EIR Live

So there was corporate fatigue from those innovation models and a lot of them with the pandemic were swept away because it was it was an easy way to just wind back those those investments. Now what happened, I believe, and this is my own opinion, is in the pandemic we saw, well, shoot, if we get hit by a disaster, we're making our own masks, we're making our own hand sanitizer, we're figuring out everything as a community. There's not an economic player that's going to solve this for us. We might get a check from the president, who knows? So entrepreneurship now really big part of creating a sustainable economy at municipal local level in addition to institutional levels, corporate levels and elsewhere.

Welcome to EIR Live, where we dive into the lives and lessons of entrepreneurs and residents. I'm Ilya Tabakh, together with my cohost Terence Bohr, ready to bring you closer to the heartbeat of the innovation entrepreneurial spirit. Every episode, we explore the real stories behind the ideas, successes, setbacks, and everything in between. For everyone from aspiring EIRs to seasoned pros, EIR Live is your gateway to the depth of the entrepreneurial journey and bringing innovative insights into the broader world. Check out the full details in the episode description.

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Alright. We're back with another episode of EIR Live with John Lin, the man, the myth, the legend, and Forex EIR. Thank you so much, John, for joining us on the on the podcast today. There's so much that I could spend an hour on John's intro, but, you know, I won't do him justice, but his career has had sort of multiple multiple chapters in it. You know, there's this this founder of the accelerator program and the innovation initiatives that John has worked on.

There's the multiple concurrent EIR roles that he's held along the way and created along the way. There's his experience working with governments, corporations, and everything in between. But there's so much more that John can share about his background that I won't be able to share about his background. John, could you please introduce yourself to our audience to give your your background justice that it deserves?

Well, I think you did a good job, there, Terrance, and and thanks to both you and Ilya and your team for making me a part of the conversation today. Proud to be here. Yeah, entrepreneur in residence roles have been an important part of how my business has sort of begun to install functions that support entrepreneurship within corporations, governments and universities. And so it's a role that's really important not just to how I individually become valuable to entrepreneurs, but how our company sort of accomplishes its mission around building accelerators wherever they can be built. And so my name is John Lynn.

I am the co founder of Quay Acceleration. We build startup accelerators as a service. Last year, we built 14 startup accelerators with 12 different clients for over 120 businesses. These accelerators focused in some cases or many cases on digital technologies on the web and in mobile, but also included companies coming in to open up The US market from the international scene, as well as retail companies, opening up their first retail, brick and mortar in the city of Manhattan, which was sort of the first first program of its kind. So we really believe in how accelerators can organically provide access to entrepreneurship and support in any situation.

And, you know, we do that with governments, with corporations and investor groups, universities. So that's the top level about what we do, where I'm coming from here.

All right. I'm going dig in a little bit more, right? Because a little part of your journey, John, is sort of this you you had this international experience. Right? And I'm I'm gonna get it get into it, right, which is you had this unexpected pivot, right, and some of the international work you did in Japan, right, that that we talked about, early on in in your career.

I wanted to I'm going way back, man. You know, I I think what we found is that there's always infrastructure under the entrepreneurs and residents that we've brought onto the show. They're doing incredible things now, but there's always something that started them on this journey, along the way. And one of the pivotal stories that you shared with us early on in in in the prep was around sort of your experience in in Japan. Could could you share that experience Yeah.

Sure. With that with that audience around your first startup experience there?

You know, I only recently realized that that experience was my first startup experience. But here's here's the story because it was a life changing kind of moment. Yeah. You know, I graduated as a literature major in 02/2008 from, you know, top 10 university, a national university, Washington University in St. Louis, and really was looking at zero prospects coming out of college and had no intention of becoming an entrepreneur or a founder.

You know, at that point, I was a literature major. I wanted to be a writer, best case scenario, but was really gonna figure it out. And so I ended up, you know, working with one of the presidential campaigns that year, learning a lot about community organization, ended up going back to my old job in high school teaching tennis, delivering Chinese food, really not where I wanted to be, And saved up a little bit of money and went to Japan where, you know, my best friend was from. Went there to see kind of escape things, but also see the cherry blossom kind of season, have that experience. Got there early.

Ended up having to travel from Tokyo Seventeen Hours south to the southern tip of Japan, Nagasaki, and stayed at a hostel there. The owners offered me a job when they heard kind of about where I was and my background with Japan. And they had just started this hostel. It was one of the first hostels in Nagasaki. Nagasaki obviously has a complicated history with, you know, the West, given the of way World War II ended.

And so this was a pretty new thing that was happening in Nagasaki that I got to be a part of. And not just having this international opening to that city, but having an American, on staff was kind of a big deal. So the media in Nagasaki took notice. I was on the news. They did a whole sort of bio on me.

I got fan mail to

the

hostel. But, you know, it taught me a lot of the skills or kind of refined some of the abilities that I had that have led me to not just entrepreneurship, but but to acceleration. And, you know, coming into that situation, I had zero relationships in Japan generally, but especially in that city and began to see opportunities in the hostel. So, you know, there were Nagasaki is pretty much a flyover. Like, people will come, go to the bomb museum and then get out.

I saw an opportunity to show them more of Nagasaki, which often included going out and drinking a lot and waking up late the next day so that, you know, they were buying another night at the at the hostel. And so once the the owners kind of saw this opportunity, we organized more of Nagasaki around the hostel and, you know, really kind of changed the way the business worked. So I was able to build community. I was able to impact the business. And now looking back at that experience sixteen years later, it's kind of, yeah, my first startup experience, like you said before.

And so that really kind of got me more interested in business experimenting with, you know, being a broker. When I got back to Manhattan, I built a million dollar portfolio at a brokerage within one year, had my own associate team. I was 26. And then eventually started my my first tech company, got to an accelerator.

Man, what a story, man. Talk about adaptability. Talk about taking the lead. Talk about, I'll just do it now. Why not?

I don't have much to lose. And they were startup founders themselves starting this new hostel that you are basically a early employee of helping them sort of grow it as a early stage operator and being involved there. I'm more curious about the community principles that you learned, you know, during that time that translated over to the accelerator methodology and some of the work that you do today that informed some of some of that work. Could you talk talk to us a little bit about that or if it did, at all?

It did. It did. And that, you know, it was that experience combined with my experience on the Obama campaign, that really have stayed central to the way that we architect entrepreneurial ecosystems, but at our accelerators, but also how I individually operate my day to day life as an entrepreneur. And the the most important principle there is this concept around sustainable self interest. Community organizing principle.

And what it says is selfishness and selflessness equally poor foundations for a community. They're both one way relationships. In selfishness, there's a taker and only a taker. In selflessness, there's a giver and only a giver. And neither of those one way relationships can actually create a dynamic, a give and take.

And that's what great communities are built on. When you can give a little bit, you can get a little bit and an ecosystem begins to take place. So sure, that was part of what I was doing day to day in Nagasaki, trying to meet more of the businesses and organizations there to bring them closer to the hostel and get our visitors more engaged with the city quickly. But it's, you know, essentially the same function. When I came into the Boston ecosystem where I went through an accelerator and, built my first company, got my first VC check, it was all about going out to the different categories of stakeholders in the ecosystem, getting to know getting to know individual actors at those organizations, and then finding out two things in each of those conversations.

Number one, what they needed. What is the give I can make? Now, I was in a situation where I wasn't coming from, you know, a ton of savings that I'd made or, there wasn't a lot of bandwidth for me to be thinking a lot about other anything else other than how I was going to pay my bills. But making room for that immediately changed the nature of the conversations that I was having. And then also being clear about, you know, what my goals were and how somebody could help.

And that ended up being really important once I started working at Techstars. So in 2014 Techstars was launching its first one of its first accelerator programs in New York City. I was wrapping up one of my ventures, decided to go onto the accelerator side this time. And when I was in the program, TechStars was actually launching its first branded venture fund. So the first Techstars venture fund.

I was an associate, so maybe one of the most junior people on on staff. And the founders, David Cohen, and, one of one of the managing partners, Mark Solon, based in Colorado and Wyoming, respectively, came to the New York program to talk to the founders about fundraising. They were talking about all the different techniques that they used to be compelling to investors and, to make the right story for a fundraise. And the number one thing that they kind of advised was it doesn't matter if you're talking to a billionaire and you're not, or if you're talking to a serial founder and you're a first time founder, or if you're talking to someone who's well known in the media and you're not, every conversation that you're having is a conversation that can be an equal conversation if you wanted to. And so your challenge is to find out how you can help these individuals and then and then make it happen.

And I found that inspiring. I got into a conversation with one of the founders of Priceline.com who's based in in New York. He started his own incubator, Mike. And, you know, they were looking for a way into 500 startups, Y Combinator and Techstars. And so I was able to broker a 7 figure check from this wealthy founder into the Techstars venture fund, build a relationship with both.

And that was really a technique I learned in Nagasaki. So that's that I think is the the core thing that we build our ecosystems around, but that also has driven my progress as an entrepreneur.

Yeah. What's is there's a classical experiment in network engineering where they introduce three types of nodes. One is selfless, one is selfish, and one's fair. And what happens is first the selfless ones die, then the selfish ones die, and then the fair ones stabilize the network. And you know, in network engineering, it's a much reduced thing that the whole process is, will you send a message for me?

I can send a message for you. And so the selfless ones will just always send a message. The selfish ones will never send a message on somebody else's behalf. And the fair ones just remember that, hey, you send a message for me last time. I owe you.

Reciprocity. And so it's interesting. This is actually when I did a pretty deep dive into kind of sociology and how humans cooperate, it was funny how some of these network things. So it's awesome that you found it in practice live. One thing I wanted to draw attention to quickly is I think, you know, kind of the literature major gives you a pretty good exposure to narrative.

And I've seen one of the and even in our early conversation here, there's sort of a good sort of focus on what happened. Right. And I think that in a lot of innovation ecosystems and accelerators and things like that, part of the challenge is what's the story? Where are we going? And then how does that narrative get supported by the things that we're doing?

Things like that. So I just wanted to kind of call that out early. I love the foundational pieces because kind of narrative community, really people network. And one of my biggest disappointments, just another thing that caught my ear is as a recovering technologist, the best technologies don't always win. And often it's the people network and process that bring things over the top.

And I love that that's kind of where the foundation for you started, or at least in kind of our discussion here.

Yeah, let me jump in on both of those really quickly because they are really important takeaways, I think, for any listener here thinking about becoming an EIR or getting assistance for themselves as an entrepreneur through an EIR. The stories are important because the way that key milestones occur for every founder is different. And what I mean by that is the way that one founder finds their co founder is different than any other co founders find each other. The way that, you know, one founder finds their first investor or their first VC check is different than the way anyone else had done it before, right? So hearing these stories about how somebody tactically achieved that milestone, like the kind of relationships that they were playing off of, the kinds of traction and value that they were envisioning and were able to talk about, you know, much more important to pay attention to than when did somebody start the company, when did they get their check, who is it from and how much.

Data points don't tell you a lot about actually making it happen. So the narrative is a really important part of think, what you get in accelerator and what an EIR provides, in consultation to the ecosystems they support and the entrepreneurs that they work with.

I'm going to double down on this because I think storytelling is a superpower. I talk about this all the time, that there's a direct correlation between storytelling and how well you tell stories, to get people to move in the right direction. There's a little bit of investor psychology in this too. But I do think there's an unspoken connection, John, between your your English sort of background, the things that you've done, and that ability that gives you the ability to tell stories in a narrative that, like Ilya said, that others, you might not even know is a superpower of yours because you're it's natural potentially at this point to you. You know, I'm curious to know how you use the power of narrative and storytelling to land your first VC check-in Boston.

Can you tell us about that experience for our audience?

High level, would say, as an innovator, that storytelling is important because you're doing something new for the first time. And so the only way you're going to get somebody you're not going to get anybody to trust you. You're just going to get them to be inspired by you. And that is a different game, a different conversation than applying to a university, applying to a job, applying to a bank for a check. So more on that later.

But in terms of how we got this first VC check from an accelerator in Boston, I had moved to Boston in 2013 to pursue my progress as an entrepreneur. I was still working on my first venture. And as soon as I got on the ground, I was in this boot camp called Startup Institute. Sixty other entrepreneurs or people that wanted to work with entrepreneurs in this program, eight week program. And we got connected with a funded entrepreneur from Techstars during the program.

His name is Chris Howard, still in touch today. He was building a company called TheBoot. And the first meeting that we had with him, he was like, you know, I'm supposed to give you all a project that you can use to sell yourselves as good members of a startup team, get hired. But I know that you're really here because you want to be entrepreneurs. So what do you say we start a company?

We were all in for that. So he said, you know, you can use our resources, you can use our space, you can use our team, you can get my network, but it's this opportunity is now in your hands. Good luck. And we ended up building a company called Curativity, which was a solution to the publishing industry's challenges regarding the slush pile. Slush pile is the number of unsolicited manuscripts that are given to publishers and, literary agents every year.

In The US, it's about 3,000,000 manuscripts that get sent unasked for to these to these publishing houses causes a huge problem because sometimes Harry Potter is in that slush pile. And so they've got to find a way to navigate the slush pile, see if there is a great win in there. We created a mobile app that allowed publishers to share excerpts of unsolicited manuscripts to an audience of readers that was tagged as interested in that genre. And they would be able to quickly be able to get, data feedback from potential readers, potential buyers of that manuscript if they decided to publish it as opposed to trusting a first year, month intern to read the first chapter and make that decision. And we got good connections with some really legacy publishers and professionals in publishing on the advisory board.

We got some partnerships set up with reader communities from other startups that were in the space. And we made an MVP. We had an engineer, but we didn't have the resources to make a full full MVP. So we created a stack of index cards that had the drawing of a mobile screen on each one. And then we asked people to swipe through the index cards as though they were swiping through a screen.

And we would watch them do this, take some data down, and we took the data to BetaSpring was the name of the accelerator. They're one of the first eight accelerators in the history of the space, led by Alan Tare and Melissa Weathers who are still working together at REV UP and to approach the acceleration. And we got the offer. Now, offer didn't stick. So we got a little bit further in the negotiation and one of my co founders, we had three co founders, pulled out of the project.

And she was this brilliant woman from MIT architecture who was transitioning into tech kind of at the same time. And they said, well, you know, she was the real reason that we were interested in the venture. And if she's not there, then we're not here either. And so we lost that opportunity. That was also a valuable aspect of the experience.

Just before we move on there, you mentioned it a little bit earlier, sort of the EIR, but ultimately somebody that has experience doing stuff. One of my favorite things is actually like talking to founders as a debrief on what happened. And the story is always so much different than like the story that was captured, you know, success or failure, like the real view of how it went down and sort of the muscle memory and the lessons learned are just so much different in that. And it just it strikes me that there's probably so much stuff that happened in that experience. The other thing is I love the hustle, right?

Startups are all about sort of asymmetric warfare, right? And so finding analog functional prototype to get traction and that kind of thing is those are like the signals that I'm always looking out for this team, this group, this individual, they're going to make it happen. You know, even if they have no supplies, no food, no sleeping bag, they're still going to climb the mountain. And it's really cool to sort of hear that story because, you know, every like entrepreneur or like every entrepreneur that really buckled down and did it has some of these. I think that's the muscle memory to dig into and sort of additional texture that's really valuable.

Man, as a product person, I'm such a fan of you using index cards to do an MVP to collect data. I just think that's that's genius. And I I you talk to some founders and they want things to be always be perfect. And it's sort of like, it's not gonna be perfect, guys. Like, there people are gonna throw up all over this.

Okay? That's that's okay. You need to put it out in the market to get some feedback. And, I love that you guys are like, look. We can't afford it.

Go get the note cards. We better become good artists and let's draw.

You you know, and I I you know, I'm a professor of entrepreneurship now at a few universities. Just had class last night and on to the talking to my students about this and said like, I was introducing the concept of an MVP. And I was like, this sounds like a really good idea because it's cheaper, right? Yes, partially. The real reason that this is something that's good to a good method for developing product, developing a solution for customers because it's more fair for your customer.

Right? This is going to come at a lower cost of time and risk and money to them. And they're going to have influence on what it becomes. So put forward the small thing first because even though it's dysfunctional and ugly, ultimately going to have a much higher return for your for your customer who, you know, if you're if you're the right kind of entrepreneur you care about, you know, first.

And those people become your early adopters and evangelists. They're reaching out to you become early pilots. You know, it's a lot of things that those people are along for the journey. Like you said, you don't really have much to give them, John, but inspiration of I think there's something here. I think I can solve your problem.

If you believe me, you know, give me your time and let me learn from you, and I'll shape the product in a way or the solution in a way that that serves you well. And and I think that's that's what great entrepreneurs do. Now I there's there's another interesting point in sort of your your evolution. I I wanna talk about sort of you had an experience there, I think, with KJ Singh, at Techstars. I I love that you also mentioned Beta Spring.

It's been at least nine years since I heard the words Beta Spring and Rev Up. I'm a I used to live in Rhode Island for seven years, so I know Beta Spring very well. You know, I know of Melissa Winter Winters as well, and she she did great work in in that area. So shout out to, to you for bringing for bringing those those folks up because, they they've been doing great work under the radar for a very long time. So you have an experience with KJ Singh at at Techstars that, you know, could you tell us a little bit more about like, you know, the influence there and the experience there with Techstars and, you know, I want you to dive a little bit more into that.

So if you're going to ask about it, Terrance, there's a certain moment I've got to share in terms of how the Techstars, my Techstars experience came together. You know, at the same time that I was wrapping up Curativity, I had also gotten an offer to join a business school. I thought I could maybe continue building the venture from there. It didn't work out. So I was thinking about, you know, what's next?

A couple of friends were trying to get me to go out to San Francisco. But one of my childhood friends, Wani Lee, founder of Elloria, which is based in New York now, super successful ecom and brick and mortar perfume company here, said, you know, I'm applying to Techstars. They're a great team. They're looking to grow. Let me connect you with them.

So I started the interview process with Techstars. A few weeks in, I had to go back up to Boston to kind of close-up, have a last conversation with the dean of the business school I was at. Train ride in the middle of the winter ended up breaking down twice. Trains and winter do not mix very well. And so it was a 12 train ride from New York City up to Boston.

It's usually a four hour ride for anybody who hasn't done it before. So the next day I had this rough conversation with the dean. I was kind of dejected walking back to the train to go back down to New York again. And KJ, who was the director of Techstars at that at that time, gave me a call, asked me

how

the the trip went. And I said, well, it's pretty rough. Had this train breakdown, it was twelve hours. He said, well, I have more bad news for you. We're giving you the position at Techstars, so you got to take that train ride back down to New York and join us here.

We've got this program starting in about six weeks. And so that was that was kind of how that that opportunity started and really set me on the path that I'm on now and acceleration.

Awesome, man. Well, talk to us about the money moment is what I'm going to call it. The moment. Talk to us about one, hearing about the EIR role for the first time. Right?

Talk to us about how you landed that role for the first time. And then we'll pause there and then we'll get into a bunch of other things.

So my start with the EIR role came at on the heels of like a big loss. And what had happened in 2015, I had set up this nonprofit called the New York City Innovation Collective. It's supposed to be an association of accelerators in New York City. By the end of the first year, we had almost 100 programs associated as members. But I was 27 at the time.

Everyone else who was involved was had been in accelerators since the beginning and had been serial entrepreneurs. And so there was some discomfort with me continuing to be the chairperson once I became successful. I disagreed. I thought I had gotten the things set up and growing so I should remain the chairperson and at the end of twenty seventeen was voted out. And then I decided to leave the organization entirely after that.

And so I was kind of at ground zero and but had all this great track record and acceleration and working with startups and founders behind me I knew I wanted to continue building accelerators as a service. And so went back to some of the universities, some of the corporations that I had worked with and said, you know, I wanna I want to continue to provide value to you. And one of the ways that I think we can prove out that your university or your corporation should have an entrepreneurial ecosystem around it is through just some individual progress. Let's let me come in as an EIR, see how I can help individuals in your ecosystem. I can do that through advisory.

I can do that through teaching. I can do that through connecting. And if we prove it out, all I want from you is some assurance that we'll we'll explore a bigger budget for an accelerator. And so that's how the sort of my first first roles at Pace University's engineering school, at SAP, at Hackathon Capital came together in 2017, '20 '18, and they really became the foundation for, you know, the portfolio that we now have in accelerators.

Incredible. And I'm I'm curious to know what what what was the moment in those conversations, John? What was the secret sauce that you had with them that said, yeah, sure. We'll was it the trial run period? Was it sure we'll give them three months, three month contract or something as a EIR.

Let's see how how it goes. And if it goes well, we'll just keep extending the thing. And I'm just curious to know what what what did you say to them, you know, for our audience if you can teach them something. What's the tip that you can give somebody that is it because you already had the credibility along the way and you were just packaging all of that up to say, hey. I can add value to you.

Or did you notice that they had a problem at the time, these places that you had, you know, did work with already, and you knew that you could solve that problem for them with the network and the experience that you had already?

It's not a situation where there's a clear entry point. So, I mean, you might find EIR roles available on LinkedIn, you know, different organizations, but it's going to work differently almost every time you engage with it, right? So when I was coming in, I was really looking in these conversations for motivation. What what is this person or this group trying to prove about their role in entrepreneurship? Because especially ten years ago, it was a it was a huge part of it was on everybody's mind, right?

No matter who you were. Tech was a big employer, especially in New York. More student interest, more degrees in technology and entrepreneurship. So everybody had to have this answer. If you're a corporation, you had to show that you had some activities in innovation, right?

So at the end of the conversation, maybe it was with a director or managing director or a dean or a CEO and say, well, I know this is a priority for you. I know this is something that you want to succeed in. How are you making that happen right now? And is it working? They may not have described themselves as committed to making entrepreneurship work in their situation.

But by providing that label, we could now build a story together. Okay, now my challenge is your challenge. We are trying to make a bigger place for entrepreneurship, for technology, for innovation. Here's some of the things that are going on right now. Here's where they're not working.

Let's take a step back. Let's cool down, work more closely together, start having some community level conversations with individuals that have been touched by your current efforts. And then let's see how we can serve them on a one to one basis. Can we make a good connection for them? Can we connect them with the right skill?

Can we, you know, find them the first customer, the first investor? And once we start notching wins, we can see whether there's progress and something to build on in a bigger way. And so was those were kinds of the pressure points that I set up in those conversations to say, Okay, well, you're committed to this, right? And here's where it's not working, right? And this would be cheaper to do, right?

And that's that's kind of how how I got those first opportunities and, you know, like they were all smaller financial opportunities than what I had been working with as a salary or paying myself as a founder. But, you know, if you're sometimes you have to take that step back and we're down.

A few comments here, and I'm gonna pass it over to to to Ilya, which one, I I remember, thinking that, oh, we're the first batch of EIRs here at, at SAP when I got there in in in in 2019, and only to find John a couple of months later, I think, because he was running CELA at the time and also was the founding EIR at Weave, I think, at the at the time. And I I was in their their mentor network. And I and I looked up John's profile and I was like, this guy's been doing this four years, five years prior before I even got here. And it wasn't even called SAP, dot I o at the time. It was called SAP Labs.

And, you know, you were actually one of the early, early EIRs there before they actually formalized the the program, really. And, you know, so John is a OG in the in in in a lot of these spaces in terms of being the founding founding EIR. I think there's also something to be said about you, basically raising your hand and shooting your shot and going back to the people and go, hey. You're committed to this. I wanna help you, you know, actually drive this forward.

And and I think that resonated well, with a lot of people, for you to land your first EIR gate. But I'm gonna pass it over to Ilya now because I think he's itching to ask you, a few other questions.

No, I got all kinds of questions. The thing I really like about the way you're describing kind of the role of the EIR as opposed to like maybe a mentor is that you're, you know, kind of have a mind of really the way that we open this episode, right? What's the benefit to you? Right? How do you win?

And really sort of in some cases maybe being a step or two in that thought process from, you know, kind of your partner organization and then sort of setting the table for that to be successful. You know, and we were kind of talking before we started in kind of our pre conversations, how the EIR can be a really interesting sort of gateway, you know, to get into an accelerator, get into the kind of the ecosystem infrastructure. But I love kind of the way that you were describing your view on EIR. That's maybe different than a consultant or mentor or sort of other words and kind of terms that are used to. Can you talk about that a little bit more?

And then I'd love to sort of dive in and kind of talk about where that leads and sort of the meat of your work today.

Yeah. And I mean, the conversation that I just laid out for you is, I think, just the version of the conversation that led to what most people would call an EIR position. Every one of the EIR positions I had had a different kind of structure and intent to it, right? So with the pace, it was more about mentorship, right? Working with their engineering students to actually help them understand how to build products that could get investor interest.

With Weave, it was about working with the startups that were coming into The U. S. Market and getting them connected to investors and customers. So it was less of a mentor role, more of a developmental role. With Akathon, it was sort of the reverse, trying to get people to go from the international market into the Chinese market.

And with SAP, you know, that was really about helping them prove out their validity as an ecosystem. And that was with, I think it's called SAP Nextgen. Yeah. Led by Ann Rosenberg and Ben Christensen. And so that was more about, you know, how can we how can we show that we've invested in entrepreneurs in New York and so we had Terrance, you're right.

The company at that time was called Sella. And so we had Sella based at SAP Nextgen in the 40 Eighth Floor Of Town Hudson Yards where SAP Connection was based. And so it was an excellent setting for us to show that we were able to curry interest with a huge institution and for them to show that they're really committed to New York and entrepreneurship. So I hope those descriptions make it clear how different these roles were in their intent and kind of the landscapes involved moving into them.

And I think, you know, when Terrance and I have been talking generally, how do you be an effective entrepreneur in residence? Some of the things we talk about is you have to know what your secret sauce is, what you bring to the table, and be able to describe it to folks that may not necessarily have firsthand experience with that. But then, you know, the org, the residents has to do a lot of work, right? What role does innovation play in their success? Right?

How they can kind of partner with your secret sauce, you know, and it seems like at least in some ways, I hear you kind of describing that, you know, how does this make you successful? Ultimately, how do you win? And then here are kind of skill sets and backgrounds, whether it's community, ecosystem, accelerator, being able to start new things that I can sort of bring to the table in a way that's additive to both. And that's kind of cool to talk through. You've had a lot of different experiences with different types of, as you described, corporations, universities.

One of the challenges I've seen from working with corporates and maybe public entities, it's there's not a lot of folks that have started new things, but in many cases, they sort of want to do new things. Can you talk a little bit about how you kind of help them think about that and sort of take the step from curious to trying it to being successful?

So is this in terms of conversations with government officials or corporate executives that are trying to support more entrepreneurs or support more innovation in their corporation? Or is it about helping them exit those settings and become entrepreneurs?

Yeah, know. It's former. I think the become entrepreneurs sort of happens organically, I've seen. Sometimes they need a little bit of support, but being able to be successful in that sort of traditional context is the one where I think a lot of accelerators and innovation ecosystem programming and things like that can make a difference if you sort of design it correctly. I know you had a lot a lot of experience there.

So I wanted to dig into that. Well, to be honest, Ilya, I mean, it's a really good question because there's two clear categories for how I've experienced this. One is somebody who thinks they know what they're doing and one is somebody who really wants to be successful. And the category one can usually be, you know, maybe somebody with a little bit more experience or who has pitched something very specific to the executive team and gotten a big budget around something specific that they need to make successful. And, you know, the writing is already on the wall for whether for that, whether it's going to be successful or There's not a lot there's not a lot of partnership available.

And so that's just gonna be what it's gonna be. On the other hand, you have somebody who maybe has the the motivation, the intention, the inspiration to create ecosystem, to create entrepreneurship or innovation in a setting where it doesn't exist yet. And that's where I think we, you know, not just me as an individual, but, you know, my co founder, our team have kind of figured out something special is, well, we know that this is possible to build anywhere. So the question is, where do we start and what do we prove so that we can open up the next step? And finding that conversation where you've got the right person there who's like willing to have those conversations with you, willing to then get maybe the rest of their team bought in, ready to add some dollar signs to the conversation without feeling like they're sacrificing too much of their cache.

And then to get somebody else to sign the dotted line and be responsible for the success of this thing, that's a tough person to find. But I think it's really important to the way that our engagements and our impact have grown, you know, from a starting point, whether it's an EIR title or some other pilot into a full accelerator or a full platform play.

I wanna double down on this because I I wanna talk about how that how that led you to the word the the the word the work that you're doing today, you know, with Quay Acceleration. Right? Because I I was thrilled. I got this email about, you know, the other organization and we've coming together to form this powerhouse organization. I was like, two good people who already had two great organizations.

Now they're bringing them together. And then I've had the privilege to work on both sides of the organization, I can I can say that because I've experienced you two in different ways? And and now you're working on this new thing, and you've been helping governments, local governments, and and others, you know, find their way in this world through the accelerator methodology and method. Can you talk to us about the work you're doing today and what you do with those sort of people?

Yeah, sure. The essential offering is the same. We are designing, launching and then operating an accelerator program for startups. Now, what has changed where you're right, Terrance, governments have become a bigger part of the equation is kind of the difference between pre pandemic and post pandemic entrepreneurial ecosystems. Before the pandemic, it was the heyday of corporate innovation.

Techstars raised $40,000,000 not to be an investor, but to be a service provider to build those with corporations, right? Silicon Valley Bank was the the funder. Plug and play had taken its kind of co work VC accelerator trilogy into the international market with some success. Heavily, heavily corporate subsidized. Both of those models, you know, really not not a thing today.

And so there was corporate fatigue from those innovation models, and a lot of them with the pandemic were swept away because it was it was an easy way to just wind back those those investments. Now, happened, I believe, and this is my own opinion, is in the pandemic, we saw, well, shoot, if we get hit by a disaster, we're making our own masks. We're making our own hand sanitizer. We're figuring out everything as a community. There's not an economic player that's going to solve this for us.

We might get a check from the president, who knows? So entrepreneurship now really big part of creating a sustainable economy at a municipal local level, in addition to institutional levels, corporate levels and elsewhere. And as entrepreneurship really got to be taken seriously as something that communities need, It's worked well because those entrepreneurs were there already doing the work and there was just no interest from the powers that be in supporting them. And so now we're seeing more openness from government officials to be like, hey, you know what? I thought that we were gonna be a, enterprise SaaS ecosystem and we were gonna own that in, you know, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

But I'm actually gonna put the entrepreneurs first now and say, hey, you all take the ball forward. We're coming in behind you with an accelerator and, we know one of you is going to figure out where we should go as a community. So that's, I think, the conditions of the environment that have led to this new direction for us. But since 2021, it's really been a focus. I think about 80% of our engagements are domestic or international governments, split pretty evenly between those.

And, and it's and it's where we're going for sure because I think every time we set up an accelerator in one of these situations, it's it is set. It's genuinely setting up an accelerator in a in a place that's never been before. And that's that's kind of really, really the most exciting part of our mission.

Incredible. And I got to assume that, you know, a bigger part of this too is job creation, right? Lifting the ecosystem sort of and other things in these rural parts of the areas that you're going into. I grew up in the low country of South Carolina. They probably don't know what an accelerator is in the area that I grew up in.

If I go back home and I start that, it'll be the first of its kind. Right? And I I I like that because it exposes people to something that wouldn't have been a path for them before. It exposes them to a network of people that they wouldn't have had before and so on and so forth. So I really do like the work that you're doing in in sort of the local ecosystems.

And, and I think it's, it's interesting because most people look at government as slow movers. They don't wanna do anything interesting or innovative, and you're finding a way to tap into sort of these local governments and ecosystems where, you know, there could be value added by bringing the right methodology, the right people, the right networks to help them grow those ecosystems. So that's super interesting.

I wish I could say it that well, man. Well done.

Know, from my experience, in order for this to be done well, it's really hard work and it's sort of a long journey. And even like the accelerator thing I've seen and sat in rooms where folks were deciding, you know, do I buy or do I build? And building is harder. But if you sort of stay the course, it also becomes a much more kind of tailored thing where you can bring to the table your own view on, you know, back to that self interest, you know, how do you sort of win and also get the folks you're working with to win? And I've seen that play out well and poorly in sort of municipal and regional kind of programs, as well as kind of corporate and others.

Because it's always easier to say, hey, want to this thing's proven, it's turnkey, it's easy. But anytime it's turnkey and easy and you don't sort of connect the dots and the really important parts. And a lot of times you just don't understand where they are because you just haven't thought about it deeply. You know, the real programs over a long enough period of time are just hard. And but but they're fruitful.

So because there's a big difference between, you know, something that's easy and something that's efficient. And I think people see they become a part of accelerators, they become a part of incubators, and they were like, wow, that was close to magic. What happened for those founders and for that ecosystem? I know a bunch of people. I've got a lot of content that I can put forward.

It's easy and they're different, right? We know a lot of products that are efficient, but you know, the foundation that has been set up to support that efficiency is not easy to construct. And it's the same thing with accelerators, even though it's not a digital or hardware technology.

Yeah, absolutely. I know that there's probably another hour or two we can keep talking to you about these topics as we're really getting into sort of the meat of some of my favorite topics as well. But I think maybe in the interest of getting everybody on with their day, I think what is maybe just kind of to finish this thought out an ideal either kind of EIR type role or ultimately like accelerator platform transition?

I think, yes, this is a good question, Elia. Thank you. It's a great place to to finish your conversation as well. Yeah, I think we should isolate the EIR function as its own thing here, right? It's it has a particular value in the way that we build our business, but it is its own thing.

And I think there are specific conditions that should be built around it in order for it to where it can be sustainable. And it's that combination I mentioned I mentioned before. A good EIR position should have advisory. Right. It should have development where you're making connections and introductions on behalf of a founder.

And it's got also mentorship where, you know, we're not just talking about how to how to build the venture, but you know, sort of how to manage the relationships and life around it. And if you've got those, you know, that teaching aspect, that development aspect, that coaching aspect, then I think it's hard not to be able to measure the impact. And it's hard not to know who's the right person to

do No, that's awesome. And I guess the final question before we let you go, you know, we're kind of building a network of EIRs and have had some pretty cool episodes and other folks. Is there something that the EIR Live Network can do to sort of support your work or, you know, kind of highlight the things that you're working on?

Well, I mean, let's let's bring the let's keep the EIR and accelerator worlds close together. If you're building a network in a book of EIR's, let us bring our network of accelerators closer to it. And just keep telling each other's story. I mean, you know, entrepreneurship is something a lot of people are interested in, but there's not one one answer for how it should benefit communities or any organization. We're figuring it out together.

So let's keep that up.

And John, I'm an ecosystem builder just like you, my friend. And, you said something that really touched me in the in the in the last time we had it. You said next time you talk to an entrepreneur, don't give them your ideas. Give them your network. Can you end on why is that important?

And I'm gonna let you go.

No. It's it's a big part of, I think, what people sign up for when they want to become a mentor or when they want to be an EIR, when they want to be an adviser to to a startup. And at the end of the day, you know, if you knew what you were talking about as an operator, you would be the entrepreneur and you would have been successful at it. So let's focus on what the entrepreneur you're working with needs, which is access. They need a solution or an opportunity to the problem, the problems that they're facing or the chances that they have today.

And if you're not giving them the access to the person that can write that check, the person that can join them on their journey as a Co founder or the person that can build their product, then you're not doing the most important thing that you can be for them.

I think it's time to end on that note. Thank you, John. It's been a privilege for, just to hang out with you, man, and to learn a lot about your experience, your Oh, man. This is gonna be a good episode for people to listen to. Thank you for the time.

Thank you.

Amazing. Thank you. Thanks, John.

Manilya, I got to tell you, I really enjoyed this episode, because it was the epitome of EIR as translator. But also, you know, John really underscored the EIR role as a channel, right? And as a mechanism to help people build a platform for innovation, growth, and transforming themselves. And on top of that, you can tell throughout this episode that John is really a deep sort of, like, like, proponent and and a student of people and culture. You know, thinking about his experiences in in Japan, how he translated those community principles and things to The US market, the work that he's done with international startups entering The US market.

So really understanding the people and the culture and how you can bring those two things together in a very unique way to compete to have an unfair advantage and to build a platform for ecosystems to thrive. And and I think that's sort of the the foundation that that all great ecosystems need. And John really, you know, gave us a masterclass on on those two topics. What do you think?

Yeah, man. I agree. What's what's interesting to me is innovation is a people sport. Right? And for me, it's always been people process and technology of some sort, but it's not normally the technology that's the game changer.

I joke that maybe if you have quantum fusion, something that's 10 times or 100 times better than everything else. But I think if you're good at the people part, and I think John is exemplary, right? Sort of the combination of narrative and culture and sort of translation, as you pointed out, I think gets you most of the way there, then chances are you're a lot more successful, right? Because you can get the people to sort of buy in and row in the same direction. And it's amazing how much further you can go.

I think the other thing that stuck out to me was that he was very intentional about what that journey looks like as a continuum, right? As opposed to, hey, snapshot, what do we need to do today and for the next six months? He's sort of thinking about, how do I get you to sort of understand your own situation? Maybe bring on through a pilot or a short experience or by placing an EIR in your sort of organization or in your orbit to help you sort of move along. But ultimately, you know, how can we build the innovation platform that you need to reach the goals that you want?

And I think that, you know, essentially aiming for self actualization is sort of the, I guess this is like the innovation equivalent of teach a person to fish versus giving them a fish. You know, I think that that real kind of self actualization view for the organizations that he serves is the thing that, you know, kind of jumped out. I mean, I think people that generally have that view on how can I enable you to be successful in achieving the things that you aspire to accomplish, that's going to be a winner for me, you know, nine times out of 10? And so that kind of stuck with me as we were talking to John in this conversation. But lots of stuff, you know, I wish we had another hour.

Absolutely. We had to sort of button it up toward the end and maybe, you know, we'll have an opportunity to dig in in a LinkedIn live or some other format. But I think there's a lot more sort of goodness there to dig into.

100 man. Well said. Thanks for joining us on EIR Live. We hope today's episode offered you valuable insights into the entrepreneurial journey. Remember to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes and check out the description for more details.

Do you have questions or suggestions? Please reach out to us. Connect with us on social media. We really value your input. Catch us next time for more inspiring stories and strategies.

Keep pushing boundaries and making your mark on the world. I'm Terrance Orr with my goals, Ilya Tabakh signing off. Let's keep building.