Jakob Fricke on Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Talent

Jakob Fricke joins me on the very first journey. We talk about his curiosity about entrepreneurship, starting and shutting down his first business, his side projects, leveraging serendipity, remote vs. in person work, innovation, overcoming obstacles, identifying and nurturing talent, cities he would move to, and more.

Find Jakob on Twitter and LinkedIn @jakobfricke.
Follow @journeysjesse on Twitter for updates on future episodes.
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Read the full transcript here (https://gabel.is/journeys/jakob-fricke).

Timestamps

[00:00:43] Introduction
[00:01:20] Jakob's curiosity about entrepreneurship
[00:02:15] Starting his first business
[00:04:03] Shutting down his company
[00:04:54] How college prepared Jakob to start his company
[00:06:21] Choosing side projects
[00:07:43] Projects that didn't make it to market
[00:08:33] Timing of taking his projects public
[00:09:07] Getting traction
[00:10:55] Focusing on the outcome
[00:12:12] Leveraging serendipity
[00:14:21] Remote vs. in person work
[00:16:19] Starting your career or new job remote-only
[00:17:30] Why there are so few successful remote-only companies
[00:19:24] Misconceptions about innovation at companies
[00:20:03] Jakob's definition of innovation
[00:21:35] Regulation & innovation
[00:23:50] Europe's stance on regulating innovation
[00:25:11] How to facilitate innovation in startups
[00:26:25] Constraints, goal-setting & pushing towards the edge
[00:28:38] Overcoming obstacles
[00:30:28] His learnings from stressful times
[00:31:19] Consistency, luck & shortcuts
[00:32:28] Nurturing talent at Techstars
[00:34:08] Identifying talent
[00:37:08] Cities he would move to
[00:38:12] Technology innovation & talent clusters
[00:38:59] Which path he would choose after high school
[00:40:25] Co-founders & college
[00:41:29] Challenges to creating college-like environments
[00:42:47] Essentials for college alternatives
[00:43:48] The Great Stagnation
[00:45:02] What he's working on

I'd appreciate your feedback and thoughts at jesse@gabel.is.