Intellectual Property and Trademarks and Patents, o my! Sean Solberg is a protector of ideas and as a patent attorney at Fredrikson & Byron, you know this extended episode is loaded with strategic value. Ben, Sean, and BEN BOT discuss patentability and building to go big, even when you’re small. We also encourage business owners to be bold by looking for what exists, versus hoping it doesn’t.
Russ Goerend is a bold and generous leader who designs community-driven experiences for high school students exploring what’s next within the Waukee APEX work-based learning program. This is a powerful episode for educators, students, and parents! Inspired by Stop Stealing Dreams, Connect Dots, and How to get into a famous college with Seth Godin, together we ask, what is school for? This is a simple, but important question that has so many answers!
As we embark on 2024, how might we continue to blur lines between the classroom and community? What are more side doors we can open today, that accelerate those ready to build tomorrow? Enjoy!
Cross-checking helps to determine distance, maneuver around obstacles, and identify rogue objects. Alongside the math, a triangulated team increases dependability.
Diversity of thought, talent, and real skills add synergy to accelerate progress and increase a team’s confidence when a problem is attacked from multiple angles. This nimbleness is leveraged as co-founders create a culture that makes each person feel significant.
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Building alone is easy.
Team up to make it fun.
On the prowl for co-founders? Consider triangulating a hipster (customer experience), hacker (technology), and hustler (business development). When these complimenting archetypes also blend hints of founder-market-fit, a timely curation gives any team exponential capacity.
To find missing links, connectors become connected. So show up and be quick to make interesting introductions. When the first degree of contact lacks obvious opportunity, remember it’s the second and third degree of connectivity that delivers precision. Over time, generosity in an entrepreneurial ecosystem expands and tightens engaged networks. Instead of forcefully recruiting co-founders, the open-ended activity of a serendipitist will have us colliding with friends we simply haven’t met yet.As teamwork begins, bonds that have formed naturally will support lasting collaboration with people you respect. That said, established trust is not an excuse to get complacent.
To nurture the power of triangulation be honest and transparent from start to finish. Every story ends, so don’t avoid difficult discussions. When structuring a business, agree on the terms, leave space for change over time, and maintain an operating agreement to ensure clarity with less tension. A commitment to abundant communication helps each team member remain attentive to details.
Professionals will take it further—inviting responsibility, then keeping the promise. For any idea maze, we take the blame, willingly give credit, and celebrate in style.
Lone wolves move fast but the expanded capacity of a team helps an odyssey go far. When a fun, long-term cast plays long-term games together, the chemical reaction can be an affinity toward work that feels like play. Cheers!
When questions linger, they get heavier. Paralysis can even set in, especially when a decision feels important.
Ambition fades and holding desire invites unhappiness until a future state is achieved. Thinking through the idea maze, strategic planning, and talking tactics is wise, but mental jams are usually not from a lack of choices, but instead, too many. Thoroughly consider the options, then maintain momentum by simply making each decision.
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The best decision is the one you make.
This is not as easy as it sounds. Big or small, a fear of making the wrong decision is ever present. Fortunately, while life or death decisions do occur, most of the time, a wrong decision only requires resources to make it right. Poor decision-making adds up, but if it’s just one decision that’s part of a longer sequence, even slight missteps can move us closer to where we want to be.
Brewed From Within
#50 📖 Leadership
When technology moves so fast, we’ll always feel behind, but that is your invitation to tinker.
Instead of letting the unknown scare us, we can use curiosity to prompt action. Even when life feels occupied by existing responsibilities, there’s more room to push further. To prove it, hold your arm as high as you can. Now, hold your arm higher!
Tinkering requires initiative. Thankfully, we all have extra gears to avoid feeling like we left something on the table. Yes, the barriers of busy are unavoidable, comfortable feels safe, and easy is nice. But why not turn a few knobs to let that idea breathe, to see your idea twinkle in the wild.
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An early no beats a long, wrong yes.
It’s amazing how much happens by showing up and activating a few early moves. When we accept an invitation to tinker, financial capital can speed things up, but time is required to make something exist.
While more of everything will be needed to make it better, thinking about commercialization as being a season of exploration versus a strategic goal reduces weight and welcomes smaller steps toward progress.
If you’re having a hard time finding inspiration or if excuses keep you saying someday, avoid isolation and force yourself into environments where others are tinkering too. Activity within a startup community can provide energizing human, intellectual, and network capital. Conferences are cool, but when was the last time you attended a multi-day, hands-on hackathon? Classrooms, skill-building workshops, industry groups, maker spaces, coworking, and networking events also have people tinkering together.
As you create more than you consume around others doing the same, you’ll find energy, direction, and opportunities. You’ll feel less alone, surprise yourself, push past barriers, and collide with people able to help.
Whether it’s at home or in public, tinkering celebrates pure wonder and will nourish your innovative spirit. Even if the answer is no, at least you’ll know.
Brewed From Within
#69 📖 Technology