Elena Rosa is a Los Angeles-based artist who wanted to create a lesbian story world where people of all genders, sexualities and identities could learn about lesbian bar history. She drew from photographs, writings and interviews with former bar patrons and bar owners to bring L-BAR to life. Rosa sat down with Jessica Abo to talk about her interactive online bar and salon, and her advice for anyone trying to create a sacred experience.
Jessica Abo: You’ve spent years working as an actor and artist and say you’re really passionate about creating different worlds. What is it about creating environments that lights you up?
I love building environments. I like thinking about our architecture and how that frames our identity. I have a particular fascination with Byzantine churches, the way the masses can walk into this dome, this heaven on earth and everyone has one focal point. Straight ahead is the focal. It’s one truth, one belief. And if you look to the left or to the right or above you, there are depictions of saints mirroring that truth and confirming that truth. I love thinking about how that informs us in those spaces.
In contrast to the lesbian bar, which were our saloons and taverns, they’re usually pretty dark. And they might be down an alleyway or they might be down a flight of stairs, but they’re dark. In the beginning, there weren’t any windows, and where there were windows, they were covered with curtains, so you couldn’t see what was going on inside. I think that encourages experimentation and walking into the unknown. It’s full of mystery, and I believe in that space is where agency can be explored.
Why did you want to create a space dedicated to lesbian bar history?
I wanted to celebrate and honor lesbian bar history. I think that these bars, especially pre-Stonewall, were bars that really allowed women to frame feminism and ideas of desire and ways of being in the world. So, I wanted to honor that history and also honor the trailblazers, all the people that crossed the street to go into the bar when it wasn’t okay to do that.
I think about my own lesbian bar history, and I landed in San Francisco and I’d just come out and I would go to this bar on Sundays and it was Ladies’ Day on Sundays. I don’t recall it being about consuming alcohol. It wasn’t about that, the bar for me. But, on an unconscious level, I suppose there was this other aspect and I couldn’t wait to get to the bar. There was this other aspect of walking into a place, walking in somewhere, and the people that you see mirror who you are. I think that unequivocal understanding that someone else is like you. It’s a lifeline, really. I was raised very religious, and to me, this was everything. This was everything to me. But, I don’t know if I realized it at the time, but I needed it. I needed that mirror to myself at the time, from people, from those women in that bar.
What’s the state of lesbian bars today?
Well, there aren’t many lesbian bars left. According to the Lesbian Bar Project, which raises money to fund the remaining lesbian bars in the U.S., there are under 25 lesbian bars. I believe that in order to understand why they’ve disappeared, we need to understand why they existed. The lesbian bars are very different today. They are far more inclusive with language. I think when I was going to bars, there were many different identities and ways of being there, but they just weren’t spoken about. Or, if they were, it wasn’t foregrounded by that. I think bars were more foregrounded by desire, at least when I was coming up. Now, language is there, and inclusivity is there at the forefront, and I think that’s really great. I think that’s wonderful. Sometimes, I wonder if we need the term lesbian bar anymore if we need lesbian bar anymore.
It’s interesting to think about. I think also, I’ve noticed that the intergenerational aspect of bars when I was coming up is not there anymore. I remember going to early bars and I would talk to the older dykes about how to shoot pool and how to be and whatever, and there was a lot of communication between generations, and that’s not the case anymore. That’s to do with the online world. A lot of my older friends have wonderful, amazing relationships online and they don’t need to go to the bar. So, it’s not a bad thing, it’s just different. The bars are very different today.
What will someone experience when they enter L-BAR?
Inside L-BAR, you will be presented with a world, I call it a lesbian story world. That world has loads of cities that you can click into, and when you do, you’ll find bars, lesbian bars, presented to you. These bars all actually existed. They’re from 1925 through 2005. Now, I made these bars, they’re digital art interpretations, I made them based on oral histories from former bar owners and bar patrons. So, you can also hear those interviews inside the space. You can meet friends there or make new ones, sit at a bar stool and listen to people like Joan Nestle, Jewelle Gomez, Lillian Faderman to name a few. You can actually hear them inside the bars.
What do you think this project represents now?
I think this project represents a living archive. I think it offers a way to look at history differently by being inside of it, by occupying that history, by hearing the stories where that history took place and sitting inside of it and sharing your own story inside of it. I think it’s another way to document and another way to experience one’s self through history.
I think it also shows how important and sacred lesbian bars were for a lot of people, and sacred to our history in terms of identity building and shedding and ways of being in the world.
What’s next for you and L-Bar?
I’ll be moving off of this platform that I use, which is called ohyay, which is amazing. They are shutting down on December 31st, so L-Bar will also shut down. I’m currently applying for grants and looking for funding to move the project somewhere else. I’m also making a documentary about lesbian bar history.
What advice do you have for someone who is trying to create a sacred experience whether it’s through the metaverse or through a brick-and-mortar environment?
I think it’s important, in whatever you do, whatever you create, to make it personal, make it full of your heart, because I think people are going to disagree with you and they’re not going to like what you have to say, and that encourages conversation. I believe in the conversation. I believe in difference, and I think that is what sustainable business is. I don’t think it’s pleasing everybody. I think it’s actually a conversation.
A lobby group backed by Elon Musk and associated with a controversial ideology popular among tech billionaires is fighting to prevent killer robots from terminating humanity, and it’s taken hold of Europe’s Artificial Intelligence Act to do so.
The Future of Life Institute (FLI) has over the past year made itself a force of influence on some of the AI Act’s most contentious elements. Despite the group’s links to Silicon Valley, Big Tech giants like Google and Microsoft have found themselves on the losing side of FLI’s arguments.
In the EU bubble, the arrival of a group whose actions are colored by fear of AI-triggered catastrophe rather than run-of-the-mill consumer protection concerns was received like a spaceship alighting in the Schuman roundabout. Some worry that the institute embodies a techbro-ish anxiety about low-probability threats that could divert attention from more immediate problems. But most agree that during its time in Brussels, the FLI has been effective.
“They’re rather pragmatic and they have legal and technical expertise,” said Kai Zenner, a digital policy adviser to center-right MEP Axel Voss, who works on the AI Act. “They’re sometimes a bit too worried about technology, but they raise a lot of good points.”
Launched in 2014 by MIT academic Max Tegmark and backed by tech grandees including Musk, Skype’s Jaan Tallinn, and crypto wunderkind Vitalik Buterin, FLI is a nonprofit devoted to grappling with “existential risks” — events able to wipe out or doom humankind. It counts other hot shots like actors Morgan Freeman and Alan Alda and renowned scientists Martin (Lord) Rees and Nick Bostrom among its external advisers.
Chief among those menaces — and FLI’s priorities — is artificial intelligence running amok.
“We’ve seen plane crashes because an autopilot couldn’t be overruled. We’ve seen a storming of the U.S. Capitol because an algorithm was trained to maximize engagement. These are AI safety failures today — as these systems become more powerful, harms might become worse,” Mark Brakel, FLI director of European policy, said in an interview.
But the lobby group faces two PR problems. First, Musk, its most famous backer, is at the center of a storm since he started mass firings at Twitter as its new owner, catching the eye of regulators, too. Musk’s controversies could cause lawmakers to get skittish about talking to FLI. Second, the group’s connections to a set of beliefs known as effective altruism are raising eyebrows: The ideology faces a reckoning and is most recently being blamed as a driving force behind the scandal around cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which has unleashed financial carnage.
How FLI pierced the bubble
The arrival of a lobby group fighting off extinction, misaligned artificial intelligence and killer robots was bound to be refreshing to otherwise snoozy Brussels policymaking.
FLI’s Brussels office opened in mid-2021, as discussions about the European Commission’s AI Act proposal were kicking off.
“We would prefer AI to be developed in Europe, where there will be regulations in place,” Brakel said. “The hope is that people take inspiration from the EU.”
A former diplomat, the Dutch-born Brakel joined the institute in May 2021. He chose to work in AI policy as a field that was both impactful and underserved. Policy researcher Risto Uuk joined him two months later. A skilled digital operator — he publishes his analyses and newsletter from the domain artificialintelligenceact.eu — Uuk had previously done AI research for the Commission and the World Economic Forum. He joined FLI out of philosophical affinity: like Tegmark, Uuk subscribes to the tenets of effective altruism, a value system prescribing the use of hard evidence to decide how to benefit the largest number of people.
Since starting in Brussels, the institute’s three-person team (with help from Tegmark and others, including law firm Dentons) has deftly spearheaded lobbying efforts on little-known AI issues.
Elon Musk is one of the Future of Life Institute’s most prominent backers | Carina Johansen/NTB/AFP via Getty Images
Exhibit A: general-purpose AI — software like speech-recognition or image-generating tools used in a vast array of contexts and sometimes affected by biases and dangerous inaccuracies (for instance, in medical settings). General-purpose AI was not mentioned in the Commission’s proposal, but wended its way into the EU Council’s final text and is guaranteed to feature in Parliament’s position.
“We came out and said, ‘There’s this new class of AI — general-purpose AI systems — and the AI Act doesn’t consider them whatsoever. You should worry about this,’” Brakel said. “This was not on anyone’s radar. Now it is.”
The group is also playing on European fears of technological domination by the U.S. and China. “General-purpose AI systems are built mainly in the U.S. and China, and that could harm innovation in Europe, if you don’t ensure they abide by some requirements,” Brakel said, adding this argument resonated with center-right lawmakers with whom he recently met.
Another of FLI’s hobbyhorses is outlawing AI able to manipulate people’s behavior. The original proposal bans manipulative AI, but that is limited to “subliminal” techniques — which Brakel thinks would create loopholes.
But the AI Act’s co-rapporteur, Romanian Renew lawmaker Dragoș Tudorache, is now pushing to make the ban more comprehensive. “If that amendment goes through, we would be a lot happier than we are with the current text,” Brakel said.
So smart it made crypto crash
While the group’s input on key provisions in the AI bill was welcomed, many in Brussels’ establishment look askance at its worldview.
Tegmark and other FLI backers adhere to what’s referred to as effective altruism (or EA). A strand of utilitarianism codified by philosopher William MacAskill — whose work Musk called “a close match for my philosophy” — EA dictates that one should better the lives of as many people as possible, using a rationalist fact-based approach. At a basic level, that means donating big chunks of one’s income to competent charities. A more radical, long-termist strand of effective altruism demands that one strive to minimize risks able to kill off a lot of people — and especially future people, who will greatly outnumber existing ones. That means that preventing the potential rise of an AI whose values clash with humankind’s well-being should be at the top of one’s list of concerns.
A critical take on FLI is that it is furthering thisinterpretation of the so-called effective altruism agenda, one supposedly uninterested in the world’s current ills — such as racism, sexism and hunger — and focused on sci-fi threats to yet-to-be-born folks. Timnit Gebru, an AI researcher whose acrimonious exit from Google made headlines in 2020, has lambasted FLI on Twitter, voicing “huge concerns” about it.
“They are backed by billionaires including Elon Musk — that already should make people suspicious,” Gebru said in an interview. “The entire field around AI safety is made up of so many ‘institutes’ and companies billionaires pump money into. But their concept of AI safety has nothing to do with current harms towards marginalized groups — they want to reorient the entire conversation into preventing this AI apocalypse.”
Effective altruism’s reputation has taken a hit in recent weeks after the fall of FTX, a bankrupt exchange that lost at least $1 billion in customers’ cryptocurrency assets. Its disgraced CEO Sam Bankman-Fried used to be one of EA’s darlings, talking in interviews about his plan to make bazillions and give them to charity. As FTX crumbled, commentators argued that Effective Altruism ideology led Bankman-Fried to cut corners and rationalize his recklessness.
Both MacAskill and FLI donor Buterin defended EA on Twitter, saying that Bankman-Fried’s actions contrasted with the philosophy’s tenets. “Automatically downgrading every single thing SBF believed in is an error,” wrote Buterin, who invented the Ethereum blockchain, and bankrolls FLI’s scholarship for AI existential risk research.
Brakel said that the FLI and EA were two distinct things, and FLI’s advocacy was focused on present problems, from biased software to autonomous weapons, e.g. at the United Nations level. “Do we spend a lot of time thinking about what the world would look like in 400 years? No,” he said. (Neither Brakel nor the FLI’s EU representative, Claudia Prettner, call themselves effective altruists.)
Californian ideology
Another critique of FLI’s efforts to stave off evil AI argues that they obscure a techno-utopian drive to develop benevolent human-level AI. At a 2017 conference, FLI advisers — including Musk, Tegmark and Skype’s Tallinn — debated the likelihood and the desirability of smarter-than-human AI. Most panelists deemed “superintelligence” bound to happen; half of them deemed it desirable. The conference’s output was a series of (fairly moderate) guidelines on developing beneficial AI, which Brakel cited as one of FLI’s foundational documents.
That techno-optimism led Emile P. Torres, a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy who used to collaborate with FLI, to ultimately turn against the organization. “None of them seem to consider that maybe we should explore some kind of moratorium,” Torres said. Raising such points with an FLI staffer, Torres said, led to a sort of excommunication. (Torres’s articles have been taken down from FLI’s website.)
Within Brussels, the worry is that going ahead, FLI might change course from its current down-to-earth incarnation and steer the AI debate toward far-flung scenarios. “When discussing AI at the EU level, we wanted to draw a clear distinction between boring and concrete AI systems and sci-fi questions,” said Daniel Leufer, a lobbyist with digital rights NGO Access Now. “When earlier EU discussions on AI regulation happened, there were no organizations in Brussels placing focus on topics like superintelligence — it’s good that the debate didn’t go in that direction.”
Those who regard the FLI as the spawn of Californian futurism point to its board and its wallet. Besides Musk, Tallinn and Tegmark, donors and advisers include researchers from Google and OpenAI, Meta co-founder Dustin Moskovitz’s Open Philanthropy, the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (which in turn has received funding from FTX) and actor Morgan Freeman.
In 2020 most of FLI’s global funding ($276,000 out of $482,479) came from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a charity favored by tech bigwigs like Mark Zuckerberg; 2021 accounts haven’t been released yet.
Brakel denied that the FLI is cozy with Silicon Valley, saying that the organization’s work on general-purpose AI made life harder for tech companies. Brakel said he had never spoken to Musk. Tegmark, meanwhile, is in regular touch with the members of the scientific advisory board, which includes Musk.
In Brakel’s opinion, what the FLI is doing is akin to early-day climate activism. “We currently see the warmest October ever. We worry about it today, but we also worry about the impact in 80 years’ time,” he said last month. “[There] are AI safety failures today — and as these systems become more powerful, the harms might become worse.”
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Since the inception of organized commerce, centralized financial systems have dominated the market, generally operating as a black box in the eyes of their customers. Aside from a lack of transparency, they have conducted business in a monopolistic manner, building empires along the way by simply serving as an intermediary.
However, as the next iteration of the internet unfolds, these conventional economic and financial systems are being reimagined like never before. With this next-gen internet, known as Web3, concepts such as blockchain, cryptocurrency and decentralization are making rapid headway into the mainstream economy. This paradigm shift marks the advent of a new commerce arena that can fundamentally restructure our global financial system as we know it today, making it a more transparent, inclusive and safe place to transact. Below are five examples of how blockchain can improve and replace legacy financial systems that we have grown so heavily reliant upon today as a society.
Trade finance is a foundational part of the global financial system to mitigate risks, broaden credit and ensure that importers and exporters can engage in cross-border trade. Like most industries, trade finance suffers from logistical bottlenecks stemming from old, antiquated manual documentation systems. For example, physical letters of credit are often still issued and transferred between various intermediaries to ensure payment.
The versatile nature of blockchain can enable exceptional support for international trade transactions that would otherwise be far too costly due to trade and documentation processes. By storing and securing these processes on-chain (on the blockchain), companies can digitally prove transaction details such as country of origin and product information in a reliable, cost-efficient method. This would drastically increase trust between exporters and importers in the marketplace on the strength of exceptional transparency and security of data. Further, this could mitigate the most significant risks present to trade parties today, including discrepancies in documentation and oversight surrounding the flow of goods, among various other uncertainties.
To onboard customers, TradFi (traditional finance) institutions need to verify their identity in a process called “Know Your Customer” or “KYC,” which requires customers to submit personal information such as their passport, driver’s license and various proof documents. TradFi systems take an average of 24 days on this KYC process, resulting in a terrible customer experience and reducing user retention rate. Banks store customer information on centralized systems, making that data vulnerable to various hacks.
Conversely, customers could upload their KYC information to a blockchain just once and grant permission for institutional access on an ongoing basis. The KYC process could be executed in just a few seconds by storing KYC information on-chain as a “Decentralized Identity” or DID. Additionally, financial institutions would no longer be responsible for the long-term security of customer data, which would decrease costs and liability.
3. Settlement infrastructure
Today, transferring funds across the globe is a logistical nightmare. A simple bank transfer from one country to another must pass through a cumbersome set of intermediaries, ranging from custodial services to correspondent banks before it reaches its destination. Each intermediary adds its costs, increasing the processing time and introducing another security risk. On top of all this, the two account balances have to be reconciled across a complex, fragmented financial system.
In contrast, institutions could leverage blockchain technology to serve as a decentralized ledger to securely keep track of all transactions. This single source of truth could effectively eliminate the network of intermediaries used today by allowing for the settlement of transactions directly on-chain — a 10x improvement over SWIFT. Further, this could allow for “atomic” transactions that clear and settle instantaneously with a verified payment, thus eliminating the multi-day transfer time on international transfers and 24-hour transfer time for domestic transfers imposed by financial service providers.
4. Modernized bookkeeping
TradFi institutions such as Mastercard, JP Morgan and Blackrock handle massive amounts of sensitive financial data daily that needs to be transferred, reviewed and audited. Today, it is costly and difficult to maintain and reconcile ledgers with absolute certainty securely.
Instead, institutions can post this data to a private blockchain which would fundamentally improve internal processes by allowing the flow of information in a chronological, immutable and transparent manner. This could drastically improve security due to the traceability feature of the blockchain that can help detect fraud and develop a credible audit trail.
Today, banks offer a negligible 0.21% APY interest on customers’ savings accounts. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, banks are making significantly more interest in customers’ money, keeping the lions share of profits earned.
On the other hand, blockchain is predicated on creating a user-first market. When users instead place their savings in blockchain applications such as Aave or Compound, they can earn 8-15% APY or more in some cases.
One of the primary reasons people have purchased cryptocurrency to date is to combat the rampant inflation that most countries face. Today, the global inflation average is a staggering 8.8% and almost certainly growing. With inflation far outpacing the APY provided by banks, people have little choice but to find better alternatives or watch their money dwindle.
For both reasons, the general public will likely transfer more of their savings into crypto in the long term, decreasing savings stored in banks and ultimately leading to a decline in TradFi revenues.
Conclusion
Many expect blockchain to replace the TradFi industry altogether. Others believe blockchain technology will simply serve as supplementary infrastructure to existing TradFi systems. Overall, it remains to be seen precisely how and to what extent the finance industry will embrace blockchain technology. However, one thing is sure; blockchain will bring about a new era of transparency, fairness and safety to finance.
This is an opinion editorial by Erik Dale, host of the “Bitcoin For Breakfast” podcast.
While we are far from harmless, Bitcoiners are arguably some of the most peaceful people on earth. Initiating violence is antithetical to Bitcoin both as a store of value and as a store of values. And the network does an excellent job at defending itself through its decentralization. No army needed.
And I certainly don’t want any confusion with the “XRP Army” or the like.
Yet, with fiat nukes directed at London, Moscow and Berlin, our fiat overlords enriching themselves faster than late medieval Popes and our fiat future promising a level of censorship and surveillance the Gestapo never dreamed about, stacking sats may be considered as our only resistance.
Decentralized Resistance
Of course, the fastest way to grow a modern army is to be invaded by Russia, but I want to share some lessons from one of the most successful examples of decentralized resistance the world has ever seen.
A movement born in the wake of a disruptive communications technology that allowed information to be copied and spread at an unimaginable speed.
An innovation created to overcome the corruption and inefficiency of institutions which had outlived their usefulness.
An idea which survived all onslaughts, from brutal internal persecution to decades of continental war.
I’m not talking about Bitcoin.
I want to share seven lessons we can learn from late-medieval Bitcoiners who went through a similar Reformation:
It is the end of the world.
Copy everything.
Make it local for plebs.
OPSEC matters.
Create your own ecosystem.
Open-source it.
Die on this hill.
The End Of The World
The late 15th century in Europe was a weird, Matrix-like experience.
Imagine being Neo, walking through the streets of Amsterdam in, say 1492 (to make it relatable to our friends from across the Atlantic). What do you see?
It’s a world where almost every aspect of life is dominated by a single set of institutions that are involved in all important life transitions, provide practically all welfare and education and even decide what is heretical misinformation and who is qualified to access the truth.
Get it?
To most people around us, the world we’re ending is the only one they have ever known. Perhaps even more so in a world as old as Europe. Many of them will fight us to keep it going. Safe to say, you can’t just go around unplugging people from the Matrix willy-nilly.
Start by talking to the people most likely to listen in the present and the least likely to hurt you in the future: your family and friends.
Copy Everything, Everywhere
Being a censor in 1492 must have been a maddening experience though.
Since Johannes Gutenberg became the first person to figure out how to connect his printer to Wi-Fi, things have gotten really out of hand. By 1492, most major European countries were riddled with hipster print shops, at least 25 of them just in the Netherlands.
While the consequences of this were not immediately apparent — like the internet in the ‘90s — it basically enabled a prototype of an immutable public ledger by radically increasing the cost of manipulating or repressing information.
What used to get done with a letter from the Pope now required a whole damn inquisition.
Clearly, late medieval bitcoiners would all agree: run your own node!
Make It Local For Plebs
The greatest weakness of the powerful is always their disdain and distrust in ordinary people.
Imagine living in a world where only officially accredited people can legitimately interpret the truth, written in a language that’s incomprehensible to anyone who has not been brainwashed by the same institutions. It’s a huge stretch of the imagination.
In conditions like this, the truth becomes a crown in the gutter. When Martin Luther translated the Bible into vernacular German and at the same time rejected that the Church was necessary to read it, he simply picked it up and made it local.
Trust that anyone can have a relationship with the truth if you make it available to them. Make some memes, write an op ed, start a podcast, translate a book!
OPSEC Matters
Luther probably didn’t intend to spend 300 days hiding in the attic of Wartburg Castle, but he totally doxxed himself.
While the inquisition had existed in various forms for hundreds of years, it was radicalized in response to the printing press and only became really cruel for a period after the Reformation.
Operations security (OPSEC) matters and institutions that seem benign today may turn on you tomorrow.
This lesson is pretty simple: Make sure your bitcoin is not connected to your identity through know-your-customer exchanges (non-KYC), never tell anyone how much bitcoin you own and take steps to protect your anonymity when you can.
Create Your Own Ecosystem
Let’s have a show of hands. Who has used Bitcoin before? Who has used Lightning before? Who runs their own node? Who has been to El Salvador?
The first princes to stand up for the reformation were Catholics. They had their own selfish reasons for breaking with the Church. By inviting in an idea whose time had come, they fundamentally transformed their realms in ways that are still highly visible today.
It is no coincidence that the wealthiest and most successful countries in Europe today are in northern Europe, as they have been for centuries now.
So if you believe, as I do, that Bitcoin is a fork in the road for freedom and prosperity, it is as morally incumbent upon us to spread local adoption as it is for a Christian to save your soul.
Organize or attend meetups, teach your hairdresser about bitcoin, offer to pay people back over Lightning.
And if that doesn’t work, run to somewhere it does.
Make It Open-Source
Translating and distributing the Bible while rejecting the Church as necessary for individuals to interpret it, basically open-sourced the Reformation.
While some ran with the open-sourced Bible and made themselves “Supreme Head of the Church of England,” to this day there are basically as many forks of the Reformation as there are congregations.
This means there is no single point of failure, and the large variety of faith and action made the Reformation far more antifragile than the monolithic superstructure is sought to challenge.
Crushing it became an impossible game of whack-a-mole.
Create communities with Bitcoiners, build the citadel you’ve been dreaming about and bring your knowledge and perspective on bitcoin to the table.
Make Bitcoin a hydra.
Die On This Hill
The curious thing about Jesus is that he could have cut the whole thing short at any time, but he didn’t.
He went to a gruesome end, not knowing if his sacrifice would make a difference. He didn’t blame God, the government or his fellow man for what was happening. He carried his own cross and his own suffering.
He did this because of something we now know to be mathematically true, both on an individual and a societal level: The more people are willing to suffer for the sins of others, the less sin there will be for everyone to suffer for.
Jesus literally invented the meme: I will die on this hill.
Conclusion
There is a range of ideas, tools and communities that all make up the intellectual, technological and social arsenal of Bitcoin. Whether you prefer to think of Bitcoin as a way to save our freedoms, our economy or our climate, I hope I’ve helped you zoom out and inspired you to think about how you can arm yourself and those around you for the decades ahead.
This is a guest post by Erik Dale. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The search fund model is a method of investing that enables entrepreneurs to take a unique path to business ownership. It is structured to help searchers (entrepreneurs who engage in the search fund model) acquire, operate and scale an existing business instead of building one from scratch.
By offering a rapid path to business ownership, and CEO status, search funds have created a new breed of entrepreneur — those who embrace the notion of plug-and-play.
A critical factor in the search fund equation is the economic upside searchers could see for their efforts. Historically, this has meant a 32.6 % internal rate of return and a 5.5x multiple on invested capital.
With competition brewing in the form of fellow searchers and even some traditional private equity funds showing interest in acquiring smaller businesses, how do searchers achieve their edge? They look towards combining two or more companies with synergies in size, geographic coverage, key personnel or supply-chain advantages — in other words, a consolidation.
Programmatic mergers and acquisitions (M&A), according to McKinsey, “remains the least risky approach with the smallest deviation in performance and the largest share of companies that generate positive excess total returns to shareholders (65%)” when compared to large one-off transactions, selective deals or organic growth.
What does this mean for searchers competing at the smaller end of the enterprise spectrum? It represents an opportunity to bring the tailwinds of M&A-based growth further downstream, and to industries it has yet to touch.
However, in a survey of 185Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) businesses purchased by Harvard Business School graduates in the past decade, only 8% have implemented a consolidation strategy of buying multiple businesses in the same industry vertical.
Challenges
The timeline and structure of search acquisitions are often limited to two years. Additionally, searchers are often freshly minted MBAs with limited operational and M&A execution experience, which makes adding an additional business target to acquire a daunting task. However, the benefits vastly outweigh the possible downside.
With this business strategy inherently being an operational play, key considerations when looking for a second (or more) target could include financial and further operational synergies in the form of:
Capital structure improvements from the combined larger size of the businesses
Ability to take on additional debt at a lower rate
Capital intensity reduction
Shared fixed assets, working capital and capital expenditures
Margin expansion from greater purchasing power and unit economics
Valuation multiple arbitrage
In a similar vein to “greater than the sum of its parts,” businesses when combined, often command a higher value than if they were to stand alone
With that, what can searchers do to further de-risk a search consolidation? The answer to this lies in a refined thesis. Searchers with a background operating in a specific industry (i.e., healthcare) have an inherent advantage in launching a search with a focused thesis.
Finding an industry to commit to can be challenging for those with multiple passions. However, the following markers could indicate the right fit:
Fragmented industry landscape (i.e., medical, dental, and veterinarian practices)
Industries in which business owners primarily operate a single entity or location
Mature and standardized industry operations
Businesses that have relied on tried and tested practices over the years
A large number of companies
Many businesses serve a similar customer profile but in different geographies
A large number of companies within the target enterprise value of the fund
Understanding the average value of a business in a target industry can help filter out opportunities that are either too small or too large
Historically stable growth and sustainable profit margins
Businesses that have operated profitably for many years and serve customers who have (if B2B based)
Picking a business
Zooming in a layer deeper, companies characteristic of success in the search consolidation model touch on a combination of the following elements:
Competitive industry advantage
intellectual property, proprietary software, etc.
Seller motivated to exit
retirement, change in a succession plan, career transition, etc.
geographic expansion, marketing strategy, recruiting key personnel, etc.
Alignment with the financial mandate of the search fund
Viable exit vision over a five to seven-year horizon
Eight percent is a small but growing fraction of the ETA community that has chosen to tread the path of consolidation. As more seasoned operators and mid-career searchers get involved, the odds of a consolidation strategy becoming more commonplace is only set to grow. This next wave of search fund entrepreneurs could bring revolutionary methods in creative financing, operating and growing businesses — a win-win for budding entrepreneurs and seasoned operators alike!
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
As business owners, many of us like to create a clear boundary between our personal and professional affairs. And with good reason! It’s not healthy to intertwine the two in a lot of ways. However, it’s also unhealthy to consider them to be oil and water.
Whether you like it or not, your business is an extension of you. Your personal beliefs about money could hold your business back without you even knowing it.
“Waste not, want not”
“Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves”
We’re drip-fed these lines over our formative years, usually with good intent. It’s hard to see at the moment how these words of ‘wisdom’ could do any harm…but their cumulative effect can have a tremendous stunting effect on your growth as an entrepreneur.
Remember that these beliefs take root in your subconscious long before you set foot on the professional stage. When you start with nothing to lose and everything to gain, these messages of prudence and conservation don’t have much of a foothold.
After all: what is there to conserve?
But as you grow and succeed, you’ll find yourself placing more and more restrictions on what you do with your capital — setting the thresholds for investing ever further ahead, convinced that you’ll finally be ready to take that leap by the next one.
But you never do.
So here are four beliefs about money that you might hold and could be holding your business back.
It’s very easy to be convinced of the need to conserve your capital reserves because it could all be gone tomorrow, and you’ll need the liquidity.
That’s fair and by no means unreasonable, especially given the current geopolitical situation. As a responsible business owner, you want to ensure you’ve covered your bases should the worst come to the worst. You have employees with mouths to feed, after all.
However, you can convince yourself of this being the case at any time, and it’s a false economy. Think about it for a moment. You’re a smart person; you know how money works. If you leave your cash in an account, it will be eroded by inflation and taxes. It needs to be put to work to grow.
The responsible thing to do is to find diverse avenues of investment to grow that money.
2. I can’t increase my prices, or I’ll lose my clients
This is one that an awful lot of business advisors speak on, but yet somehow, it just doesn’t get through. All of the logic and intellectualizing in the world can’t convince us that it’s the right course of action. But it is!
I’m not saying to hike your prices every week. But you change your mindset about regular price rises, even just to keep pace with inflation!
You also need to do it to optimize your client base. You’ve doubtlessly heard of the Pareto or “80/20” principle. This applies to your clients in a big way. I guarantee you that, within a small margin of error, 80% of your turnover comes from 20% of your clients, which means that you are spending 80% of your resources on 20% of them!
Here’s the thing, though: it’s not a clear dividing line.
When you put your prices up, it’s not like you’ll lose 80% of your client base, just like that! Many of them will be brought into the top 20%. Those that will, will be more than you think and certainly will negate any revenue lost, or resources expended on, those that represent the bottom half. Double the number of clients in that 20% bracket; you’ll have 160% of the revenue for less than half the work!
Risk is a four-letter word. The thing is… without risk; you will not achieve your business goals. You have to embrace it as a factor in what you’re doing. But risk in and of itself isn’t necessarily a good thing.
We’re not talking about throwing yourself to the wolves needlessly. But you need to find that mindset where you’re comfortable “taking a punt” (as we Brits say).
Calculated risk is good, but don’t get too wound up in the minutia. With any new venture or endeavor; there comes a jumping-off point. It’s a time to let go of the theorizing, stop trying to convince yourself of the certainty of the outcome and take the leap of faith.
If you’re getting yourself bound up with risk assessments and market fluctuations, just remember that not taking action is a risk in itself.
4. Debt is the last resort
This is probably the best example of a personal belief that, when carried from your personal life to your professional one, can really impede growth.
Consumer debt (i.e., buying consumables using debt) is to be avoided because this is servicing debt on an asset that is losing value — a car, for example, or a washing machine.
But, when leveraged strategically, debt is one of the greatest tools in your arsenal and can increase your value. That’s how rich people get richer! What…did you think that they invested their own money?
Of course not!
They use their wealth and capital to leverage debt and invest that. As long as the return is greater than the interest on the debt: you’re winning and experiencing abundance!
Don’t be afraid of debt in your business. Don’t let it suffocate the happiness and pride in your business. It is most definitely your friend. Awareness is the first step in any problem-solving.
I hope that by bringing these four beliefs about money that could hold your business back to your awareness, you can start to see your role in all this. That alone could be all the change you need to start opening doors to new opportunities for growth.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
FTX today. Celsius and BlockFi yesterday. A seemingly unending upheaval of “crypto giants” who have ultimately failed to protect consumers, breaking trust in the developing world of Web3. Why does this keep happening, and will there be more?
First, the “why?” and then “who’s next?” (the short answer is ‘yes’ there will be more).
Why do these cryptocurrency giants keep falling apart? The answer is a combination of greed and incompetence on the part of crypto exchanges and lenders combined with improper (or lack of) regulation. It all comes down to “balance sheet assets.”
In the US, we see crypto exchanges and others obtaining simple money-transmitter licenses and holding investor assets (cash, crypto, securities, NFTs, etc.) on their balance sheets. Offshore, these entities have either no licenses or money-transmitter-type licenses that permit them to hold customer assets on the balance sheet. This means those assets are the exchange’s property (or lender’s) property.
The customer’s assets become unsecured liabilities on that balance sheet. Now, since these are company assets, the company can use those for its benefit. They can lend them, invest them and do other things to juice corporate returns, which can go down in flames. And if a company goes out of business, others may have a superior claim on those assets over investors, including the government (taxes, fines), debt holders, and secured vendors. Customers get whatever might be left — if anything.
In the case of FTX, they are short $10 billion, which means that they made investments with the assets on the balance sheet to try and make money for the company (not the customers.) Then those investments went south, and there aren’t enough assets to cover investor accounts (unsecured liabilities on the balance sheet).
The CEO said, “I’m sorry, I f***’d up,” which is true to the tune of $10 billion but never should have been permitted by regulation in the first place.
Regulated entities that hold customer assets
There are three types of “qualified” custodians — or firms that are regulated and required to take care of their customers:
Trust companies
Banks
Clearing brokers
Trust companies and clearing brokers can NOT hold customer assets on their balance sheets. They must keep them “FBO” (for the benefit of) customers. This means they can not comingle customer cash or other assets with company cash or assets. They have to be segregated. They can not be used or misused. And no third-party creditors have any claim on them.
If a trust company or clearing broker fails, their regulator ensures an orderly transfer of assets to another financial institution. 100% of assets.
Banks can hold customer assets on their balance sheet and invest them in making profits. This includes lending, stocks, bonds, life insurance pre-funds, credit card advances, letters of credit, etc., all using customer assets. If a bank makes terrible investments and fails, then, in this case, the FDIC steps in and makes up the difference between assets on the bank’s balance sheet vs. customer liabilities (up to $250,000).
This is why the FDIC has onerous regulations on what banks can and cannot invest in and how much of their balance sheet they can invest into any particular thing, no matter how good it seems. It is tightly restricted, controlled and regulated.
Clearing brokers generally don’t hold private securities or tokenized assets (including cryptocurrency). There are a variety of deliberate and nuanced regulations that make it impractical for them to do this. Banks can not hold tokenized assets on their balance sheets, only in their trusts. While very few of those have the common forms of cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum), none hold the vast array of cryptocurrency, private securities, real estate interests or tokens representing rewards programs, health care records, event tickets, collectibles, etc. That leaves trust companies as the only qualified custodian.
Money transmitters — a risky regulatory loophole
There is currently a regulatory loophole resulting in billions of dollars in consumer losses. A money transmitter is a state-by-state licensed entity originally intended for firms moving small amounts of cash point-to-point between people (which might temporarily land in the money transmitter’s account).
Money transmitters carry these customer assets on their balance sheet instead of trust companies and clearing brokers who do not. Thus, the crypto industry has leveraged this loophole to get “licenses,” enabling them to hold assets on their balance sheets, and they can do stupid things with other people’s money. The regulation allows for this behavior.
So, who is next?
Ah, the multi-billion dollar question. There will be others. FTX is a giant shoe, as were Celsius and BlockFi. Brace yourself for more. By way of example, let’s talk about Coinbase.
Coinbase issued a statement saying, “a note to the financial statements explains that as of June 2022, Coinbase has taken all customer assets onto its own balance sheet… it still has $12bn of its own and customers’ cash (both on its balance sheet).”
The first thing that hit me when I read that was, “why the heck would they do that?!” They own a trust company, so why wouldn’t they keep all customer cash and crypto at their trust company to ensure it’s safeguarded and protected? Why would they put all those assets on the exchange, which only has money-transmitter licenses?
I can only imagine that they can’t use other people’s money and crypto for their benefit if it’s at the trust company, but only if it’s at the exchange. Maybe there is something else, but I don’t see it. So the natural question is, “what exactly are they doing with those customer assets?” Possibly no different than what FTX was doing, maybe not. Without proper regulation, we can’t know for sure.
They might claim the assets are protected under UCC Article 8. Still, my understanding is that the protection is meant to apply to securities and, even then, attempts to put customer balance sheet liabilities ahead of other creditors on available assets in the event of company failure. It does not prevent the company from using customer cash and assets for its own interests and potentially losing those (like FTX.) So Article 8 wouldn’t matter much even if it is held to be applicable in a disaster scenario.
And others?
Yes, any firm operating as a simple money transmitter, what I call a pseudo-custodian, is capable of doing these things — which is all crypto exchanges that don’t use a trust company, whether their own or independent, all crypto lenders, etc.
I respect the teams at Coinbase, Binance.us, Zero Hash, Bittrex, and other such money transmitters. I have no idea if they’ve used or misused customer assets or done anything intentionally ignorant or wrong. Maybe they are being as safe as they know how. But when you are permitted by lax regulation to use customer assets for your benefit, greed almost always prevails.
How? Easy. If you have cash, crypto, NFTs, or other assets at any of these pseudo-custodians who operate with money-transmitter licenses, get it out of there. Now. Right now. Move it to a qualified custodian or self-custody. If you are a business working to bring crypto, digital assets, or other Web3 initiatives to your customers: only partner with a qualified custodian.
Regulation is (finally) coming. Legislation is coming. We, as an industry, don’t want another Dodd-Frank or Sarbanes-Oxley knee-jerk reaction that overcorrects a problem. The CEO of Fortress Trust, Albert Forkner is going out to work with members of Congress, including Senators Lummis and Gillibrand and Representatives McHenry and Waters, as they craft legislation. They will also work with the SEC, CFTC, CFPB and other government agencies on sensible regulation.
In the meantime, we’re advocating for the states to modify their money-transmitter regulations to immediately retract and cancel licenses from any out-of-state entity other than trust companies, banks and clearing brokers.
Regulation leads to the blue ocean for Web3
Not in the slightest. The tokenization of rewards programs, real estate, healthcare records, insurance receivables, securities, event tickets, estate records, music, film, sports, photography, books, art and everything else electronic in the world is continuing without delay. These things — tokenized — so the blockchain acts as the ledger of record, are not cryptocurrency. Every company has Web3 initiatives, which will utterly transform the world as the internet did beforehand. Blue ocean continues for those in this space working to build for scale.
In this episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” hosts C.J. Wilson and Josh Olszewicz discuss how the “sausage is made” internationally, why there is no pivot coming to save us and how fast food could be the next big winner for investors. Olszewics discussed how many people are coming to the realization of just how much power the Federal Reserve wields, which is much more than people in our generation ever imagined. “We are optimistic that things are going to reverse course and net assets will be saved, which is not the case.”
Everything is laser-focused on inflation right now, which means you are going to see high unemployment, housing mortgages evaporating, auto loans collapsing and consumer debt being at an all-time high. Inflation affects everything.
Wilson and Olszewicz discuss the effects of a credit-based economy. Wilson states, “We live in a country with over $90 trillion in debt and only $9 million in the money supply. This has caused the ice to start thinning, and eventually, someone will fall through the cracks.” Olszewicz continues, “That is the argument for the inability to raise our own government debt interest payments above 5%. It would exceed anything that we could even think about paying and be the single biggest line item other than the defense budget. Politicians often do not think about the impact of the money they are spending now and its potential to increase our future inflation.”
Olszewicz states, “It has only been 14 years since [the Bitcoin] white paper, the network was launched in 2009, and it has had 99.98% uptime. Over time, people age out of the CEO or CIO role and the new generation comes in and sees this as more than just an alternative asset.”
Wilson continues, “Social media platforms are only around 20 years old, which is only a little older than Bitcoin. People are being born now that do not know about how these platforms started, just that they are operational. It is similar in terms of smartphones. Some people forget that there was first Motorola, then Sidekick, and then came the iPhone. We are not even at the iPhone [stage] of Bitcoin yet.”
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Curiosity is a muscle — and that muscle needs to be exercised if you want to be more innovative or deliver on creative work. But as with anything that must be developed or worked on, most of us look for shortcuts. From workouts to productivity tools to grocery shopping … we’re all attracted to time-saving hacks that offer fast results and immediate solutions.
This can happen in creative work when we look for shortcuts or try fast-tracking the process by pulling inspiration from design galleries or others’ websites. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with your team members trying to optimize their time by turning elsewhere for inspiration. Your team should be doing that. Often.
But if that’s all they’re doing — if they’re relying solely on inspiration from others’ work — then they’re stunting their curiosity’s growth. Without a well-developed sense of curiosity, they’ll fail to grow into the brilliant creatives they’re meant to be.
By building your curiosity muscle, you’ll be able to not only ask deeper, more meaningful questions but also ideate ideas more rapidly. How do you develop that muscle? By learning new things. Proactively. You can develop that muscle even more successfully by learning things you’re not familiar with and even exploring ideas you may be uncomfortable with.
Don’t limit your learning and exploration to ideas directly connected to your job. Go outside of your industry to learn new things.
A designer might cultivate their curiosity by learning how to bake and studying the reason why yeast causes bread to rise, why a second rise yields a better loaf and how yeast, baking soda and baking powder are all leavening agents but require very different conditions to cause baked goods to rise.
If you’re a nonprofit exec, you could explore why the tools, techniques and strategies of Six Sigma matter in manufacturing. You could study processes like Toyota‘s production system or the five whys technique. Or you could explore how things relate in different ecosystems. The point is to broaden your curiosity across a variety of disciplines.
The best-kept secret to creativity
So, why does this matter to your creative muscle? Why bother investing so much time and effort into learning ideas so far removed from your creative endeavors? It’s all about getting your reps in.
We live in a world that offers endless opportunities to ponder, discover and investigate ideas. And every time you embrace one of those opportunities, you develop your curiosity. And perhaps more importantly, you create a deeper well of experience to draw on. By soaking in all that new information, you have a broader set of ideas to apply to your current challenges and iterate on. That’s the best-kept secret to cultivating creativity and innovation.
So, how can you and your team develop that curiosity muscle to grow in creativity and innovation? Use these three questions to lead you forward as you grow your curiosity:
“Am I learning something new?” It’s a fairly common question, right? Most people will ask themselves this question a couple of times a year when they’re feeling reflective and introspective. But that’s not enough. The most successful creatives ask themselves this question every day. Whether they’re trying to learn something big over the course of time or simply exposing themselves to new ideas, they are exercising their sense of curiosity about the world every day. Right now, go into your calendar and block off 15 minutes every day to focus on learning something new.
“Am I discovering something new about a topic I already know?” Stay in your career long enough, and you’ll get to a point where you feel like you know a lot. It’s a great feeling, isn’t it? But don’t get comfortable there. Develop the mindset that no matter how much of a subject matter expert you may be, there is always more to learn. Keep an ongoing, ever-growing list of ideas and topics within your industry that you want to grow in. If this is a struggle for you, ask your peers about their career paths and the knowledge gaps they had to overcome.
“What if…?” and “Why not…?” To really level up your creativity muscle, you need to use prompts such as: “What if…?,” “Why not…?,” “I wonder…,” and “What’s stopping us from…?” Be the person who’s always questioning ideas and strategies. The point isn’t to be contrarian, but to cultivate the curiosity your team needs to drive innovation.
If you’ve ever felt limited in your creativity, then asking yourself the questions above will help you do something about it. And if you’ve thought you’re just not creative, well, stop. Because you canmake yourself more creative. Cultivate your curiosity, and you’ll start producing more creative, innovative ideas.
“I wanted to tell a story about African history before slavery,” Manuel Godoy, co-founder of Black Sands Entertainment with his wife Geiszel, says. “[So I wrote] a story about Ancient Egypt and the surrounding areas. And it was amazing — people gravitated toward it because they finally felt included in historical contexts.”
Courtesy of Black Sands Entertainment
The Godoys began Black Sands Entertainment in 2016to draw attention to the characters and stories that so often go unwritten in mainstream media. Now, the comic publisher and media venture boasts dozens of titles that represent the entire diaspora, and young adults are devouring them — just like the Godoys would have, if they’d had the opportunity at their age.
Black Sands stands apart for its dedication to Black history and its commitment to the Black community, but something else has also contributed to its striking success: The Godoys’ status as United States Army veterans.
Ahead of Veterans Day, Entrepreneur sat down with the Godoys to learn how they’ve grown Black Sands from crowdfunding to almost IPO with investments from Kevin Hart and Mark Cuban — and how their Army backgrounds have informed their entrepreneurial journey along the way.
“Momentum is the biggest factor when it comes to raising capital.”
From the start, the Godoys spread the word about their content on social media and set their sights on raising capital. Between 2017 and 2020, Black Sands ran four Kickstarter campaigns and raised $80,000 in total. Then, in 2020, they decided to launch another campaign on WeFunder.
“We basically judged the intent of our biggest followers,” Manuel says of their approach to the 2020 campaign. “We asked them, ‘How much were you planning on investing?’ [Then we said], ‘If you were to invest this much money, we would spend at least 15 minutes talking to you about any questions you have about our company, our financials, etc.'”
The Godoys asked, and their readers answered: They raised $40,000 in those first 24 hours. Ultimately, that campaign brought in $500,000.
“No one wants to be the first investor,” Manuel adds. “But if you already got 300, 400 investors in the first day, everybody’s like, ‘Hey, I’m joining too.’ Momentum is the biggest factor when it comes to raising capital if you’re going through customers.”
And the Godoys have kept up Black Sands’ momentum since those early days, climbing to the top 1% of the Patreon community, raising $2 million in capital and earning more than $2 million in revenue to date.
“We got on stage, pitched our information, and everybody fell in love.”
Earlier this year, the Godoys appeared on Shark Tank to pitch their company.
Shark Tank features Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John and Kevin O’Leary as permanent judges, with Kevin Hart, Emma Grede, Peter Jones, Daniel Lubetzky and Nirva Tolia as recurring guest judges.
The Godoys knew that Hart was going to be one of their judges ahead of time.
“We knew we had to make him fall in love with our content,” Geiszel says. “So we got on stage, pitched our information, and everybody fell in love.”
Initially, the Godoys offered the Sharks a 5% stake in Black Sands for $500,000, with the funds earmarked for animation development and additional titles. But Hart and Cuban countered with a 30% stake for the same investment, citing the media resources that Hart’s production company, HartBeat, could provide as Black Sands expands.
The fact that Black Sands’ Shark Tank deal went through is a testament to its strong business model and the Godoys’ entrepreneurial savvy. Forbesspoke to 74% of the people who were offered deals on the show in seasons one through seven and found that roughly 43% of those agreements didn’t go through — because the Sharks pulled out or changed the terms.
Not only are the Godoys dreaming of an eventual $1 billion IPO, but they’re also envisioning a future where Black Sands’ fans-turned-investors are at the forefront, continuing to hold stock as “their slice of the pie.”
Image credit: Courtesy of Black Sands Entertainment
“Being in the Army taught me how to be an entrepreneur.”
The Godoys’ experiences in the Army have helped lay the foundation for Black Sands’ success.
“Being in the Army taught me how to be an entrepreneur,” Geiszel explains. “In the Army, I was leading a group of 30 soldiers. So it taught me about how to manage a team and run a company, because [it gives] you that discipline and structure you need.”
Manuel agrees, noting that the Army imparts significant leadership experience, even for those lower on the chain of command — because you have to learn how to get things done on time.
Another skill the Army teaches that every founder should have on lock? Inventory.
“You have to know where everything is and how much you have,” Manuel says. “Otherwise, one day you run out, and it takes three months to get the next part. And you’re out of business for three months.”
The Army has given the Godoys essential skills for running a business — and it’s also inspired some of Black Sands’ narratives.
“I’m a war nut,” Manuel says. “I love war, so anything that has to do with strategy, military tactics, logistics, that’s stuff that I put into my writing. I make sure it logistically makes sense that [a particular] battle is happening, and that’s probably why people like the accuracy of the storylines.”
“Veterans always want to choose five different businesses at once. I’m like, ‘No, stick to your favorite.'”
There are many reasons why veterans make excellent entrepreneurs. Manuel notes the benefits they have at their disposal, which can help accelerate their business’s growth.
Still, the Godoys stress it’s important to keep several key things in mind.
First up? Stick to one business idea — and see it through.
“Veterans always want to choose like five different businesses at once,” Geiszel says. “Stick to your favorite, take those military skills, apply them to your everyday business life, and you will succeed. Don’t give up. If you fail, keep going.”
Additionally, you should know exactly who’s buying what you’re selling.
“Find out who your core customer is,” Manuel says. “Don’t worry about what you’re going to make and how you’re going to do all that stuff. Find out who you want to sell to — because once you figure that out, then you can make a product that’s tailored to them.”
Once you have your idea and customer in mind, you have to surround yourself with people who will help you level up.
“Hiring the right team is very important for a business to thrive,” Geiszel says. “And you want to make sure your team is going to be loyal to your company.”
One sure way to cultivate company loyalty? Pay people fairly, raising benefits as the company succeeds — it will make employees feel valued and willing to continue their contribution. Manuel says that Black Sands has people who have been on the team for five or six years.
“We have to champion things that the Black community wants us to champion.”
Above all else, Black Sands is a company that refuses to sacrifice its principles.
Originally, the co-founders wrote and designed all of Black Sands’ comic books by themselves, but they’ve begun allowing other Black creators to write for them as they build their own brands.
Black Sands has also harnessed the power of Kickstarter as part of its larger effort to lift up Black creators and their work. The Godoys recently launched a campaign for Everett Montgomery’s Flame comic series.
Image credit: Courtesy of Black Sands Entertainment
“We are a company that’s dedicated to Black history,” Manuel says. “And that means that we have to champion things that the Black community wants us to champion. We can’t just go out there and be like, ‘Oh, we make comic books, and that’s all we do.’ We have to be involved in social issues and other things that are related. We have to be able to say that we actually are doing something about it.”
Offering salaries in cryptocurrency isn’t new, but it’s becoming more common as companies attempt to lure top talent. In 2017, Japanese internet company, GMO, announced that it would pay part of its employees’ salaries in bitcoin, and it is joined by the likes of SC5, Fairlay and io.
A tremendous 56% of American adults (around 145 million people) own or have previously owned crypto. To offer salaries denominated in cryptocurrency is to appeal to a much wider swath of the population. What’s more, young people are particularly bullish on crypto. A recent survey found that buyers in the Gen Z and millennials buckets make up nearly 94% of all crypto buyers.
Offering cryptocurrency as a payroll option is a way for companies to tap into this enthusiasm and signal that they’re forward-thinking when it comes to new technologies. It’s also a way to attract employees who might be interested in working for a company that is comfortable with and supportive of cryptocurrency.
Paying salaries in cryptocurrency comes with some risks, of course. The value of digital assets can be volatile, and so a worker who is paid in crypto could see his or her earnings fluctuate wildly from month to month. For this reason, it’s important for companies to consider whether they’re prepared to offer salary protection in the form of cash top-ups or other benefits if the value of crypto falls.
Employees may want to get paid in crypto for a number of reasons, from the potential for appreciation to the simple fact that it’s a more convenient way to hold and use digital assets. But regardless of the reasons, companies that want to stay ahead of the curve would do well to consider offering crypto payroll options. It could be the key to attracting and retaining top talent in today’s competitive landscape.
In addition to the ability to attract top talent, there are a number of reasons why paying salaries in cryptocurrency could be beneficial for employers.
For one, it can help companies save on costs. Cryptocurrency transaction fees are generally lower than those associated with traditional payment methods like wire transfers or credit cards, particularly for cross-border payments.
In addition, crypto payroll can help firms hedge against currency risk. If a company pays its employees in a foreign currency, it is exposed to the risk that the value of that currency will decline relative to the company’s home currency. By paying salaries in cryptocurrency or stablecoins like USDT, companies can hedge against this risk. For example, the value of the Japanese Yen dropped over 20% against the U.S. dollar (or the stablecoin equivalent, USDT) this year.
Last but not least, crypto payroll can give companies a competitive edge when it comes to speed and efficiency. Cryptocurrency transactions are generally much faster than traditional payments, which means employees can get access to their earnings more quickly. And because digital assets can be stored and used electronically, there’s no need for paper records or checks (which can often get lost or delayed in the mail) — everything is stored securely on the blockchain.
If you’re interested in offering crypto payroll to your employees, there are a few things you need to consider.
First, you’ll need to decide which cryptocurrency or cryptocurrencies you want to use. There are thousands of different digital assets in existence, so it’s important to do your research and consider what makes the most sense for your company.
For example, if you want to offer employees the ability to hold and use their earnings easily, you might want to consider a major cryptocurrency like bitcoin or Ethereum. If you’re more interested in hedging against currency risk, a stablecoin like USDT could be a good choice.
Once you’ve selected a cryptocurrency, you’ll need to set up a way to pay salaries in that currency. The naive approach would be to simply ask employees to provide you with their cryptocurrency wallet address and manually transfer the appropriate amount each month. But this is time-consuming and exposes you to the risk of human error.
Another option is to use a crypto payroll service. This not only saves you time and reduces the risk of error, but it also makes it easy for employees to receive their earnings directly into their own wallets or exchange them for other currencies if they so choose.
Ultimately, offering crypto payroll is a way to stay ahead of the curve and attract top talent. If you’re interested in doing so, there are a number of things you need to consider. But with the right preparation, it could be a major competitive advantage for your business.
Business success boils down to talent. What must company leaders do to create a future-ready … [+] workforce? The answer can be found in each of these five paths.
getty
What do all winning business strategies have in common? A solid workforce strategy; after all, it takes talent to execute business strategy. A recent PWC report suggests that four forces shape workforce strategy. And each of these forces points directly to one thing–talent management.
PWC maintains that these four forces—specialization, scarcity, rivalry and humanity—are at the heart of everything a company is and does. And together, they create a framework weaving together business and workforce strategy, culture and technology.
The Four Forces
Specialization is understanding current and future talent needs and ensuring the acquisition and development needed to deliver.
Scarcity is similar as it reflects the lack of, or the competition for, talent and opportunity.
Rivalry reflects engaging and leveraging talent to increase performance and business success across the industry.
Humanity is the earnest effort to connect with talent in a way that appeals to humanitarian interests and the greater good.
If business success boils down to these four forces, all of which focus on talent, what must companies do to create a future-ready workforce?
They must attract, retain and engage talent.
Five Strategies for a Future-Ready Workforce
Put employees first. Do this by understanding what they value and want from their work experience. And the best way to know that is by asking–not just once, but repeatedly. Ask candidates while they are interviewing. Ask new employees again during onboarding. Have mentors, managers and colleagues ask of themselves and each other. Doing so shows caring and builds trust, and trust is critical when it comes to employee surveys requesting open and honest feedback. Employees who are practiced at asking and answering questions around values and what they expect from their workplace will find it easier to provide meaningful answers. And, with feedback, leaders can strategize on delivering meaningful responses that connect with employee values.
Invest in talent. Building on understanding what an employee wants from their work experience means understanding how they want to develop personally and professionally. The PWC report suggests leaders create paths for relevant learning and development. Know how to identify candidates without bias for upskilling. Finally, PWC suggests knowing how to organize, structure and incentivize an increasingly specialized workforce to come together and deliver better customer experiences, higher productivity and other outcomes that matter.
Ensure diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) to enhance a culture more conducive to belonging. DEI are created when a company takes mindful, deliberate actions. It’s the collective result of proactive, authentic measures over time that creates an environment welcoming everyones’ contribution. However, belonging is different because a company cannot create it. The individual must experience it. In other words, belonging is an internal response to an external environment. PWC writes that if you make your workforce more diverse and inclusive—across all elements of the human experience and identity—you help society while helping address two of the four forces: the challenges of specialization and scarcity.
Helping employees see how their work contributes to business success. PWC writes that “humanity requires you to think deeply about your company’s culture, with a view to connecting (or reconnecting) people with your organization’s purpose and making clear to them how they may tangibly contribute to it. When the company’s purpose resonates with people, and they see clearly how they further it, not only are they more likely to stay (which could help with any of the other three forces), but they tend to be more engaged—and productive.” This is especially important for individual contributors and employees who are not direct-facing with the customer.
Reward performance, innovation, teamwork and constructive pushback. Yes, reward constructive pushback because that’s how companies avoid mistakes such as investing in the wrong software or chasing a business objective based on a flawed process. Pushback is preventative–even though it can be painful. In inclusive organizations, employees will be more forthcoming. Once you recognize and reward constructive pushback, especially when the input results in better people and business outcomes, it must be rewarded. The reward is a great incentive; good leaders should always consider how best to recognize and reward their people.
Keeping people strategies top of mind in this ever-changing workspace will help ensure business success. Understanding key workplace demographics is an integral part of the process, and that often falls onto HR and the DEI staff to keep leaders informed. According to PWC, demographic trends help determine how scarce or plentiful workers are—and have substantial economic and social implications. It seems obvious, but how many leaders understand that, for example, the largest talent pool can be found in ages 65 and older? And, that a large percentage of more senior talent want and need to work?
Understanding demographic trends like this, combined with authentic actions company leaders take to put employees first, will help circumvent the challenges presented by the four forces of specialization, scarcity, rivalry and humanity. More importantly, doing so will position a company for a future-ready workforce.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
“You can’t take it with you” — how often have you heard that?
It’s an oft-abused phrase employed, usually within the context of a person amassing wealth or assets beyond their needs. What it speaks to is intent, and that’s what building multi-generational wealth is all about: growing your assets to pass them on to future generations.
We’re not just talking about money and other valuable items, though. There’s far more to it than that.
Right now, in the West and throughout the world, we’re experiencing deep financial uncertainty. Especially since the crash of 2008, we’ve been on an increasingly fast treadmill of debt.
Most Millennials and Generation Z in America identified home ownership as the prime marker for success. Increasingly, though, they are being priced out of the housing market altogether. Two-thirds of non-homeowners cited affordability as why they didn’t own their own home.
There are, of course, several factors that have gone into this situation. It boils down to a total lack of focus on building generational wealth. Now we could lay that at the feet of consumerism; far too much emphasis on instant gratification, not enough on the journey of life and deferred gratification for greater future reward.
Certainly, that’s true to an extent. We buy on credit now more than ever (I’ll get to why that’s bad…but not why you think, shortly). We seek shortcuts and outcomes rather than journeys and experiences. But as with everything in life: the answer lies in more than one factor.
Right now, we’re experiencing the perfect storm of destabilizing geopolitics, recessions, war and cultural norms that don’t favor multi-generational wealth.
We’ve cultivated this sense of wealth being about what you can demonstrate to others. It’s all about “flex” culture (as the kids say). But this belies the true nature of what it means to be wealthy.
What is wealth?
I’m not going to say something as predictable or demonstrably untrue as: “wealth has nothing to do with money.” That kind of platitudinal soundbite is also part of the problem. We’re not holding ourselves accountable for what we say publicly. Money is absolutely a component of wealth, there’s no doubt. But it also doesn’t paint the complete picture.
A “wealth” of something simply means that you have an abundant supply of it. For example, you can have a wealth of knowledge. It comes down to how resourced you are as a person and how valuable you can be as an individual to the broader community.
We’ve done ourselves a cultural disservice in emphasizing money. Not that this is some kind of anti-capitalist rant! I’m a serial entrepreneur, after all. We do, however, need to steer the conversation towards other forms of wealth to heal the current pain we find ourselves in.
For multi-generational wealth, we must take a more holistic approach to life
Millions of dollars in the bank won’t serve you if you have to sacrifice your mental well-being and time with your family (or a family, for that matter) to achieve it. My vision of multi-generational wealth is not about one generation falling on their proverbial sword to bring it about.
My approach is about breaking these “molds” into which we constantly try to force ourselves. I want us to ditch the ‘cookie-cutter’ approach altogether and really examine what we have to offer future generations beyond just accrued capital.
Thanks to inflation, the money that you leave behind for your kids will be eroded by the sands of time anyway.
Our education systems throughout the west offer pitifully little education when it comes to money management. We need to start teaching our kids how to handle money properly if we want to build generational wealth.
That starts with understanding how to use debt properly!
We’re used to buying things on credit, usually having been fed the ridiculous line about how it frees up your capital to earn money. Given the rates that most retailers and third-party lenders charge, that’s total garbage.
You find me a savings account or investment portfolio that will give you the level of return that will match or exceed what they’re charging!
That said: we also need to avoid the trap of thinking that debt is inherently evil. It’s not. It just depends on how you use it.
Consumer debt (i.e., buying consumables with debt) is a terrible idea because you’re servicing debt on something that is losing value. Hence why you can leverage your capacity to service debt, for example, to become a lender yourself essentially. That’s how a lot of other successful entrepreneurs and I make a lot of money.
From an entrepreneurial perspective, educating your kids about how debt works is a massive leap toward building generational wealth.
This means educating yourself — no bad thing. I would encourage you to break the old habits and stigmas around debt for your own sake. Learn to identify the difference between consumer debt and the debt you can leverage.
The most important advice I can offer to you as an entrepreneur that will help you build multi-generational wealth is to…
Find your ‘why’!
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how” — Friedrich Nietzsche
This is always the first port of call for anyone I coach in business. It’s the single most important thing to teach your kids if you want them to build on your legacy.
You must understand what’s driving you and why. That takes serious introspection and hard work. You will need to weed out all the programmings you’ve been fed since you were a kid that is keeping you motivated by the desires of others.
We think that so much of what drives us comes from us. More often than not, however, we’re being driven by what someone else expects of us. When we don’t confront this proactively, it leads to mid-life crises.
The stark realization that we have less time left than we’ve had throws into sharp relief all of the things we’ve valued and how little we actually did for ourselves!
Don’t let that be the legacy you leave.
Get your head around the life that you want to lead. Be an example to future generations and build your resources (money, knowledge, health, energy, etc…) to be of maximal service.
Being of service to others ultimately builds true wealth, after all.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Search funds have started flipping the script on generalists winning in a largely specialized business environment. The efforts of a specialized thesis have recently proved more fruitful than the opportunistic approach, as Stanford’s 2020 Search Fund Study found, “Searchers who focus their search, as well as developing and adhering to a systematic approach of creating deal flow and analyzing deal opportunities, have a higher likelihood of identifying and closing an acquisition.”
Although the inspiration for a thesis and industry vertical might be apparent based on the searcher’s passions and past experience, often finding an enterprise that fits the search mold could prove challenging.
The good news, however, is that value chains in almost every industry are riddled with opportunities that fit the model. They are the hidden gems. What this means, for example, is if the goal is to serve as an operator in the healthcare supplement industry (from knowledge gained over the years as a professional athlete), an operation that makes or procures a certain ingredient that goes into the final product, as opposed to the final product sold to consumers, would make for an ideal opportunity.
This “value-chain-based searching” approach also opens up flexibility on the geographic front. Running a geographically agnostic search while widening the pool of potential targets might not be viable for most searchers. Offsetting this with more businesses within an industry’s value chain helps keep the net wide while respecting the searcher’s mandate.
While necessary from the outset, alignment with the entire cap table on a thesis (and geography) and continuing commentary through the process unlocks resources that come from having a large experienced team and seeing multiple searchers and transactions from an investor’s lens — the successful, the break-evens and those who didn’t make it. The most valuable resource of which is a playbook, be it in the form of time committed to mentorship or proprietary documentation conducive to a successful search.
Whoever first said, “it takes a village,” was probably a searcher. Building out a team who are unequivocally sold on the vision and believes in the mission is crucial to the searcher’s experience as a leader pre-CEO, as well as their chances of landing on a hidden gem of a business. Most searchers achieve this through interns, both in undergrad and business school, looking for an appetizer to private equity.
While more heads the better by way of sourcing and in the data room looking over opportunities, a key factor lies in the fund’s governance. Karl Scheer, now CIO at the University of Cincinnati, was clear in his governance remarks, “you can’t have investment success with a bad governance structure.”
Although at a vastly different scale, the same principles apply in aligning incentives and what a potential intern or search fund fellow can get for their time and effort. Additionally, a decision to build out a remote vs. in-person team in 2022 remains a personal preference. This could change with a clearer answer as work dynamics continue to get tested and studied over the next few years.
Another important set of people to have in a searcher’s arsenal is a set of mentors who celebrate your success by way of unbiased advice — advisors, for lack of a better term. With a large population of the search community embarking on the search journey out of business school, a valuable pool of resources could come from a supportive group of professors and classmates in touch with the focus industry. The Stanford Search model dubs these people as “river guides” and even suggests an incentive structure with which searchers have found success over the years.
With the people in place, the tools to set the search up for success help close the loop on the most effective use of everyone’s time. A tech stack helps automate low-effort tasks like initial outreach, and net-net gets the searcher in front of more potential targets. A project management suite opens up a layer of transparency on what everyone’s working on and helps move the needle from zero to one.
Finally, like many things, we are tuned to think the next opportunity around the corner could be a better bet, and regardless of how good the current deal looks, it’s hard to think past the “what-ifs.” With most searches limited to a two-year time horizon to complete an acquisition and competition from other searchers as well as some private equity funds intensifying, having a “take the train” approach should be top of mind. If a deal fits the thesis, can model out successful growth over the next five to seven years, has a viable exit strategy, and is an experience a searcher deems enjoyable above all else — go for it!
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You are a business owner but aren’t in the tech industry, so why would you need to focus heavily on adapting technology in your daily workflow? Some people may say you don’t need to. However, I’m here to put a bug in your head and prove how technology is critical to any business across any vertical. And that includes you!
We know technology can be intimidating. It also can be complex, and there are seemingly endless options. So, is it worth the cost, integration headaches and question if you are picking the right ones? Yes! Here are my top three reasons to focus on technology, and I’ll explain how to integrate it into your business:
1. Not applying technology means you could face a technology deficit
Let’s face it, not having a line item in your books for technology and software subscriptions means your company will hit a point where you can’t grow any further. Whether your marketing team will be missing major data points for essential customer acquisition or your efficiencies will eventually put you behind, your competition could pass you by (we’ll get to this one more in the next point). No matter the roadblock you will hit, the point is your growth will have to slow down or halt. You don’t want to wait until that point to use technology once the train has left the station without you!
No matter your business or vertical, your most valuable resource is your team. How can you empower your team to work smarter, not harder, and ultimately produce the best results? The answer is with the right technology! Even if your staff has been set in their ways and doesn’t want to learn a new program, you must pick the right operational systems and offer proper training. A minor setback in the learning curve will mean a huge uptick in productivity.
I once ran into a mid-sized company that was technologically behind due to not prioritizing this aspect of its business. This inadequacy caused marketing and sales to lag compared to its competitors. I likened their technological powers and abilities to taking a knife to a gunfight.
If a company can increase its operational automation in the marketing space, that would allow it to understand its target customer and truly understand how to sell to its market in an efficient and results-driven way.
A data warehouse and congruent CRM would allow this business to properly segment and hit goals for its best marketing demographic more accurately. Identifying, understanding and addressing low-hanging fruit, such as abandoned shopping cart funnels, is crucial.
When you are focused on results, technology almost always needs to be integrated to increase efficiencies and drive sales in the long run. And it’s always easier and cheaper to integrate the right technology early to ensure your team is trained and using it along the way!
3. You’re increasing your footprint of liabilities without the right technology
I’ve seen every range of technology integration, from the tech-savvy millennial CEO who relies on data and analytics for every business decision to the companies that don’t integrate it at all and still use a pen and paper within every significant department. However, if you are closer to the latter, you are potentially putting your team at a huge safety risk. If you have only minimal or wrong technology, you could be putting your customers, reputation and finances at risk too!
I’ve even seen clients using only a single source for major bookkeeping and documentation, like Excel. One wrong move or fat-fingered mistake can change your calculations completely. Or worse, delete everything! If that isn’t risky, I don’t know what is.
Technology can feel overwhelming, which is often why we hear people stay away from adding it to their daily workflow. However, there are simple ways to make that change. Start with finding a company to give you a technical audit — which is often cheaper than you might expect. Take their advice and then apply it in chunks.
You may not need to go from 0 to 100 in the first week. You can slowly add, integrate and manage critical technology into various departments as you feel comfortable. And as I mentioned earlier, a key to tech success is training! Empower your team to take the tech leap with you and work on this together. Everyone can learn a new trick, and it could even be fun! Finally, ensure that you have a base infrastructure to make the ideal environment for success. This includes having the basic technology hardware and compatible systems in place.
Take this article as your sign to take the first step and better your business with tech!
Think back to 20 years ago when Steve Jobs said that iPhones would replace computers. People didn’t believe him at the time, but I bet you are either reading this article on your phone or your phone is at least next to you. Steve Jobs’ claim is a perfect example of disruptive marketing.
I’m not a fan of buzzwords, but I am a fan of disruptive marketing. So much so that I recently came on board a disruptive marketing agency, Overit, as the Senior Marketing Director. Part of my role involves being a disruptor in the marketing industry, and with this article, I aim to help you become a disruptor. As disruptors, we need to be cutting-edge and unafraid so let’s explore how to do just that.
What exactly is disruptive marketing?
While innovative, disruptive marketing is also strategic. It goes against the status quo of traditional marketing tactics and reaches your target audience in new and creative ways. Disruptive marketing resonates with your current customers and unlocks new audiences.
FYI, this marketing strategy is only for risk-takers. However, it’s an excellent opportunity to grow your brand rather quickly. It is not just about being unique to get attention; disruptive marketing should be paired with data and strategy — just like any other marketing technique.
To put it simply, disruptive marketing is the process of using new and original marketing strategies to reach your target consumers in a way that your competitors are not.
This type of marketing allows for a lot of creativity and, like all marketing strategies, can continually be refined by the data you collect from your efforts. This data is important because disruptive marketing involves experimenting, and some tactics will work while others won’t.
Disruptive marketing pushes boundaries and creates new norms. Strategies we have in our marketing toolboxes were once disruptive. Take influencer marketing for example, it once was a foreign way to get authentic brand recommendations, and now it’s a strategy that many brands implement.
If you want to be a disruptor, you can’t be afraid to fail. However, this type of marketing has the chance of going viral. Are you a risk-taker like me?
Why should my marketing be disruptive?
The modern-day consumer is quite intelligent. They know when they’re being “marketed” and are sick of the traditional advertising norms. Disruptive marketing involves you doing something unique to allow you to stand out in an over-saturated industry.
Consumers value innovation. In fact, they expect it. There is a sea of repetitive marketing trends out there, and your target audience craves something different. This type of marketing makes your products or services stay top-of-mind by being unique and memorable.
The top 10 disruptive marketing tips
Have I convinced you to be a disruptor yet? If so, I’ve streamlined the top 10 tips I use in my disruptive marketing efforts. Write them out on a sticky note and post them on your monitor so you can always remind yourself how to be disruptive.
Stay up to date with social media trends and success stories
A/B test different strategies
Capture data and implement the insights you glean from it
Consult your buyer personas to ensure you’re reaching your target audience
Challenge current marketing assumptions and do the opposite
Speak to consumer pain points
Embrace technology
Follow disruptive thought leaders for inspiration
Be unusual but not bizarre
Implement storytelling best practices
Examples of disruptive marketing
Uber appalled people when they announced that they came out with an app in which people essentially get into a stranger’s car. Today, there are competing apps, and “ubering” is part of our English language.
Bitcoin is the world’s largest bank but has no actual cash. That didn’t stop them. They kept promoting their values and honed in on target consumers who don’t trust traditional banks, and now look at how far they’ve come.
Dollar Shave Club came out with its first commercial in 2011 and flipped the entire razor industry on its head. They studied what consumers were looking for, addressed those pain points in a brand new way, and the rest is history.
REI took a risk and set itself apart from other brands vying for consumers to spend money on Black Friday. In 2015, they started #OptOutside and discouraged consumers from shopping at their store on the biggest consumer spending day of the year. Many consumers actually respected this stance, which clearly didn’t hurt business because REI still encourages consumers to opt outside on Black Friday.
In 2015, HBO released their HBO Go app. Instead of pushing typical pain points like watching HBO from anywhere, they released a commercial of a family watching awkward HBO shows together. They then showed how the family went to different rooms in the house to avoid awkward viewing. They thought outside the box, and it worked.
Air Wick implemented disruptive marketing with their Scent Decorator quiz. They invite consumers to take quizzes to find the perfect home scents. Typically, people want actually to smell something before purchasing, but Air Wick found a way around that, and they did it successfully.
A balance between traditional and disruptive
Disruptive marketing creates quick impact and brand awareness. However, this strategy doesn’t mean you throw traditional marketing out the door.
There is a balance between holding onto traditional marketing that works and using your tried and true strategies to power your disruptive efforts.
Like traditional marketing, when implementing disruptive marketing, look at things like the consumer’s journey, pain points, value propositions, etc., when allocating your time and budget for 2023.
Final thoughts: How to be disruptive with your content
So much of modern-day marketing is content-driven. Naturally, some of your disruptive marketing efforts will be rooted in content. After all, 91% of brands use content marketing, bringing in 6 times as many leads as traditional marketing at 62% of the cost.
A great place to start with disruptive marketing is through your content.
User Generated Content is popular and effective. Consider challenging your audience to post content about your brand with a theme that gets people’s attention. You can then promote your UGC using marketing strategies that you already use.
The beauty of content creation is that it allows you to experiment with disruptive marketing. Look at your competitors’ typical blog posts and publish the opposite. Be bold. Be experimental.
Same with the content you put on social media. Do something risky and measure the results against your other social posts.
You don’t have to re-work your entire marketing strategy, you just need to not be afraid to be different and think outside the box.
Technological and regulatory innovation are driving a boom in aviation that’s an echo of its past.
A ‘Spinner’ flying car takes off in a scene from Ridley Scott’s futuristic thriller ‘Blade Runner’, … [+] 1982. (Photo by Warner Bros./Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Getty Images
Transportation is one area where the advances in manufacturing and technology is most obvious. The world has been completely transformed by the last 150 years worth of transportation developments — chances are, wherever you are right now, if you look outside you’ll see automobiles or a road designed to accommodate them. Of course, you can only build so many roads, and it is in the realm of flight where we may be seeing an echo of 20th century innovation.
It’s hard to overstate the explosive rate of development that followed the invention of airplanes. From first flight in 1903 to first combat in 1911, first commercial passengers in 1914, through a breakneck sprint that brought humans from a puttering few yards along the shore at Kitty Hawk, to Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier less than 50 years later.
The insane acceleration of aircraft development was thanks to an intersection of enabling technologies emerging at the same time. The first powered flight was made possible by the new gas engines and insights into aerodynamics. Once flight was proven possible, new tools for design and experimentation drove the development of more complex and capable aircraft, making it possible to move more things further and faster until, thanks to the parallel emergence of new manufacturing technologies, before long the global society came to depends on flight. The development and refinement of technologies like boats, wheels, shoes, and other fundamental means of transportation spans millennia; airplanes covered more developmental ground in just a few decades.
“I like to say all the cool stuff and every idea in aerospace was envisioned somewhere between the 1930s and 1960s,” says Billy Thalheimer, CEO of REGENT, a company that’s part of a gathering wave of innovative new aviation companies. The company is also an excellent example of how opportunity and innovation are intersecting in this emerging aero-space. The company is building electric-powered aircraft that take off from, fly over, and descend back to water. You might be thinking, seaplanes have been a thing for a long time, but there are some key differences. For one, instead of operating like a boat with something like pontoons, it operates like a hydrofoil, with fins underneath the water that mean it nearly hovers until takeoff. When airborne, it acts as what is called a wing-in-ground craft, flying low enough so that the air displaced by the wing creates a cushion of air that helps keep it aloft. These designs add a lot of efficiency, but require recently developed flight control software to keep the plane stable. In fact, calling it a plane is something of a misnomer.
(Original Caption) An early hydrofoil developed by Dynamic Developments, Inc, built under a contract … [+] to the U. S. Office of Naval Research. The craft was equipped with hydrofoils which provided lift that raised the hull of the boat out of the water. This model, XCH4 attained speeds in excess of 90 mph on the water.
Bettmann Archive
“We build something that looks like an airplane,” Thalheimer said. “But there is a human captain at the helm of this vessel. They’re not going to be doing stick-and-rudder stuff, so all the airplane controls and the things that make it dangerous — roll, pitch, altitude control, takeoff, landing — that’s automatically governed by the digital flight control. So the only controls we give to the captain are boat controls: left and right, fast and slow.”
Making something transition from water to air and back smoothly with controls more simple than most video games is, in fact, an incredibly complex challenge. Though the idea has been around for some time, new technologies made it possible, not just computer controls, but batteries that replace the need for carrying heavy fuels. The other example for innovators, though, is in the much less sexy space of regulations. By operating as a boat, the company is able to navigate a regulatory environment that is less complex and onerous than the ones governing air travel. It’s a subtle kind of disruption, innovation by way of niche-building and weaving between regulatory frameworks.
Uber famously developed and shipped their product faster than regulators could react, but there’s also immense untapped potential in finding ways to leverage regulation to serve a new conceptual category. An airborne craft, regulated like a boat, can be built to different standards than an airplane rated to fly at higher altitudes, utilize highly refined fuels, and share the sky with other craft heading between airport. A new category of high speed, semi-aerial water ferries could bring passengers to and from any destination with access to a dock, and since most people live near water, that’s a big potential market — little wonder the company already claims some 6 billion dollars worth of back orders for its craft, impressive for a company that’s only been around for about two years.
They are just one example, though. A raft of new aircraft companies are angling on everything from vertical takeoff and landing taxis to drone-based logistics to electric airborne ride sharing. The coming generation of flight is powered by electric motors, operated by smart computer control systems, and fly in ways or under conditions that have the potential to forge new lines connecting points A and B. A new ‘S curve‘ for aviation could reinvent the way we conceive of transportation overall. Even NASA is getting in on the game, with their Advanced Air Mobility Mission, which aims to make local, regional, intraregional, urban and other untapped opportunities for air transit, “using revolutionary new aircraft that are only just now becoming possible.”
We were taught to expect a future of flying cars. In reality, with new computer, electrification, engineering and manufacturing technologies intersecting with traditional modes of transport in dire need of update — both to be more sustainable and to serve growing populations — we may get a future where the car isn’t the model against which we compare every other form of transportation. 200 years ago, people raced steamboats up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany, about 150 miles. A century ago, people were covering the same distance in just over an hour by train. Things have slowed down since then, but in just a few years we may be back on the Hudson River again, and then over it, outpacing the fastest Amtrak.
The upshot of all this is that even areas where immense development has already occurred — whether in aircraft or sea craft — the possibility for a paradigm shift still exists. Sometimes it just takes the maturation of other enabling technologies, like computers, flight control systems, or just an innovative read on the regulatory landscape. When airplanes first emerged, it was into a clear blue sky where no rules had been written. Nowadays, the networks of transportation, technology and regulation are thickly interwoven, so the challenge is finding where new ideas can fit and thrive. For an innovator, constraints are sources of creativity, and it’s more exciting vision for the future than anything the Jetsons ever came up with.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Apple, Google, and other companies mandating that employees work in the office for most or all of their time claim that any time spent working remotely stifles innovation. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, “Innovation isn’t always a planned activity. It’s bumping into each other over the course of the day and advancing an idea that you just had. And you really need to be together to do that.”
Yet is this true? On the one hand, research at MIT found that remote work weakens the cross-functional, inter-team “weak ties” that form the basis for the exchange of new ideas that tend to foster innovation. A study by Microsoft similarly found that remote work weakens innovation since workers communicate less with those outside their own teams.
On the other hand, McKinseyresearch points to a different conclusion. It found that, during the more than two years of the pandemic, there’s been a record number of new patents across 150 global patent filing authorities. Moreover, in 2021, global venture capital more than doubled from 2020, rising 111%. McKinsey suggests that it’s because more innovative companies developed new ways of connecting remote workers together to build and sustain the cross-functional, inter-term ties necessary for innovation, thus widening the pools of minds that could generate new ideas. Deloitte similarly highlights how adapting the process of innovation to remote settings offers the key to boosting innovation for hybrid and remote teams.
My experience helping 21 organizations transition to hybrid and remote work demonstrates that innovation is eminently doable. But it requires adopting best practices that address the weakening of cross-functional connections and lack of natural spontaneous interactions that breed innovation. Unfortunately, companies like Apple and Google have adopted a traditionalist perspective on how to innovate, which ironically hinders innovation.
An excellent technique for innovation in hybrid and remote teams to replace innovation-breeding random hallways conversation involves relying on collaboration software like Slack or Microsoft Teams. What you need to do is set up a specific channel in that software to facilitate the creativity, spontaneity and collaboration behind serendipitous innovation, and incentivize employees to use that channel.
For example, in a late-stage SaaS start-up that used Microsoft Teams, each small team of six to eight people set up a team-specific channel for members to share innovative ideas relevant to the team’s work. Likewise, larger business units established channels for ideas applicable to the whole business unit. Then, when anyone had an idea, they were encouraged to share that idea in the pertinent channel.
We encouraged everyone to pay attention to notifications in that channel. Seeing a new post, if they found the idea relevant, they would respond with additional thoughts building on the initial idea. Responses would snowball, and sufficiently good ideas would then lead to the next steps, often a brainstorming session.
This approach combines a native virtual format with people’s natural motivations to contribute, collaborate and claim credit. The initial idea poster and the subsequent contributors aren’t motivated simply by the goal of advancing the team or business unit, even though that’s of course part of their goal set. The initial poster is motivated by the possibility of sharing an idea that might be recognized as sufficiently innovative, practical and useful to implement, with some revisions. The contributors, in turn, are motivated by the natural desire to give advice, especially advice that’s visible to and useful for others in their team, business unit or even the whole organization.
This dynamic also fits well the different personalities of optimists and pessimists. You’ll find that the former will generally be the ones to post initial ideas. Their strength is innovative and entrepreneurial thinking, but their flaw is being risk-blind to the potential problems in the idea. In turn, pessimists will overwhelmingly serve to build on and improve the idea, pointing out its potential flaws and helping address them.
Remember to avoid undervaluing the contributions of pessimists. It’s too common to pay excessive attention to the initial ideas and overly reward optimists — and I say this as an inveterate optimist myself, who has 20 ideas before breakfast and thinks they’re all brilliant! Through the combination of personal bitter experience and research on optimism and pessimism, I have learned the necessity of letting pessimistic colleagues vet and improve my ideas. My clients have found a great deal of benefit in highly valuing such devil’s advocate perspectives as well.
That’s why you should both praise and reward not only the generators of innovative ideas but also the two to three people who most contributed to improving and finalizing the idea. And that’s what the late-stage start-up company did. The team or business unit leaders made sure that they both recognized publicly the contributions of the initial idea generators and the improvers of the idea, and also gave them a bonus proportionate to the value of their contributions. Indeed, several of these ideas ended up generating patent applications.
While this technique helps address the problem of spontaneous interactions, what about the weakening of cross-functional ties? To help address that problem, while also improving the integration of recently-hired staff, we had the SaaS company set up a hybrid and remote mentoring program.
The program involved several mentors. One came from the recently-hired staff’s own team. That mentor assisted the mentee with understanding group dynamics, on-the-job learning and professional growth.
However, we also included two mentors from other teams. One of them came from the same business unit as the junior staff, while another came from a separate business unit. The role of these two mentors involved getting the new employee integrated into the broader company culture, facilitating inter-team collaboration and strengthening the “weak ties” among company staff to help foster collaboration.
Six months after these two interventions, the SaaS company reported a notable boost in innovation across the board. The channels devoted to innovation helped breed a number of novel projects. The mentor-mentee relationships resulted in mentees providing a fresh and creative perspective on the company’s existing work, while the mentors from outside the team helped spur productive conversations within teams that bred further innovation and collaboration.
If a late-stage start-up with 400 employees could adopt these techniques, so too can Apple and Google. Certainly, some tasks may best be done in person, such as sensitive personnel conversations, intense collaborative discussions, key decision-making and strategic conversations and fun team-building events. Yet the more tasks you can do remotely, the better. The future belongs to companies that can best make use of human resources around the globe while minimizing the time wasted in rush hour commutes. Doing so requires adopting best practices for hybrid and remote work, instead of being stuck in the past.
AVIONICS START-UP WESKY’S NEW RECHARGE PRODUCT GIVES THE COMMERCIAL AVIATION INDUSTRY A MUCH NEEDED IMPROVEMENT TO THE IN-SEAT CHARGE EXPERIENCE FOR PERSONAL ELECTRONIC DEVICES (PED). THE SAME INSTALLATIONS ALSO HELP IMPROVE AIRCRAFT OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY WHILE REDUCING AIRCRAFT CO2 EMISSIONS
Press Release –
Oct 19, 2022
LONDON, October 19, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– The ever increasing processing power of Personal Electronic Devices (PED) requires high-capacity batteries that in turn requires fast charging solutions. Existing onboard high power charging solutions on the market are heavy preventing airlines from choosing these systems due to weight budget constraints. WeSky engineers have created a smart USB in-seat fast charging product that is the lightest on the market.
“Our new recharge™️ product is an efficient 60W USB in-seat charging solution, that weighs 70% less than current available products, yet has rapid charging. It brings many benefits to commercial airlines including a reduction in fuel consumption which also has benefits for the environment,” said WeSky Founder and CEO Vytis Petrusevicius.
“Based on our current sales activities and request for proposals we are forecasting and already negotiating orders for over 20 million USD in revenue of recharge™️ in-seat power systems within next 24 months,” said Marius Barcas, Head of Sales.
WeSky recently secured additional funding from US based Notarc Investment Partners in order to ramp up production of its current product line while also expanding research and development of new avionics equipment.
“These are the kind of ventures that fit with our sustainable investment mandate and which have an immediate positive impact on the environment, industry and end user. Legacy businesses and industries must continue to evolve and innovate and we have a responsibility as investors to help speed up innovation and to do our part to support such ventures,” said Leslie C. Bethel, CEO of Notarc Management Group and recently appointed WeSky Board Member.
About WeSky
Among many avionics innovations, WeSky develops a smart USB in-seat power solution called recharge™️ that allow commercial airlines to provide enhanced in-flight experiences and operating efficiency through lowering aircraft weight and fuel consumption.
The aviation and commercial airline industry like many other transport businesses are challenged with lowering their extensive carbon footprint. WeSky was founded on the sole principle of developing aviation technology and innovation in electronics which can have a positive impact on operational efficiency while also helping legacy industries make immediate progress toward attaining their sustainable goals which is critical to our planet and survival.
The recharge™️ is the world’s lightest and most compact 60W USB in-seat power solution, with the same weight as 15W USB charging solutions currently on the market.
WeSky is EASA approved Part 21J Design Organisation with in-house avionics systems development, certification and integration design capabilities.
Notarc Investment Partners is an affiliate of Notarc Management Group, comprised of leading investment and asset management professionals in The UK, Europe, Panama, Asia, The Bahamas, and The United States. As an advisory and private equity firm, Notarc Management Group focuses on opportunities in real estate, hospitality, technology, logistics and infrastructure with an expanding portfolio in The Americas.
In addition to capital, Notarc brings know-how, managerial oversight, and a network of operators and funders with a particular expertise in infrastructure, government and public policy. Notarc aligns with sovereign wealth funds, venture and private equity firms, and global family offices to invest capital via its various opportunity funds and SPVs.
Are we finally starting to see the adoption of labor-saving robots in agriculture? The short and unfulfilling summary answer is “It depends”. Undeniably, we are seeing clear signs of progress yet, simultaneously, we see clear signs of more progress needed. (Hi-res copy of the landscape.)
Earlier this year, Western Growers Association produced an excellent report that outlined the need for robotics in agriculture. Ongoing labor challenges are, of course, a major driver, but so are rising costs, future demand, climate change impacts, and sustainability, among others. The use of robotics in agricultural production is the next progression of decades of increasing mechanization and automation to enhance crop production. Today’s crop robotics can build upon these preceding solutions and leverage newer technologies like precise navigation, vision and other sensor systems, connectivity and interoperability protocols, deep learning and artificial intelligence to address farmers’ current and future challenges.
So What is a Crop Robot?
We at The Mixing Bowl and Better Food Ventures create various market landscape maps that capture the use of technology in our food system. Our intent in producing these landscapes is to not only represent where a technology’s adoption is today, but, more importantly, where it is heading. So, as we developed this 2022 Crop Robotics Landscape, our frame of reference was to look beyond mechanization and defined automation to more autonomous crop robotics. This focus on “robotics” perhaps created the hardest challenge for us—defining a “Crop Robot”.
According to the definition of the Oxford English Dictionary, “A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically.” Putting agriculture aside for a moment, that definition means that a dishwasher, washing machine, or a thermostat controlling an air conditioner could all be considered robots, not things that evoke “robot” to most people. When asking “What is a Crop Robot” in our interviews for this analysis, the theme of “labor savings” came through strongly. Must a crop robot be a labor reducing tool? This is where our definition of a crop robot started us down the “It depends” path?
If a machine is only sensing or gathering data, is it saving labor enough to be considering a robot?
If a machine does not have a fully autonomous mobility system to move around—perhaps just an implement pulled by a standard tractor—is it a robot?
If a machine is solely an autonomous mobility system not designed for any specific labor-saving agriculture task, is it a robot?
If the machine is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)/aerial drone, is it a robot? Does the answer change if there are a fleet of drones coordinating amongst themselves the spraying of a field?
Eventually, for the purposes of this robotic landscape analysis, we focused on machines that use hardware and software to perceive surroundings, analyze data and take real-time action on information related to an agricultural crop-related function without human intervention.
This definition focuses on characteristics that enable autonomous, not deterministic, actions. In many instances repetitive or constrained automation can get a task completed in an efficient and cost effective manner. Much of the existing and indispensable agricultural machinery and automation used on farms today would fit that description. However, we wanted to look specifically at robotic technologies that can take more unplanned, appropriate and timely action in the dynamic, unpredictable, and unstructured environments that exist in agricultural production. That translates to more precision, more dexterity and more autonomy.
The Crop Robotics Landscape
Our 2022 Crop Robotics Landscape includes nearly 250 companies developing crop robotic systems today. The robots are a mix: some that are self-propelled and some that aren’t, some that can navigate autonomously and those that can’t, some that are precise and some that are not, both ground-based and air-based systems, and those focused on indoor or outdoor production. In general, the systems need to offer autonomous navigation or vision-aided precision or a combination to be included on the landscape. These included areas are highlighted in gold in the chart below. The white areas are not autonomous or not complete robotic systems and are not included on the landscape.
2022 Crop Robotics
Chris Taylor
The landscape is limited to robotic solutions utilized in the production of food crops; it does not include robotics for animal farming nor for the production of cannabis. Pre-production nursery and post-harvest segments are also excluded (but note that highly automated solutions for these tasks are commercially available today). Likewise, sensor-only and analytic offerings are also not included, unless they are part of a complete robotic system.
Additionally, we only included companies that are providing their robotic systems commercially to others. If they develop robotics only for their own internal use or only offer services then they are not included, nor are academic or consortium research projects unless they appear to be heading to a commercial offering. Product companies should have reached at least the demonstrable-prototype stage in their development. Finally, companies appear only once on the landscape, even though some may offer multiple or multi-use robotic solutions. They are also placed according to their most sophisticated or primary function.
The landscape is segmented vertically by crop production system: broadacre row crops, field-grown specialty, orchard and vineyard, and indoor. The landscape is also segmented horizontally by functional area: autonomous movement, crop management, and harvest. Within those functional areas are the more specific task/product segments described here:
Autonomous Movement
Navigation/Autonomy – more sophisticated autosteer systems with headland turning capability and autonomous navigation systems
Small Tractor/Platform – smaller, people size autonomous tractors and carriers
Large Tractor – larger autonomous tractors and carriers
Indoor Platform – smaller autonomous carriers specifically for indoor farms
Crop Management
Scouting and Indoor Scouting – autonomous mapping and scouting robots and aerial drones; note that robots appearing in other task/product categories may have scouting capabilities in addition to their primary function
Preparation & Planting – autonomous field preparation and planting robots
Drone Application – spraying and spreading aerial drones
Some of the task/product segments, like Large Tractor, span multiple crop systems, as the robotic solutions within them may be applicable to more than one crop type. Logo positions within these landscape boxes are not necessarily indicative of crop system applicability.
The diversity of offerings appearing on the landscape is perhaps the biggest takeaway; crop robotics is a very active sector across tasks and crops types. In the Autonomous Movement area, although autosteer has been in wide use for many years, more robust autonomous navigation technology and fully autonomous tractors and smaller multi-use motive platforms are just entering the market. In Crop Management there is a mix of self-propelled and trailed and attached implements. Vision-aided precision crop care tasks like spot spraying and weeding are areas of heavy development activity, particularly for the less automated specialty crop sector. Finally, high-value, high-labor crops like strawberries, fresh-market tomatoes, and orchard fruit are the focus for many robotic harvesting initiatives. As noted, there is a lot of activity; however, successful commercialization is more rare.
Traversing the Valley of Death to Achieve Scale
The Government of the United Kingdom recently released a report that reviews Automation in Horticulture. In the report they include the automation lifecycle analysis graphic shown below that they refer to as “Technology Readiness Levels in Horticulture”. If we were to map the more than 600 companies we researched in our analysis, well over 90 percent of these companies would still be labeled in the “Research” or “System Development” phases. Historically, many agriculture robotics companies have failed to succeed, perishing in the “Valley of Death”. Only a handful of companies have reached “Commercialization”, a phase where companies attempt to traverse the perilous journey from product success to business success and profitability.
“Automation in Horticulture Review”
Dept. of Environment Food & Rural Affairs, Government of the United Kingdom July, 2022
There are many reasons why ag robotics has had a high failure rate in reaching commercial scale. At its core, it has been very difficult to provide a reliable machine capable of providing value to a farmer on par with a non-robotic or manual solution at a cost effective price point.
Amongst the technical challenges crop robotics companies face are:
Design: In the early days a company may want to vary its product design to try new things. But at some point as it begins to scale, it needs to lock in standardization to the degree possible. Updating deployed systems remains a continuous challenge.
Manufacturing: Maturing companies move from custom to standardized manufacturing. One company we spoke with had gone from building machines itself, to just building a base and then having vendors doing sub-assembly. Now they have gotten to a point of maturation that not a single team member touches a wrench as all manufacturing is done by partners.
Reliability: A metric commonly used is hours of uninterrupted operation, and scaling requires going from “faults per mile” to “miles per fault”. The ability to handle the adverse and unpredictable conditions of agricultural production exacerbates the difficulty in creating a reliable machine. As an example, one person told about the unforeseen challenge of working in vineyards where the acid from grape juice accelerates equipment deterioration.
Operation: At some point in the scaling process, farm staff will operate the machine without the presence of robotic solution provider support staff. At this point, there are often knowledge gaps on how to effectively operate the machine that need to be resolved. A step in scaling is getting farm staff trained to operate the machines themselves.
Service: Another metric we heard was about decreasing service support resource requirements: How could a robotics company switch from having X number of people support a single unit to having a single person support Y number of different units?
A last technical facet of scaling is the ease with which a platform can be modified to serve multiple crops or multiple tasks. The space is still so early that we don’t have that many data points about repurposing technology for multiple crops/tasks. However, it is something many companies are obviously looking to prove to upsell customers or convince investors they have the potential to serve a larger market.
We heard from numerous crop robotic startups and investors that the technology challenges need to be tackled first, then the economic and business challenges can be addressed. The reality, of course, is that a successful crop robotic solution developer must face several challenges simultaneously: sustaining a business while refining product-market fit to get paying customers; refining product-market fit while sustaining the interest of investors; and sustaining the engagement of farmer customers.
On the business side, we tried to identify when a company could claim it had made it through the “Valley of Death”. One group we spoke with very simply said there were three key business questions to ask:
Can we sell it?
Does demand outstrip supply?
Do the unit economics work out for all parties?
The answer to the question of “Can we sell it?” usually equated to when and if the robot could perform the task on par with a human—a comparable performance for a comparable cost. That performance clearly varies by crop and task. As an example, there was a generally shared sense that “picking” was the most difficult task to achieve on par with the time, accuracy and cost of a human.
One thread that came up in our conversations is that many farmers may not yet see the longer-term potential of what robots can do in agriculture. They look at (and value) them merely as a way to replace the tasks a human does—but do not look at what more efficient approaches beyond the capabilities of humans that could be enabled with these powerful platforms.
In our discussions we probed on whether the business model of a crop robotics company made a substantial difference in whether they could sell it. Responses were wide-ranging as to whether there is a benefit to having a “Robotics as a Service” (RaaS) model versus a machine buy/lease model. Our net conclusion regarding business models is that, while it may be advantageous to offer “Robotics-as-a-Service” (RaaS) in the early stages of a company’s development, over the longer run companies should plan to operate under both a buy/lease and a RaaS model. The advantages of RaaS in the early days are that they 1) allow a farmer to “try before you buy” which lowers the complexity and cost, and, thus, lowers the barrier to adoption and 2) offer a startup to work more closely with farmers to understand problems and identify potential new challenges to solve.
Many startups have “hyped” their solutions too early, before they could conquer the many complexities involved with successfully operating in the market. This “hype” has caused many farmers to be leery of crop robotics in general. Farmers just want (and need) things to work and many may have been burned in the past by adopting technologies that were not fully mature. As one startup said, “It is hard to get them to understand the iterative process”. Still, farmers are also known as problem solvers and many continue to engage with startups to help mature solutions.
Of course, the “Can we sell it?” question should really be extended to “Can we sell and support it?”. An interesting point to watch between incumbents and new solution providers will be the scaling of startups and the resulting need for those companies to have a cost-effective sales and service channel. Incumbent vendors, of course, have those channels, and John Deere and GUSS Automation have announced just such a partnership.
Like farmers, investors also walk hand-in-hand with a robotics startup crossing the Valley of Death. Investor sentiment toward agriculture robotics is mixed. On the one hand, there is an acknowledgement that there have not been notable exits of profitable startups in this space (as opposed to those just having desirable technology). On the other hand, there is a recognition that agriculture’s labor issues are becoming more acute and large potential markets could be realized this time around. Investors also see that the quality of the technology and startup teams have improved in the last few years.
It is encouraging to see more investors looking at the space than a few years ago, writing bigger checks in later rounds, and investing at high valuations. Investors also understand the challenges better than before so that they can differentiate between segments developers are targeting, e.g., the difficulty of harvesting in an open field versus scouting in a greenhouse.
What Gives us Optimism Crop Robotics is Making Progress?
So, given the above, why do we feel optimistic that crop robotics is making healthy progress? For a number of reasons, the Valley of Death may not be as wide nor as fatal as it has been in the past for companies in this space.
Beyond the growing need for labor-saving solutions in agriculture, we are optimistic that crop robotics is making progress simply because of the underlying technology progress that has occurred in the last decade or so. Again and again in the interviews we conducted, we heard phrases similar to “this would not have been possible a decade ago”. Someone flat out stated that a few years ago “The machines weren’t ready” for the conditions of farming. Large scale improvements in core compute technology, accessibility and performance of computer vision systems, deep learning capabilities, and even automated mobility systems have come a long way in the last ten years.
In addition to the improved technology base, there is more seasoned talent than a decade ago and that talent brings a range of experiences from across the robotics landscape, including insight into scaling to success. In this regard, crop robotics can leverage the broader, better-funded robotics spaces of self-driving vehicles and warehouse automation. Equally important, most of the teams that are seeing success employ a combination of robotics experts and farm experts. Past ag robotics teams may have had the technological prowess to develop a solution but may not have understood the ag market or the realities of farming environments.
We are also optimistic because the depth and breadth of crop robotic solutions is expanding, as illustrated by the number of companies represented on our landscape. Although large commodity row crop farms—like those of the Midwestern US—are already highly automated and have even adopted robotic autosteer systems en masse, a very clear indication of progress is that we are seeing a more diverse set of crop robotic solutions than in years past.
For example, new robotic platforms are successfully undertaking labor-saving tasks that are of modest difficulty. Perhaps the best example of this is the GUSS autonomous sprayer that can work in orchards. The self-powered GUSS machine navigates autonomously and can adjust its spraying selectively based on its ultrasonic sensors. It has reached commercial scale. We are also starting to see more solutions targeting farmers who have been underserved by labor-saving automation solutions, such as smaller farm operations or niche specialty crop systems. Examples of this are Burro, Naio or farm-ng. Lastly, we are seeing the development of “smart implements”. By not taking on the burden of developing autonomous movement, these solutions can be pulled behind a tractor to focus on complex agriculture tasks like vision-guided selective weeding and spraying. Verdant, Farmwise and Carbon Robotics are examples of this kind of solution.
One encouraging trend we are also watching is the role of incumbent agriculture equipment providers, particularly in specialty crops. John Deere (Blue River,Bear Flag Robotics) as well as Case New Holland (Raven Industries) have signaled a willingness to acquire companies in crop robotics to complement their ongoing internal R&D efforts. Yamaha and Toyota, through their venture funds, have also shown a desire to partner and invest in the space. The question remains to be seen if other incumbent equipment players have the willingness to invest in the assemblage of technology and talent required to bring robotic solutions to the marketplace.
Looking Ahead
The drivers for increased automation in agriculture are readily apparent and are likely to continue to increase over time. Thus, a large opportunity exists for robotic solutions that can help farmers mitigate their production challenges. That is, as long as those solutions perform well and at reasonable cost in the real world of commercial farm operations. As we observed while researching the landscape, there is an impressive number of companies focused on developing crop robotics solutions across a breadth of crop systems and tasks, and with more commercial focus than past projects. However, the market continues to feel early as companies continue to navigate the difficult process of creating and deploying robust solutions at scale for this challenging industry. Still, there is more room for optimism and more tangible progress being made now than ever before. The Crop Robotics “Valley of Death” that so many startups have failed to cross appears to be becoming less wide and ominous in great part due to the break-neck speed of technological progress. While a robotic revolution in crop production is likely still some time off, we are seeing a promising evolution and expect to see more successful crop robotic companies in the not too distant future.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources and The Vine for their strong interest in crop robotics and their continued support of this project. Thank you to Simon Pearson, Director, Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technology and Professor of Agri-Food Technology, University of Lincoln in the UK for his insights and the use of the graphic from the Automation in Horticulture Review report. Thank you to Walt Duflock of Western Growers Association for sharing his detailed perspective on the ag robotics sector. Most importantly we would like to acknowledge all the start-ups and innovators who are working tirelessly to make crop robotics a much needed reality. A special thanks to those entrepreneurs and investors that spoke with us and provided a unique view into the challenges and excitement of a crop robotic business.
Bios
Chris Taylor is a Senior Consultant on The Mixing Bowl team and has spent more than 20 years on global IT strategy and development innovation in manufacturing, design and healthcare, focusing most recently on AgTech.
Michael Rose is a Partner at The Mixing Bowl and Better Food Ventures where he brings more than 25 years immersed in new venture creation and innovation as an operating executive and investor across the Food Tech, AgTech, restaurant, Internet, and mobile sectors.
Rob Trice founded The Mixing Bowl to connect food, agriculture and IT innovators for thought and action leadership and Better Food Ventures to invest in startups harnessing IT for positive impact in Agrifoodtech.
