← Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
BONUS: Building Agile Startups with Nick Hughes of Founders Live
00:28:51
BONUS: Building Agile Startups with Nick Hughes of Founders Live Welcome, Agile friends! In this episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Nick Hughes, the founder of . Our conversation explored what it really takes to build a business...
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- [00:04]
Vasco Duarte
Hey, how are you doing? I'm Vasco Duarte, your host on the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. And I've got some exciting news. So right now, as I record this, I'm holding in my hand the signed contract for our very first Global Agile Summit. We're all in and I couldn't wait to share this news with you. So mark your calendars. May 18th, 20th of 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia. We're gonna have a transformative experience. We're putting together an event that is all about real life Agile. It's not theory or buzzwords. It's practitioners sharing what's working, what's making an impact, and how they've overcome challenges that you too will have to face, or maybe even facing. Right now, we're bringing together the best stories in Agile. From product leaders to engineering wizards to business visionaries, these will be stories that will inspire you to action. This isn't just another conference. It's a chance to connect with the people that are shaping the future of Agile. And here's the best part. Right now, we're in our super early bird phase. And that means you can grab tickets at just 25% of the final price. Look, that's not just half off, it's half off of the half off. It's an incredible deal for our dedicated community members, just like you listening to this right now. So at the summit, day one will be all about hands on workshops. And days two and three, we'll dive into leadership, product strategy, coding, testing, and everything that makes Agile thrive in organizations. Right now remember, these are all first person, real life stories. Now whether you're a leader, a developer, or part of a consulting company, this event is built to take your Agile game to the next level. So don't wait. Go to globalagilesummit.com and grab your ticket. Today, let's all make 2025 the year agile truly transforms your teams, your business and our industry. I'll see you all in Tallinn. And Remember, go to globalagilesummit.com and get your super early bird ticket right now. It only be available until the agenda is announced, so don't wait. Grab it right now. Right now that that's out of the way, onto the episode. Hi there friends. This is Vasco, your host. Just wanted to come in here to explain a little bit what's going on in today's episode. Today's a special bonus episode with Nick Hughes from Founders Live. This is a talk that he had at the Agile Online Summit where we discussed entrepreneurial agility and also took lessons that could apply to internal entrepreneurship for product owners, for example. So check this session out. It was originally from the Agile Online Summit. So if you want to know more about that yearly huge agile event, you can check it out@agileonlinesummit.com but now onto the episode. Welcome agile friends. My name is Vasco and I'm hosting this session with our amazing speaker, Nick Hughes. Hey Nick, welcome to the summit.
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Nick Hughes
Hello, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm excited to chat.
- [03:37]
Vasco Duarte
Absolutely. So Nick is the founder of Founders Live. We'll talk a lot more about that because of course it's all about entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs have by necessity, and some of them, perhaps even most by nature, an agile mindset. And that's what we are going to explore, the spirit of agility in the Entrepreneur community. FoundersLive is a global organization that is now in more than 100 cities and 50 countries. Chances are that if you are watching this, you probably have a FoundersLive in your city. So check it out@foundnerslive.com but there are also other sessions. We'll talk with Nick in a second. I want to call your attention for the session with Marshall Goldsmith who will bring his perspective on agility at the leadership level, how leaders also need to be agile and how to do so. Check out that session@agileonlinesummit.com and of course you will see there all of the other Agile Online Summit sessions. But now to the topic of our discussion. The spirit of agility with, I could say an ambassador of enterprise entrepreneurship. Nick. So Nick, give us a quick overview of what got you started with the Founders Live idea and organization and what is the overall format for the events that you organize around the world?
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Nick Hughes
Yeah, yeah, well, you know, I started Founders live more than 10 years ago and you know, we're a global ecosystem for early stage startups. But you know, what got me started was simply, you know, let's go back 11 or 12 years ago. You know, I was working on an actual previous startup. You know, I was a founder and quite honestly I. There wasn't a community that I felt was in my view, you know, this kind of really support, not only that, but entertaining. It highlighted these emerging founders that at the time I was one and you know, I just wanted to put something together and create community and really just you really create that experience. And so I did. And you know, as, as all things happen, you know, very in a humble beginnings I literally, this was in March of 2014. I just put on the first event and you know, it was a pitch competition, so I'll talk about that specifically. But you know, in all agile ways I just threw something together, tested something out and lo and behold it worked and it was really amazing and fun. And so I. This is a theme that we'll talk about a little later. But I saw what was working. I was like, let's keep that. I removed some things that maybe weren't and just kind of followed this path and it was really cool. But in terms of the format, so crazy enough, that very first event and you know, for instance, I'm actually visiting one of our Founders Live cities right now. Last night I just went to a Founders Live event in North Carolina in the United States. And it's the same format that it was that very first time in March of 2014, which is we gather people together, it's a networking event, very fun. We choose five founders of startups in their pre chosen and they prepare, but they each only have 99 seconds for this, for their pitch. It's a 99 second pitch value proposition pitch. What are they building and why? The crowd then has four minutes to ask them questions. People raise their hand, they're like asking them about the team or their technology or their go to market strategy or whatever. Then once all of the five presenters have gone through that process, the crowd then votes on the winner. And so then there's a winner that comes out of it. And that experience is really fun and it's kind of sandwiched between networking and food and drinks and the front end and networking food and drinks in the back end and then you got a great Founders Live event. So that's like the format, it's fun, happens all over the world.
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Vasco Duarte
And one of the things that I really appreciate is that the constraints are very clear and obvious at the start of the 99 second pitch plus 4 minute Q& A. And one of the things that I feel is that exactly that clear set of constraints fosters agility and adaptability. Right. Like the constraints are there, you still have the audience, you still have the potential investors right there that you could pitch the idea to and maybe even get an investment. What are the key benefits that you have seen for the entrepreneurs of using that fast paced format?
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Nick Hughes
Well, right. I mean, look, you know, it is not easy to not only create it and you know, kind of put together your 99 second pitch. It's kind of, I purposely created that time amount because it is a bit of an awkward. It's not 20, 30 seconds, it's not 5 minute 10 minute investor pitch. It's that kind of weird time frame that forces these people to actually figure out what is my message. And so any founder that pitches, they go through a process of refining their message. Literally looking in the mirror saying like, what are we actually doing? And, and then the experience of getting in front of maybe you know, 200 people or 100 people. Last night there was about 100 people in the room. You know, some people get a little, they get a lot nervous around that. And so it's a, it's kind of a forcing function for them to not only refine their message, have an ability to speak in public, deliver that message with clarity and man, it just is a tremendous refining experience. And even if they don't win the event, you know, that's a, it's the voting pitch competition. I mean, pretty much everyone comes out so much better because they were forced to improve themselves and their message and you know, they're going to go forth and now they might even more refined in terms of the target customer that they're talking to and all that. So there's tremendous benefits all over the place of just them going through a process of really understanding what is my message, how am I trying to formulate that and how do I deliver it in front of literally a live audience.
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Vasco Duarte
And I really see how that forcing function, as you called it, really helps crystallize ideas. And for us who are product people or entrepreneurs, it forces us to also be very clear about what is not essential. And I think that's a question that people don't often ask or at least don't ask often enough because we all know products that are out there that are filled with things that are non essential and really getting to that core is kind of a superpower really. What have you seen, like what kind of feedback do you get from entrepreneurs when they go through that 99 pitch forcing function as you called it, for the first time?
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Nick Hughes
Oh, I mean, first of all they're, you know, I, I do think a lot of people are initially, you know, quite nervous and I think it's, it's, you know, it's with anything that we do in life and when you, when you overcome that, you know, they're just, you can see the relief and then they're like, confidence is so I think, you know, part of that feedback is they're just, they're, they feel really great, they're confident in themselves. And in some ways it's really interesting. Most people are like, I don't, you know, they, they kind of don't necessarily care about the outcome. They're happy with the fact that they stepped up, delivered the pitch. And then there's people in the audience that you know, were engaged and you know, were interested in all of that. You know, it's, you know, just a bunch of other things around that. But I think in the end it's, they're just, I think that they're impressed with themselves to walk through that process and they've gained a lot of confidence afterwards and you can just see it in their eyes. So it's really cool.
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Vasco Duarte
And that confidence is so important when you need to make life altering decisions on a daily basis. When running a startup, for example, the other aspect of the, excuse me, the other aspect of the Founders Live events of course is the networking and mentorship. And I know, I know because I've been there how important that is when starting a business. So what strategies would you recommend that founders take on who are starting up and they need to build new connections and of course getting started in their founders adventure?
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Nick Hughes
Well, yeah, first of all, you know, as you mentioned, you know, we're not in all the cities yet, but I would encourage anyone, you know, to really, all, you know, if Founders Live is in your city, definitely, you know, check out Founders Live. It's an amazing experience and our community is really, really, really great and you're going to find a lot of networking opportunities there, but also other events. So first is get outside. You know, get to events. Maybe they're online and virtual in some ways like this, but you got to get out into the crowd and you know, kind of bump shoulders with others and network. And then secondly, I would say my suggestion is this is kind of one of, in one, one way or another, this is one of our core values. It's actually open the door and that just means do nice things for people. So a really, you know, you can kind of twist this around as a selfish thing, but if you actually figure out ways to help people through the conversation, you can say, hey, I actually have a, I haven't, I know someone at that company, I can make an introduction if you're interested or whatever, offer to help them. And if you get into that habit of, you know, opening doors for people, it comes back to you tenfold. And so that turns networking, where some people might feel networking is actually like, you know, feels a little weird or sleazy or just whatever it turns it into. You're literally going there to actually help and benefit people and you do that naturally or just you make a habit of doing that, your life changes. That's really how founders live, actually grew. Was, you know, I'm, I, you know, look, it takes 30 seconds if not less to write a quick email to introduce two people. And you know, those are the things that I made sure that I did quite often. And what happens is now like things come back to you. People introduce me that, you know, all the cities that we've launched in, you know, that comes a lot from introductions. And so I think that that's the main piece of advice is give first. And trust me, the networking concept is just going to benefit your life tremendously.
- [14:27]
Vasco Duarte
Yeah, that's a great advice also for all of those out there who want to get better at whatever they do, because networking does help with that. Now you've talked to hundreds of entrepreneurs all over the world. In your view, what are the most significant blockers to agility for the entrepreneurs? And how can founders build resilience against these blockers to agility?
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Nick Hughes
Well, yeah, look, this is a really great question and I think, you know, first you want to think about, you know, in some ways, what is agility and resilience. And you know, the word that comes to mind is really around, you know, using the word failure or just understanding. I think the blocker is not understanding what failure really is in our lives. And especially as entrepreneurs, look, you're going to fail more than you don't. You're meaning things aren't going to work out the way that you fully wanted them to. The question is how do you react to that? And so a big blocker is that, you know, especially early kind of first time entrepreneurs and founders of companies, they're, they're not realizing that, that, you know, how do you actually accept those things and then work around them. And so when I think about blockers, you know, so not everything is going to work. How are you, you know, your agility is really just understanding, you know, kind of looking at these as all these tests and experiments, what worked, what didn't, why, and then identifying what, what is working and you keep that and you know, what's not working, probably should stop and not do that anymore. And that is the whole test iteration, you know, learning from it, redeploying, you know, re, you know, it, you know, just essentially like that's a process of, you know, agility and, and then resilience is just continually doing that and understanding that the entrepreneurial journey is simply a life of going through those learning processes, iterating where you can, keeping what's working, removing what's not. And what happens is you just start following success. Like success starts to happen because you're, it's the hundredth time. And I don't know if it was Edison that said this, but like how many times did it, you know, was it a thousand or something of figuring out the light bulb? I mean, it's the same concept as starting a startup in today's world.
- [16:52]
Vasco Duarte
Absolutely. And that's also one of the things that I talk to all of the product people that I coach and train is that we can't start from the perspective that we know the answers to all of the questions that will make the product successful. And product people really need to embody that entrepreneurial spirit because of it. Right. Like just as you said, accept that the process is about testing, iterating, keeping the things that work, dropping the things that don't and always have that forward movement momentum. Right?
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Nick Hughes
Yep, yep.
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Vasco Duarte
So when you think about first time founders or even, let's say even product people who are, you know, convinced that they should really adopt that entrepreneurial mindset, but first time founders and people adopting the entrepreneurial mindset, often they are not ready. Right. Like, I mean even entrepreneurs, even successful entrepreneurs, at some point they were not ready. They had to struggle through it. We all do. How do you talk to yourself? Of course you're an entrepreneur, but also the people you talk to on a daily basis, the other entrepreneurs, how can you help them prepare for that life, the entrepreneurial life and of course as a big part of it, the unexpected.
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Nick Hughes
Yeah, well, you know, look, I think first is in some ways going back to what I just said is just having, it's called expectations versus what reality is. And a lot of first time or founders that aren't experienced, you know, in some ways their expectation is pretty skewed because what the media writes about things or what they're learning or reading and you know, books from people and they first of all think it's like a pretty easy road. They maybe think that money and investment is readily available and all you need to do is, you know, kind of have this idea and then you somehow go pitch investors and the first meeting with an investor is going to result in an investment in a check or money in your account. All this stuff is so, I mean those are misconceptions and those are not the reality. And so what I really, I try to be as real as possible and let them know this is going to be difficult. Now we, this is why we do it. And we, you know, we need and want creators in the world and people go and build things and create these amazing companies. But to know that it's a tough road, that's just the way it is. It's a challenging road. And investment is not immediate. And quite frankly, don't expect that. What I would just tell people is go build. Find where there's problems in the world, number one, whether it's business or consumer, and people now build a solution that adds value straight up. You have to do that. Thirdly, get initially, get traction, get adoption in the market, get growth. I mean, this is before you go and try to pitch investors, because those are what the, the investment community is looking for. And you're just wasting, you're burning, you're, you're, you're burning too many bridges. You're wasting time if you don't have those as positives. And yes, then what are you going and pitching investors for? Because you're just going to get so many. You're going to be turned down. You're wasting time and effort and energy. Take that energy and time and go build amazing things. And what's going to happen is a lot of options come to you later.
- [20:29]
Vasco Duarte
I really like this. Don't pitch first, find where the growth is, find traction, find adoption, and then you pitch. And I think that's so important because obviously sometimes we kind of take the investment as an excuse not to really look for growth because we already have the money, right? But putting ourselves in that position where we need to find the growth and then the money will come, I think that pushes us to also be more creative, right? To experiment more, to test new ideas more.
- [21:02]
Nick Hughes
Yes, absolutely. And, you know, I'm very aware that this is the more difficult road in the sense that if you have a lower budget, little capital, it's more difficult. But I'm telling you that out of a thousand founders, one or two are going to get that significant investment. So then, you know,998 founders, look, go get to work. Just go get to work. And a lot of options will come to you afterwards.
- [21:34]
Vasco Duarte
So that's for entrepreneurs, but there's a lot of internal entrepreneurs change agents, people who want to make their companies, their products better. In larger organizations, they feel the calling, but of course, the context is different. So what is one piece of advice you have for them to be able to express their entrepreneur soul and bring that to their products in a larger organization?
- [21:58]
Nick Hughes
This is also a really interesting and great question. And you know, I would. First, my advice is I think you really need to inquire about the. Essentially the Risk the risk profile and expectations within that organization, in that company. Why? Because if you don't know, you know, you don't want to risk your job, you don't want to like lose your job because you took too much. You know, as an entrepreneur, you are pushing the limits and taking risk. So I would say step one is kind of really understand from a management and you know, essentially the expectations and really the guardrails or maybe even the playing field. Okay. And just knowing kind of what is not only accepted but also expected and you know, what are they looking for, right? So then next is if that's all good, then, you know, you know, you want to really look at, you know, what is success and what is failure. So if you're taking on this project, get defined, you know, what are they, you know, KPIs or measurements so that, you know, that you know, what is really expected. And I think that's in the end is, and I'm, I'm. It's an interesting question for me because I haven't done this. But you know, when I think about as a founder and an entrepreneur, look, I'm, I'm the boss, right? I'm, you know, I'm running the company and you know, to me it's full risk. Like I'm taking on all that risk. I understand that and I still am kind of checking what is our playing field and what is like too far or not enough. And. But if you're within an organization, there is potential for you to do something that could actually risk your employment. So I would just say really understand what that is. And then on the other side, hey, if things go really well, what is the opportunity to either be the CEO and lead that product and division, or do you spin it out to a whole different company and have equity in. I mean, what, what, what is the IP thing here? And you might actually, I mean, I would say the full success is you actually created a whole new business within this other business that spun it out. Maybe you hold equity and you're the CEO and founder of that thing. I don't know. So, you know, these are all the kind of groundworks that you would probably want to do if you're in a larger organization to understand the playing field of what you're doing within it.
- [24:28]
Vasco Duarte
Absolutely. I really like how you pitched in the founder perspective into that internal entrepreneurial story. Right? Like, if things go really well, hey, you might end up being the CEO and founder of another business. Right? And that's an adventure for sure. So for those of Us who are watching and are really interested in understanding more what that means in practice. What is that entrepreneurial soul? How does that embody agility in practice? Is there a blog, a book, a podcast, a video that would help people go deeper into what this entrepreneurial soul really is?
- [25:08]
Nick Hughes
Yeah, you know, I've read a number of books over the last year and, you know, I, I had quite a bit of travel this this year, and so one of them that I read throughout my travels actually is. It's called the Second Mountain. It's by David Brooks, and it's the Quest for a Moral Life. So the Second Mountain, the Quest for a Moral Life. And you know, it's kind of an interesting title, but the whole point here is it's really quest for meaning versus just going, you know, for money and success. And the Second Mountain is really just like the first mountain is like, especially for us, you know, we, as you grow into an adult and you're just trying to go and make as much money as possible, and typically people chase success and then they're like, empty or struggling with that. The Second Mountain is really about meaning. And, you know, when you look at your life, you can kind of. His whole book is, hey, why don't you just jump to the second mountain and, you know, build for purpose and build for meaning. And so my, my encouragement is if you look at that book, it's something, it really pulls out thoughts and ideas about how we can, you know, really not only build, of course, for success, but, you know, what is that meaning and purpose in your life? And everyone has their own unique view on that. And it helps you more consider how you're spending your years, how you're using your years to impact the world. And it's cool because I picked up the book and I kind of already feel that I'm there. But it's a really unique perspective, that kind of first and second mountain of life. So check it out.
- [26:48]
Vasco Duarte
Absolutely. And the link will be in the video description below for you to easily find it. Nick, it's been a pleasure to host you. Thank you for your generosity with your knowledge and experiences. We're about to go. But before we do, where can people find out more about you and about Founders Live?
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Nick Hughes
If you want to check out founderslive.com pretty simple. It's the way you hear it. Founderslive.com and you're going to see a bunch of stuff there. We have a lot of things coming down the line and very excited, so feel free to check that out. And then you can find me, you know, most social platforms, but LinkedIn is quite easy. And it's just Nick Hughes. Maybe if you just type in Founders Live, you're going to see me as well. So feel free to reach out, connect, would love to, love to say hi and chat with you all.
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Vasco Duarte
Absolutely. And the links will be in the video description below, so check it out. Nick, before you go, what's one parting word of advice that you have for our agile friends out there?
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Nick Hughes
You know, look, I would just say, you know, it's test, learn, iterate and grow. Those are the ways. That's the way I built Founders Live. It's the way you're going to build anything in today's world. So go forth and do that.
- [28:04]
Vasco Duarte
Thank you very much, Nick. All the best for Founders Live and I hope to see you soon in Helsinki again.
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Nick Hughes
Well, you know, I'm hoping to. It was a pleasure to meet you there and really loved my time in Finland.
- [28:21]
Vasco Duarte
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