Episode 34 of “What is Innovation?” is live! Jared talks about the importance of inspiration, experimentation, and supporting values with Sam Bond, COO of joe, the leading mobile ordering and rewards solution powered by independent coffee.
Sam Bond, COO of joe, the leading mobile ordering and rewards solution powered by independent coffee, talks inspiration and experimentation in innovation.
More about our guest:
Sam Bond is COO at joe, the leading mobile ordering and rewards solution powered by independent coffee. Before joining joe, Sam started Lyft's Southeast office and held leadership roles at Coca-Cola, Bain and Company, and in the U.S. Marine Corps.
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Episode Guide:
2:08 - What is Innovation
2:37 - What does inspiration look like?
4:51 - Experimentation
8:11 - Juxtaposition of Inspiration and Experimentation
8:52 - What Innovation isn't
12:18 - Process: Innovation vs Product or Service
14:45 - Impact of pandemic recovery to innovation
15:59 - Creating opportunities for innovation
19:43 - Experience at joe
21:39 - joe's role in helping business owners' innovate
22:33 - Small business advantage over corporate giants
26:53 - Supporting Values
29:13 - Mirror not Match
30:11 - Advice to innovators
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OUTLAST Consulting offers professional development and strategic advisory services in the areas of innovation and diversity management.
Jared Simmons 00:05
Hello, and welcome to what is innovation. The podcast that explores the reality of a word that is in danger of losing its meaning altogether. This podcast is produced by OUTLAST Consulting LLC, a boutique consultancy that helps companies use innovation principles to solve their toughest business problems. I'm your host, Jared Simmons, and I'm so excited to have Sam Bond.
Sam Bond is the Chief Operating Officer at Joe the leading mobile ordering and reward solution powered by independent coffee. Prior to joining Joe, Sam was the Southeast Regional Director for Lyft. Starting Lyft's southeast office in 2016 and growing it from a team of one at his kitchen table to over 100 employees across seven cities in the southeast. Prior to joining Lyft, Sam held internal and client consulting roles at Coca-Cola as well as Bain and Company in Atlanta. He served in the US Marine Corps from 2003 to 2008. While deployed to Iraq across two tours of duty totaling 18 months, he was a scout sniper platoon commander and a regimental intelligence officer. He graduated with honors with an MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia and received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University. He lives in Atlanta with his wife Margaret and children, Ellie and Walker. Sam, welcome to the show, my friend.
Sam Bond 01:06
Thanks, Jared. Appreciate you having me on.
Jared Simmons 01:06
That bio is inspiring and exhausting all at once. How did you do all that? And thank you for your service, as well, so appreciate that.
Sam Bond 01:06
I appreciate the kind words.
Jared Simmons 01:06
We had an opportunity to meet at Coca-Cola backpass cross for a brief period and always stood out as somebody who was pragmatic but also forward-thinking. That's a tough balance to strike. I've always appreciated our opportunity to work together, but also a great guy and a good friend, and I appreciate you making the time.
Sam Bond 02:01
Likewise, man. I'm thrilled to be here and excited to have our conversation today.
Jared Simmons 02:05
Alright, so let's dive right in. What is innovation?
Sam Bond 02:10
Innovation is where inspiration meets experimentation. Well, if you forgive the tendency to rhyme, I like to put the key ingredients together.
Jared Simmons 02:24
Inspiration and experimentation. I like it. Tell me more about it, let's just break it down like the consultants we are right, exactly. So tell me about the inspiration piece. What does inspiration look like?
Sam Bond 02:39
Inspiration can come in a variety of forms. I think some people when they hear that word, think of the version that arrives unexpected in the middle of the night.
Jared Simmons 02:52
Like the bolt of lightning.
Sam Bond 02:56
That is certainly one way that inspiration can happen. But it's also frequently delivered through something a little bit more mundane like changes in routine, happenstance. But often it's also arrived at deliberately when you dig into data, or you take a fresh lens at a client or customer problem. Regardless of whether it's the bolt of lightning version, or, when you finally run the model, the fifth time with a different set of cohorts, and then something jumps in. It is that lightbulb moment, but it can come in a variety of different forms.
Jared Simmons 03:39
I love that differentiation because there is a moment of inspiration. The question is, I guess there's almost an instant inspiration and a slow inspiration, where you're digging through the data, and then that lightning bolt comes, after six months of digging through the data, or you just sit bolt upright in your bed and go "That's it." but I think you're right, I think the analysis, the digging in, the slow consideration element that precedes that inspiration, that moment of inspiration, I think is often underappreciated and under-discussed, which can lead people to just wait for that inspiration instead of going out and finding it.
Sam Bond 04:16
That's the hazard, especially for innovators and entrepreneurs who have benefited from the lightning bolt version early or often. It can tend towards thinking that's the only way or over-relying on that divine or fortunate delivery mechanism.
Jared Simmons 04:38
Which gives you that false sense of security that the next one will come just as easily or you don't have to do the things to put yourself in a position to get that inspiration. I haven't thought about that. That's a great point. Tell me about the other piece.
Sam Bond 04:51
Experimentation is deliberate. The reason I chose that is it suggests a process and It suggests repetition, and iteration, there is no shortage of good ideas. There's no shortage of people who have sat bolt upright and said, Man, why is it that, you know, fill in the blank. A lot of times confusing inspiration with an innovation leaves those great ideas just stranded. What I've learned and continue to see every day, not only in my current role but in previous roles is a good idea, the insight isn't enough. A lot of times what you think that breakthrough is that that burst of inspiration when you commit to delivering when you start to develop the marketing campaign, when you put pen to paper, designing the new version of the product, you get through versions one and two. The innovation, the real breakthrough happens when you test and learn, you take that initial sort of divine spark, and then you run it through to the point where, okay, it's got traction, it's delivering value. It's still not over. The scientific side of it. The reason I thought experimentation is the thing is, you also have to not only test it, and revise, you have to be okay with stuff failing, you have to be okay with the versions of the product that don't work. You have to have a plan in place to learn what you're supposed to learn and adjust your hypothesis and keep working at it. If you look across the organizations that try to foster innovation, I think it's very telling that they are often called innovation labs. That's as clear an indicator as you can find that the smartest minds and the most successful entrepreneurs and innovators out there realize that you have to have the process and the iteration for to break through, it can't just be a good idea.
Jared Simmons 07:02
I love the experimentation piece because you're exactly right. The inspiration can get left on the shelf, or get dusty and obsolete if it's not plugged into the back half of your definition of innovation, which is experimentation. I also love that you used experimentation in that implementation because I think what you're describing is a really neat balance of "go to market with questions, go to market with a clear focus and attention on the problem, and then leverage your testing." Don't just go to market because you think this lightning bolt idea is perfect and all it needs is to be on every shelf in America because that's where innovation goes to die. You put something out without that experimental mindset. It's very easy for small, seemingly insignificant things to break your model, break your business model, break the chain of the delivery of the benefit so that's why I liked your definition and what it represents. Not only, like you said, in terms of a definition of innovation, but a way of thinking about work.
Sam Bond 08:12
When you juxtapose experimentation implementation, you do need to implement that isn't as a requisite downstream thing but what I've found is when the focus not only shifts to but sticks on the implementation side, you end up in the process for the process. You end up in a lot of things that just maintain the status quo and fold the line. To me, that's not part of the key ingredient for innovation.
Jared Simmons 08:44
Well said, well, that's easy, that's clear. You made it very easy for everyone what innovation is. Tell us what it isn't.
Sam Bond 08:52
Innovation is not linear. I think you teed up the thing that I like to try to remember and hold at the forefront, especially in my career, as I've been able to get closer to an earlier stage of growth style, operations, and problems where you're not given a playbook. It's that you have to get comfortable with a little bit of chaos. You have to. We were both at Coke for a period of time. To use Coke as an example of an established long-standing company with lots of processes and established criteria and rules and frameworks and you can execute and repeat. You can rinse and repeat based on those same rules. and certainly a lot of the charts and estimates that I drew as a consultant had and tend to have straight lines going into the future
Jared Simmons 09:56
Generally going up.
Sam Bond 09:58
Generally, to the right. One of those running jokes about, when does the five-year forward-looking projection in five years actually look like the line you drew? It's almost never but it's also a hard thing to model. The point is, if you assume, generally that just continuing to do that same process and continuing to do the things that got you to point a that will drive you to b, and then on to C, extrapolating that in a linear fashion, it just doesn't work. What almost always tends to happen is a degradation, you either lose out to a competitor who is more nimble or tries more new things or you develop vulnerabilities in your supply chain or your cost structure because you're not continually testing and trying new. If you think that you just sort of set and forget an innovation process that you take for granted, and you think it's just going to continue delivering, I think that's a mistake. That's why over time, innovation is not linear, it's got a little bit of tango or dance to it, like the two steps forward one step back type of thing. I think that's important to remember. And I think it's also important to recognize that because I think, getting comfortable with the experiment doesn't work. Getting comfortable with failure is that key ingredient to innovation, I think a lot of folks, particularly early on if you've never put yourself out there with an idea, or a product, or a campaign, and had it not go to plan, I think that fear is tough to overcome. I think that's why innovation doesn't come easily to everyone.
Jared Simmons 11:45
Great point, innovation comes with risk, you expose yourself to a certain amount of that and fear comes with risk. I love that that is not linear and that you almost have to acknowledge and embrace the fact that you have to proceed with confidence in an unknown high-risk environment. That's just part of the game, part of the process. I like the way you talk about the process. When you talk about innovation. Yeah, there's a lot of people who talk about services and products when they talk about innovation. Any thoughts on why you might think about the process as you talk about innovation versus the product or the service?
Sam Bond 12:23
When I was at Coke, there were a lot of fantastic engineers, Six Sigma folks talk a lot about the supply chain side of things in particular. I hadn't had a ton of supply chain experience prior to Coke. One of the things that I learned as I got into the supply chain strategy side of things and working closely with a lot of process-oriented folks is, the process doesn't have to be a bad thing. To be clear, over the course of my career, anytime the guardrails feel like they're getting really tight, that's when I start to feel uncomfortable. Early on, when I would hear process in particular, when I was working with a lot of industrial engineers, who were all about inputs and outputs. That was a thing that was uncomfortable for me. I have always liked the opportunity to freewheel, to improvise, some of that personality type. Some of that just go all the way back to how I learned music earlier on. I didn't love reading from the sheet, I liked improv. It took me a little while to get comfortable with embracing that necessity of having some process, but a product or a service just doesn't appear out of nowhere. That innovation of the new product or the new delivery mechanism for content may have started with inspiration but it didn't just happen. It didn't just appear out of nowhere. That's why I think focusing on the process that delivers it, delivers the brand new, the newest generation, whether it's earbuds or all the new drink innovations that are out there. All of those things have a process behind them. If you don't focus on that, then it gets back to what we talked about earlier, which is just inspiration left unfulfilled.
Jared Simmons 14:23
That's a great point. Thank you for that. It really sort of crystallizes the mindset because that definition makes the product or the service the outcome of innovation and not the innovation itself. I think it's something that's important when you talk about replicating things, and understanding what true risk is with respect to innovation. Speaking of risk and innovation, we're recording this in July of 2021, in the midst of what we hope is very rapid recovery from a global pandemic. How does that impact innovation in your mind?
Sam Bond 14:59
Well, it's interesting, I will fall back on my own experience. Many of your listeners will probably be able to follow along because it probably tracks with their experience, I think one key ingredient to making inspiration more likely is a change in the environment. If you have a status quo and then you incorporate a new variable, then all of a sudden, there are impacts. I think back to where I was, in February of 2020, things looked very different. Offices and commutes, there was in-person school, it wasn't even in-person school, that was not it, it was school. When you bring in that change, in this case, unfortunately, it was a pandemic that's caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, if not millions, I can't even remember where the global tally is at this point, but radical changes to everyday life. What that incident did was it created the opportunity for lots of innovation, for a variety of reasons. One, everyone was impacted in some way, by the shutdowns, by the pandemic, and many people have either themselves or had loved ones that suffered from the virus so that causes moments of reflection, thinking about things. For me, personally, one of the major, I guess, inspirations or recognitions that I had, as a consequence of the shutdown was, how much the ability to have kids in school and have them supervised and instructed and nurtured, how much I had taken that for granted. Then come April, when there's no opportunity to go back in school and teachers and school boards are trying to figure out how do we educate our kids, how do we support them. Then all of a sudden, everybody's doing what we're doing right now. They're on computers and doing that video chat instruction? Then I'm confronted with how do I support my 10-year-old and my seven-year-old in this new experiment? How is the school leaning in? How are people thinking differently about this? Then I think a lot of the trends you've seen in technology during the lockdown, I think it's been an acceleration of everything from video teleconferencing to delivery services, mobile ordering, and order ahead, you have all these things that like, maybe there was a trend line, generally, up until the right in terms of adoption of these things, and it was the pandemic, the lockdown that really jolted a lot of people into new ways of thinking new ways of living day to day, then accelerated a lot of those trends. Anytime you have that type of acceleration and displacement, there are all sorts of pockets of inspiration or insight that are out there. We've seen tons of examples of companies, organizations, leaders, entrepreneurs that have been able to take advantage of that and deliver great value and impact as a consequence.
Jared Simmons 18:09
As we think about that and I think you're exactly right. It's a fertile environment for innovation. It's an unfortunate, obviously, unfortunate situation. But when you think about some of the things that came out of world wars, technologies that came out of the Cold War, we have these things that are thrust upon us that cause us to suffer. I think innovation is a great way to find meaning in that suffering, and as a human race, try to move forward out of it with something positive. I wonder how much of what is going on, like you said, it's an acceleration. It's like a six-year-old on a bicycle, going faster is good, up to a point. I wonder how many of these food delivery services, laundry delivery services, etc, etc, are the six-year old on the bike going downhill and wondering if they have any breaks, and then that it comes back to your definition of innovation. Where, I don't know that everybody had the opportunity to do the experimentation and to work on the process instead of the product of the service to be able to say, "okay, as things move to a new equilibrium, this is going to be a sustainable business model, or this is going to be a sustainable service." I think that to me is a big question coming out as we've tried to find this new way of living together.
Sam Bond 19:34
Yeah. 100% agree. When it comes to what organizations... where can innovation really take hold? I think the nature of experimentation, there are no restrictions on who can be inspired. But if you think about what it takes to actually run the second part and to experiment, one of the things that we've seen at Joe is small, independent coffee shops. There are tons of tasks and so much on the plate of like a small business owner, that there's potential, at some level, there's a little bit less room to run the experimentation on the side of it right, it can feel a little bit more frenetic. This is something that we've seen, we're talking about delivery services and a lot of large corporate players in particular in the restaurant space, but it's not exclusive to their, they already had the lab in the background that could help power, the innovation and experimentation. That runs the risk of having a rich, get richer outcome. In terms of if you already had the technical infrastructure in place to run marketplaces, leverage data to do all these things and capitalize on these trends and move quickly. It's kind of interesting, it's like a turning on its head. In theory, the larger companies, move slower or may not be able to adjust to it. But at some point, it's just having access to the insight faster and having some infrastructure in place allows you to capitalize, whereas if you run an in-person, retail business, and all of a sudden, you can't, period. An in-person retail experience so then what right, you're left, in some cases, on your back foot. There's a spectrum of outcomes there in terms of small businesses have operators who've been able to adjust and find ways to thrive in that new environment. Unfortunately, there are other examples where it didn't work. For any number of reasons why that ended up being sort of the last chapter of that particular story. It's definitely a mixed bag, in terms of the outcomes.
Jared Simmons 21:39
What role does Joe play in helping those business owners innovate?
Sam Bond 21:45
What's really exciting about Joe, and this is one of the things that as I was coming towards, what ended up being the end of my tenure at Lyft, which is a run that I loved, I had a blast helping launch the SE market there. what it really came down to me, as I was reflecting on the things that got me most excited, it was, number one, is there a mission that I can really get behind, or something that like when I wake up in the morning, and I think about all the things I'm going to do that day, can I connect my work to something that I can really be proud of? The first part about the opportunity, Joe, that was exciting, to me, is a really ambitious mission and some founders who live it every day because it's very personal. It's to give small businesses' unfair advantage over corporate giants
Jared Simmons 22:32
love that.
Sam Bond 22:33
We want to take a perspective, a long-held belief, which is like small businesses always on an equal footing, and always has long odds, we want to flip that script. One of the things that we do at Joe, is to provide the thing that an independent operator on his or her own, really can't do and that's convenience. If you step back and think about why is it that over 70% of people who use the Starbucks app to order ahead, and that was a huge boon to their business and the pandemic; 70% or more of those folks have said, they would love to support a small business if it was as easy and convenient. But if you just, close your eyes and think about, hopefully now getting out and about, again, around town, whether you're going to an office or dropping your kids off at school, as you're moving about, you could have a local shop that you love nearby, or you know the owner and you've got regular order. If you do happen to find yourself across town or the country, you can't, literally cannot go to that store. It just doesn't make sense. a lot of those people are falling back on that convenience factor, a network, to supplement their routine. That's one of the cool things that we're able to do at Joe, is to deliver the power of that network and the convenience that forever people have thought, well, that's only available to a large chain, because it's a large chain, it has a lot of stores. I'd say that's, that's one way that we are delivering for those independent operators is we're providing something that in the absence of a network of essentially a coalition, you're structurally disadvantaged. This is how we feel that's where the unfair advantage comes into is because if all of a sudden supporting local business is not only as easy, it might be even easier than finding the closest Starbucks, well, then you have all the things that are great about supporting small business. There's the passion that the owners put into that experience. There's unique flavors, the unique ambiance, and just have the knowledge that you're actually able to shop small and do it without having to be this thing that you sort of do begrudgingly or whenever it's convenient then quietly go off and shop corporate when it's not. Anyway, that's what we're doing that gets me so excited.
The other part that I think is really powerful is when you're able to have that mission, it does something, a second ingredient, which I think is really powerful in my experience, which is when you can harness the ability to tap into the underdog mentality. What I've found is if you yourself, and the people you work with are motivated not just because of a mission they can believe in, they can also tap into just a little bit of that 'proving doubters wrong' mentality then you can unlock a ton of effort and innovation and inspiration that like drives those kinds of breakthroughs. We're putting that together at Joe and it's really exciting.
Jared Simmons 25:43
That is exciting. An underdog at scale, what more do you want? As you're describing what you're building I'm just thinking about, and you can probably have the same stories, from P&G, Coke, McKinsey, all those places I've worked, all the miles I traveled. All the random towns and cities and places I was in, in how I begrudgingly went to Starbucks that morning because I knew how to find it, that's where it was. All the things you just described. I can just imagine for people who are traveling, who have a local shop in their hometown, to be able to land on the ground, in middle of nowhere Missouri and find a coffee shop that, allows them to continue to support the underdog and then get on a plane two days later and never come back there again. That's amazing. It's almost a game, but it activates your energy in a way I think that allows you to bring that energy back to your local coffee shop, because you're able to be consistent with your values, even when you're not there, they're pointing to one that's right on the corner.
Sam Bond 26:52
Yeah, you said it right. Supporting your values. That was one of the key insights. That was the inspiration, frankly, that drove our co-founders to put in the work and actually try and make this happen. People do want to shop small support local businesses and dealers, they can say and feel I know it's the right thing, and yet, if it doesn't happen to be convenient, then you just set that principle aside. If you're in the middle of nowhere, Missouri, you can't go to your local shop here in Atlanta, that doesn't work. It was that insight and then a lot of experimentation that has led to what we're building at Joe, which is alright, how do we harness what customers people want? what do they value most about the experience of ordering ahead for coffee and having that experience? Is it really the quality of the coffee and being able to get it quickly? Or is it standing in line and putting in an order at a point of sale? That's not the part that's great. What we're trying to do is, is take that element out of it, as well as add in the elements of discovery. To your point, like you said, gaming, is actually like you energize it and we put the mechanisms in place to reinforce that. If you shop at Sam's coffee in Atlanta and then you hop into Jerry's coffee in Missouri, you have not only your favorite store, but you have your points and your loyalty across that whole network, we can actually keep reinforcing that good habit by continuing to make it easier. This is the insight that large corporate chains have known for a while and they are doubling down. It's fun to be able to start to empower those underdogs to deliver a similar experience,
Jared Simmons 28:33
That is exciting, I'm just all energized and ready to go drink some coffee all over the world in tiny, cool, different coffee shops. That's the other aspect of this is there was an element of traveling all over these places and still ending up at the same counter, basically. I just flew for six hours and landed somewhere and I'm at the same counter that I could be at anywhere. I think this also gives you an opportunity to get more of a local feel for where you are. A sense of place that mirrors but doesn't match the sense of place you have with your home, with your home shop. This is really, really, really great stuff.
Sam Bond 29:13
Yeah, I love what you said about 'mirror not match', that's the key ingredient. If you think about how people make their choices, there's a hierarchy of needs underneath it. If you're in a rush, the greatest ambiance and best quality coffee in the world aren't going to make it so that you can wait the 20 minutes that you don't have. If you have the time and if you have confidence that whatever is served up to you on a network is going to have high quality and have these other things in place, then you can make that purchase decision. All those individual purchase decisions, you can climb the ladder on your hierarchy of needs in a way that in the absence of that first rung being is there one here and find it, you have to default to a lower order choice. That's the part that gets us really excited, it's leveling that playing field and hopefully, eventually, turning it on its head.
Jared Simmons 30:08
Love it. Sam, it has been a great conversation. I just want to wrap up with one question. I can't let you go without asking for any advice you might have for future innovators out there. You've had this amazing career and find your way into these exciting and amazing entrepreneurial ventures and things, just would love to get your thoughts on how innovators might carve out a great career for themselves.
Sam Bond 30:31
Yeah, happy to, I think the most important insight for me in terms of making innovation, a central part of my experience, and helping my teams succeed and hopefully continue to succeed; it's getting comfortable with that misstep. It's getting comfortable with the inspiration and the experiment then fails the first time or maybe fails the second time. This was hard for me coming out of consulting, where a lot of it is the expectation. You dig into the data, you find the inspiration, and you delivered the answer, right. Even if there's the implementation phase that comes after, in many cases, as the advisor, you're not necessarily, mentally on the hook for the actual delivery of the value. You have a little bit more comfort and coming up with an idea that may seem a little bit crazy.
When you're the operator, when you're the innovator, when you yourself are the innovator, and you own those outcomes, getting past that first mental block of what if this doesn't work out, and being able to embrace that and get excited by the fact that, like steps in your innovation journey are going to fail, they have to, the sooner you can get comfortable with that, the sooner you can double down on 'stick to the process, the experimentation that will eventually deliver the breakthroughs and make for successful outcomes. That's it. Get comfortable with failing and learn to embrace it, because it's going to eventually deliver those breakthroughs. Well said, one other nugget I pulled out of that was as a leader, the way you talk about innovation, it's clear you expect failures as part of the process. I'd imagine it's important for leaders to communicate that if they want to create an innovative environment as well. That the comfort with failure and then the importance of leaders' communicating that, that's part of the process. That's great advice, I really appreciate you sharing that. Sam, it was a great conversation, time just flew by. I appreciate you making the time. It's good to see you again, good to talk to you again, and happy innovating. All the best at Joe. I appreciate it, man. Thanks so much for having me on. It's great to see you too and really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for doing this.
Jared Simmons 32:42
Thank you. All right. All right. Take care. We'd love to hear your thoughts about this week's show. You can drop us a line on Twitter at OUTLASTT LLC, or follow us on LinkedIn where we're OUTLAST Consulting. Until next time, keep innovating. Whatever that means.