimize. The quicker you fail, the better. My biggest mistake, when I was young and starting off as an entrepreneur, I didn’t acknowledge failure quick enough, so I could get on to the next project. I always held on to this idea, thinking it was the last great idea, but in reality, it was just stupid.” How do you deal with failure?
- 23. How do you deal with failure? “One of the things we try to show people here at the HuB is that failure is no big deal. It’s only when there’s pressure of that, that it becomes a liability. When you feel like you’re being judged based off failure, that is becomes a liability in a workforce. It creates a very stressful environment.”
- 24. Sarasota’s Creative Economy The HuB strives to make sarasota a “creative paradise” that attracts creative professionals to move here and start their businesses, and also keep young college graduates here to build the new culture and economy. involved in local politics and shifting our culture to be more progressive. huge supporter of local arts, especially local artists and musicians, promote music festivals, promote groups like SArtQ hang local at in our building, as well as feature local bands at our hub day events.
- 25. Sarasota’s Creative Economy help entrepreneurs take their ideas and build companies. provides them a creative workspace, supportive team, capital and resources that are needed to succeed. believe arts and creativity are the center of the new economy. working with more “creative entrepreneurs” leveraging their skills and creativity to build new businesses.
- 26. “We work a lot with different entities... Its not easy, we want to influence and change people but you certainly cant expect them to. I believe the best entrepreneurs are artists.. creatives. That is what I discovered by accident. Creative drive is critical.” Strategic partnerships
- 27. the hub’s competitive advantage "Our biggest competitive advantage... All the things I've been saying for the past hour.. nobody in their right mind would these things. Encourage free thinking. The beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur is you truly don't need bureaucratic structure in the beginning.”
- 28. intellectual property IP = innovation through mimicry repurposed and inspiration “we live in a collaborative economy, we must live outside the system and constantly innovate.” “it's not a bad thing, it's all about money.”
- 29. maintaining creativity in the workplace brainstorming improv laughter collaborative space space in general events idea wall
- 30. New building to bring together entrepreneurs, creative professionals, and technology companies A place for people to congregate, collaborate, and create a new future for Sarasota Working with Ringling College’s Motion Design students to bring a new form of art to the Sarasota community through digital projections to be showcased during their Grand Opening on December 8th. going forward with the hub