Product Genius, the Podcast for Inventors, Entrepreneurs, and Startups

Steven Julian

Flash of Genius, Steven Julian, Noah McNeely. We talk about one topic and we do try to go in depth, but we do try and do it a little quicker than normal. Noah, this is a very unique Flash of Genius because we don't know how we're going to land this thing.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, we don't even know how to take off, to be honest.

Steven Julian

Yikes. And it might be different because I think you might be asking me a question. That's true. You've got kind of half an idea, so unpack it for us.

Noah McNeely

Well, the theme is how to leverage... Newest developments in the industry, in the world, in the game. you're playing to your advantage. Okay. And I came to this half an idea because of what's going on with the University of Colorado and the Buffaloes. And right now at the time of recording, they're 3-0 and I don't think they won any games last year. And they've got the new coach, Deion Sanders.

Steven Julian

Coach Brian.

Noah McNeely

Yeah. So how is he leveraging all the changes in the game to make it work?

Steven Julian

Yeah, so you ask me as someone who kind of watches more sports than you. do and like, hey, am I seeing this right? of what Dion's doing? And while Dion is not the only one who's utilizing the tremendous changes in the sport, namely the transfer portal and NIL, he seems to be the one that has tapped into it the most or way more than anybody else because he started it at Jackson State, which was a, I call it Division II, my... Whatever the, you know, the lower level under the big five schools.

And he brought in these top recruits. He's now gone to Colorado, which I believe won one game last year.

Noah McNeely

Sorry, I didn't mean to. That's all right. Take that game away from me.

Steven Julian

But it's only, I mean, they've won a handful of games in the last four or five years and have been kind of out of contention for a while. Now, all of a sudden, they're on primetime. I think what it is is they're on primetime with primetime. Exactly. So the key, one of the big keys is one of the things Dion has figured out is He makes it about himself, which brings in eyes, and he makes it entertaining in a way. But the other thing he's done is he's brought in all these transfers, but he's really brought in a group of assistant coaches who handle the X's and O's and make the team competitive.

You've got to have talent, and he brought in that talent in a new way through the transfer portal, but he also brought in the coaches to coach them up. And he's utilizing that to his advantage. There's no question about it.

Noah McNeely

Right. So what does this have to do with inventing a product? I think there's two lessons there. One is as the world changes and it's constantly changing, industries change, technology changes, everything changes, leveraging those changes as best you can, which I think Dion has done with the transfer portal. And I think the other thing you're bringing up is that he is surrounding himself with The best people for individual things. He's not trying to do it all himself. He's not living under the illusion that he knows everything about everything.

Steven Julian

And not only that, he's also not living under the illusion that he thinks he knows a lot about something that he really doesn't know a lot about. He is a. fantastic motivator and he is very good at, hey, all eyes on me.

Noah McNeely

So he is playing to his strengths. Yes. He's playing to the strengths of others and he's innovating around the changes in the world around him.

Steven Julian

Now, what's interesting is as we talked about this topic, one of the things that also came up was I said, you know, because I said, look, he's not the only one using the transfer portal. There are plenty of teams that bring in dozens of, you know, a dozen players in the transfer portal, but they still lose. So that kind of led you to bring up the topic of, you know, it's not just about the change because sometimes people go into the chain, hey, I'm going to get a 3D TV because that's where everything's going.

Oops. Hey, I'm going to get, you know, I'm going to get a laser disc in the A. I'm going to use a laser disc because it really is the superior way to watch a movie.

Noah McNeely

Betamax.

Steven Julian

Yeah, exactly. Right. So is there a lesson there of it's not just transition for transition sake or pivoting for pivoting sake?

Noah McNeely

Right. You have. to pivot to what works. And, you know, sometimes you might pivot to something that doesn't work. But, you know, we've talked about this before. Fail fast. Realize it's not working. Cut your losses and then try the next thing.

Steven Julian

So since we're talking about college football, I find it very interesting. So you and I both went to Georgia Tech, and arguably the greatest college football coach in the last 50 years at Georgia Tech is Coach Paul Johnson. Coach Paul Johnson coached an offense that is arguably from the 60s and 70s, but he was always willing to tweak small things and had it absolutely, he was never going to change because he was the best. Runner of the triple option offense. Maybe ever.

Noah McNeely

Right. And he took that, frankly, as far as anyone could. Exactly. Which wasn't all the way to where we wanted it to be.

Steven Julian

So he knew who he was. You know, they used to always say, oh, he never has a play sheet because he has it all in his head. But he was always adjusting. He was always willing to change certain things, but he couldn't change certain core tenets. So there. is some success sometimes in not necessarily transitioning of what you do. You literally do it better than anybody else ever has done it.

Noah McNeely

We promise this is not a sports show. Wrapping it up, innovate.

Steven Julian

We've still got a couple of minutes.

Noah McNeely

Innovate around what's changing. Be aware of what's changing around you in the game, in the environment, in the industry. Innovate in that direction. If it's not working, call that as quickly as you can and do something different.

Steven Julian

I was going to ask that. one last question of you, specifically in product development and entrepreneurship and inventorship. Any quick tip on how to know you're failing fast so that you can pivot and change and adjust? That's a very broad question and a flash of genius.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, that's like a whole episode. But okay, the secret to failing fast is to try stuff as quickly as you can.

Steven Julian

And try as many different things.

Noah McNeely

Well, yeah, you don't want to plan to fail fast. I mean, plan a little bit, try it. If it doesn't work, make some adjustments. Don't spend months and months planning and then fail because that's failing slow and that's really expensive.

Steven Julian

And by the way, we here at Flash of Genius would love for Coach Prime to give us prime tickets to an upcoming Colorado Buffaloes game. We'll take them because we're giving you a little bit of free press.

Noah McNeely

Or come on the show and talk about innovation.

Steven Julian

I love it. That's even better.

Noah McNeely

I'm sure he's one of our many millions of listeners.

Steven Julian

So the gauntlet has been thrown down. Coach Prime, will you appear on a full episode of Product Genius? So for Noah McNeely, this is Steven Julian. Thank you for listening to Flash of Genius.