Adrian Johnson: An Entrepreneur's Life

Episode Summary: In this episode of The Sydcast, serial entrepreneur Adrian Johnson sits down and gives us the details of his fantastic life from childhood to where he is now. He has a curiosity and an entrepreneurial mindset that is, to put it lightly, extraordinary, and a heart that seeks to help wherever he can. This episode has it all, from the ways technology can assist in education to what it was like starting a business in Eastern Germany after the Berlin Wall came down. Syd Finkelstein  Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.  Adrian Johnson: Adrian Johnson is an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship and a technology and media entrepreneur. Since 1993 he has co-founded several companies, including Poptel, Germany's first phone-to-phone Internet telephony service provider (VC-funded and successfully sold in a trade sale); Archimation (www.archimation.com), Germany's first architectural animation and visualization company; MrFootage (www.mrfootage.com), a web-based film footage library; Eventival (www.eventival.com), the world’s leading online film festival management system and SeriesIMPACT, an “EdTech" business creating “NextGen" live cases (www.LiveCASE.com).  At INSEAD Adrian is an Adjunct Professor and teaches the legendary "Your First Hundred Days" (YFCD) MBA/EMBA course as well as Executive Education company-specific and open-enrolment programmes at INSEAD’s campuses in Fontainebleau, Singapore and Abu Dhabi. Adrian is also a supervisor of final EMBA student projects, and has been teacher, judge and mentor for Startup and Sci-Tech Commercialisation Bootcamps. After fourteen years on the INSEAD MBA Admissions Committee, he now sits on the INSEAD Global EMBA Admissions Panel. Investing in the next-generation leaders of tomorrow, Adrian is the Programme Director of the Summer@INSEAD business awareness summer camp for 15 to 18 year olds.  Before becoming an entrepreneur, Adrian began his career with ICI, then the largest manufacturer in Britain. After his MBA, he moved to the IT services industry, later working for the German Treuhandanstalt, privatising East German companies in Dresden and Berlin.  After a childhood spent in Sierra Leone, Kenya and the USA, Adrian studied Electrical Engineering at Imperial College London and earned his MBA from INSEAD. Insights from the Episode:How important a Team is to starting a new businessWhat Eastern Germany looked like, from a business perspective, after the wall came downThe nuances of choosing between different countries to start a business inThe potential for technology to integrate with education going forward Quotes from the Show:Getting an MBA is a way of reducing your career risk because you’re increasing your skill set and marketability and your own brand, and coming out of an MBA program you are really extremely marketable - Syd Finkelstein [19:47]On the most important part of a startup: It's kind of easy coming up with ideas but actually turning an idea into a successful venture; I have definitely come to the conclusion that the team ends up being the most important thing. - Adrian Johnson [23:33]We started working together, and we were so complementary to each other. That's why our business worked, and cementing that was the trust that we had and we built over the years. And of course we ended up becoming very good friends - Adrian Johnson [25:34]On the way Germany handled business ventures after the wall came down: I think what has worked very well in Germany is that sort of the social democratic structure, so there was not this massive transfer - as many east germans feared - that the wealthy Germans would come in and take all the wealth and we’d end up with a load of very rich people and a load of very poor people. - Adrian Johnson [36:43]The problem is France didn’t have any real role models, successful entrepreneurs. There’s no Bill Gates, there's no Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. - Adrian Johnson [49:07]Entrepreneurship can create, not can, but does create wealth not just for the entrepreneurs that are successful but for the entire economy and employment - Syd Finkelstein [57:57]There's still a lot of innovating to be done around how to more effectively use technology to help kids learn. And maybe it's not just in the content delivery but its the process of; how do you actually teach, how do people learn, and can they learn more effectively. - Adrian Johnson [62:11] Stay Connected:   Syd Finkelstein Website: http://thesydcast.com LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein Twitter: @sydfinkelstein Facebook: The Sydcast Instagram: The Sydcast Adrian Johnson: Website: adrianjohnson.com Blog: Adrian Johnson INSEAD: Adrian Johnson Twitter: @acvjohnson Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.   This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry (www.podcastlaundry.com)