I had the opportunity to be the final speaker at the 2010 Indianapolis Startup Weekend event on Sunday afternoon. For the uninitiated, I’ve included a bit of background from the Startup Weekend website below.

Startup Weekend recruits a highly motivated group of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more to a 54 hour event that builds communities, companies and projects.

Founded in 2007 by Andrew Hyde, the weekend is a concept of a conference focusing on learning by creating. It is known for its quick decisions, ‘out of the box’ thinking (oh no, the buzzwords are attacking!), unique facilitation technique and letting the founders show what they can do. The program has already met with success in indianapolis, Toronto, New York, Hamburg, Houston, West Lafayette, indianapolis, DC and more.

The participants that attend a Startup Weekend decide what they want to tackle over the weekend and come out at the end with several developed companies or projects. Attendees are responsible for bringing the same desire and passion to the project and walk out of the room with the task at hand, in a short 54 hours. Sound intense? It is.

By all accounts the weekend was a success and the groups produced three strong concepts:

Zankit
http://www.zankit.com

GoBizSpeak
http://www.gobizspeak.com

NinjaButton
http://twitter.com/ninjabutton

You can view my presentation on “Designing A Startup” on SlideShare.

We’ve started by pulling together a list of all the tech-oriented startup in Indy. Currently it’s an incomplete list. If you are a founder of an Indianapolis-based startup or you are aware of one that is not our list, please go here and submit it. There are lots of really great young companies here in Indy, but for the time being we are predominantly focusing on technology and technology-enabled businesses in the web space (software, web-apps, etc.). For the time being, we’re not focusing on advanced manufacturing, life sciences, or service-based businesses – but that will come.

Once we’ve got a good handle on startup landscape in Indianapolis, we’ll begin to flesh out the other side(s) of the coin… infrastructure, support services, funding, etc. We’ve begun to detail some of that already, but its a work in progress. We’re using a really cool application called Mindmeister to create a mind map of the ecosystem. You can check out a truncated view below, or click through to see the whole thing. One the infrastructure and services tip we are really looking for businesses that specialize in working with and for startups. We’re really looking for businesses and organizations that are focused on the Indy startup space. Indianapolis is achieving critical mass in the startup infrastructure space and that is what we want to highlight.

If you have a startup or a technology/web-based startup to recommend or would like to ask a question, hit me up on Twitter @kristianindy and let me know about it. But take a look at the mind map we’ve set-up first so that you can get an idea of what we’re looking for.

Note: Regarding “stages” (e.g. seed, growth, established, etc.) These are pretty fluid terms, but you can use the following brief descriptions for context.

Early/Seed Stage – Building the product and proving the concept

Growth Stage – Growing the business and becoming self-sustaining

Established – Profitable, stable, managed growth

Once the mapping process is completed, we’ll publish the entire Indy Startup Genome Project online for public consumption.

Warning: This is a work in progress. There will be errors and omissions. If you find an error or omission, let us know in the comments.

I thought this was a pretty interesting presentation by Mint CEO Aaron Patzer. The same Mint that just sold to Intuit for 170 Million. He shares his thoughts on selecting co-founders, how to dole out equity, what to pay employees, etc. It’s a pretty revealing look into Mint’s early days.

The slide presentation, compliments of TechCrunch, can be found below.

Startup Building 101 –

Obama’s recent plan to “smarten up the youth of America” by rewarding teachers and lengthening the school year has left me feeling a little queasy. Seeing that I’m only 5 years out of high school, the reverberation of cheese wagons, SAT testing, and home rooms still permeate my senses every now and then. My experiences growing up in the public school system has left a sour taste in my mouth from careless teachers and outrageous “rules,” to standardization up the wazoo. Being a youth leader has also helped me keep up on what’s happening inside the school walls, as well as the inside the minds of the students. Since the time I graduated high school, it seems that schools have become more militant, enforcing more and more discipline in efforts to “deal” with students unwilling to walk in line. This is a cheap, lazy, and insensitive approach put forth by people who have lost touch what it’s like to be a child, especially now vs. 20-30+ years ago. The bar for achievement is set higher every year as getting into college has become a must-do, rising tuition costs, narrowing job opportunities, and decreasing pay rates create anxiety for nearly everyone. Most of the children I interact with on a weekly basis have experienced some form of physical mistreatment, neglect, drug & alcohol abuse, or gang involvement, which cause them to have very little ambition or self confidence, both of which are crucial for success. Then what about the children who “just don’t seem to understand,” or the individuals who aren’t into math or science, and just can’t seem to grasp their minds around the concepts. Is it the teachers way of teaching, or are these kids simply broken? I know these kids all too well. In first grade I was diagnosed with A.D.D. by a teacher who characterized me as disruptive, socially awkward, and irrational. She decided that the best thing for me would be to put me on this stuff called Ritalin, which basically turned me into an emotionless zombie. So everyone was happy, everyone but me of course. Aside from this happening to me, it happens to kids all the time. In my opinion, a typical first-grader who isn’t hyperactive, socially awkward or irrational to some extent, has a problem, but to try control a child’s personality with drugs is disgusting. It’s also a pretty obvious way of adults saying “I don’t know how/or want to deal with this kid so let the drugs take care of it for me, that way I will be happier.” There are other, less harmful, ways of dealing with this that people need to be informed of for the sake of their children, not for the sake of themselves. So now that I’ve vented a bit, on to my question…

“Instead of keeping students in the classroom longer and relying on that to solve our intelligence deficit, why don’t we focus on revamping how and what kids are being taught? Again, to me this is focusing on the kids inability to understand, when actually I think the problem is leaning more toward teaching efforts and curriculums.”

Arne Duncan, Education Secretary, comments on Obama’s plan by stating; “We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day. The calendar may have once made sense, but today, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea…” You think keeping kids in school is going to entice them to want to learn more? Is that your only solution? That to me is a simple and quick fix. You know what hasn’t changed much since our “nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land” days? The material. We’ve standardized everything and use it to measure a student’s ability to comprehend. Then universities look at the scores from standardized tests like the SAT and ACT to evaluate whether or not a kid is competent enough to succeed in their institution. Kids spend way more time memorizing facts and linear information than they do exploring and experiencing open-ended avenues in which they are in charge of how they interpret and perceive. We need a new method for evaluating students. They ought to be exposed to every opportunity to uncover and develop their own personal interests, that way when kids leave high school maybe they will have a better idea of what they want, what they excel at, and where they fit in. Also, maybe there won’t be as many drop outs or undergrads who end up spending 5+ years achieving their bachelor’s, or switching majors numerous times.

On Wednesday, October 2, 2008, I sat in on a lecture given by Daniel Pink, author of several books on changing the world of work, who came to Butler University to talk about his newest, and perhaps most provocative book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Basically, he highlighted education and how everything is focused on material dominated by the left side of the brain; very standardized, linear, subject matter that teaches kids what they need to know to survive life after high school. What is excluded are material occupied by the right side of the brain; functions dealing with the visual, spatial, perceptual, and intuitive information. “They” say that our right-brained nature is developed during our infant and early childhood years, for example word and picture association, art classes that allow kids to be “creative,” and recess. I believe that there is life for the right brain after high school, and kids should be exposed to a healthy dose of the complexity, ambiguity, and paradox that it occupies. There needs to be a balance, a mesh, of both worlds, not emphasizing one or the other at different stages of life. Below, I’ve posted a link to a video clip of Daniel Pink. He raises an interesting point in the video when he says the he chose to leave writing for politics because he felt that his internal-voice was being suffocated– this all happening obviously later on in his life. I say, why wait until then to allow that to happen? Why can’t curating personality, ideologies, and nurturing creativity happen earlier on in life to ensure a more fulfilling future?

Daniel Pink

As companies look to begin or continue to innovate in their industry, there are some important questions that they should be considering in their strategy.

What does innovation look like?
The Summit’s Keynote Speaker, Clayton Christensen, Harvard professor and author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, delivered a rich presentation focused on disruptive innovation–improvements to a product or service that aren’t expected by the market. Disruptive innovators, typically begin on the fringes of the market, where profit margins are lower. Focusing on that specific customer group, they refine the product or service until they can solve the problem the best (often at the lowest cost). Using that experience and knowledge, they apply it to another group of customers and learn how to solve their problems, and keep repeating. By incrementally moving and gaining market share, these innovators gain the momentum they need to move to the core of the industry and oust the giants as champion.

A panel that took place later in the day, on Information Technology, featuring Scott Dorsey and Chris Baggot, co-founders of ExactTarget and our own Kristian Andersen, revealed that Indy’s ExactTarget, somewhat unintentionally, used this same strategy. They began in the low profit margin outer rings – selling email marketing solutions to dry cleaners. They realized that what they were doing for dry cleaners, would work for pizza parlors and other mom and pop shops. Ring by ring they worked their way from the fringe to the center, so that today they’re working with the Microsofts, Best Buys and Charles Schwabs of the world.

Innovators know that success follows focus, and that David doesn’t beat Goliath in direct combat. Rather it’s through planned strategy and incremental steps that disruptive innovators can gain the market.

What problem are you solving?
Problems can share symptoms, and sometimes solutions. Because of this, companies may think they are solving a different problem than what the customer has hired them to fix. Using the case study of “Hiring a Milkshake,” Clayton Christensen illustrated how to shape our conversations with clients to discover what job, or need they are looking to fill.

Clayton shared an entertaining example of a fast food company that was trying to determine how to improve sales of their milkshakes. When they surveyed customers, and then gave the customers exactly what they said they wanted, the company did not see any improvement in sales. It wasn’t until a consultant asked, “What job does a milkshake do?” that they realized what some of their customers “hire” milkshakes to do, or what problem milkshakes solve. They discovered a trend in milkshake buying, outside of the usual dessert choice: people would buy milkshakes for their morning commute, to occupy the long drive. The thick, “viscous” milk shake took at least 20 minutes to drink, and kept them full through the morning – something that the usual donut or banana breakfast couldn’t do nearly as well. By understanding this problem, and how the milkshake satisfied it, the fast food joint can create an experience, that makes these milkshakes easier to obtain and more desirable to morning commuters – tapping into a new market of consumers.

By understanding the problem at hand, innovators can craft a better solution, or even a better experience that mirrors how these customers experience life.

How do you develop the solution?
Developing the solution is heavily dependent on your resources – both human and financial. On the human capital side of the ball, Indiana boasts a host of private and public universities, developing the talent needed to tackle these problems. Many universities, like Butler, even have programs like the Business Accelerator that expose students to real life business challenges, and plant the seeds for lasting connections with Indiana businesses. Combined with our Midwestern work ethic, we are able to create dynamic teams, devoted to the work, and willing to put a lot of sweat into the solution.

On the financing side, another panel exposed venture capitalists inner thoughts – how do they decide what to invest in? One of the panelists, venture capitalist Bob Compton, recommended entrepreneurs step away from the business plan forecasts, and dive into prototyping. Get actual customer experience with the product, and use this feedback to rapidly iterate the working model. By working with the prototype in a live environment, not only can you prove the concept, but you are also equipped to create a compelling story for potential investors.

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To learn more about Techpoint or catch up on what happened on the 2009 Innovation Summit, check out their web site, blog, and Twitter.

“If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”

No, it wasn’t the start of the “I Love New York” campaign (that’s due in another 10 years), but it was a rather Darwinian response to the vividly increasing social changes of the times. Draper realized that in order to survive in the the new dynamics, you had to control the conversation.

Right here in Indianapolis we have run into a conversation or two that we didn’t like, one of those being the hard line that Hoosier laureate Kurt Vonnegut delivered – that we were “Indiana No Place.” From a family of successful Indianapolis businessmen and architects, Vonnegut had watched a city with all the trappings for world class stature, dwindle away to a speck on the map because it seemingly lacked the vision, or had misplaced it. Vonnegut’s provocative statement certainly caused some antipathy amongst his Hoosier brethren, but it was through friction that Indianapolis realized it was time to “change the conversation.”

Through my experiences with KA+A, I’ve worked daily with startup businesses that are making a viable economic situation for Indiana to be that “Some Place.” Thanks to the advocacy and lobbying work of foundations like Techpoint, we have a state government that enables and encourages investment, so that angel and venture capital outfits such as: CID Capital, Monument Advisors, Centerfield Capital Partners, Spring Mill Ventures, Heron Capitol, Halo Capital, Collina Ventures, and Gravity Ventures have been able to extend the financial support that promising young companies need to launch.

In large part, this economic vision has helped establish Indianapolis as a (if not the) center of the marketing software universe, but it’s just one element of many that have had a profound impact on creating a “Some Place.”

If Vonnegut’s own pedigree is any indication, the incubation of art, architecture, and culture is just as necessary. To this end, Indianapolis has really come into its own. I’ve only just dipped in the pool of cultural wealth that Indianapolis has to offer: IDADA’s First Friday tours at local galleries; Pecha Kucha’s powerpoint fight club; the accessible wealth of the Indianapolis Museum of Art; the edgy performance art of the Indy Fringe Festival; the sweet symphonies on the Prairie and in Hilbert Circle Theatre; the pedestrian paths of the Cultural Trail; the twinkling toes of Butler Ballet on stage at Clowes; the silver screens of the Heartland Film Festival; and there is still much more to be soaked in.

Indianapolis is in no short supply of engaged communities for the arts, especially in the guiding hands of organizations like Smaller Indiana, Indy Hub, the Arts Council of Indianapolis, and the Central Indiana Community Foundation.

Indianapolis continues to build conversation, connectedness, and energy around the arts and within its communities.

In business and in arts, Indianapolis has truly taken control of the conversation, changing our city from a “No Place” into a “Some Place.”

We’ll discuss emerging business models, such as service for equity investing, which allow businesses to share in the success of their clients. By moving beyond fee-for-service, retainers, and fixed-bid projects, consultancies can create sustainable differentiation, make more money, develop healthier relationships with clients, and have more fun in the process.

Make plans to join the Kristian Andersen + Associates team in Austin next March and be sure to visit the panel picker and vote for our presentation – “How to Get Rich Off Your Clients.”

We help our clients develop their brands and design brand experiences that support the growth of those brands.

This all seems simple enough at first blush, but things start to get complicated when you begin to draw lines around what discrete disciplines and services constitute brand experience design. Some of those disciplines and services are explicitly clear, such as: brand strategy, corporate identity, interface design, corporate communications, etc. But designing brand experiences transcends those individual buckets. Integrated brand experiences require much deeper thinking (and action) around issues such as the design of the business itself, for example:

• How will the product (and business) be monetized?
• What routes to market should be focused on?
• How will you attract and maintain the best talent?
• Are you selling the “right” product?
• Are you selling to the “right” market?
• What partner opportunities should be pursued?
• Should we offer a service component to complement our products?
• What impact will those partnerships have on our brand and our success?
• Should we boot-strap or raise outside capital to fuel growth?

The list goes on and on – and I didn’t even touch on the other tangential marketing and operational disciplines that impact the design of a compelling brand experience, such as: public and media relations, human capital management, talent acquisition and retention, operational infrastructure and information technology decisions, etc.

To reiterate these are just a sampling of the levers that ultimately impact the design and management of brand experiences. And make no mistake we firmly believe that brand experience is the single most important determining factor in a businesses success or failure.

Following this logic, we must move forward with the assumption that brand experience design is really a comprehensive, ongoing exercise in the design of the actual business itself. This means that designing brand experiences cannot be entirely outsourced to advertising agencies, design firms, or management consultants. Ultimately CEO really stands for chief experience officer. Anything less than full belief and commitment on their part will result in a sub-optimal brand experience for customers, trading partners, and employees.

So we all agree that it’s the job of the organization itself to internally champion brand experience design. But invariably no organization (regardless of its size or level of sophistication) possesses all of the tools to develop and execute on deeply engaging brand experiences. This is why agencies and consultancies exist. They are in a unique position to provide focused expertise to organizations that don’t have the resources, scale, or experience to do all of those things in-house. This is more so the case today, than at any other time in history. The outsourcing of many professional services, critical to great brand experiences, is more cost effective (and just plain effective) than trying to go it alone.

This problem is exacerbated in early-stage start-ups. Where the founders aren’t just fine tuning their models, but rather inventing them in real time.

The question for many founders isn’t just “What are the right answers?”, but rather, “What are the right questions?”. Historically, entrepreneurs have either made it all up as they went along or sought the council of a cadre of advisers, such as: attorneys, accountants, marketing consultants, bankers, and golf buddies.

This brings me back to my original point, which was how do we, as brand experience designers, help technology-focused start-ups (and growth-oriented companies) become more successful? I think the answer lies in our ability to bring to bear a host of really practical talents and experiences, that combined, do not exist in any other professional services discipline.

I am certainly not insinuating that brand experience designers know more about structuring a capital raise than an attorney that specializes in investment law, or that we possess more insight into emerging market opportunities than a management consultancy focused on international growth markets. What I am saying is that as brand experience designers, that have worked exclusively with entrepreneurs, founders, and start-ups for over a decade, we’ve had the privilege of playing a part in the success (and on occasion failures) of countless start-ups and high-growth businesses. We’ve assisted in the design of emerging business models, we’ve spurred the redirection of resources into more profitable opportunities, we’ve helped recruit talent for our clients (in some cases even the CEO), and we’ve helped identify, pitch, and close angel and venture investors in tandem with our clients.

These are unique perspectives and experiences that, when properly exploited, have a profound impact on the success of our clients’ businesses. I believe what is truly differentiated about these offerings however, is that they are filtered through the lens of brand experience. I don’t know if our practice is unique in this regard or not. My assumption is that successful, long-standing experience design firms all share some of this core DNA.  But I do know that because of this approach, we’re able to help our clients focus on, well… what they should be focusing on. And in the end we all know that it’s the experience that matters.

Interesting presentation / discussion about social network monetization. Moderated by Jeremiah Owyang.