Off to the Valley

Nick Jain: If you know you're going
to be get hit for trying something

that is inherently risky and you're
not going to get rewarded, guess what?

You're not going to do it.

That's in fact why a lot of people leave
large companies to go start their own

companies because they know if things
go well, they'll become a billionaire.

Prateek Panda: Hello, and welcome back
to Off to the Valley, the podcast where

we uncover the inspiring journeys of
entrepreneurs, leaders, and innovators

who are redefining industries
and creating meaningful impact.

I'm your host, Prateek Panda,

and today we are excited to be joined
by Nick Jain, a versatile leader and

the CEO of IdeaScale, the world's top
innovation management software platform.

Nick's journey is one of transformation
and resilience from navigating

setbacks like the closure of a
hedge fund to mastering leadership

across various industries like
trucking, fashion, and tech.

At IdeaScale, Nick is driving innovation
for organizations like NASA, Comcast,

NASCAR, and so many others, leveraging
AI and fostering collaboration

to empower groundbreaking ideas.

Nick, it's a pleasure to have you
on the show and I'm looking forward

to learning more from your journey.

Nick Jain: Thank you so much
for having me, Prateek, and

for the kind introduction.

Prateek Panda: Great.

So let's start from the top.

Tell us a little bit more about Nick Jain.

What's your background?

A little bit about your upbringing so
that everybody understands who you are.

Nick Jain: Sure, so I'm based
in Philadelphia right now.

I live here with my wife and
a one month old newborn so

pretty a big part of my life.

I was raised in a mixture of
Canada and India and emigrated

to the United States for college.

My undergraduate degree was in
theoretical Physics and Mathematics,

did my MBA at Harvard Business School,
and I'd break my career into two parts.

One was as a fine professional
investor, working in large cap

hedge funds and private equity,
investing in other companies.

And for the last five or so years,
I've been a professional CEO.

So either founders, private equity firms
or companies hire me when their companies

are ready for that next stage of success.

And that could be a struggling
company that needs a turnaround

or a company that is doing well,
that wants to extraordinarily well.

Prateek Panda: Okay, great.

So, you told me a few things there.

One is your background growing up
in India, Canada, and then the U.

S.

At any point, was it your choice to
move to a particular place or were

you carried along with your family?

Nick Jain: Yeah.

So I've made two choices and moved.

When I moved to the United States
for college, that was my choice.

I got into a good college.

They gave me a lot of scholarship money.

So it was an easy choice.

After college, I also made a choice
to actually go back and work in India

for about a year for a nonprofit
and research think tank there.

So that was also a choice.

And then since I moved to the U S I've
lived in about four or five different

cities, New York, San Francisco, Boston
Philadelphia, Houston, and those have

all been my choices as an adult as well.

Prateek Panda: That's great.

Tell me a little bit about
what's influenced you to

make these choices, right?

Like it's a lot of varied environments
moving from, yes, you have Indian

origin and you moved, you spent some
time in Canada and then in the U.

S.,

what motivated you to go
spend time again in India?

Nick Jain: Sure, spending time in
India after college was three things.

Number one, I hadn't been back to
India where my family was from.

Hindi is my mother tongue.

I hadn't seen some family there.

I hadn't been back in a long time and
I missed the country where I'd grown up

or at least for part of my childhood.

So I went back partially to for
that reason, just a personal

reason to hang out with family.

Number two, the job was really cool.

I was I was doing Economics research.

So I'm a very quantitively oriented guy.

I was heading, it was basically
testing the waters for whether an

academic career is right for me.

And number three, it was a really
tremendous career opportunity.

I got to work for a woman, Esther.

Esther Duflo is a professor at MIT,
and she was on the short list to

win the Nobel prize in Economics at
that time, she actually did end up

winning the Nobel prize in Economics.

So you can think for a 22 year old, that's
a pretty cool career opportunity when

someone you're pretty sure is going to win
the Nobel prize says, come work for me.

Prateek Panda: That is,
that sounds amazing.

And then what brought you back to the U.

S.?

I believe it was your
decision to go to Harvard.

Nick Jain: Yeah I actually went and
worked in private equity and consulting

for and private equity for a while.

So I came back to my fellowship
over in India, working for Esther

Duflo was about a year long.

So after that fellowship finished, I came
back to the United States and realized

I did not want to go the academic path.

And I accepted an offer that I deferred
from McKinsey, the consulting firm.

I told him, hey, I'm going to go
off to India to do this for a year.

And then when I came back, I just
resumed the kind of the typical

trajectory I was on to go down a
more corporate finance, investing,

professional track, which ultimately
then led to business school, did some

more investing afterwards, and then
ended up being a professional executive.

Prateek Panda: So all of this varied
experience, right, working in different

parts of the world, how do you think
that has influenced your business

acumen as well as leadership style?

Nick Jain: I'll say a few things.

Number one, I think, while we're all
human, there are huge differences

between people, both at an
individual level and cultural level.

The way I would do business with somebody
in India is very different than Japan,

than the United States, than Germany.

In some places you do business
in a bar, in some places you do

it in a hotel, in some places
you do it in a conference room.

That's all very different, right?

The way you hand a business card to
someone in Japan is very different

from the way you do it so in India.

So I think, and that's true at an
individual level even within the United

States, not just across countries.

I think having worked in different
countries and different cultural contexts

has made me appreciate how very different
people are in their communication

styles and their ways of doing work.

It gave me a greater respect for
that, as well as greater training in

how to deal with or work effectively
with a wide variety of people.

Number two, I think it's exposed me to
the fact that there's all these strange

forms of businesses or business models
that wouldn't make sense to me, right?

Like the economics of street food
businesses in India are very

different from those of running
like a New York hot dog stand.

The New York hot dog stand makes
actually is like complicated because the

amount of regulation that goes into it.

And that also applies to
large scale businesses.

There's business models that exist in
East Asia, for example, in Japan and

Korea with these large conglomerates
that are basically backed by banks

where the bank is basically owning an
operating company that, for example,

are illegal in the United States.

In the United States, banks can't
typically own operating companies

whereas that is in fact the
standard business model for mega

corporations in Japan and Korea.

Prateek Panda: That's awesome.

So tell me a little bit about, how
you've translated some of that into

what you do in your day to day.

Nick Jain: So, I think spending a bunch
of time across different countries,

but then also as a professional
investor, I got exposed to, what the

differences between good businesses
are and bad businesses, as well as to

how to understand that analytically.

So when I look at a business, I
don't just get a feeling that, hey,

it's a really attractive business
and they've got an amazing marketing

campaign and a great product.

There's actually a lot of analytics
I can bring to bear to understand

whether a business is a good business.

Or a bad business, make that
a very quantitative approach.

So that means that when I actually
step in, step into an operating

role, I could look at a business.

Understand these are the strengths and
weaknesses, not a qualitative fuzzy level,

but rather incredibly analytically and
then actually implement the changes to

make those businesses more effective.

One implication that is almost every bit
actually all of the three businesses I've

either run or co-run experience something
like a doubling of profit margins within

the first 12 months while I was there.

And often without any layoffs
or any human cost cutting.

So that's pretty cool that you
can double the profitability of

a business without firing people.

Prateek Panda: What are some things
that you typically take a look at?

Nick Jain: Sure, I think
there's two or three areas.

Number one is, what are
the anachronistic costs.

There's a bunch of cost businesses
accumulate that they forget to shut off.

You can imagine somebody signed up for
some subscription software or some mailing

a newsletter and they're just paying
for all these things that no one's using

or extra seats for something, right?

Shutting or shutting down an office
that no one's has or a PO box.

So getting rid of like wasteful
spending that is not even used.

Number two upgrading to
spending that is more effective.

So it turns out you can often get
better things for a lower cost if

you actually go back and reevaluate
every cost of the line item.

And that conceptually ties into
something called zero based budgeting.

The idea that every cost needs to justify
itself every single year because you're

starting from a clean sheet rather than
building progressively from year to year.

And the third is to change
how decision making is made.

In a lot of organizations, people
make decisions based on how they feel

or what the senior most person said.

And there isn't actually a
good framework for doing that.

In fact, the only right framework for
good decision making, whether short

term or long term is ROI in a private
sector context, return on investment.

You should be thinking about
your marketing campaign, your

product development, your software
engineering, your sales, all

need to be ROI based investments.

And so, I strongly emphasize
senior leaders at the companies

I run to learn this methodology.

And then to apply it from everything
as simple as should I spend 100$

to go to this conference to should
I spend a Million Dollars to

build this new piece of software?

Prateek Panda: So tell me this, there
are two schools of thought here.

One is what you're explaining almost
like a PE style where you're driving

more efficiency out of a business.

And then there is this whole, intense
growth VC backed hockey stick curve of

growth sort of model where you're focusing
pretty much a lot on your top line and

maybe not so much on the bottom line.

Where do you think it makes sense to
spend time and evaluate every single line

item on whether we should go spend an
extra 100$ to do this where the cost of

making the decision or the cost of time
to make that decision is more valuable?

Nick Jain: So what you just said,
the cost of the time is more

valuable than the 100$ savings.

So that's a negative ROI decision.

So you shouldn't be doing it, right?

You answered, if the amount of time
it takes to go save those costs is

greater than the benefit of the cost
that in itself is a negative ROI

action and you shouldn't take it.

Going back to your differentiation
of like growth based investing

or growth based operating versus
kind of profit based operating.

I think that's an artificial distinction.

Good growth investors or good venture
capital investors are not buying

growth for the sake of growth.

It is growth that will eventually lead
to a profitable ROI positive business.

In fact, if you actually look over
the past decade, there's been a lot of

really bad venture backed businesses
that grew like hockey sticks.

They had, I can, without naming names,
there's a couple of billion dollar

revenue businesses that were actually bad
businesses and eventually went bankrupt.

Actually, we can name a
public one, WeWork right.

WeWork grew to an enormous size
but they are not a good business.

In fact, a lot of like famous hedge
famous real estate billionaire

said, this is a bad business
model and we'll never make money.

So good venture investors, good private
equity investors, good growth investors,

good executives at any company, whether
it's public or privately owned, tend to

understand that growth is good, but only
if that growth is itself ROI positive.

You don't have to be profitable today.

It's actually possible to be
profit negative but ROI positive.

And that's what good
growth investors focus on.

Prateek Panda: Sounds good.

Talking about positive ROI and
investments, I want to touch upon your

experience running your own hedge fund.

Tell us a little bit about
what that journey was?

And what did you learn
from that experience?

Nick Jain: Sure.

So I'd been working in a couple
of big financial, big hedge funds

and private equity firms and
doing traditional stock picking.

And I was doing very well at it,
but I realized kind of two things.

The A that's a really hard business and
B it's getting more competitive by the

day and C I actually discovered something
really cool called alternative data.

So when you're investing in McDonald's,
the typical person tries to do, walks

through a couple of McDonald's to get
a sense of how McDonald's is doing

this quarter of this year, looks
at their menu items and makes up a

bunch of qualitative information.

I said, screw that.

Let's go look at the hard data.

Let's go look at how many web traffic
searches, what's McDonald's web traffic.

Let's go look at cell phone data for how
many people are walking to McDonald's.

Let's look at credit card data for
how many millions of swipes there

have been at McDonald's terminals.

And there was this enormous wealth
of like big data that's sprung into

existence over the last decade.

That I used, and I have a
Math and Physics background.

So it was actually very easy for
me to take this data and start

using it, applying it to investing.

And it actually worked.

I did this at scale at some of the
large institutions I worked at.

And then I said, look, why am I
doing this for somebody else where

it's always a secondary concern.

They really want to focus
on their core strategy.

These strategies, even though they're
working and working exceptionally well

are not what the businesses want to do.

So I went and started a hedge
fund that very specifically

focused on using alternative
data to do traditional investing.

So I did that for about two years.

There's this website called
SumZero, which has 10, 000 small

and medium sized hedge funds on it.

I was actually ranked number one
in the world based on my published

research for 18 months out of the
24 that I was running my fund.

So the strategy worked.

It was great.

Unfortunately, the business ultimately
failed because to run a scalable

asset manager, whether that be a
mutual fund or private equity, you

need to raise somewhere between
50 to a hundred million dollars.

And ultimately I wasn't able to
convince investors to put in that

sort of money behind my business.

Prateek Panda: Do you think
it was a timing issue?

I know the markets went through a
couple of series of events where

it was just harder to get access to
capital, or do you think it was more

of fundamental issue trying to explain?

Nick Jain: I think it was honestly, it was
an execution issue by me on two levels.

Number one is I don't think I deeply under
appreciated how many investors make invest

or capital allocators make decisions
based on Emotion money is a very emotional

thing rather than a rational thing.

So I could show all this
data, I could show all this

analytics, but it didn't matter.

Number two was, I think one of the
things I really failed at, and I could

have done this better in retrospect,
was I focused really on why the

strategy is fundamentally better
with a lot of analytics and math.

And unfortunately, for most people
the amount of math into why this

strategy works is far too complicated.

You can think of it almost if you
are a, startup founder or there's a

lot of venture capitalists that will
invest in enterprise software, right?

Whether it be a CRM, an HR
software, that's easy to understand.

Anybody can get it.

But then you go talk about infrastructure
software and you can't pitch that to

a typical venture capital firm or you,
there's only a very few subset of firms

that can actually understand what, the
technical aspects of infrastructure.

Similarly, when I was talking to my
investors, very few people, I did

get investors, but those were the
ones who either were incredibly, they

had a very deep Science background
or they were business executives who

could sit down with me for four or
five hours and actually understand

why my Math is not made up wizardry,
but actual real hardcore data science.

The typical asset allocator, you've
got 30 minutes to convince them.

They don't want to see equations and
standard deviations and sharp scores and

statistical probabilities and P ratios.

Or peace scores,

Prateek Panda: so emotions driving a lot

Nick Jain: Emotions, and also it's
overwhelming, most people don't have

the, either the academic training,
or the kind of intellectual heft to

sit through with complicated topics.

It's hard.

And like, how often do you go
read a math lecture, or go read

a dense book like War and Peace?

Not just mathematical.

Most people don't read
War and Peace for fun.

They fall asleep after about 10
minutes of reading War and Peace.

Prateek Panda: Yep.

That sounds about right.

On that note, tell us a
little bit about IdeaScale.

It's innovation management.

What are you really doing?

What are your customers
using IdeaScale for?

Nick Jain: So, IdeaScale is the
largest idea management or innovation

software company in the world.

We've been around about 15 years now.

We have about a hundred people
across eight or nine countries.

And what our software does is you can
think of it as a social network for ideas.

So if you think about Tik Tok somebody
posts a funny dance video, other people

voted up or down, that video goes viral.

Imagine replacing a funny
dance video with an idea.

So people put ideas on IdeaScale.

Other people vote those ideas up or down.

They comment on them.

They can iterate on those ideas to
make, take Prateek's idea and make

it a little bit better and and then
turn those good ideas into reality.

Prateek Panda: That sounds interesting.

Can you tell me a few, maybe stories
of your customers and how they

are really using this for change?

Nick Jain: So my customers tend to be
large or distributed organizations,

Comcast, Pfizer, US Post Office, ING
Bank, like big media organizations

that are struggling to innovate
effectively, which is why they

call us up and use our software.

So I'll give kind of two examples.

So number one is we one of our
clients, they're not a client anymore,

but they used to be is one of the
biggest fast food chains in the world.

They were running out of
ideas for what their new menu

items should be right there.

They're all their professional
chefs and stuff were basically

running out of cool ideas.

So they came to IdeaScale
and said, okay, this is hard.

How about we just go ask our customers
in a structured, systematic way?

And so we became an outwards facing
social network for their customers

to provide ideas on what the exciting
new menu items for burgers or shakes

or coffees or whatever should be.

And then they're also their
customers voted the ideas up and

down and iterated on the ideas.

You may have suggested a shamrock
smoothie, but then a food scientist

said, Hey, a shamrock smoothie
probably has the wrong green color dye.

And that's dangerous for consumption.

So you ended up with this rapidly iterated
open sourced idea network for good foods.

And by the way, I think the top one or
two items on that were crowdsourced this

way, or actually then put on the menu.

Prateek Panda: That is amazing.

And are you using some kind
of AI in this whole process?

Nick Jain: So Not yet, but are actually
our AI tool releases next Wednesday.

So exactly a week from today.

And what our AI tool does is it's less
to do with the innovation or with the

ideation or creativity process, but
it's rather for the selection process.

So you could imagine you're an
executive at a big organization.

You have a thousand ideas that your
customers or employees have put together

and they've uploaded them, downvoted them.

There's the social aspect of it, but
let's imagine you wanted an objective AI.

To analyze which of these ideas
is actually good for you, right?

And applicable.

So if you think of going back
to good decision making you, if

you're an executive at McDonald's,
let's say you want to pick a menu

item that is relevant for you.

And you also want to do something
that is impactful for you, right?

So, McDonald's a burger, a new
amazing burger could be great.

A steak for McDonald's could make a
lot of impact, but it is impractical

for McDonald's to, offer filet
mignon at their restaurants or

at least high end filet mignon.

So what our AI tool does is it assesses
whether it goes through your entire

database of ideas and analyzes which ideas
are firstly relevant to your organization.

Number two that they are
impactful to your organization.

And number three, that they are
most feasible or easiest to do.

Prateek Panda: So a lot of innovation,
I believe, stems from just the

innate sense of human creativity.

What do you think Is the role of
AI or how do you see the potential

of AI augmenting human creativity
to encourage more innovation?

Nick Jain: So I want to be a little
careful at defining creativity.

If you look at the
research for creativity.

Like 99.

9 percent of all things that
we call creative are actually

permutations of things that have
been seen in a different context.

And only 0.

1 percent or 0.

01 percent of what we call
creative came out of the either.

Like it would just
sprang in out of nowhere.

Most innovation is like, Hey, I saw this
being done in, the manufacturing industry.

Why don't we apply it to the
software industry, right?

A technique, a human process, whatever.

Most creativity is actually just combining
things in new ways or new contexts.

I think AI helps with that in two ways.

Number one, it

eliminates an informational gap.

Okay, which is look, for example,
I was doing some analysis on real

estate and I actually didn't know
a certain terms in real estate.

So it's actually hard for me to be
creative there, but now I can access

this information very quickly and in a
very concise manner and communicate it

to me in a way that I can understand.

It's like a personalized teacher
that fills in the gaps as well as

lets me do things more quickly.

Number two is, and this
is a more emotional level.

Brainstorming is sometimes a really
sensitive thing for people, right?

I don't want to tell you my
idea because you might steal it,

or I might just sound stupid.

Like my idea is not well thought out.

I'm not a great speaker, but I think a
lot of that angst about brainstorming

or having those early creative sessions
with an AI takes away the embarrassment

or the kind of social difficulties that
it takes with interacting with people.

It's like almost everybody in the world
has some anxiety in dealing with any other

human being and interacting with AI, at
least the first stages of the creative

process takes that away from a lot of
people, which lowers the barrier for

people to engage in creative processes.

Prateek Panda: Makes sense.

Tell me a little bit about
how you got into IdeaScale.

A lot of founders that I've been speaking
to who've had some sort of success or

sometimes not conventional success either
think of doing another startup or want

to be hopefully in a position like yours
where, there is an engine already there

and you're trying to use some of your
past experience to take that forward.

What got you to IdeaScale?

Is there a process for other
founders to possibly get CEO roles?

Nick Jain: So honestly, I got lucky.

I got a random call from somebody
I'd met several years ago and I'm

impressed and they said, Hey, a
friend of mine is looking for a CEO

for his privately owned company.

Are you interested?

I would say to get this job or maybe the
job prior was very much based on luck,

maybe a little bit of credibility because
I'd spent a lot of time, working at some

tier one institutions and going to some
really good educational institutions.

As I think about the next couple steps
in my career, I think it'll be a lot

easier because I started to build a
reputation and, people in private equity

and venture capital started to know,
Hey, there's this guy, Nick, he's, made

impacts at three different companies.

So it's probably not just lucky,
but rather he's got a way to

actually, consistent to succeed.

And I think the next stage probably
becomes a little bit more process oriented

where other headhunters or private equity
firms start to call me, but these first

few opportunities required a lot of
hard work and set up plus a bit of luck.

Prateek Panda: That's great.

For everybody listening if you're
you've ventured into areas that

are very different like from
logistics to e commerce to hedge

funds and so on and now SaaS.

If for folks who are venturing into
sort of unknown territories, do you

have any tips to avoid some setbacks?

Nick Jain: Sure.

So look, whenever you show up in a new
industry, I think it's important to

be humble and important to be willing
to work your butt off to go become, if

not an expert, like really competent.

Because that's going to inhibit or enable
your ability to be successful, right?

If I show up in the oil
I know nothing about oil.

But if I went to an oil firm today,
the first year of my life would

really suck because I'd be spending
every awaking off hour that I'm not

spending on my day job or with family
learning about how the oil industry

works so that I could be effective
as a contributor and as a leader.

Prateek Panda: Yeah, that makes sense.

And I'm going to go back to something you
shared earlier, which is even in the U

S you've spent time in different cities.

Now, one of the things that comes
up very often, at least amongst the

founder communities that I'm part of is,
people who are trying to move to the U.

S.

to continue to grow their business
or launch new businesses are often,

in this fix of where to be located.

Some people fixate towards
being closer to customers.

Some people want to be
closer to investors.

San Francisco is always on top of the
list, but a lot of people, are starting

to believe now that you don't have to
necessarily be based in San Francisco.

You've spent some time
in different cities.

What's your take on this
whole location sort of thing?

Nick Jain: Remember, being in a location
has two aspects or two dimensions.

There's the professional dimension, but
there's also personal dimension, right?

San Francisco is an amazing tech city.

I don't like the weather
there and weather makes a huge

difference to my happiness, right?

I like summers that are
hot in San Francisco.

It gets cold and I lived in San
Francisco for several years.

I'm just giving an example, right?

Conversely, If we move down to
Florida, my wife would hate it.

So that would have a huge
impact on my quality of life.

So there's that personal dimension.

People need to think about what the
impact on their personal moods are,

their lifestyle, what they do for
entertainment, their families, et

cetera on the professional aspect.

I think, look, I don't
have a clear answer.

There are centers of excellence
where you have concentrations of

investors and concentrations of talent.

Using San Francisco, an example, there
is an extraordinary level of talent.

There are Stanford's
there, Berkeley's there.

There's a bunch of good
medical schools there.

You have this extraordinary
engineering talent pool that has

been built up since the 1970s.

You have a lot of venture capital firms,
so that makes it really extraordinary.

But conversely, it also makes
it very competitive because

everyone else is there, right?

Every other startup that's
pitching is based in San Francisco.

You're all competing for very expensive
real estate to set up your office.

All the engineers there
are paid, a lot more.

The housing costs are a lot more than
if you were to set up your business

in Austin, Texas, or Bengaluru in
India, or, a variety of other highly

educated, technologically able areas.

So I don't have a clear answer, but I
would say that it is important to consider

the multiple dimensions, both personal
and professional, but then also consider

do you want to be a small fish in a
big pond or a big fish in a small pond?

Prateek Panda: Yeah, I think one
of the interesting things that you

mentioned is something that most
founders probably don't think of is the

personal aspect, because every decision
that you take impacts your personal

life and what's happening in your
personal life, no matter how hard you

want to keep that away, it influences
your mood and how you show up and

therefore affects your business as well.

Yeah, so Nick, as we wrap up I want to
touch a little bit more on innovation.

Do you think there is a formula
or sort of a process to encourage

more innovative culture?

Nick Jain: Yeah, so at an organizational
level, there's actually a very

clear, researched way that your
organization can become innovative.

It's very simple to explain,
it's very hard to implement,

as you might not, suspect.

There's three things an organization
needs to do all simultaneously,

otherwise it won't be innovative.

Number one, it needs a critical
mass of people, to be in who are

themselves innovative or creative
and that number tends to be around

10 Okay, not everyone is creative.

Not everyone is motivated to create.

Let's be honest.

And if about 10 below 10 of your
employee base is not creative, your

organization doesn't have critical
mass to be a creative organization.

Number two, you need to have
incentives to innovate and remove

the disincentives to not innovate.

An example is a lot of companies
don't reward people when

they do something creative.

And when they try something creative
and fail, you get slapped, right?

You get metaphorically slapped, you get
demoted, you get hurt, hurt your balance

because you failed, your project failed.

But if you know that New projects are
risky and creative projects are risky.

If you know you're going to be get
hit for trying something that is

inherently risky and you're not
going to get rewarded, guess what?

You're not going to do it.

That's in fact why a lot of people leave
large companies to go start their own

companies because they know if things
go well, they'll become a billionaire.

And if they fail, like what's
the worst that can happen?

Whereas if you fail at a large
organization, you, that may actually

derail your career trajectory.

And then the third is the
right tools and resources.

A lot of companies do
those first two things.

They try and create a great innovative
culture with good incentives.

They hire smart people and then they
send those smart people off to a

dark room and say, go be creative.

That would be crazy, right?

An artist needs a painter and paintbrush.

In the modern day, that means having
money, having software like ours, like

other tools that enable people who want to
be creative and are are well incentivized.

You don't send a carpenter to go build a
building without his or her set of tools.

Similarly, it's crazy to me that a
lot of organizations go tell people

to be creative without equipping
them with the right set of tools.

Prateek Panda: Great answer.

I think, all of that spot on.

It reminded me of my times catching
up with a few friends who were

talking about these sort of, large
entities having innovation teams.

And while it's nice to have an
innovation team, because it shows

that you are invested in innovation,
it also is counterintuitive because

you then think that's the team
that's allowed to do the mistakes and

whatever, but everybody else may not.

Nick Jain: an innovation
team is a good step.

In fact, it's a good signaling mechanism
that your organization wants to do

it, but it is insufficient if you want
to make institutional level change.

Prateek Panda: Exactly.

And usually those teams sit so
outside of, like you said on the

third point, they're so aloof from
everything else that's happening that

a lot of times things coming out of
that team don't get any integration.

All right, Nick.

Great.

It was an amazing conversation.

Thank you so much for
spending time with us.

As we sign off, do you have
any last pieces of advice, any

last words before you sign off?

Nick Jain: I'll give two quick
things, just two quick plugs.

Number one, come check out my
personal website, nickjane.

com.

There's a bunch of my
random projects on there.

My, poker AI algorithm,
my version of Flappy Bird.

That's just fun, random projects that
I do when I, I've got a baby in one

arm encoder and recoding in the other.

The second thing is IdeaScale software
is completely free for organizations

or teams less than 100 people.

So whether you're an entrepreneur
or your team of 99 people at,

billion dollar company like Samsung,
our software is completely free.

Literally no strings attached.

So encourage people to check it out.

It's probably, we're definitely
the people, the only people that

give our software away for free.

And we think it's the right
thing to do for our customers

and prospective customers.

Prateek Panda: That is amazing, Nick.

Thank you again for joining us and sharing
such amazing insights and information.

I'm sure it's going to be helpful
to a lot of our listeners.

Thanks again.

Nick Jain: Perfect.

Thank you, Prateek.

Prateek Panda: And that
wraps up today's episode.

Before we sign off, I would like
to thank you for your support

and thanks for tuning in.

If you loved today's episode, then
don't forget to subscribe to this

podcast and never miss an episode.

Be kind, be happy, challenge the norm.

I'll see you folks again for the next one.