In this episode of the Innovators Inside Podcast, Marcelo Calbucci joins the show to break down how Amazon’s PR FAQ framework and a narrative-driven innovation culture can help founders, corporate innovators, and product leaders make smarter decisions and build solutions customers truly care about. With experience at Microsoft, Amazon, and six startups, Marcelo offers practical insights that apply to anyone trying to innovate in today’s fast-changing environment.

Here are the five key takeaways from their conversation:

1. Start With Real Customer Problems, Not Ideas

Marcelo emphasizes a core truth that many innovators skip. Successful innovation begins with understanding a real customer problem. That means going deeper than surface-level assumptions and quantifying frequency, urgency, alternatives, and the value of solving the problem.

This customer-first mindset prevents teams from chasing ideas they love instead of solutions people need. It is also the first step in Amazon’s PR FAQ framework, which forces clarity around the customer before anything else.

2. Small, Fast Iterations Beat Big Plans

A key theme throughout the conversation is the speed of learning. In software, you can build, test, and gather feedback in hours, not months. This rapid cycle is a superpower, and Marcelo believes more people will adopt it as tools become cheaper and more accessible.

Fast iteration unlocks two things:

• Clearer signals on what actually works
• Reduced waste from overbuilding or planning too far ahead

Whether you are a founder or driving change inside an enterprise, the lesson is the same. Start small, move quickly, and learn your way forward.

3. Narrative Writing Is a Competitive Advantage

At Amazon, writing is not a documentation exercise. It is a thinking exercise. Marcelo explains that writing forces logic, clarity, and coherence in ways slide decks cannot. The PR FAQ framework uses narrative precisely because it reveals gaps, misalignment, and weak assumptions early in the process.

Narratives spread ideas more effectively, help onboard teams faster, and create a truth-seeking mechanism for feedback. For leaders trying to align cross-functional groups, this is one of the most powerful tools available.

4.  Innovation Thrives in Community, Not Isolation

Marcelo highlights the role of community in innovation. Strong founder communities create spaces where people share lessons, reduce blind spots, and build on each other’s experience. The best communities are not for selling but for learning.

For ecosystems and innovation leaders, this is a critical insight. When people connect deeply and collaborate openly, the quality and speed of innovation increases.

5. AI Is a Superpower When Used as a Thinking Partner

One of the most forward-looking parts of the discussion is Marcelo’s optimism about AI. He believes AI will accelerate breakthroughs in health, energy, education, and everyday productivity. But the key is how we use it.

AI should not replace thinking. It should amplify it. Using AI as an editor, a research assistant, or a tool for exploring blind spots can dramatically improve decision-making. Outsourcing strategy to AI, however, leads to generic thinking and poor outcomes.

Marcelo leaves innovators with a simple but powerful principle. Think big if you want to, but start small. Build for the next three to six months, not the next decade. Then grow through learning, not assumptions.

His approach blends discipline, creativity, and real-world experience, and the lessons in this episode offer a roadmap for anyone trying to innovate inside a startup, an enterprise, or anywhere in between.

Have a question for a future guest? Email us at innovators@alchemistaccelerator.com to get in touch! 

Timestamps

🧠 00:00 Marcelo’s background in innovation and why tech pulled him in

🚀 08:00 Why tech enables instant iteration and faster learning

💸 11:20 How the VC model is shifting toward profitable smaller scale companies

🌐 15:05 Why community accelerates innovation and how Marcelo builds founder circles

📘 17:45 Inside Marcelo’s book and the PR FAQ framework

📝 20:00 Universal truths of innovation and why they matter

🏢 25:30 Why innovation is harder in big companies and how to make it work

🧩 28:50 Simple definitions of innovation that actually matter

🛠️ 31:40 How anyone can start using the PR FAQ method today

🏛️ 36:00 How Amazon avoids consensus thinking and mediocrity

✍️ 43:00 Why narrative combined with data is a superpower

🏗️ 47:55 Where startup and corporate innovation should diverge

📞 58:15 Marcelo’s experience at Hiya and lessons on scaling teams

💡 1:15:12 Marcelo’s final advice start small and learn fast

Full Transcript 

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:27:04
Layne Fawns
All right, folks, welcome to the Innovators Inside podcast. Today Ian and I are chatting with Marcello Carlucci. Marcello is an entrepreneur, a technologist and innovator and author with more than 25 years of experience in the tech industry. He's held key engineering leadership roles at Microsoft and Amazon. Marcelo's founded six startups in Seattle and London, authored over 1000 articles, and holds 11 patents.

00:00:27:07 - 00:00:47:29
Layne Fawns
His new book, The PR IQ Framework Adapting Amazon's Innovation Framework to Work for you, reveals how Amazon's signature working backwards process can be adapted by founders and product leaders to drive innovation through narrative driven clarity and alignment.

00:00:48:01 - 00:00:59:15
Layne Fawns
So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. There's a lot to unpack there. That's quite the journey. But before we dive in, I'd like to play a game, if that's okay.

00:00:59:18 - 00:01:03:00
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, let's do it. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm excited.

00:01:03:02 - 00:01:19:08
Layne Fawns
Awesome. Okay, this is going to be a lot of fun. So we're going to go through what I like to call the rapid fire section. So I'm going to switch up between you and Ian. And I'm going to ask you a question. And you have to just kind of answer the first thing that pops into your mind.

00:01:19:10 - 00:01:21:02
Marcelo Calbucci
Ooh, that's dangerous. Let's do it.

00:01:21:05 - 00:01:23:17
Layne Fawns
I, I know it can be. It can.

00:01:23:17 - 00:01:24:07
Marcelo Calbucci
I mean.

00:01:24:13 - 00:01:26:18
Ian Bergman
Scary, but super fun.

00:01:26:21 - 00:01:36:21
Layne Fawns
I promise I will be, I will be kind. Okay. What's something that you used to believe about success that you've completely outgrown? Go, Marcelo.

00:01:36:23 - 00:01:47:17
Marcelo Calbucci
I would say that persistence not necessarily leads to success. Knowing when to quit is as important as knowing when to continue.

00:01:47:20 - 00:01:49:24
Ian Bergman
Amen.

00:01:49:26 - 00:01:57:06
Layne Fawns
Oh, I love that. Okay. Ian, what's a non-tech hobby or skill you wish you could master overnight?

00:01:57:09 - 00:01:58:28
Ian Bergman
Overnight guitar.

00:01:59:01 - 00:02:01:00
Layne Fawns
Oh really.

00:02:01:02 - 00:02:18:12
Ian Bergman
I mean, if it was truly overnight. Are you kidding me? Like, so I'm a terrible piano player. Like, don't tell like my teacher from third grade. But, you know, guitar is is portable. I was just out camping this summer. Someone else had a guitar, whipped it out, played some tunes. Are you can I if only, if only.

00:02:18:15 - 00:02:25:17
Layne Fawns
Yeah. So would that be, like, like a shredding kind of a song or just more like, like delivery? Or is it more like.

00:02:25:19 - 00:02:26:09
Ian Bergman
A little more.

00:02:26:14 - 00:02:27:11
Layne Fawns
Campfire?

00:02:27:18 - 00:02:29:25
Ian Bergman
A little a little more campfire, a little more folk? Okay.

00:02:29:28 - 00:02:37:27
Layne Fawns
Okay. All right. Marcelo, which past version of yourself do you miss the most and why?

00:02:37:29 - 00:02:54:12
Marcelo Calbucci
I am very happy where I am right now. Of course, you know, like when a young, your body adjusts better to exercise and, like, parties and everything else. So that would be good to, you know, have that again.

00:02:54:14 - 00:02:55:21
Layne Fawns
Well, I love that.

00:02:55:24 - 00:03:07:00
Ian Bergman
Yeah. If we were, if we were doing this as a, a game or a drinking game Friday night around the campfire, I would not be holding up the way I was 20 years ago.

00:03:07:02 - 00:03:09:17
Layne Fawns
I don't, and it's always it's nice to live in the present.

00:03:09:19 - 00:03:11:07
Marcelo Calbucci
You know? Yeah.

00:03:11:10 - 00:03:23:02
Layne Fawns
It's true. Yeah. All right. Let's see. So just even based on on your on your bio, Marcelo, I've got another one for you. London or Seattle? Hot take.

00:03:23:04 - 00:03:35:15
Marcelo Calbucci
Ooh, I love both. The quality of life in Seattle is amazing, but London has the culture, the restaurants and the travel around Europe. That is really hard to beat as well.

00:03:35:17 - 00:03:39:16
Layne Fawns
Yeah, I've never been to London. I've got a I've got to get over there.

00:03:39:18 - 00:03:59:13
Ian Bergman
I'm not going to call you out on the hedge too much because like Seattle is my home and it's amazing. So obviously it wins. But oh yeah, London's pretty incredible. I'm jealous. I've never had the chance to live there. Just visit. What? Like, beyond the culture and the scene, what was different about life in, you know, in London?

00:03:59:14 - 00:04:09:19
Ian Bergman
Is it is it the tech? Is the tech world wildly different? Is the world of entrepreneurship different? The demographics, like, contrast the two cities for us.

00:04:09:21 - 00:04:36:21
Marcelo Calbucci
A few things I think stand out there. Like Seattle is a nature city. It's a car city like you have ski nearby, you have hiking nearby, you have water like you have all kinds of outdoor activities, right? London is more like a, food and walk city, where you have culture everywhere. So that's very different. And the entrepreneurial community is very different as well.

00:04:36:24 - 00:05:02:20
Marcelo Calbucci
Seattle is the home of Microsoft and Amazon. So it has a super strong Clark, cloud presence, AI presence. A lot of startups focus on on B2B. London has that. You know, London in the past was very much a financial district right, for the world, not even a district and a financial city for the world, and also an advertising city.

00:05:02:21 - 00:05:20:04
Marcelo Calbucci
Like they have very strong, ad and marketing industry there. And because of that, a lot of startups, from London, are consumer startups or fintech startups. So that is very different from zero. Zero doesn't have a ton of fintech. And it doesn't have a lot of consumer startups.

00:05:20:06 - 00:05:21:15
Ian Bergman
Yeah, that sounds right.

00:05:21:18 - 00:05:27:27
Layne Fawns
I love that, although you kind of sold me on. So I kind of want to move to Seattle now. And that was.

00:05:27:29 - 00:05:30:28
Marcelo Calbucci
It's great. You'll be welcome here.

00:05:31:00 - 00:05:51:06
Layne Fawns
All right. I have one more rapid fire question. It's for both of you, though, so you can kind of feel free to, just both of you answer at the same time. This is this question is known to start fights. So we'll we'll see how this goes. Microwave awesome or not.

00:05:51:09 - 00:05:53:19
Ian Bergman
It's, Marcelo. What do you think?

00:05:53:21 - 00:05:55:17
Marcelo Calbucci
I think it's awesome. Why not?

00:05:55:20 - 00:05:58:10
Ian Bergman
Awesome. I'm not going to disagree with that. It's awesome.

00:05:58:15 - 00:06:01:02
Layne Fawns
I, I don't have a microwave.

00:06:01:05 - 00:06:15:08
Ian Bergman
Okay, so look, here's the deal, Mike. You can ruin food so quickly in a microwave so quickly, but if you know how to use it, you want to know. You want to know the most entertaining way I use my microwave.

00:06:15:10 - 00:06:16:11
Layne Fawns
Oh, no.

00:06:16:14 - 00:06:43:15
Ian Bergman
No no no no it's not. No, no, this is a brilliant thing. I've got a young daughter. She has stuffies that she likes, and there are stuffies that are filled with microwavable stuffing. In this case, I think it's kind of like a potpourri mix of stuff. It is designed to be microwaved and you microwave it for one minute and then you get a nice, warm and pleasant smelling stuffy filled with plants or whatever they have in there.

00:06:43:17 - 00:06:47:19
Ian Bergman
And you know what can't do that without a microwave. You put that thing in the oven, it's going to burn.

00:06:47:21 - 00:06:49:11
Layne Fawns
Okay, okay. That's you.

00:06:49:11 - 00:06:51:12
Marcelo Calbucci
Learn something new every day.

00:06:51:14 - 00:06:53:02
Ian Bergman
Now. Innovation right there.

00:06:53:03 - 00:07:05:15
Layne Fawns
That's innovation that see that is that's let's repurpose the microwave okay? Okay. Marcel, why do you think the microwave is awesome? Did you have, like, a go to thing that you always put in the microwave? Like.

00:07:05:18 - 00:07:23:06
Marcelo Calbucci
Not necessarily for me. For me, microwave is just a tool, right? If you know how to use it to. Well, there are many professional chefs that use microwave and know how to use it. I think one of the things that people don't know is you can steam vegetables really fast in a microwave. You can cook potatoes in 4 or 5 minutes in a microwave.

00:07:23:09 - 00:07:29:11
Marcelo Calbucci
And it's the same process as steaming as long as you do it correctly. So it's a great tool.

00:07:29:13 - 00:07:52:16
Layne Fawns
Very true. All right. So this is folks this is how minds are changed you know, are important conversations like this. But moving out of the rapid fire. That was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for playing. But, Marcello, I'm really curious to know what led you to be sitting here with us today on the podcast.

00:07:52:18 - 00:08:11:10
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, I have this passion for innovation. And invention. And I always been attracted to everything that really this relates to that. I think that's why I end up in tech. You know, the difference between technology and other industries is you can see the results in hours. You don't have to wait months or years to see anything.

00:08:11:10 - 00:08:28:09
Marcelo Calbucci
Right. And like if you're building something physical, it takes so long for you to get, that feedback loop going right in. Many other industries are like that in tech is like, you can do something by yourself on your laptop, see the results. If you like it, like you put out there in the world, and you get feedback immediately as well.

00:08:28:11 - 00:08:41:12
Marcelo Calbucci
So I like that process that that fast pace of tech. And I love what you are doing with this podcast spreading like information about innovation and like how to be better at that skill.

00:08:41:14 - 00:09:06:17
Ian Bergman
Well, and I'm I'm glad to hear that. Like you know, you're hitting on some of like the the best of of innovation. Right. You didn't even that you weren't even explicit about it. But you talked about iteration and the ability to throw something out there, see if it sticks, iterate quickly. And and tech I think has, as you said, created such a, a wonderful environment and mechanism to be able to try and build.

00:09:06:20 - 00:09:32:21
Ian Bergman
And, you know, the fun thing about this is now more so than ever, right? You've got people vibe coding, you've got people playing with AI systems, you've got people being able to stand up a stack and get something through a distribution network. That would have been incredibly difficult 20 years ago. Do you think more and more people are going to get this iterative innovation kind of bug like you have?

00:09:32:23 - 00:09:58:28
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, I think so. And the other thing that you didn't mention is because these tools are more accessible problems that weren't being solved before because they were costly enough that they didn't justify existing can be solved. Right? So there is tons of small business and needs out there that there was no mass market for it, so no big company would tackle, you know, startups would say like, I don't want to go there because it's too small.

00:09:59:01 - 00:10:22:10
Marcelo Calbucci
It's not going to be worth it. Who wants to build a product that can only generate $1 million in revenue that wasn't worth for a startup to invest? But now, like as an individual, you can build the solution for yourself or for other people that have a similar problem, because it's so cheap to build and to operate the systems that I see, we're going to have an explosion of, let's say, fragmented solutions, right?

00:10:22:10 - 00:10:25:12
Marcelo Calbucci
That address very small and niche problems.

00:10:25:15 - 00:10:43:15
Ian Bergman
You know, I love that. And in fact, I don't know I don't know what you're seeing. We're seeing that. So, you know, when we go out we talk to thousands and thousands of startups a year. You know, we invest in a in a bunch. That's kind of the, the core of alchemist's business. And one of the things that we are absolutely seeing is exactly what you just said.

00:10:43:17 - 00:11:09:09
Ian Bergman
Hyper specialized solutions that you look at. And if you look at it from a traditional venture scale kind of returns lens as an investor, they look really actually challenging in some ways. But if you look at it from the point of view of, oh, there is a very healthy market, there's probably room for ten, 20, 50, maybe a thousand players addressing this market segmented around the world.

00:11:09:09 - 00:11:28:08
Ian Bergman
And they can, you know, you can build these, sustainable, profitable businesses quickly. Things start to look really interesting and really different, I think, than the way that some of us that have kind of grown up in the, in the tech industry, if not in the last 20 years, have thought about the world.

00:11:28:10 - 00:11:50:28
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think the the VC industry, I wouldn't say it's going to have to change, but, there's going to be an offshoot, for investors who are capable of supporting much smaller scale operations. Right. So the goal is not to get to a hundred million IRR is more like, hey, can we get you 1 to 10 million a year?

00:11:50:28 - 00:12:14:12
Marcelo Calbucci
And like, generate profits out of it, generate distributions, right. Or dividends or even like sell, sell the business. Once you get to a certain scale. So that doesn't exist today. You can see some, you know, hints of that, tiny, for example, which is, you know, from British Columbia, is trying to do like the smaller scale PE kind of thing.

00:12:14:12 - 00:12:17:28
Marcelo Calbucci
But I still feel like we need the smaller scale VC kind of thing.

00:12:18:00 - 00:12:45:27
Ian Bergman
Yeah. Well, what I mean, it is I mean, we're talking about innovation and and this industry around us, that I think many of our listeners are familiar with is being forced to change. And I think we are seeing leading indicators. Right. Big, big VC firms are diversifying in the different types of finance. But this emergence of, you know, the the small, specialized startup brings out a problem that is unsolved.

00:12:45:27 - 00:12:55:28
Ian Bergman
And it's isn't that what isn't that how innovation starts? Right. People have to respond to this problem. It's it's really fun. We get to it's really dynamic.

00:12:56:04 - 00:12:56:23
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah. That's right.

00:12:56:23 - 00:13:27:00
Layne Fawns
I have a question. I have a question about that. So do you think that that leads to a world in which business goes back regionally? Because like if you think about it, a lot of these companies aim to be global or like they aim to like enter different markets. But if you've got all these tiny little, not tiny, but smaller solutions that are not necessarily looking to scale or looking to cross into other markets, do you see almost like, like less of like a global industry and more regionalized solutions?

00:13:27:00 - 00:13:28:08
Layne Fawns
Like I think it's both.

00:13:28:08 - 00:13:53:22
Marcelo Calbucci
I don't think it's one or the other. I think regional solutions always suffered because they never had scale to get the capital, that they need to evolve right now. You don't need that capital anymore. Like if your city, has a very particular problem around, let's say, small businesses or restaurants or, school or government, like, now it can be solved, in a viable fashion.

00:13:53:24 - 00:14:12:23
Marcelo Calbucci
But also you had a lot of niches like, let's talk about both of you doing this podcast like it's not there is like that many podcasts there's out there. Right. Let's say maybe there is a few hundred thousand, maybe a million podcasters, maybe a subsection of this podcast is have a problem that has not been addressed because it's not big enough.

00:14:12:23 - 00:14:35:14
Marcelo Calbucci
And it's, it's it doesn't matter where they are. Right. Like it's, let's say, podcasters about tech. They are talking about vibe coding and technology and operating systems and like hard core tech. Like maybe they have a way that they want to include code in their podcasts. I don't know, I'm just making up. Right. Like the problem will not be solved because there is only about a thousand of them right now.

00:14:35:14 - 00:14:57:03
Marcelo Calbucci
You can solve, because it's viable, because the cost of operating that tool is going to be much lower. Even the cost appeared billionaire to, and that information spreads more virally as well, because usually these businesses, they are more connected, right? They have a community that know each other and like share information of what they are using and all that stuff.

00:14:57:05 - 00:15:05:08
Marcelo Calbucci
In the past, like, no one would touch this, right? The big tools are like, not interested in creating a tool that only a thousand podcast is going to use.

00:15:05:11 - 00:15:37:09
Ian Bergman
You know, we're all in this. We're all in the the world of innovation and entrepreneurship. And I think we all feel at least I feel I saw I haven't looked at your stuff. I fundamentally believe that you feel a mandate to try and support ambitious innovators and entrepreneurs in the in the world around us. What what do we have to do differently as ecosystem players to help entrepreneurs and founders think about the world that they're in today?

00:15:37:12 - 00:15:42:01
Ian Bergman
Is there any is there anything behavior patterns you've seen? Yeah. Either yourself or. Yeah. Others.

00:15:42:05 - 00:16:09:05
Marcelo Calbucci
You hit a note here that I think it's very important, which is really the, the, the, the impact that community has in fostering innovation. My and I use the word community here slightly different than other people use community. Right. So it means like community is like, hey, everyone is included. Like, let's create this event where we have, you know, everyone comes together.

00:16:09:05 - 00:16:36:17
Marcelo Calbucci
And like, for me, community is more about how, each person on a group can build on top of each other, right? To do more, to execute more, and to learn from each other. And some cities have very vibrant communities. Some cities don't. It tends to happen that anytime you form a community, the people that want to sell that community end up dominating and it becomes less interesting.

00:16:36:22 - 00:17:01:18
Marcelo Calbucci
Right? Because the community is not interesting. Showed two. Right. It's interesting building together. So it's really hard to maintain that community. And I think like people that have the opportunity to create this community in fostering, fostering this, this connective tissue, they are super valuable. And they can do a lot here. I try to do a lot of that in Seattle.

00:17:01:20 - 00:17:20:00
Marcelo Calbucci
You know, to get people going like organizing dinners and events that are like reserve just for entrepreneurs. Have founders, or investors, and, you know, like, we build on top of each other, like, we learn from each other. We learn what what worked, what didn't work right, what social media campaigns kind of like doesn't work anymore.

00:17:20:01 - 00:17:29:13
Marcelo Calbucci
And you should work just a year ago. Right. Like that's super valuable because it avoids you spending a lot of energy and time on things that are, you know, not valuable.

00:17:29:15 - 00:17:47:17
Ian Bergman
It's so important. And it's also such a good jumping off point for me to make a totally not awkward transition to another way in which you have helped take lessons from one community to another. Marcel, you wrote a book recently published in January of this year, I think, right?

00:17:47:20 - 00:17:50:08
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah. That's right.

00:17:50:11 - 00:18:00:25
Ian Bergman
So tell us a little bit about the book. Let's start with the title, the FAQ framework. What what is the book? What is the title?

00:18:00:27 - 00:18:36:09
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, RFC stands for Press Releases in Frequently Asked Questions. And it's a framework invented by Amazon in the early 2000 to, discover, debate and decide about innovation and try gee for its product, its business, its process and programs and everything. Amazon uses it every day, everywhere. At any given time, there's probably like 10,000 is being written at Amazon, and being reviewed by their team to find the right strategy before you execute on, on a plan.

00:18:36:11 - 00:18:56:20
Marcelo Calbucci
Right. So a lot of people like to jump to execution to quickly, NPF like say like, wait a second. Let's just think a little bit about it, maybe for a few weeks, or more, or if it is a very big opportunity and then we will execute on that. So I was so excited about this framework when I joined Amazon and learn about it.

00:18:56:25 - 00:19:11:00
Marcelo Calbucci
I already knew before I joined Amazon, but I never experience when I was there, I was like, wow. When he hit me, I felt like founders, product leaders, executives everywhere could benefit so much from this framework.

00:19:11:05 - 00:19:31:19
Ian Bergman
Well, let's let's talk about that a bit, right? I mean, in the world of corporate innovation, at least, you know, the one that I live in, we often talk about changing the patterns and practices of the high risk entrepreneur, the startup ecosystem, and adapting them for corporate use. Yes. You're really kind of going the other direction here, right?

00:19:31:19 - 00:19:51:12
Ian Bergman
You're taking practice from what is now a large corporate, even if it's one where it's always day one, right? Two founder and entrepreneurial communities, among among others. So, you know, what made you write the book and then what were some of the key lessons that you learned along along the way of delivering the project?

00:19:51:14 - 00:20:12:15
Marcelo Calbucci
I, I think there is a few things that they are independent, like big corporations or startups, like they are universal truths. My like understanding our customer and focusing on solving their problems. It doesn't matter what kind of company you work at, it doesn't matter if it is a restaurant or a hotel, you know, or a car dealership.

00:20:12:15 - 00:20:17:00
Marcelo Calbucci
Like that's that's a king insight. So like if you write, a.

00:20:17:03 - 00:20:18:09
Ian Bergman
Lot of people skip over that.

00:20:18:15 - 00:20:40:24
Marcelo Calbucci
They do. And that's why I felt like the Pi Q was a great way to adapt because it forces some universal truths on people using that framework. It doesn't matter if it is like a, you know, a very small project that you're doing or if you're building like a multibillion dollar, you know, line of business in your big corporation.

00:20:40:26 - 00:20:57:14
Marcelo Calbucci
Right? Like there is some universal truths that apply to both of them. So I felt that, like I could explain that story in a way that, you know, focus on those principles, you know, and abstract, like what's really important for innovation.

00:20:57:17 - 00:21:01:26
Ian Bergman
And did you apply the Q framework to your approach to the book?

00:21:01:26 - 00:21:28:03
Marcelo Calbucci
The project I actually did, I did, and what's interesting about that is when I started writing the book, I wrote a Q about a book saying, I'm going to write a book for founders, because that has been my, you know, area, my arena for 18 years. And as I wrote the Q for founders, it made me realize the problem that it was solving was not for founders, was for innovators.

00:21:28:06 - 00:21:45:23
Marcelo Calbucci
It's for anyone inventing or innovating anywhere. So it's like I took a step back. It's like, this is bigger than I originally thought. So he helped me like hone the target audience, the content, you know, how to talk about the book. So I think it gave me the the right level of clarity.

00:21:45:26 - 00:22:00:05
Ian Bergman
And what changed in your approach when you reframed it as being for innovators? Was it, you know, you had a new and broader understanding of your customer? But how did that change your approach to the book?

00:22:00:08 - 00:22:28:21
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, I had to abstract more like what is really important to include here, right? Instead of like very specific lessons about fundraising or about recruiting and like how to use this to, to to support your startup, I had to think like what is really important here? Like what we're really talking about, you know, and, and I got to say, I'm like, let's say principles like dad helped me think through this more clearly.

00:22:28:24 - 00:22:30:02
Ian Bergman
Yeah. Okay.

00:22:30:02 - 00:22:43:27
Layne Fawns
So, you mentioned that there's a couple of universal truths, and I'm just thinking for the folks listening right now, what would be the most important universal truth that they could take away from this episode today?

00:22:44:00 - 00:23:04:04
Marcelo Calbucci
I would say focus on your customer first. Right? If you're not solving a problem for your customer, nothing else matters. Like it doesn't matter how good your distribution is, how good your operations is. You know, like you really have to start from that point of view. And there was two pieces to that. One is you have to understand the problem that they have.

00:23:04:06 - 00:23:33:00
Marcelo Calbucci
And quantified that problem in terms of the frequency, the urgency, the need, the solutions that they have, if they even care about solving that problem or not. And the second aspect is knowing if the solution that you're thinking about that is more on the realm of ideation, is one that would address that problem. It so many times people say, like, here's a problem that customers have, here's the solution that I build, but they don't match right.

00:23:33:02 - 00:23:33:21
Marcelo Calbucci
And so it's.

00:23:33:21 - 00:23:41:24
Ian Bergman
A we've seen obvious, but it's so true. Right? Is so true. What why is that so hard?

00:23:41:26 - 00:24:06:01
Marcelo Calbucci
I think we we sometimes fall in love with, you know, an idea by. And we don't challenge ourselves. We don't seek the truth or to confirm what we already believe. Like confirmation bias is so powerful, right? Like the way you search Google, the way you talk with ChatGPT is always confirming your own biases. Right? And when we are building products is the same thing.

00:24:06:03 - 00:24:28:27
Marcelo Calbucci
So the really good people, like they take a step back. They are very critical about themselves without, you know, losing that, that conviction, you know, without they are not overconfident, right? They have the right level of confidence, but they are open to data, and to input and to anecdotes that challenges them.

00:24:29:00 - 00:24:35:25
Layne Fawns
It's almost like you have to have the right amount of ego, but also the right amount of humility to to find that balance.

00:24:35:28 - 00:24:37:16
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah. Not easy.

00:24:37:18 - 00:25:14:26
Ian Bergman
Yeah. Not it's not easy. And I mean, you know, it's interesting books, whole books have been written on the topic of, for instance, the importance of falling in love with the problem, right, versus the solution and the idea, I think that it's something, you know, I, I feel like this is well taught. I feel like we in the sort of the startup ecosystem, but also the academic innovation ecosystem, have done a reasonably good job of attempting to build curriculums and playbooks, etc. around this concept of what you actually need to understand your customer and the problem.

00:25:14:29 - 00:25:34:27
Ian Bergman
It's not a solved problem though, and it seems especially hard in an enterprise context. It seems especially hard in a large company, or a division or a change maker in large company. I don't know if you have any thoughts on so. Do you agree? Do you have any thoughts on if that's true and if so, why?

00:25:34:29 - 00:26:02:10
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, it is especially hard in in big companies, right? I think there is many aspects to that. One of those is the culture of the organization. My most companies have a culture that fights change, right? It's not that the people don't want to change, like the culture is designing a way to be stable, right? To produce a certain level of output, or a certain type of output.

00:26:02:16 - 00:26:37:13
Marcelo Calbucci
When you try to change how the job gets done or what the job that you're trying to do, like there are forces from everywhere that make it really hard. So usually you have some organizations that have like really good top down mandate, not on what to innovate, but to innovate like they support innovation. They're not telling the teams what to do, but they are there to shield the teams from the bias that happens in the corporate process and say like, no, go ahead, I have your back by when executives say something like that, then magic can happen.

00:26:37:18 - 00:26:57:21
Marcelo Calbucci
There is no guarantee, right? Because innovation is risky business. You know, if you don't have failures, you're really not innovating. You're just like doing something obvious said she already exists and very likely exists already. And so I think that's one of the problems that, exists. The other one, let's.

00:26:57:23 - 00:26:59:03
Ian Bergman
Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Finish your thought.

00:26:59:03 - 00:27:17:28
Marcelo Calbucci
No, I was just going to say the other one is like, there is this the individual incentives in an organization right to keep doing what you're doing? My promotion, my bonus, my stock options all depend on that thing that I wrote on, you know, like my annual review that I was going to do that next year or am I OKR?

00:27:18:05 - 00:27:33:18
Marcelo Calbucci
So like, safe to say like, oh, don't do that anymore. Let's do this sort of thing. People go like, wait a second. Like, if I did ten, we just this year I'm going to get a 20% bonus. Like you're telling me not to do wages anymore, to do this sort of thing like I, I want my 20% bonus.

00:27:33:20 - 00:27:40:18
Marcelo Calbucci
So it spreads through the organization so widely, that it's really hard to control.

00:27:40:21 - 00:28:03:23
Ian Bergman
Well, it it really is. And in fact, you know, that comment reminds me of a conversation that lives totally rent free in my head. I will never forget it with an executive at a major Seattle company. I won't name them, but they're not. Neither are you or I have worked for them. But you know where he basically said, look, I know how to hit and exceed my targets this quarter.

00:28:03:23 - 00:28:27:28
Ian Bergman
I know exactly what I need to do. I know that I'm not going to hit or exceed my targets two years from now doing it this way. But if I change, and I risk my current quarter like, boom, like I risk my bonus, I risk my team's health, I risk all kinds of things. And, you know, and it's there is this interesting institutional momentum.

00:28:28:00 - 00:28:48:21
Ian Bergman
But I want to I want to dig in on this both momentum and the idea that innovation involves change. You said something really interesting. You said if there's not failure along the way, is it even innovation? I think that's a great question. I want to explore. But first, maybe we do a little round the room on this.

00:28:48:23 - 00:28:56:02
Ian Bergman
Like, what is innovation? Do you have a do you have a succinct definition that you like for what innovation even is?

00:28:56:04 - 00:29:23:24
Marcelo Calbucci
I don't know if I have one that you're going to be like, oh, this is amazing. For me, the innovation is when you change or and, or remove, you know, from, from something that already existed or needs to exist. Right. And it can be a process. It can be a product, it can be a service. It can even be a policy within a company or government.

00:29:23:27 - 00:29:27:20
Marcelo Calbucci
All of that for me falls under the umbrella of innovation.

00:29:27:22 - 00:29:35:06
Ian Bergman
Yeah, I love it. I think that's totally true. Lain, what have you seen? What's the definition of innovation for you?

00:29:35:09 - 00:29:41:13
Layne Fawns
Well, see, I think I'm probably going to end up stealing your definition of innovation because you.

00:29:41:13 - 00:29:43:15
Ian Bergman
Steal my under here. Okay. Yeah. Go do it.

00:29:43:16 - 00:30:07:17
Layne Fawns
No, no, no, I don't want to, but I don't. It's just we talk a lot about. And I think you kind of touched on it, when you were asking this question, but it's like it's causing a change in behavior. And we've said it and defined this on a few different episodes, and it just it's something I think about all the time is like, this new thing came out.

00:30:07:18 - 00:30:24:18
Layne Fawns
How did this change my behavior towards it? And I always like, think of that example of when, you know, they were trying to think of like keyless entry for vehicles and they were like, is that like, is that like a phone? Is that, you know, a fort? Like, what does that look like? And then you know, the resistance to that.

00:30:24:18 - 00:30:39:08
Layne Fawns
And so sometimes it's like you come up with a solution, but it's still not the right solution. But people still have that pain point and so it's you know what I mean. So it's yeah behavior change.

00:30:39:10 - 00:31:00:26
Ian Bergman
Rambling I mean, you know. No that's good. I mean, we talk about change. We talk about behavior that is, you know, so Marcel, my my thought on this is that it's exactly what the combination actually I think of what you both just said, but that, you know, what is innovation but some kind of change that gets people to naturally change their behavior, right, without being forced.

00:31:00:28 - 00:31:25:19
Ian Bergman
And, because it's better, it solves their problem, whatever it is. And so, you know, if I'm sitting, what I want to know is if I'm sitting inside an organization and I know that there's a meaningful problem to be solved there, and I know, or at least I have a hypothesis around how that's going to change our customers, our partners, etc. lives.

00:31:25:22 - 00:31:38:01
Ian Bergman
And I want to get started. How could I take the cue framework and get started? Like what? What are the first five steps I would take?

00:31:38:03 - 00:32:06:09
Marcelo Calbucci
I think the park is great for what you just described, right? Because what the project does in that environment. Right. Let's just like reestablish that a park is a framework and a method to, discover, debate and decide on a strategy for innovation, right? For your product and your program and your policy and your process, whatever you want to do, or even change an existing one.

00:32:06:11 - 00:32:26:17
Marcelo Calbucci
And what it does is he brings everyone to the table. Right. So usually you have the person that is leading the initiative. That is writing the preface, but they are not doing in isolation. They are consulting with other folks. They are reviewing the document with other folks. They are seeking the truth. Right? And they go, the queue is not for you to.

00:32:26:20 - 00:32:57:03
Marcelo Calbucci
When you have a presentation, usually the goal of the presentation is for you to present right, to give the final, you know, idea into like tada, like give the like rubber stamp of approval, give me the green light and I'm we're going to execute the PR you is not like that. It's a document where everyone is collaborating and when I mean everyone I mean, you know, peers and the people they're going to execute on it and the executives and the other teams are going to have, you know, a stake in that game as well.

00:32:57:06 - 00:33:15:03
Marcelo Calbucci
For them to say, like, how can we make this right? How can we find the truth about this idea? Right? Is this idea as big as we think it is or as viable as we think it is? Is this viable, feasible as we think it is. So everyone is trying to collaborate to the single document. Right.

00:33:15:06 - 00:33:40:09
Marcelo Calbucci
And what you get is at the end when you have figure out what do you want to do, there was no one else to buy in because everyone was part of the process of creating it and revising and thinking through it. Right. And many times, maybe more than 50% of the times, you don't get to that because you discover that it wasn't a good idea, it wasn't viable, it wasn't feasible.

00:33:40:11 - 00:33:48:23
Marcelo Calbucci
You know, it wasn't a problem that was big enough compared to other problems the organization had. So not perfect is are going to lead to innovation.

00:33:48:26 - 00:34:08:02
Ian Bergman
And that's a that is such a good thing. We we touched on this already. Right. Is such a good thing that you know, we recognize that getting to a know is a win in innovation. But, and I'll come back to that. But I have a I have kind of a what might be a tough question, actually.

00:34:08:06 - 00:34:20:27
Ian Bergman
How does this process avoid, like reverting to the mean, a consensus process that drives to the lowest common denominator of compromise rather than seeking the truth?

00:34:21:00 - 00:34:41:29
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah. And this comes from Amazon. Like they create this idea of this single threaded leader like, and the single threaded leader is the person that is put in charge of a project. And their whole responsibility is that project. Right. And in the early days of a project at Amazon, like, this person is in charge of the PR, that's it.

00:34:42:01 - 00:35:14:21
Marcelo Calbucci
It's a document by. But they are the ones are going to be making the call off what's going through the what's not included. So they listen to everyone. But it's not a committee. Right. They're not trying to like let's vote. What is the best idea here. No no, no. They are like taking input from let's use a tech example like they're taking input from engineers, from designers, from product managers, from, you know, the finance, the marketing team, the CEOs team, and like the incorporating the legal team, they're incorporating all of that into like, this, the shape that they think is the right shape.

00:35:14:23 - 00:35:38:13
Marcelo Calbucci
Right. Versus saying like, you know, you don't want a legal person giving a ton of opinion about UX. You don't want the UX team giving a lot of opinion about, like, which tech to use, right? Or anything like that. But you want to listen to all of them and like, try to combine and integrate these ideas, into a cohesive story that actually is viable, feasible, valuable.

00:35:38:18 - 00:36:00:06
Ian Bergman
And the problem here is that you have to be in a position of where you feel a certain empowerment, right, to be that single threaded leader. Yes. And that can get really tough. I mean, are you an advocate that people sort of, you know, just take that responsibility on for themselves and kind of bulldoze their way through the organization?

00:36:00:06 - 00:36:04:24
Ian Bergman
Or do you have to get alignment up and down an exact chain? Because not everyone has Amazon's culture?

00:36:04:28 - 00:36:21:09
Marcelo Calbucci
I think it depends on the blast radius. And let's use that term to mean like, what kind of project are you talking about? What is the scope of that? If it is in the scope of your own work, like the things that you do day in, day out, like you own it, like you can change it, right? Like it's your job.

00:36:21:09 - 00:36:38:01
Marcelo Calbucci
So like you don't need anyone else's approval. If it is a scope that is likely bigger, that that is going to affect your peers or other people in the organization like you can you can find yourself being the leader of that without an executive mandate. You're just like, go and talk with the people. It's like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this.

00:36:38:01 - 00:37:00:27
Marcelo Calbucci
I'm going to write this document like red light to collaborate with you. How do you feel about that? That's fine. Right. Sometimes it's bigger, right? Sometimes it's something that is going to impact the entire organization, the entire company. On that case, you might need like a mandate from executives saying like, yes, I'll we'll you know, bestow upon you, the, the right to like, pursue this idea.

00:37:00:29 - 00:37:16:13
Marcelo Calbucci
But like, I'm going to be involved in the process of vetting and revising and giving the final approval. I the think is what you do before you start a project. Actually, is like they step zero. It's even to decide, like, should we do this or not?

00:37:16:15 - 00:37:46:24
Ian Bergman
So one of the things that I have found the hardest in setting up innovation plans and projects in an enterprise environment, and it's it's so different, so wildly opposite in some ways from the world of startups is at the planning phase, setting up metrics, measurements of success, KPIs, whatever indicators you can to give people in the blast radius comfort that you're making progress along the way.

00:37:46:26 - 00:37:52:17
Ian Bergman
Is is this notion of measurement part of the PR for Q is that separate. How do you think about that?

00:37:52:19 - 00:38:12:19
Marcelo Calbucci
It is part of the Q but I, I want to be careful here because the PR q itself is a strategy for the plan. You don't have the plan yet. Right? So you're just like, here's this strategy that we're going to go and once you get the green light, then you have the permission to start working on the plan.

00:38:12:21 - 00:38:37:25
Marcelo Calbucci
The idea is you want to bounce ideas. You think through all the problems in the legal aspects and get input before you actually invest in to execution. So you should be very cheap, you know, in quotes, because it can be expensive if you need to do a lot of, market research and qualitative and quantitative research behind it, which sometimes you do might like, if you're going to bet the House, you better have a lot of research.

00:38:37:27 - 00:38:51:11
Marcelo Calbucci
You know that the houses were batting on this new idea. But most of the time it's not like that. It's a future. It's a new program. It's a new process that you're going to implement. Or a small change in the product. So that's that's okay.

00:38:51:13 - 00:38:55:15
Ian Bergman
Yeah. Have you ever read the book How Big Things Get Done? Dan.

00:38:55:15 - 00:38:57:22
Marcelo Calbucci
No, I have not.

00:38:57:25 - 00:39:24:21
Ian Bergman
It's it's such a fun book. I it just tells the stories of a bunch of, like, large scale projects, remodels, civil infrastructure projects, whatever, that go well and that don't. But, this isn't a spoiler. I actually highly recommended this. This doesn't take away anything. When I say it kind of boils down to this idea that, the projects that succeed are the ones where you invest the time to build the plan for the plan?

00:39:24:24 - 00:39:47:09
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, I think barbecue is a is about that. Right. And, the one thing that is very viable, perfect. It's just a document. So updating it, it's just like removing and adding words like it doesn't require a big investment in infrastructure or coding or planning or like, complex project management software. None of that. It's just like a word or a Google doc and that's it.

00:39:47:12 - 00:40:01:27
Ian Bergman
Well, and it's it's something that I would encourage folks to go read on and learn about. It's not like, honestly, it sounds like a tool that I wish I had the discipline to deploy and use. So maybe, maybe we can follow up after the pod and you can teach me everything I need to know.

00:40:01:29 - 00:40:03:28
Layne Fawns
I'm thinking of a few use cases here.

00:40:04:03 - 00:40:38:03
Ian Bergman
Yeah, well, yeah, even more than I feel that you probably could get, could get clear on. And but. And I do love these kind of simple, powerful frameworks and more. So here's one of the things that I love you are adapting this for cultural environments that are not Amazon because every company is unique. But I think we should all be clear on in this pod and among our audience, right, that, the Amazon culture, driven by leadership principles built and enforced by Bezos, is very unique.

00:40:38:05 - 00:40:59:13
Ian Bergman
So, I'm actually curious, do you have any examples that you like of the framework or a version of it being successfully used in another context? So maybe outside of technology, transportation firms, logistics, whatever, you know, do you have you have some examples and or stories you can tell.

00:40:59:15 - 00:41:24:20
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, I do, a friend of mine who is a founder in Seattle and this is way before I wrote the book, by the way, I remember reading an article, about his story, and he was looking for what to do next, right. And like, he had. So they start, it was an okay success. And he was spending, like, the next year trying to figure out what to build.

00:41:24:27 - 00:41:48:12
Marcelo Calbucci
He wanted to do a startup. And what he did basically was wrote a bunch of reviews. And every time he had an idea, you said off, like, start building it. He would write a PR for you. He would reveal with his inner circle of advisor, friends, investors, other people that he was working with, and he would shut them down.

00:41:48:14 - 00:42:10:09
Marcelo Calbucci
My and the story goes that he wrote four of them. He pursued four different stories, for different projects without, executing on any of them until he executed on the fourth one. And and then he sold a company for more than $150 million based on that, you know, for profit. So as an example of this, is a single person, right?

00:42:10:09 - 00:42:31:06
Marcelo Calbucci
Like he didn't had to write anything. He could just, like, write a PowerPoint or like just tell the story to people, get feedback. But he decided to write the document because he understood the power, of the writing as a form of thinking, you know, and to elaborate ideas in as a form of gathering feedback as well. And that's a great success story for profit.

00:42:31:08 - 00:42:32:05
Marcelo Calbucci
Cuz I.

00:42:32:05 - 00:42:50:06
Ian Bergman
Love it. So I'm not on gonna move off profits use a little, but I think we're going to we're going to come back to them because I think they're a really good grounding for some of the conversation I want to have. But before we move off, I want to talk about how we connect to them to narrative and storytelling.

00:42:50:09 - 00:43:10:13
Ian Bergman
Right. We've seen extensive literature. I think there was a recent article as well. We'll link to in the show notes about the importance of telling a good story. Yeah. Right. To get big things done. And for those of us who maybe don't like being on stage or don't consider us storytellers, that's hard. But, you know, what do you think about this?

00:43:10:13 - 00:43:29:25
Ian Bergman
Like, do you have do you have thoughts on the importance of narrative to get things done and presumably you're going to be able to draw a clean line from the Q framework to the narrative, but maybe go a little deeper and tell me, like, how does that work? How does this change the ability to, to tell a story?

00:43:29:28 - 00:43:56:11
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, I think there's two, two aspects to this conversation. One is the narrative, the other is the storytelling. Right. And I think the narrative, like, bring three very important things to the table in when we talk about traffic or, or even other types of documents. Right. So the first one is a narrative is a form of thinking. Like as you write something, you have to think through the connective tissue that goes on that.

00:43:56:11 - 00:44:17:25
Marcelo Calbucci
Right. Like how this idea connects to this other idea. Does it make sense or not? Is it coherent or not? So helps you you individually think so. You can do that by yourself. That's a superpower, right? The second thing is, when you write a document, you don't need to be present for someone to read that document.

00:44:17:27 - 00:44:41:18
Marcelo Calbucci
So it makes ideas spread much more easily than if it is a problem presentation or even a demo. Like you need to be there to give a presentation, or to give a demo. Writing is like you can share the document and say like, hey, consume this. It's particularly important if you're talking about like, how do you onboard people to your, you know, organization or to your team mind, how you bring them up to speed?

00:44:41:20 - 00:45:02:12
Marcelo Calbucci
Like, why are we doing this? What we're doing, like, here is a document you can read it, on your own time. And if you have questions, you can ask. And the third aspect of that is it's much easier to get feedback in a document than it is to get in a presentation, because the amount of content on that document is enough for people to understand.

00:45:02:12 - 00:45:12:08
Marcelo Calbucci
And if they don't, they're just saying that it's not clear enough or it hasn't been well written. So I call it a truth seek mechanism.

00:45:12:08 - 00:45:14:04
Ian Bergman
Yeah, the thought process hasn't been there, so it.

00:45:14:04 - 00:45:37:23
Marcelo Calbucci
Pulls people in. Now, writing can be technical like very dry, you know, full of data, and like full of information. Or it can be a story with emotional, components to it, with people, with how this is going to create impact. What do you want to do in a PR you and other business documents? I think it's fine.

00:45:37:23 - 00:45:59:03
Marcelo Calbucci
The right mix. Right? I think people go too far sometimes on this is going to be great. Our users are going to love it. We're going to be the best product ever. But like you don't explain why and explain how you it, there is no data behind it. By two, it lacks credibility. It lacks trustworthiness. But if you have only data, then people like I don't get it.

00:45:59:03 - 00:46:17:08
Marcelo Calbucci
Like, why would someone buy this? Why would a company want to use this? Like, what is the NIT that the team is going to get excited about building? Like, you just gave a bunch of financial metrics or like KPIs or other things. So you want to be have both. So I think your question was about like the impact of storytelling.

00:46:17:11 - 00:46:42:27
Marcelo Calbucci
I think storytelling is how we connect, because we are humans, after all, and we live in society. But like data is what brings the credibility like it's the evidence that this is worth pursuing. So when you have both, you have a very powerful story. That's going to help very powerful narrative, that's going to help like align people and motivate people, get people excited about executing on that.

00:46:42:27 - 00:46:46:00
Marcelo Calbucci
And the story is going to translate to the customer as well.

00:46:46:02 - 00:46:59:20
Ian Bergman
I love it, you know, okay. You know, the problem with getting old, like I have a bald spot that you can't see here. The problem is you learn about these amazing tools and you think back of all the times in your career when if you had only applied.

00:46:59:20 - 00:47:00:24
Marcelo Calbucci
Them, I know things.

00:47:00:24 - 00:47:18:00
Ian Bergman
Would've, you know, gone so much. Yes. And, yeah, I've got there's a lot of zeros behind, you know, some of the mistakes I made in a, in a prior career at, working at Microsoft that, you know, maybe could have changed with this approach.

00:47:18:07 - 00:47:23:08
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, absolutely. And now our job now is to spread that knowledge so people don't make the same mistakes.

00:47:23:11 - 00:47:57:26
Ian Bergman
I just I want it, all right? I want to I want to shift directions a bit, because all of us straddle this world of, of, startups and entrepreneurship and corporations. Like what? What are some of the similarities and differences that you've seen in how to approach innovation across the startup environment and the corporate environment and like and maybe most importantly, where should the approach diverge?

00:47:57:28 - 00:48:06:12
Ian Bergman
Yes. Where should it be really different if you're building outside an entity versus in? I don't know if you have any thoughts on this.

00:48:06:14 - 00:48:15:03
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah. I'll, I'll share a few things. I think, first of all, like that customer orientation starting from the customer, it doesn't matter what size business you are.

00:48:15:03 - 00:48:16:07
Ian Bergman
You got to do whatever.

00:48:16:11 - 00:48:25:13
Marcelo Calbucci
It starts there. Right? The one thing I would clarify is when you work in a big company, sometimes your customer is internal, right? And that's okay.

00:48:25:16 - 00:48:28:06
Ian Bergman
Absolutely. Right. Sometimes your customers yourself.

00:48:28:14 - 00:48:52:13
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah. And sometimes it's the employees of the organization. Sometimes you work on HR or IT. So your customers are those people. So start there. Right. That's very valuable. The second thing we're ready to talk about the the whole storytelling, the data, like also doesn't matter if it's big company startups like same thing. The third thing I would say it's equal as well is the idea of like iteration.

00:48:52:15 - 00:49:15:27
Marcelo Calbucci
I trying seeing what works what doesn't work start small like build up, build up, build up right. Volleyball on both settings. What is really different is that startups can move at a much faster speed. There was like flash red tape, less bureaucracy. At the same time, startups are going to make more mistakes, right? And, you know, big company particularly is a public company.

00:49:15:29 - 00:49:31:18
Marcelo Calbucci
Like that's kind of dangerous. So you have to you have that trade off of speed and safety, or compliance and all that stuff. The other thing is big companies sometimes have more layers of decision making by and that is there for a reason.

00:49:31:18 - 00:49:33:23
Ian Bergman
Time's always always, yes, always.

00:49:33:23 - 00:49:52:16
Marcelo Calbucci
Yes. It's there for a reason. It's not like useless is because they want to make sure that there is no two teams working on, you know, things that are conflicting with each other, like so you need that level of decision making that escalates because there is someone that's going to understand. Wait a second. This doesn't align with this strategy that I was just in a meeting with.

00:49:52:16 - 00:50:08:25
Marcelo Calbucci
Let's make sure that, like this, things are aligning. The third thing is usually big companies have a lot more resources. And every project that they do, they bet a lot more. So it requires more upfront thinking and planning.

00:50:08:28 - 00:50:21:06
Ian Bergman
I want to is that right? So, you know, in my experience, big companies have more resources for the very small number of things that they have more resources for.

00:50:21:10 - 00:50:22:09
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, that's true.

00:50:22:11 - 00:50:32:18
Ian Bergman
Then you end up with all these people trying to drive innovation, where frankly, it's like, you know, half a p m and, junior dev going up against a VC funded, you know, a company.

00:50:32:22 - 00:50:56:13
Marcelo Calbucci
Yes. Yeah. That's true. What I, what I think about resources here is you're right about the human resource, but there was some other aspects, right. For example, content or it or, legal, like, you just get a call away from calling a lawyer, intern, a lawyer, and counselor and asking about some privacy law and a you, you know, get an answer in one hour.

00:50:56:15 - 00:51:15:11
Marcelo Calbucci
As a startup, you're going to have, like, to find a lawyer, you know, to create a contract with them, pay thousands of dollars, you know, like to ask a question. So, you know, for most people at a big company, there's just like a phone call away from, you know, getting something that they need to continue on the project.

00:51:15:14 - 00:51:24:06
Marcelo Calbucci
So that's changed quite a bit, from one to the other. I, I don't know if that answer your full question, but I give some examples here.

00:51:24:07 - 00:51:51:05
Ian Bergman
Well, no, I think it does because I, you know, I think these points of divergence are super interesting, right? Because actually because you're right. Like there are some things that feel harder and you have more stakeholder management, you know, although or maybe just a different type of stakeholder management, your timelines might be different, but the I guess the points of divergence to me actually show how much similarity there should be.

00:51:51:08 - 00:52:15:06
Ian Bergman
Like fundamentally, the process of getting from a customer with a problem to something that's good enough that you know the customer is going to shift to it has a lot, you know, the times may change, but like there's a consistent playbook for the most part, I think and I think sometimes we forget that. Yeah, in these different environments we're like, oh, we're you know, I'm sitting at I'm sitting at Microsoft.

00:52:15:06 - 00:52:21:12
Ian Bergman
We can be super innovative because of XYZ, and then you forget it and then you realize you haven't innovated in a decade.

00:52:21:14 - 00:52:44:10
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah. That's right. And lack of innovation is has a delayed effect. Right. Usually don't notice and too kind of late you know and you're playing catch up. So I think companies should be always thinking about innovating, like being more, efficient, you know, in how they do things, but also considering, like, changing completely how they're doing things.

00:52:44:16 - 00:52:53:08
Ian Bergman
Yeah. There's a big, Cupertino based tech company that's getting a lot of flak these days. I can't speak to whether or not it's deserved, but on exactly that question.

00:52:53:11 - 00:52:54:07
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah.

00:52:54:09 - 00:53:04:27
Layne Fawns
So then when you're in a corporation, when like, how do you know? Or like, when's a good time to think about your solution in-house versus engaging with a startup?

00:53:04:29 - 00:53:05:21
Ian Bergman
Oh interesting.

00:53:05:21 - 00:53:29:08
Marcelo Calbucci
Question. Yeah. That is a that's a really good question. I don't think I have a definitive answer for that. I think actually I would look from the other way around, which is as a, as a founder entrepreneur, you know, it should qualify which corporations are actually good to work with. S I start up in a small business in which corporations are not I because a lot of the.

00:53:29:08 - 00:53:31:15
Layne Fawns
Qualifiers for that be.

00:53:31:17 - 00:53:56:16
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah. I think there is an element of like how much of of bureaucracy there is in the procurement department on their legal department. How how open they are for like quick and dirty pilots versus panels that take a year to plan. You know, and the the flip side of that answer would be from a corporation.

00:53:56:16 - 00:54:20:10
Marcelo Calbucci
You need to learn how to be more efficient, right. If your procurement process takes three months to sign a new vendor, board, like you need to start there because everything else is going to be delayed. Right. And like your team then is going to say like we have to build in-house because I can't, you know, deal with our procurement legal security compliance team because any new vendor is going to take 12 months.

00:54:20:16 - 00:54:36:04
Marcelo Calbucci
We're just going to do in-house, like it's not even an option. Right. So that's very problematic. And that's why I usually big companies do deals with big companies. But they rarely do the as with startups. And this is where innovation really is.

00:54:36:07 - 00:54:53:03
Ian Bergman
Well, you know, this is, this is an I have so many strong opinions, but it is really you talk about three months to, you know, just get onboarded as a vendor. Right. I've worked with enterprises that it take 6 to 12 months to get on board as a vendor. But be along the way, you know, they ask for things like five years of bank statements.

00:54:53:05 - 00:55:19:22
Ian Bergman
And if you don't have five, if your company's been around for two years, you know, there's there's nothing there's no path forward at those companies. But it is, it is such an interesting question because in answering that question, when I am with enterprise innovation leaders, I often ask them to look at, you know, a fairly binary simple question like, do we have a native right?

00:55:19:22 - 00:55:39:14
Ian Bergman
Is our core competency to use the MBA speak to solve this problem or not? But you know what occurs to me, and you know, the answer is if so, maybe we look at doing it in-house. If not, you know, buyer partner or whatever. But, you know, it occurs to me that you can apply the fake framework before that decision, right?

00:55:39:14 - 00:56:03:13
Ian Bergman
A plan for a plan you can inside the company, you should be able to apply this framework to answer the question, you know, how does this problem matter? But be is it an in-house or, you know, an outside, problem to solve? And I, I actually kind of want to think about that a bit more because I usually jump to this whole like, you know, are we good at this or not?

00:56:03:16 - 00:56:22:27
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah. And if you if you're really good at writing a profession, you're going to learn that one of the things that you can include on the PR is like options that we looked at and why we chose the way we chose. And so you might say, like, hey, we look at partnering with this company, or using this vendor, and we look at like building house.

00:56:23:00 - 00:56:31:27
Marcelo Calbucci
And our recommendation is this because of this aspect that is such a great fodder for conversation, right? For the baked.

00:56:31:29 - 00:56:52:00
Ian Bergman
Yeah. You know, some of the most fun conversations I've had with startup founders trying to sell into the enterprise are about the role of, folks like procurement, legal. And it. Yeah. And the fact that, you know, if you haven't worked in that environment, you don't realize that they are fundamentally risk mitigation organizations. Yeah, all three of them.

00:56:52:02 - 00:57:06:11
Ian Bergman
Right. And everybody's like, oh, of course, lawyers are risk mitigation. No, that's its job. That's procurements job for sure. And, boy is that a hard mix with a fundamentally risk based, you know, innovation approach.

00:57:06:13 - 00:57:33:17
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, I think companies don't big companies. They don't know how to, right. Size, the amount of risk mitigation based on, you know, the partner or defender that they're doing, like if the risk of a vendor is so small, you know, to your business, like you should use a small size level of procurement, I.T compliance and, legal.

00:57:33:19 - 00:57:53:10
Marcelo Calbucci
Right. Like if the impact on your business could be destroy your business, then yeah, use the full force of your teams, you know, to make sure that that doesn't happen. And like that upscaling down scaling of the effort is, is not common because the like, standards, they're going to do the same thing for every single vendor, you know.

00:57:53:10 - 00:57:55:16
Marcelo Calbucci
And that doesn't work usually.

00:57:55:18 - 00:58:17:29
Ian Bergman
Yeah. It's the innovator's dilemma of, you know, optimizing for efficiency at what you know, how to do. And that's how you win for a while. Let's, let's go down this startup route. I, I'm actually curious to know just a little bit, some of the more of your stories being on the inside of startups, like did you have what what startup that you worked at in the leadership role or founding role are you most proud of?

00:58:18:06 - 00:58:20:03
Ian Bergman
Can you tell us a bit about that?

00:58:20:05 - 00:58:41:02
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, I have several, I boot a lot of types. I always been proud of the teams that I build, you know, like people that are very hungry, that are like, buy into the vision and the mission of the company. I think that's very important because startups are hard, like the amount of failure that you get and the setbacks.

00:58:41:04 - 00:59:01:23
Marcelo Calbucci
And in terms of financial compensation, the risk is very high as well. So like, you want to you want to bring the right people. I would say one startup that I really enjoy is still going. It's go. Hi. We did spam call detection. You know, and call the company. Yeah, it's a Seattle based company.

00:59:01:25 - 00:59:16:00
Marcelo Calbucci
I joined when the staff was very small. I joined as a VP. I became the CTO, of that startup there. And, like, we grew the business tremendously of the time that it was there. And so you guys, you're being very successful.

00:59:16:03 - 00:59:44:07
Ian Bergman
Well, and it's and talk about a, I think a problem that a lot of us can resonate with, right? Like also an unsolved problem, judging by the sheer number of spam calls and texts and everything else that gets through. But but B, talk about a problem that has an intersection between, you know, the world of startups, the world of consumers, and the world of enterprise innovation because there's so many big incumbent players trying to trying to navigate this.

00:59:44:10 - 01:00:07:06
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah. That's right. So so in on hire. We had to work with like big vendors, like tech telecommunication vendors, you know, mobile operators, all these companies incredibly hard to work with. You know, any contract would take, you know, 3 to 6 months after, you know, everyone is in agreement. What are we going to do? I this is not like part of the discovery is like after we agree on what we're going to do.

01:00:07:07 - 01:00:34:13
Marcelo Calbucci
So you take 3 to 6 months just to, you know, to get a contract sign. So it's really complicated. But what I really like about, working at hire as well is that it was a transition from like a, you know, 50% startup to 150% startups. And when you go from when you get close to that 150 person line, whatever process, whatever tools, whatever frameworks you had, like, they kind of don't work anymore.

01:00:34:15 - 01:00:57:09
Marcelo Calbucci
So the whole company is to adjust to this new size, right. Is it Dunbar number? So I learned to appreciate frameworks more and more as we grew. Because of that, because, like, people need to operate more independently, as you grow and, like, doing the right way really empowers innovation versus, like, hinders it.

01:00:57:09 - 01:00:57:29
Ian Bergman
Amazing.

01:00:57:29 - 01:01:04:04
Layne Fawns
As a founder, do you like building your product more or or building your team more?

01:01:04:06 - 01:01:21:04
Marcelo Calbucci
That's a good question. I never I don't think I ever thought about that, but I think I would go with product because my passion is really around solving customer's problems. You know, sometimes you don't even need a team. Sometimes you can do it yourself.

01:01:21:07 - 01:01:23:05
Layne Fawns
Very true, very true. Yeah.

01:01:23:05 - 01:01:47:24
Marcelo Calbucci
And, team building startups is really hard. Is the hardest thing in my mind. It's much harder to build teams than to build product. You know, like, people prefer to work at Amazon or Microsoft or Google than any startups, any day of any day of the week, you know, so, incredibly, incredibly hard to build teams.

01:01:47:26 - 01:01:48:10
Layne Fawns
All right.

01:01:48:10 - 01:01:50:06
Marcelo Calbucci
That's fair comment to that.

01:01:50:09 - 01:01:51:12
Layne Fawns
So so.

01:01:51:12 - 01:01:52:26
Ian Bergman
Important. So important.

01:01:52:28 - 01:02:19:00
Layne Fawns
Yeah. Once you build that winning team though, I think like that there's a lot of joy and reward in that for sure. But okay, I want to switch gears, because I have it's on everybody's mind and I like to nerd out about this a lot, but recently you posted, something along the lines of being super optimistic about AI and how it's going to improve society.

01:02:19:03 - 01:02:41:11
Layne Fawns
And even though we're living in a bubble right now, kind of from a hype perspective or an economic model perspective, you have high hopes. And so I'd love to kind of dive in on your thoughts about this and how do we steer the course of AI for good. And what do you think AI is in society looks like, say, five years from now?

01:02:41:18 - 01:02:45:14
Layne Fawns
If things kind of go the way that you envision them to go.

01:02:45:17 - 01:03:07:05
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah. Big question. That's a great question. And I hate this speculation because I'm going to be wrong, you know. So five years from now I'm going to look back and it's like, man, you were so wrong about that. I am very optimistic about AI. I think AI is going to provide so much value to the world, like we're going to discover the cure for diseases.

01:03:07:05 - 01:03:31:09
Marcelo Calbucci
We're going to discover more efficient ways of producing, storing energy. We're going to discover ways to build things cheaper. So more people are going to have access to housing and appliances and all kinds of tools. That was hard to get. I think it's going to be a struggle in the next five years, but I think education is going to get better.

01:03:31:12 - 01:03:52:00
Marcelo Calbucci
Right? Because education has too much focus on how good are you at memorizing things versus how good are you at thinking critically? And the memorization is not worth anymore because everything is going to be accessible. So there's going to be a change there. It's going to be very painful the next five years, for sure. It's already is.

01:03:52:01 - 01:04:20:14
Marcelo Calbucci
Right? Like colleges in high schools and even middle schools are saying, like we're struggling to do with this ChatGPT problem. Right. They really need to think about how to incorporate that into their learning, environment. So I think in all aspects of life, AI is going to be quick. And I know there is a lot of pushback in terms of the energy that AI consumes and the water consumption of AI.

01:04:20:16 - 01:04:42:03
Marcelo Calbucci
Like everything that I read about it says it's true. There is a high level of energy consumption and water consumption, but on a per person basis on a per capita basis is very tiny. And I know people don't like to hear that, but if you look at the research, you know, the data doesn't. Back there, everyone is screaming like all the water is gone, like it's not that.

01:04:42:06 - 01:05:01:17
Marcelo Calbucci
So, but I also don't think AI is not going to bring a lot of new problems to the world. Right? We are seeing like a lot of people using ChatGPT and AI for therapy, or other use cases that it's like backfire. We we're going to figure out how to do that. There's going to be a lot of pain along the way in the context of innovation.

01:05:01:17 - 01:05:20:28
Marcelo Calbucci
I think I can really be a powerful tool, but you have to use it, right? I would say the wrong way to use AI is to ask AI to write a strategy plan. For me, that's terrible, but I AI is going to write about source.

01:05:20:29 - 01:05:22:03
Ian Bergman
Your brain doesn't.

01:05:22:03 - 01:05:43:24
Marcelo Calbucci
Work. Yeah, it's not only that AI is going to write a plan. They're going to read it, and you're going to think it's brilliant because it's very convincing that way. Right. But it's actually a terrible plan because it's very undifferentiated. You know, it's just using the average of its knowledge. It's picking up things from here and there. It's not giving you the opportunity to think through exactly what you want to do.

01:05:43:26 - 01:06:05:17
Marcelo Calbucci
And all the opportunities out there. Often when we start with a plan, we end up with something that is very different because we evolve our thinking. Right? Or what we discover AI is just going to, like, drive all the way to the end. And, and that's a problem. On the other hand, I think I use AI, you know, 100 times a day.

01:06:05:20 - 01:06:25:06
Marcelo Calbucci
I used to five code. I used to help me write. I used to do my research. I think it's fantastic. As a, research assistant, I can find information out much more quickly. It can give you every time I ask, like, give me the pros and cons of this, right? I try to remove the confirmation bias. I don't say like, what is good about x?

01:06:25:06 - 01:06:41:19
Marcelo Calbucci
I say like, give me the pros and cons of X. And actually, you know, every once in a while it gives me something that it's like, oh, I never thought about that angle. Right. So it's fantastic for that. It helps me open my eyes to blind spots. You know, they also help me find what exists already.

01:06:41:21 - 01:07:09:00
Marcelo Calbucci
Sometimes I asked, like, hey, is there a software that solves this problem? I don't even know what the solution is and like it finds a few things. I go and verify that it actually exists just to make sure that it's not hallucinating. But it's it's great. The other thing AI is really good at, particularly for us, is that work in innovation, product technology is some people have writer's block AI, or sometimes you have like difficulty getting started.

01:07:09:02 - 01:07:29:02
Marcelo Calbucci
I can be really good. And so like hey, I have these three bullet points. Help me get started on this document. Any write something. I don't like this style. I don't like how it writes. I try all variations of those, but I look at that, I read that and write my version of it. So it kind of like makes me faster at, like getting past that random walk.

01:07:29:04 - 01:07:31:28
Marcelo Calbucci
But the AI is interesting.

01:07:32:01 - 01:07:33:15
Ian Bergman
Oh, no. No, finish your thought.

01:07:33:18 - 01:07:59:02
Marcelo Calbucci
I was going to say AI is a fantastic editor like inner critic. And if you say like, here's what I wrote, tell me what you think about it. It's so good at pointing not only like grammar issues, which is kind of easy nowadays. Like you have tons of tool for that, but also like coherence issues because like, wait a second, with this paragraph, you said this one on this a paragraph, you said that and you go like, oh yeah, that is conflicting.

01:07:59:04 - 01:08:00:18
Marcelo Calbucci
Let me rewrite this thing.

01:08:00:22 - 01:08:28:15
Ian Bergman
Yeah, but don't have it rewrite it for you because then you get to this reversion to the mean, I think I think it's super interesting because like Lane, one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about actually, we've had internal conversations about this myself a fair bit. Right? Is the idea that I applied well, amplifies the powers, passions and expertise of a human.

01:08:28:15 - 01:08:49:15
Ian Bergman
It doesn't replace them. It doesn't. You can't outsource your brain for that plan, but it gives people superpowers. And I don't know, I I'm this optimist. I get the sense you are, but I am an optimist. I believe in people's both adaptability, but also the fact that humans have an innate drive to want to do things and get good at things, whatever, whatever that particular passionate.

01:08:49:15 - 01:09:21:25
Ian Bergman
So now we have this whole new set of tools. But what I think is really interesting is all of your examples are about using AI to help you know you or to help others accomplish what they're trying to accomplish better. Yeah, you didn't say once. I can have I do something for me. You can have you can have I help you delegating tasks and things and I actually think that's really important because I think that, well, I, I think it's true.

01:09:21:25 - 01:09:34:08
Ian Bergman
But, you know, that preserves space for optimism when you get a bunch of people that are you know, whether they're doomsayers or naysayers or whatever, that preserve space for optimism.

01:09:34:10 - 01:09:55:12
Layne Fawns
I think it's really important that we spread awareness about that distinction, too, because that's what like, that's what's going to keep the brainpower going. And the brainpower intact is, I don't know, creating these parameters for the ethical use cases of AI. Because you do see a lot of examples of people that do just get AI to do stuff for them.

01:09:55:12 - 01:10:08:29
Layne Fawns
Right? And there's that whole fear of like, people are going to stop thinking for themselves. And so I think it's, you know, it's like anything else, it's I think creating these parameters for which something should be used,

01:10:09:01 - 01:10:37:11
Ian Bergman
I don't know. You know, what freaks me out? I agree, and you know what? You know, you know, you know what freaks me out about all of this? It's not the the power of these tools that we have. It's not, you know, kind of existential dread about human society or the singularity or anything like that. It's about the fact that we are shortening the horizon at which we can, across which we can predict what the world is going to look like.

01:10:37:14 - 01:11:03:00
Ian Bergman
And that forces societal innovation. And like I will tell you, I don't think I think there's going to be a very rough period of time where society grapples. Marcello with the example of AI as therapists, grapples with, you know, what does this look like in an educational context? Grapples with what does you know? What does copyright and IP protection look like in the future?

01:11:03:03 - 01:11:22:19
Ian Bergman
There's a million examples of this. But the problem is. It's the technological changes coming faster than society can possibly identify new norms. And for me, I think that's really interesting and a little worrying.

01:11:22:22 - 01:11:43:25
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, I agree. And if I go back to the microwave example, right when microwaves came to be in the 50s and 60s, you see all these people trying to use microwave to do steaks and all this kind of food. They're like that. You're not going to microwave. Right? Because people didn't understand how to use that to correctly. And I think we're going to go to that phase with AI.

01:11:43:25 - 01:12:03:27
Marcelo Calbucci
The difference like you said. Yeah. And is that, you know, it's much faster than, you know, we can adapt as a society. So it's going to be very painful in the next five years because there's going to be good use cases thing. And I saw of cancer or, you know, Alzheimer or diabetes, you know, in ways that we didn't expect.

01:12:03:29 - 01:12:32:26
Marcelo Calbucci
But this is going to create a lot of new social problems. You know, if you think about social media, for example, in the early 2000, like we think they had the immune system in our brain to understand disinformation and fraud and like everything that now we kind of like, we know, like this is fake news. You know, this is, just to spread, rage way to lead to engagement and drive revenue like we learned that.

01:12:32:26 - 01:12:40:11
Marcelo Calbucci
But it took a decade or more. I Rafi, I we're not going to have that luxury. So it's going to be like, hey, it's going to be painful.

01:12:40:14 - 01:13:06:21
Ian Bergman
Yeah. It is, but you know, like, there will be there will be painful moments. And I, I think there's going to be a bunch. But what I think is, truly delightful and not just for those of us that are crazy nerds, you know, is this idea that the tools that we all have, you know, to get to do whatever we want to do are just expanding at an exponential rate.

01:13:06:26 - 01:13:30:08
Ian Bergman
And it is creates creating, you know, in the innovation world. Yeah. It's like it's just it's creating so much opportunity. There's 10,000, you know, new AI tools to solve. Okay. You know, it's all over my TikTok. Like bringing old photos to life. Yeah. Right to, you know, 15 years ago, probably possible at extreme expense. And there was no reason to build a business around it.

01:13:30:08 - 01:13:58:09
Ian Bergman
Yeah. Now it's very viable. And I promise you that not only are there a bunch of people making a mint off of, you know, $2, $5, $10 credit card swipes or whatever, but there are people who are genuinely touched by the colorization and animation of photos of their grandparents or their childhood memories or whatever it is. And like, cool, right?

01:13:58:14 - 01:13:59:17
Ian Bergman
Super cool.

01:13:59:20 - 01:14:27:12
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, yeah, innovation is interesting because no matter how you innovate and I talk about this in the book, there's always two sides to it, right? There is always a very positive, very good thing that's going to happen out of innovation. And there is always, always something that might be considered bad by someone. Right? Like if you make a process a lot more efficient, for example, you know, corporate environment, someone might lose their job.

01:14:27:15 - 01:14:46:22
Marcelo Calbucci
So for that person, this innovation is terrible because they don't need to be there anymore. When you make call centers 10% more efficient, usually what happens is still like 10% of people lose their job. So it's not always like rosy or always terrible. There is both sides.

01:14:46:24 - 01:14:48:01
Ian Bergman
There really are.

01:14:48:03 - 01:14:49:28
Layne Fawns
Well, that's a really good, look at that.

01:14:49:28 - 01:15:12:03
Ian Bergman
Oh my gosh, this has been a really fun conversation. Marcello, we're coming to the end of our time here. Before we wrap, though, wondering if you have any closing thoughts for the next generation of innovators, whether they are entrepreneurs building for themselves or whether they are agitators sitting inside a large corporation trying to drive change.

01:15:12:05 - 01:15:44:07
Marcelo Calbucci
I would say don't start big, right? You can have a big vision. You can have a big horizon for like ten years from now. I wouldn't do this, but like really start what you want to get done in the next 3 to 6 months, right, and build from there. You know, too many times people spend way too much energy thinking like how they're going to be big and they need all the resources to do that and just discover, like the market or the customer didn't care so much about that problem or that solution.

01:15:44:10 - 01:15:51:11
Marcelo Calbucci
So start small and build on top off the lessons that you just learned from what you just built.

01:15:51:13 - 01:16:07:25
Ian Bergman
I'll take that as why is advice amazing. And for folks that, are interested in following you, learning more, you know, where should we point them? Website for the book, your LinkedIn. Are you all over the TikToks? Where can they get in touch?

01:16:07:25 - 01:16:23:14
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, all of the above. I think the easiest way is to go to the book's website, which is w w w dot the PR a.com or search Google for Q book and all my contact information. All my socials are there as well, including my email address.

01:16:23:16 - 01:16:26:13
Ian Bergman
Amazing! Well, this has been a really fun game so much.

01:16:26:13 - 01:16:29:06
Layne Fawns
Yeah, thanks for being on the show, Marcello.

01:16:29:09 - 01:16:31:09
Marcelo Calbucci
Yeah, thank you for having me. This was great.

01:16:31:12 - 01:16:39:09
Ian Bergman
Yeah. Really fun. Thanks for coming on. Innovators inside Lane and I had a blast. And have an amazing weekend. You too.