The Business Trendsetter Podcast

Over Time the Super Bowl has become the premier location for launching advertising related to emerging products. Super Bowl LV was no different. There were of course traditional ads for mass market products from companies with ad budgets over $100million. But between those were advertisers using the event for first time ads, and other advertisers promoting new features or applications. These ads w...

GameStop stock was recently manipulated by stock traders into wild price volatility. But this was a fad – with many losers and some winners. This was not based on long-term trends for the retailer’s business, nor was this buying and selling of stock based on long-term valuation. Although news making, the story was due to a short-term squeeze, not business fundamentals driven by trends. However, th...

IBM is well on its way to becoming the next Sun Microsystems, Wang or Digital Equipment Corp (DEC.) Despite an incredible legacy, today IBM is irrelevant in the marketplace, and its sales have been declining for nearly a decade. Since 2000 the value of Apple has risen 14,900%, while IBM’s value has risen 5.7%.

This week’s podcast is an interview with Doug Hockstad, Assistant VP at the University of Arizona’s Tech Launch Arizona. Doug discusses how the university undertakes initial efforts to commercialize inventions for its labs and how he focuses resources on moving inventions from paper to license. Universities and research organizations typically focus on inventing new things, without much concern fo...

From storming the Capitol to running a business, failing to plan is a common reason for failure. During the pandemic, individuals and business failed to plan well. Restaurants made the temporary changes of enforcing healthy guidelines in line with COVID-19, but what more are they doing? Without investing time in organizing your business goals and understanding market trends, your business will fal...

It’s 2021 and Spark Partners discuss how business leaders can strategically prepare for the future ahead. This episode Adam and Manny focus on planning for disruption, rather than business as usual. We’re almost a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, but not everyone seems to have fully grasped the extent of its effects. Individuals and businesses are following mandatory health guidelines and have und...

The new year is right around the corner, and Spark Partners are wrapping it up with a conversation to prepare you for 2021. What tools do you need to have handy to make the upcoming year a success? We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: you must follow TRENDS! Trends are the signs no business leader can ignore if they want to take their work further and make it profitable well into the futu...

In a continued exploration of important innovators, Adam and Manny launch a conversation from a troubling phenomenon -- unused real estate in the US. What’s left of once bustling shopping malls, busy workplaces, and thriving communities are now empty and run-down buildings. The pandemic accelerated so many trends, from demographic to technological, that point to changing American landscapes and bu...

Spark Partners continues December’s highlight of admirable and not-so-admirable innovators by looking at the mistakes companies have made by investing in the wrong innovations. Companies like Uber, Segway, and others with unique creations have gone wrong when they confused their value delivery system with their value proposition. Uber just gave up on their billion dollar investment on autonomous v...

In this month’s celebration of notable innovators, Spark Partners take this episode to compare two notable innovators: the late Tony Hsieh and the late Frank Carney. Hsieh, the former CEO of the online shoe company Zappos, pioneered the concept of easy product returns that led the entire ecommerce industry to follow suit. Pizza Hut co-founder Frank Carney created the pizza that defines America by...

This week on The SparkCom Podcast, Manny and Adam are joined by Mica Kinder, founder and CEO of Insulin Now. The online pharmacy provides low-cost insulin for uninsured and underinsured diabetes patients, and is the only commercial group in the United States doing so. Business leaders often think narrowly about innovation, as though it only implies changes to products. But in a business where the...

As we fast approaching the end of 2020, we can see how much the business landscape has changed through the COVID-19 pandemic. In a time of need and economic fallouts, several companies have stayed on top after bringing considerable value to consumers. How have they done that? Through change and sales. Looking at the most valuable companies in 2020 versus those fifteen years ago, it’s clear how muc...

What makes a successful entrepreneur? What makes a successful innovator? Hint: It’s not DNA. In this week’s episode of the SparkCom Podcast, Manny guides a conversation on the traits, experiences, and mentality of successful startup entrepreneurs. There’s a level of spirit and drive that not every entrepreneur possesses, but can possess to succeed. Understandably, many are held back by the fear of...

If you could predict the future accurately, would you do anything different? So many business leaders from prominent companies and small businesses choose to not take action to prevent their business from failing, even when they know all odds are stacked against them. This week, the Spark Partners discuss this all-too-common mistake businesses make, and the steps any leader can take to push their...

Adam and Manny take this week’s episode to cover trends and why they are so paramount to the field of innovation. From a changing energy industry and the rise of vegetarian diets, to the rising costs of homes and shifts to working from home, trends completely dominate the world, not just business! No innovator can afford to ignore trends or make excuses to not adopt them. Even fifteen years ago, m...

This week the Partners spark a conversation on the effects of third party involvement on business growth and innovation. Reviewing the Department of Justice’s new antitrust lawsuit against Google and it’s 2001 lawsuit against Microsoft, Adam and Manny question the role of the government in regulating competition in the marketplace. There’s no denying that e-commerce, social media, and big tech pla...

Following up on a previous discussion on Disney, Spark Partners turn their attention to the struggling film industry and movie theaters. Hollywood’s heavy reliance on the traditional value delivery system of theater-viewing has left the industry to fall behind competing platforms utilizing trends in streaming and technology. According to Adam, the mutual relationship between film producers and the...

In this episode of the SparkCom Podcast, Adam and Manny discuss the contrast of growing opportunity and high risk in the cannabis industry. Entrepreneurship is about discovering solutions to address consumer problems. And, at its foundation, the cannabis industry at its foundation identifies unmet customer needs, making it outwardly appealing for modern business leaders. But it’s the value deliver...

“That’s not the way things are done here” is one of the most common and destructive mentalities any business leader can have, especially if they want their business to grow. Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Sharf perfectly demonstrated how maintaining age-old and faulty biases is an undeniable reason for business limitation, when he recently commented that the bank’s lack of Black employees is due to there...

In Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Caroll said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” Maybe you’ve applied his words to life in general or literal geographical advice. As an innovator, you’ve got to apply it to your business. This week Adam and Manny discuss the history and current state of Kraft-Heinz, one of America’s biggest food processing companies. Despite decades o...

Adam and Manny take a look at how one of the world’s most innovative companies, Tesla, arose and achieved such high valuation when others in the automotive industry have considered it too unconventional and no match for other auto companies. Despite Tesla’s different operative practices and primary emphasis on producing electric cars, Adam points out that Tesla found success by finding the unmet n...

The Spark Partners dive deep into one of the biggest marketplace trends, the Gig Economy, with their discussion brought on by California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) that’s impacted tons of businesses like Uber and Lyft. The law passed in 2019 attempts to redefine independent contract workers as employees, going against the growing trend of gig work and the age of information that we live in today. We...

On this week’s episode, the Spark Partners are joined by special guest Taber MacCallum to discuss how he has established a successfully innovative near-space tourism business, and important points from his experience of developing it. For Taber, incorporating research, working through obstacles, and simultaneously holding a critical perspective of your business and perseverance are keys to creatin...

Don’t shoot the messenger! With the future of the US Postal Service in question, the Spark partners examine the harmful role leadership can play in suppressing innovation. Business leaders risk failing their organization when they ignore growing trends, deny the impact of market changes, and choose to defend and extend their classic business model. Without top level and governmental support to ada...

Businesses everywhere too often fail because they’ve been stuck trying to carry on tradition or old values that have less and less impact in today’s world. Classic businesses from sports to family-owned operations are plummeting, and the Walt Disney Company is the perfect example. With its continued investment in theme parks and aged fantasies, the franchise is on the verge of bankruptcy and has y...