Reignite Resilience
Ready to shake things up and bounce back stronger than ever?
Tune in to the Reignite Resilience Podcast with Pam and Natalie! We're all about sharing real-life stories of people who've turned their toughest moments into their biggest wins.
Each episode is packed with:
- tales of triumph
- Practical tips to help you grow
- Expert advice to navigate life's curveballs
Whether you're an entrepreneur chasing your dreams, an athlete pushing your limits, or just someone looking to level up in this crazy world, we've got your back!
Join us as we dive into conversations that'll light a fire in your belly and give you the tools to tackle whatever life throws your way. It's time to reignite your resilience, one episode at a time.
Reignite Resilience
Innovation, Personal Growth + Resiliency with Nick Jain
Prepare to be inspired as we bring you an engaging conversation with Nick Jain, CEO of IdeaScale, who shares the secrets behind his journey of resilience and innovation. From his experiences as a new parent to steering a revolutionary platform that empowers organizations like Pfizer and the US Post Office with collective creativity, Nick offers an insightful perspective on the intersection of personal growth and professional success. Our discussion promises to reveal how Nick's immigrant background shaped his gratitude and leadership style while navigating the ever-evolving landscape of technology and ideas.
Imagine a world where ideas spread like viral TikTok posts, gaining traction and transforming into groundbreaking innovations. That's exactly what IdeaScale facilitates with its dynamic social network for ideas. We'll uncover how this platform introduces AI-generated concepts through its unique Idea Seed feature, bridging the gap between human ingenuity and artificial intelligence. As we explore the origins of IdeaScale, born from a call for government innovation, you'll also learn about Nick's journey from a career in Wall Street investing to becoming a successful CEO, all while sharing valuable lessons in resilience and creativity.
Looking ahead, we delve into the future of artificial intelligence and the remarkable technological advancements shaping our world. Discover how IdeaScale is poised for global expansion, launching new products, and embracing tomorrow's challenges. We also touch on the personal milestones of parenthood and the critical steps innovators must take to transform ideas into reality. Join us in reigniting your own resilience and passion, and stay connected through our podcast and social media platforms for more inspiring stories and insights.
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Magical Mornings Journal
Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The co-hosts of this podcast are not medical professionals. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast. Reliance on any information provided by the podcast hosts or guests is solely at your own risk.
Pamela Cass is a licensed broker with Kentwood Real Estate
Natalie Davis is a licensed broker with Keller Williams Realty Downtown, LLC
All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. Resilience where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of Reignite Resilience. I am your co-host, Natalie Davis, and I am so excited to be back with all of you today. Hello Pam, how are you?
Speaker 3:Hello, I am fabulous. I just was giggling to myself because for the listeners Natalie and I have been on this like this is like day eight of seeing each other.
Speaker 2:Yes, actually, like in person too, in person for three days of business planning.
Speaker 3:We were creating content and business planning, so you guys will hear about that, what's coming up here? But yeah, so I was like this is like day eight and we've got two more days together. I think.
Speaker 2:And we've got a couple more days going. I know we're just kicking off the week, but it's okay. I kind of woke up in that foggy random what day is it? I think that some of that holiday season energy is carrying over.
Speaker 3:It's like wait, what day is it? It doesn't really matter, it's just another day. It's just another day, another day in paradise.
Speaker 2:We can say that I love it. Well, we have a wonderful guest joining us today that has a great story, I think, and is currently continuing to live through that story, with some recent life changes, or some changes. So, pam, why don't you tell our listeners who's joining us today?
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely. So I'm so excited we have Nick. Jane and I hope hopefully I said that correctly is the CEO of IdeaScale, the leading innovation software company. Ideascale is the core of many leading global organizations innovation efforts, including NSA, comcast, nascar, doctors Without Borders and many others. Nick graduated at the top of his class from Harvard Business School and holds a degree in mathematics from Dartmouth. He enjoys playing poker, running and traveling with his wife. Welcome, nick, we are so excited to have you here. This is our first Harvard grad. Yes, so that's kind of exciting.
Speaker 2:That's exciting. Yes, Welcome Nick.
Speaker 3:Well tell us about yourself.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much, pam, for the warm introduction. Natalie to you as well, don't have much more to say, I'll add. I became a father about six weeks ago, so that is a new challenge in life, congratulations. I'm certainly trying to become resilient to the lack of sleep is? He's a well-behaved kid, but you know, new parents always have less sleep than they would like. So that's the incremental piece of news versus a wonderful bio you just gave. I love it Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Well, and that was the piece that I was talking about as you're navigating through parenthood for the new parents out there, or those that are looking to be parents in the near future the lack of sleep, the juggling of your schedule, thinking that life is as it was. It's not.
Speaker 3:It'll get back to normal.
Speaker 2:It does About 19 years, though, but you're good.
Speaker 4:You're almost there. I'm not dealing with this. For 19 years the kid's got to take care of himself. He's got about a year he has to change his own diaper. I'm done with it.
Speaker 3:Perfect.
Speaker 2:Well, Nick, IdeaScale, having the opportunity to work with some of these amazing companies and organizations. Talk to us a little bit about IdeaScale and we'll come back and circle around, because you've experienced some things in your life as well that has built up resiliency, overcoming some adversities in your own personal life. But let's start by talking about the business.
Speaker 4:Sure. So we've been around about 15 years. We're a software business and what our software does is you can think of it like a social network for ideas. So if you think about TikTok, right, you post a funny dance video of yourself. People around the world can vote those ideas up and down, they can comment on them. Some idea, some TikTok videos go viral and others suck.
Speaker 4:Now imagine replacing funny dance video with an idea. So an idea that your colleagues or the public can vote on. They can say, hey, natalie's got a good idea, but we can tweak it, let's make it a little better. Or Nick's got a terrible idea, let's downvote it. Pam's got a great idea, let's vote it up. So we're a social network of ideas and these ideas can be anything from as kind of silly to what should our new company mascot be, or what snacks should we have in the company office, to more serious ideas such as how should we design the part for a rocket ship or a new drug or a new toy, like very kind of very, very heavy topics. Right, and we? Our software enables incredible organizations to do that around the world. You know Pfizer, comcast, the US Post Office, a lot of organizations around the United States, but also around the world, are using our software to come up with great ideas and then figure out which ideas are good versus bad, and then ultimately take the best of the best ideas and turn them into reality.
Speaker 2:Wow, so a modern day focus group of sorts, because I'm assuming these companies then take it back to their own R&D and dive into it a little bit further.
Speaker 4:Not a focus group, because a focus group kind of implies you get a bunch of people in a room together and they talk for an hour and you get their feedback Again. Going back to social network, a TikTok idea or a TikTok post could have been posted a year ago and it goes viral today. Right, it's dynamic, it's perpetual and the term is asynchronous. I could post an idea like a TikTok post today and you will comment or like on it a week from now, whatever it shows across your feed or when the algorithms think Natalie should look at it.
Speaker 4:Imagine that again for ideas where people and these could be employees, they could be customers, they could be the general public post their ideas, they engage with ideas, they vote on ideas. This could happen over the course of a day, a week, an hour, a year, sometimes multiple years, like we use our own software, for example, and there was a idea for a software that one of our customers posted two and a half years ago. Nobody really got interested in it and it started going viral a couple of weeks ago. And that's because it became relevant to our software today, whereas two and a half years ago it was not really relevant to anyone. So it was a bad idea then, but that same bad idea from two and a half years ago is actually a really good idea today.
Speaker 3:That's so cool. Can anybody take those ideas then and run with them, or how does that work?
Speaker 4:Depends if it's public or private right Some companies are doing. You know, one of our customers was a fast food chain and they were running a campaign engaging with the public so you could see their new ideas for burgers that you or other members of the public or other customers are posting. And then there's other what we call campaigns or communities that are secret, that may only be restricted to your employees or even a subset of your employees. Right, it might be the product team in Norway are the only people who have access to these ideas, or it could be everyone in the world.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's, that's amazing. So for your own company like IdeaScale you mentioned that there are some things that have come out of the platform itself. For that you guys have used what's the most exciting idea that you've pulled from the platform?
Speaker 4:Okay. So at the, it's actually a risk an idea that I submitted about six months ago or nine months ago called Idea Seed, which is like look, the core of our software has always been human beings coming up with ideas, but now, with AI coming out, ai can come up with its own ideas. So Idea Seed is the idea that an AI will seed your community with cool ideas once in a while. So imagine like you have a random uncle or friend that once in a while pops into the room and comes up with a crazy idea. Their idea could be crazy good, crazy bad or just plain crazy. Now an AI is going to do that and that's a feature that we're launching in about six to eight weeks. And initially that idea, everybody hated because we everybody, you know, our customers hated it. Our employees hated it because we were such a human centric platform before. But now, as the world is adapting to humans and AI working together, that same idea has resurfaced as a really cool idea.
Speaker 3:I love that. I love that. That's how did you, how did you come up with the idea of IdeaScale, like what was the prompt?
Speaker 4:So I didn't. I'm not the founder of Idea Scale. I was brought in as CEO about three years ago now and I've had the honor and pleasure of doing that. Idea Scale was founded by two gentlemen, Rob Hohen and Viv Posker, back in 2009. And the idea really sprung out of the Obama administration, and what the Obama administration said was like hey, let's modernize government. Government needs to be innovative. We can't have the US Post Office behaving the way it did in 1790 or whenever Ben Franklin founded it right, I think he founded the Post Office and so when President Obama came out and said government needs to be more innovative, they needed software and tools to do so. And so these two guys, Rob and Viv, founded this company, initially to make government more innovative. And then we realized, wait, everybody wants to be more innovative, and so we've expanded kind of across sectors across geographies, across the world, beautiful, beautiful.
Speaker 2:And Nick, how did you find yourself in this space? We shared a little bit just about your college experience and your degrees, but how did you find yourself in this space? When we talk about, like just the, I consider this to be in that creative realm and you, you have a mathematics degree. Is that correct? So kind of talk to me, cause that's right brain, left brain for me. Talk to us a little bit about your journey coming to IdeaScale.
Speaker 4:Sure. So, by the way, the math I did was like the crazy beautiful mind type of stuff. So it was like super creative. If you've ever seen, you know the who is it? Russell Crowe? Beautiful mind, like crazy weird math, right, numbers floating through your head. So I did do create what I call creative math.
Speaker 4:But what I've done? Like I'd break my career into two chunks. Number one I was a investor on Wall Street. A large part of that job is finding interesting, unique opportunities that are off the beaten path. So there's an element of creativity about thinking about Apple differently or a distressed debt company differently.
Speaker 4:But then for the last four or five years I've somehow stumbled on this career of being a professional CEO. So people call me up when they have a company that either is doing well and needs to do extraordinarily well or, conversely, a company that is doing poorly and needs to do extraordinarily well or, conversely, a company that is doing poorly and wants to be needs to be turned around. So people, there's an entire kind of small world out there of professional ceos. I'm one of them and about two or three years ago, a guy I'd met um four or five years ago and did an interview with and ultimately didn't take the job or didn't get the job. I forget I'd impressed him and he called me up about three years ago and said hey, nick, I've got a friend, he's got this software company. They are looking to go from good to great. Would you be interested in talking to him? And I said I don't remember who you are. I said that more politely.
Speaker 1:When I get a text, I'm going to say it's spam.
Speaker 4:But I responded to him politely and said, yeah, can you remind me who you are? And he gave me the introduction. Me and the, the owner of the company's hit it off and I've again been here now just under three years and it's been an awesome journey.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow. I think that's quite a title to hold the professional CEOs right Like that's you're. You're there. People look to you for advice, for insight, for mentorship, for guidance, or at least that's what I'm taking away from what you've shared.
Speaker 4:I think they I don't know if that's a heavy burden to place on my shoulders, I think folks like me. Our jobs are to make companies successful. Right, and that requires maybe not as much wisdom and mentorship and guidance, but understanding what makes businesses tick right, and that requires maybe not as much wisdom and mentorship and guidance, but understanding what makes businesses tick right. Every business. One way of thinking actually not one way of thinking about a business is it's like a machine, right, and machine has like an HR part and a finance part and a sales part and a product part, and it is a skill set to understand how that machine fits together. Right, Some people are great at marketing but don't understand how product works, or engineering or sales. The job of a good CEO, or part of a job of a good CEO, is to understand how the entire machine fits together and that's why it's kind of a skill set in the market.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Well, pam and I are both coaches and I pride myself on being that strategic coach and I tell any prospective coaching clients that are reaching out to me I'm not the person that's going to that you're going to hire, that's just going to be your accountability partner or your cheerleader on the sideline. We are going to scale, look for missed opportunities, look for opportunities that we can expand and grow. So I think I can understand and appreciate that piece of it. It's one skill set or an area that I really expand and grow, so I think I can understand and appreciate that piece of it. It's one skill set or an area that I really enjoy being in and I enjoy helping others in that space. But if you're looking for someone to help you create your marketing plan or do a brand rebrand, I'm not the girl to do that for you.
Speaker 4:True, right. Like if somebody asked me to go be a life coach or to teach them how to play basketball, I don't think I could save a two pointer to say shoot a two pointer to save my life. Right? I was on the bench every Friday night in high school while my buddies played basketball. Right, like, everyone's got a skillset in life and you should do what you're good at and gives you joy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, I love that, I love that.
Speaker 3:When you went to Harvard, what was your degree, and are you in that same realm right now?
Speaker 4:Sure so, for I went to Harvard for business school, which is a little bit different than the undergraduate right, the undergraduate who study whatever like English or math or physics. I did not go to Harvard for the, the undergraduate part. So when you go to Harvard Business School, they have two years. They have the required curriculum year and the elective curriculum year, rc and EC, instead of first year and second year. In the RC or first year, everyone takes the same courses. So whether you're coming in from a business background or nonprofit or government, no matter how much you know or how little you know, everybody sits together, learns the same things from a very foundational level and you get to with the exact same group of people. And then in your second year you decide if you want to go specialize in something, whether that be finance or healthcare or something. I actually chose second year to do an entirely random assortment of things HR, digital marketing, some financial theory just based on whatever I found was interesting.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay and so, and what was that journey like? I mean, we hear about people going to Harvard Business School. What was that journey like for you?
Speaker 4:Yeah, Given that this is kind of a resilience podcast. So I initially did not get in. So I'd worked my butt off through college, gotten good grades, I'd gotten good jobs after college, and then I applied to business school and no one let me in Not just Harvard, like no one let me in. And that was really disappointing because all my friends and classmates were going off to great grad schools. And here I am like I need to go somewhere, my job has ended, I need to go into grad school. So I was like, okay, I'm pretty pissed off and kind of scared, what do I do? And so I started the craziest thing ever. I started a letter writing campaign. I had every single person I knew who had gone to a business school right into the admissions office at Harvard and say, hey, this guy's the greatest thing since sliced bread. You really should let him in. And so that's how I got in right After a kind of dismal failure.
Speaker 4:That's the beginning part of the journey. And then, like, while there, it was kind of an odd experience. Right, you're surrounded by very, very smart people, but there's no grades, so there's no incentive to work hard. You can't actually fail out. So imagine you've created an environment where you have a bunch of smart people, but you also have created no incentive to work hard. There's no grades, there's no difference between the smartest and dumbest person, the hardest working or the least hard-working. So it creates a very weird dynamic where you kind of just hang out for two years and you have to be incredibly self-motivated to go learn, because if you're not, you know you're still going to graduate in two years and you're going to have the same degree as everyone else okay, which is hence why it's hard to get into it if, as you're in, you get the degree.
Speaker 4:So it's not like you have like, whereas my undergraduate degree was in math. You can't just coast through a math program. There's a right answer or a wrong answer and at the end of like you don't even get to survive four years at a math college degree because after about one, if you didn't get the right answers, you don't even get to move forward to semester two. Your professor calls you up and says well, Nick, yeah, probably should not be in the math faculty at this point.
Speaker 2:Exactly. This may not be the right path for you.
Speaker 4:That's also not just math, Like that happens in medicine too. Right, Like you can flunk out of medical school, thankfully, because we really don't want people being doctors who don't know what you know the heart does, for example. Yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Well, Nick, I feel like your life journey has kind of been what I would put into that American dream, Right when we're looking at an Ivy League college and being the CEO of a corporation or company and being the CEO of a corporation or company but that was not necessarily like the cards you were dealt initially like in your early stages of life. And you have the story of also being an immigrant to the country. Talk to us a little bit about that journey, because I think it all paves a way to more than just where you are today. I think it helps our listeners in understanding the journey that you've taken to get to where you you are sure.
Speaker 4:so I I want to give credit. My part of the immigrant journey is really my parents story, and they had this kind of really interesting life where in the 1980s they immigrated from india to canada um, and it's very like shirt on your back type of story, right, like very classic immigrant story. But then something really extraordinary happens they have a kid and they are like poor. They're working at McDonald's, they have to re-earn their college degrees because their college degrees from developing countries were rejected in the Western world at that point and they got a kid and they can't take care of a kid. So they do this something I cannot imagine they give their child up, and they sent me across the ocean to live with my grandparents in India for five years. So imagine being a mother or father and giving your kid up, knowing you can't see them for five years, right. And so I actually grew up with my grandmother in India till about just before the age of five. I actually didn't see my mother till I was like five and I remember crying the first time I saw her. It's like who is? A strange, crazy lady taking me away from the only adult figure I've known in my life? And so that was the level of sacrifice that my folks had made Like for me. The kind of it impacts me in two or three ways. Number one being very grateful for the sacrifice they made me opportunities Cause I certainly wouldn't.
Speaker 4:You know, as a recent parent, I don't want to give my kid up. That's, you know, heart-wrenching. But also the notion of like succeeding despite having low resource. We were never poor, but we were certainly, like you know, lower middle class working. We didn't have you know, fancy houses or boats. We didn't take vacations every year, which was obviously a very normal part of many of my classmates' lives growing up, so I think it taught me to be scrappy. Number one, to do more with less, but then also to be comfortable in life. Right, I live a very simple life where I don't need to have fancy vacations or like eat at great restaurants to be happy. The things that give me joy in life tend to be basic things, whether it be jogging, reading a book, like things that aren't necessarily tied to having amassed great resources, which I think just makes life a lot happier and easier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely Well, and that's. I have a almost similar story. I was born in Jamaica, though, and same thing coming to the US, and you just you grow up, and I think, when you say learning to do more with less, I think it's just also having a greater appreciation for what you have. I just feel, from also coming from a developing country like it's there's, you have a greater appreciation for the simple things in life, and it doesn't have to. I mean, you say boats and vacations every year. I think that sounds great, but we didn't have it. I still don't have it, I don't. I also don't want to boat, I'm good, still don't have it. I also don't want a boat, I'm good.
Speaker 3:Just an island, just an island.
Speaker 2:Exactly, eventually, we'll get there. Exactly Exactly so, nick, for your parents having you come over now to Canada when you're five years old and really like building up where they are to provide a better future for you, talk to like when did you become keen to that, that that was taking place and that you really were given this tremendous opportunity by growing up in Canada? Versus?
Speaker 4:Probably not, honestly, probably not till I was in, you know, in my college or post-college years, right, where you gain a sense, you know, as a kid you're just going through life.
Speaker 4:You're going to school, you're playing sports, hanging out with your friends, playing video games, whatever.
Speaker 4:That is, At least for me, and maybe I developed later in life I didn't have the appreciation for the level of sacrifices and that they had, that they had made personally, both economic and emotional sacrifices, but then also the in the potential, like investment they had made me for the future, right Like you, don't appreciate all the things that have set you up for success in life, whether that be good parenting, good education, whatever that is. Until you, like, sit back and reflect, like, oh, wow, like I, you know, got an opportunity to go to a good college because they, you know, immigrated to Canada and got, lived in a town where, even though they were poor, it had a good high school, right. All those things build up and you have to kind of look backwards across the trajectory of your life and reflect a little bit. And at least for me, that probably didn't happen until, you know, in my, in my earlier mid twenties, where I was like Whoa, wow. That was extraordinary sacrifices, investment over decades, right.
Speaker 2:Ah, exactly, and I'm sure now, as a father, that those things come to the surface for you more and more frequently.
Speaker 4:It does, right? Yeah, like I'm much more aware of like how many decades and it's not just my parents. My grandmother had made some extraordinary sacrifices too, right, like raising a child in a developing country by herself as a single woman, country by yourself as a single woman. So it makes me appreciate, like a family, but also how you know, decisions can compound over generations, right? The, the opportunities that I have, at least in part, are due to decisions made 80 years ago by my grandmother right, or 40 years ago by my parents and my child, similarly, will be affected by the by all of those accumulating over time for better or worse.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. I love that. Well, thank you for sharing your personal story I think it's huge and your journey into the CEO role. Many of our listeners live and thrive I'm going to say thrive in that entrepreneurial space or aspire to be entrepreneurs, and one thing that Pam and I have focused on quite a bit over the last couple of weeks is ensuring that entrepreneurs, regardless of the size of the business, are truly stepping into their role as a CEO. With that mindset of being a CEO, if you could give some advice or words of wisdom to our listeners in terms of fully embracing being the CEO of their business, what advice would you give to individuals?
Speaker 4:I think I'd give three things. Number one when you're the CEO, at the end of the day, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes, right, whether the joke is, the CEO is also the janitor in a well-run company, because he or she needs to be. If the trash isn't taken out, they don't get to say it's somebody else's job. At the end of the day, everything rolls up to you and you have to have that emotional responsibility as well as the willingness to do whatever it takes to succeed, because everyone's jobs, everyone's livelihoods, the company depends on you. Number two is as a CEO, you should have some technical competence in every aspect of your business. You don't need to be the best in the world as an HR person or a finance person, but you should know what HR is about, or finance is about, or product is about. And if you don't, I would recommend that your audience go spend like a little bit of time. Go take a quick like course on YouTube on what a good HR department looks like or what a good product like. Spend five hours of your life and it will again yield dividends over decades.
Speaker 4:Number three is like ask why you want to be CEO, right, it's very often that people want to be CEO before the title, not realizing that's not actually what gives them joy or where they make the most impact. And a good example is there's a lot of tech CEOs where they realized that they really liked being engineers and so at some point and sometimes after they became billionaires they're like wait, I don't actually want to be a CEO, let's give the job to somebody else. I'm still the board member, I still own the stock, I'm still the billionaire, but somebody else is better at being CEO. I want to go code or run product. There's great examples of this across you know, a bunch of different companies, not just technology, but technology is, it's very prominent. You see this, for example, in HubSpot, where the founder stepped aside, gave somebody else the CEO job like very early on, and was like I'm going to go be the CTO and go focus on tech.
Speaker 3:Exactly so know what your, what your passion is, and stay in that lane, yeah.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You talk about joy and impact, and those are two of the core values for my company and I've said for many, many years if I say yes to something, I'm saying yes because I know that it's going to bring me joy, and if it doesn't, then I'm going to recommend that you contact someone else. It's just that simple for me. It's just that simple for me.
Speaker 3:I like that idea. What you said about getting technical skill in every area, because I know I was in the restaurant industry for 15 years before I got in and anytime I was going to a new restaurant for managing you had to learn every position, like from dishwasher to hostess, to wait to cooks. You you had to know everything. And when you know everything and you're in and your staff and your people see that you can jump in if you need to. It just builds that respect and then you have a good understanding of how everything kind of works and works together. So that's, that's, yeah, great words of wisdom.
Speaker 2:I know I love that piece of it, I love that. So if we have individuals, then they're looking to expand on ideas that they may have. I know that we could incorporate the platform of IdeaScale, but you know there are there. We've had guests in the past that have shared. You know they get their downloads from the powers that be and some of their philosophies that they take is, you know, making sure that once you get the download, you receive the information, or the nugget of information, that you start to take action right away. What's your advice in that space? If somebody has an idea, or the sprouting of an idea, or, if we can say, seed of an idea, where do you go from there? What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 4:Very first thing you should do is record it right Now. I'll give a small pitch for idea scale at the end of my statement. But basically, ideas get lost too easy. Everyone has great ideas, or everyone has some ideas, but most people don't write them down, like somebody probably invented the iPhone or had a concept of an iPhone 30 years ago, but they didn't write it down right, and Steve Jobs eventually did, or his team did.
Speaker 4:So that's number one record the idea and revisit it. Number two iterate on the idea, either by yourself or with a team, right? So look back at the great ideas you have, whether it be on your notepad or your piece of paper, whatever it is, iterate on the ideas. And number three pick an idea that you actually will give you joy to execute. Because, like again, the thing is, if you, if you have all these ideas but you don't will not have the joy to execute on them or actually go do them they will you'll never actually do that. Right, people only do.
Speaker 4:One of my old bosses used to say people always find a time to do what gives them happiness. Right, they always have time for no one's too busy to do what gives them joy in life, and I think that's something that a lot of people forget that they may have these great ideas, they've recorded them, they've made the perfect model, but they don't actually want to build it because building them it doesn't give them joy. So, going back to kind of the quick pitch for IdeaScale our software, by the way, is completely free for like people, up to teams, up to 100. So it's a great place to do all three of those steps record them, iterate on them, either by yourself, secretly, or with the team, and then and then get those ideas done, if you want, right as either as an individual, I don't know like 100,000, like individual users who just are using it for their one person companies, and then obviously millions more who are using it as part of larger organizations, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, and ideascalecom is that where people can find.
Speaker 4:Completely free, no downloads required. There's a get started button, literally no strings attached, up to 100 people. After that we ask you pay, obviously.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. Well, I mean after that.
Speaker 4:I'm imagining that there are so many ideas swarming around, but that makes sense. There's a little payment. There's a bunch of secret ideas I never get access to because I can't go peek at my customers' data, but it's like probably all sorts of secret ideas that my users are creating that I have no idea. Somebody could have cured cancer in one of my users, I don't know. Yeah, I love that I love that there may be a cure for cancer out there it's nice thinking about, even if I never get to see it Exactly.
Speaker 3:So does anybody ever use IdeaScale? And then something comes out of it and they launch something massive and they come back to you and say, oh my gosh, we launched this and it all started with you.
Speaker 4:All the time. That's why they pay us, right? I mean, if that didn didn't happen, they'd stop paying for us pretty quick absolutely.
Speaker 2:I love that. That's how you keep the lights on.
Speaker 4:That's beautiful you know, in business you have to generate a return on investment for your investor or for your customers. If they're not going to get value out of my software, they stop buying it. Right? If you don't like your mcdonald's burger guess what? You stop going to mcdonald's. You don't like your idea of software, you stop paying for it. So, yes, all the time our customers are using your software to create new products, new services, new cost savings, whatever uh feel they're in, and that is obviously that's why they continue to pay for us yeah, I love that well for our listeners if you're in that position to head on over to.
Speaker 2:I love that Well for our listeners if you're in that position to head on over to IdeaScale and start that account. Or if you have someone that you report to a manager, a director, a CEO and they have not heard about IdeaScale, I think that you should encourage them to check it out as well. I love the thought of the power of the collective. We talk about that so much, right? So you're bringing it into the space and then you have the power of the collective and either people like it or they don't like it. Similar, like you said, like TikTok, it's either going to be a hit or it's not.
Speaker 3:And it's okay, right, not every idea has to be great.
Speaker 4:99% of the things that come out of my mouth are stupid ideas. You can actually go see my stupid ideas be downvoted when we use our own software and you can see Nick's idea as a CEO get downvoted sometimes and people feel it's great to a that. People feel culturally okay with telling the CEO he's got a stupid idea. But then it's also great feeling to know that, hey, of my 12 ideas, at least one or two are great or one or two are good and one is great. Yes absolutely.
Speaker 3:I love the idea that sometimes those ideas come back in year, two years. Maybe wasn't relevant at that point, but now it's relevant.
Speaker 4:Actually, I have a really fun example of that, Not from us, but a more generic example. So the idea of AI right, AI has become a big buzz thing over the last four or five years. The actual algorithm that makes modern AI possible is written in the 1970s, and the reason no one could use it was because the hardware the physical chips weren't good enough yet. It took 40 years for our physical chips to catch up so we could actually use this amazing algorithm that somebody invented 40 or 50 years ago. So their idea was terrible then because literally everyone around them said this is impossible. Our technology will never be this good. Lo and behold, 40 years later our hardware got good enough that we can all of a sudden use this idea. That was 40 years ago stupid, but now it is just revolutionizing the world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow, I love that Awesome.
Speaker 4:It Wow, I love that Seven days Awesome.
Speaker 2:It absolutely is, and I'm just curious because I'd love to see the ideas that are being pitched today that are great ideas for 40 years from now. Right, like so from 40 years from 2025, like, what is that going to look like?
Speaker 3:We can't do that, but 40 years from now we can Exactly.
Speaker 4:Exactly. From now we can, exactly exactly. I think the world is starting to realize that that. Are you guys familiar with the mouth, the malthusian paradox? Um, it's this notion that, like 200 years ago, thomas malthus was. This philosopher said hey that we're, given the human population is growing so fast, we're all going to run out of food and die of famine and starvation. What he didn't anticipate when he made this horrible prediction was people are pretty smart and we will create new forms of agriculture, new seeds, new fertilizers that have prevented the world of dying of famine. And so there's this kind of the realization that human beings are incredibly innovative and, over time, we overcome challenges that were thought to be impossible. Right, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Yeah, I'm sure that you know a hundred years ago. You don't think about like modifying and engineering seeds and accelerating the growth of things, and it's happening.
Speaker 4:A hundred years ago, what is it? The first airplane took off, what? 1905 or something, so 120 years ago. So 120 years ago we didn't think plane was Paul, flying was possible. Now we've sent spaceships past Pluto.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a reality for me. On some flights that I take, I get on and I always question. I'm like, how does this thing really work?
Speaker 4:I saw once talking about talking about how everyone complains about small planes on um or small seats on planes and come and he's like wait. And he launched a bunch of expletives but basically said, like guys, you're sitting on a chair, on a throne, flying through the air, like exactly great yeah, otherwise there would be a boat for months. You're literally sitting on this throne flying through the air. Imagine what the greatest kings of like 200 years ago couldn't't have experienced that no, exactly it's.
Speaker 2:it's a glorified magic carpet of sorts.
Speaker 4:You're being fed while it you know you're listening to music watching movies?
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, oh my gosh, I love it. I absolutely love it. So what else is to come? I mean outside of idea seed. We know that that's on the horizon. What else do you see in your future in terms of the company or your own personal journey and growth that you're working through and on?
Speaker 4:Sure, I think I'll say there's kind of two cool things happening at IdeaScale. Number one 2025, is actually a big year for us because it's the first time in like 10 years that we're launching entirely new products. So we launched our whiteboarding product about a week ago and we are launching our project management product in two or three months, so it's our. It's a big year from a product perspective because historically we've been in one product company, but this year we're not only launching entirely new products, but big, big features that are kind of almost products into themselves, like Idea Seed. Number two is we starting early last year, we started expanding globally and this is really the year where that comes to fruition, where we stop being a primarily kind of North American-based company and have much more impact.
Speaker 4:I think already about one-third of our revenues are overseas and we're trying to make that. We want to be the innovation software for people in China, in France, in South Africa, and that's what 2025 is really about. As for me personally, look, I'm very happy and excited to be part of the journey and getting to be, you know, one of the leaders in this journey that IdeaScale is going through, and 2025 is also my first, going to be my first full year as a father, so that's a bit personal journey that I'm going to. You know, deal with and learn how to teach a child to walk and, you know, use a toilet and stuff. I don't know when that happens Actually that might happen in five years but hopefully not.
Speaker 3:You got a minute.
Speaker 2:You have a little bit of time? Yes, embrace those small milestones along the way. There are lots of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:That's so exciting. That's exciting, well, and it's exciting news for the company as well and to have two additional products. It sounds like these products are consumer facing, so your consumer will be able to utilize the project management portion.
Speaker 4:Everything we make is ultimately designed for what we call an innovator, somebody who wants to do creative stuff. And creative stuff ultimately means three steps coming up with brainstorming basically a bunch of good ideas, bad ideas. Number two organizing ideas right how do you sort the good ideas, the bad ideas, the ideas you have money for, the ideas you don't have money for. And number three, execution going from idea to reality, and that reality could again be simple snacks in the kitchen to spaceships, to Mars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, I think those three steps are key. There are many individuals that have fabulous ideas that just sprout left and right and then getting them to step three of the execution is usually a challenge, but I think it's because we often forget about organizing the thoughts, the idea, conceptualizing it, before getting to the execution.
Speaker 4:And, to be clear, some people are only on step three, some people are great at step three but don't like step two and step one, and it does take all types and our vision, our belief is that through software ideally our software, but in general software enables those three types of people to do so more efficiently yeah, or it could be one person doing all three steps, but he or she can do so more efficiently yeah, or it could be one person doing all three steps, but he or she can do so more efficiently and effectively. And that's in fact, just generally the power of software in our world.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. The two additions also free to use on the platform.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly so. Our whiteboarding software which launched about a week ago, everyone gets one free whiteboard entirely. Now, if you want a thousand whiteboards, then yeah, you got to pay us and the PPM again. We haven't figured out exactly how pricing will go, but there will be a free version of that accessible. We haven't quite figured out what that means yet, but yes, our goal is we want to make our software accessible to everyone and then, once everyone reaches that level of maturity where they want a more complex piece of software, we would love if they upgraded to our paid version, but if they don't, that's fine, because there's a no strings attached free version for small organizations.
Speaker 2:Wow, Thank you for that. I mean what a great gift to those innovators, like you said, the individuals that probably don't know where to start, how to get it up and running may or may not have the resources at their disposal.
Speaker 4:30 seconds to use IdeaScale, Like literally. If you can use TikTok or Instagram or Facebook, you should be able to use us.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it, oh, my goodness. Well, nick, is there anything that we didn't touch on, that you wanted to touch on today?
Speaker 4:No, I think you guys have been extraordinary interviews and we've gone through a lot of different topics. So I am you know, the well is starting to run dry.
Speaker 3:Well, this has been incredible. I'm excited to check this out as soon as we are done, exactly Something that Natalie and I will be probably using in our brainstorming.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, something that Pam and I do every year and we have for eight years now nine years, a little bit of time. We do a think week each week where we just unplug from everything and dive into our business. We're also business partners outside of the podcast space and so we dive into our business for an entire week and we do. We take that time. Every idea goes on. Well, you say whiteboard, we're still pen and paper, so it goes on a post, it note that goes on the wall and then all of the ideas are condensed and from there we pull it off and it's like what are we going to run with?
Speaker 2:And actually it was out of one of those Think Weeks that we created the Reignite Resilience podcast. We were not podcasters, neither of us went to school in the world or space of podcast engineering, but here we are, we found our way. So this platform sounds phenomenal to be a part of your Think Week or your business planning, or even for those moments that you get the idea in the shower, or when you wake up in the middle of the night with a great idea. You have the platform that you can go to. That's going to help you every step of the way.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Like you were talking about post notes. When people ask me who my biggest competitor is, it's 3M the guys who make posts.
Speaker 2:It is 3M.
Speaker 4:Sorry that's my, but like that made sense in the 1990s, but today you really should be using a software solution for anything in your life
Speaker 3:right, absolutely, absolutely. I agree I agree.
Speaker 2:Well, I love it. Yes, and well, here's the thing it's going to travel easier, because we had to pack all of those post-it notes and flip charts as we traveled all over for our think week. So our whiteboard with IdeaScale is going to be much easier to carry. Nick, this has been great. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much, guys, for having me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, congratulations with your new little one. Yeah, lots of fun ahead.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, and it sounds like a lot of amazing things that are in store for the company as well. Kudos to you for all that you've done in the CEO role for the company and thank you for all that you're doing for innovation for the globe. I mean, this is worldwide what you're doing to empower those innovators around the world. So, thank you, thank you. We will make sure that we put all of your contact information the IdeaScale contact information in our show notes so our listeners can click right over and find you. And for our listeners that are curious about what's happening in the world of Reignite Resilience, you all know where to find us we're at reigniteresiliencecom or you can find us on Facebook or Instagram. Until next time, we will see you all soon. Thanks everyone.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real-life ideas. To fuel the flames of passion. Please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes and, of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.
