For most of us, summertime means vacation. Whether at the beach, in the mountains or simply at home with the family - we all enjoy taking a break from busy work and everyday life. While some of us will try to overcome the Zoom-Fatigue by disconnecting from the digital world and find inspiration in books or nature, others prefer to stay connected and enjoy good, insightful content to make the best out of their free time. Did you know? The number of podcasts went through the roof in the past two years! In fact, as of April 2021, PodcastInsights recalls that there are over 48 million episodes available from over 2 million shows worldwide! We think this is just the beginning.

Our colleague Charles understood this trend already in 2018. In his Entrepreneurs Talk podcast, Charles interviews entrepreneurs to understand what they do, learn from and share their experiences. As his passion for this media format starts to spread among our team, we decided to list our 7 favorite podcast shows or episodes about innovation and entrepreneurial mindset to listen to this summer.

Start Listening 

1. Lessons of Innovation 

   In Lessons of Innovation, Mohamad Zaraket hosts conversations with a diverse range of people from the innovation field: (corporate) innovators, academics, consultants, authors, entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs. The idea of his show is to share valuable insights, tips and advice that help us succeed in our innovation journey. 

   Three episodes we really appreciate, although all are highly recommended:

   Episode #1: How to Drive Corporate Innovation with Tendayi Viki 

   Episode #4: How to Talk to Customers About Your Business Idea with Rob Fitzpatrick

   Episode #7: Testing Business Ideas to Reduce the Risk of Failure, with David Bland

2. Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders – A Stanford Speaker Series 

   The Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (ETL) is podcast series created by Stanford University. It is a “candid exploration of the entrepreneurial journey where informed leaders share personal stories of the secrets and setbacks behind real success.”  Alongside the series of episodes with entrepreneurs and innovation leaders, we recommend the first-ever ETL Research bonus episode which looks at one of the first empirical studies about lean startup, an approach that BMI Lab follows since day 1. If you want to find out more about our lean startup approach, check out our Launchpad. 

   Why do we recommend this episode? Researchers Michael Leatherbee and Riitta Katila recently published a paper in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal that shows how and why lean startup’s emphasis on “customer discovery” (directly testing business hypotheses with potential customers during product development) does help teams converge on business ideas. Both talk about these results with Steve Blank, Stanford adjunct professor, whose Lean Launchpad Class and book The Four Steps to the Epiphany were foundational to the lean startup movement. 

3. The NFX podcast 

   The The NFX podcast has been created by NFX, an American venture company. This team of experienced entrepreneurs and investors helps founders to understand the techniques of network effects and growth. Their podcast is a mix of different series of episodes, ranging from talks to readings of interesting publications. The one episode we would like to recommend: The Pricing Masterclass with Madhavan Ramanujam & Pete Flint. Pricing is probably the most difficult topic for startups and innovation teams to understand, design and test. This episode with one of the world’s greatest pricing masters provides knowledge, insights, and tips to overcome this challenge. 

4. Business Model Sandbox 

   The Business Model Sandbox Podcast is a series of conversations between Business Innovation Factory’s Chief Catalyst Saul Kaplan and international leading business model thinkers and doers. 

   If there is one episode to listen to, then this one from 2019: The End of Competitive Advantages with Rita McGrath. Innovation and growth guru Rita Gunther McGrath talks in this episode about what currently animates every organization in the world: uncertainty and why it is crucial that innovation and growth strategy frameworks adapt. 

5. Outside In 

   Charles Trevail, CEO of Promise and host of Outside In, takes a look at the strategies and philosophies of the world’s most customer-centric brands. In this show, leaders from business, media, and academia discuss how consumers are changing, and share best practices on how to create a customer-inspired organization. 

   Our episode recommendations: 

   Leading and Listening During a Pivotal Moment with Scott Uzzell, CEO of Converse 

   Gary Pisano: Can Big Companies Really Be Innovative? 

6. HBR IdeaCast 

   HBR IdeaCast is a weekly podcast from the Harvard Business Review that features international leading thinkers in both business and management.  In the future, competition will probably take place between ecosystems instead of technologies or even business models. Which is the reason why we recommend their episode from 2020: When to team up with your competition, a talk with Barry Nalebuff, professor at Yale University. 

7. The Innovation Show 

   The Innovation Show podcast is about sharing ideas on innovation, change, disruption, transformation and the future in general with the goal to empower new thinking. One episode stands out for this summer: A chat with Scott D. Anthony about how to make creativity and everyday habit. 

Bonus Recommendations 

• Episode #26 of Digital Kompakt: How to do corporate innovation right (German) 

• Génération Do It Yourself: A weekly talk with French entrepreneurs, artists and athletes about their journey (French) 

• Online-Marketing-Rockstars: One of the most famous podcasts in Germany (German and English) 

• Oser puis doser: A recent podcast by BMI Lab’s friend Frank Debane in which he talks to French intrapreneurs about their adventure and what they have learned about corporate innovation and intrapreneurship. 

Listening to podcasts is not only about inspiration, but also about education, information and sometimes about escaping by getting a purely entertaining value. As mentioned above, the podcast trend will be evolving even more, therefore, we will update our recommendations from time to time. Stay tuned!

What about you? 

Do you have any podcast recommendations you would like to share? Send us an email - we are happy to share it with the rest of BMI Lab’s community!