At the very heart of any entrepreneur is innovation. Innovators look at things very differently. They wonder why, not why not. They think yes, not no. For them, the world is a place of possibilities, not probabilities.

Entrepreneurs are not always focused on the bottom line, but they seek the true value of innovation that in some cases is a simplicity that others can’t see. They are the lifeblood of the startup, and the key to their success is an overwhelming passion for continuous innovation. Innovation in business processes, models, networks, products, and customer centricity are paramount in an age where business velocity flies at the speed of light. True innovators will not stop – they will bring innovation to every single business process in your organization, if allowed. Who are the innovators in your organization and how are they innovating?

I regularly attend conferences and events that promise innovative ideas and I spend a significant amount of time with wannabe PhD-clad innovators from large companies. For me, the situation a little odd -- I am usually the only startup guy. But what really boggles my mind is that we are asking the very people who have spent most of their lives in academia to innovate. In my view, for most of these people innovation won’t happen.

Companies are struggling for innovation, but the reality is, most of it these days is coming from outside their companies. Why?

At the last Berkeley Innovation Forum meeting, Vivek Wadhwa presented a study about some commonly believed myths of entrepreneurs and their common characteristics. (Vivek is a BusinessWeek contributor.) What Vivek found was that the majority of startup founders came not from Ivy League universities and/or the east coast, and the majority weren’t single men without families and children. As would be expected, the vast majority of entrepreneurs came and stayed in areas that are culturally diverse, such as California, and many of them had entrepreneurial relatives. This was a fascinating piece of research presented by Vivek, because it exploded many myths associated with startups and entrepreneurs.

The Three Ls

Inspiring innovation in startups requires a number of key personality characteristics:

  • Select people based on their ability to listen, learn and lead. In my view, these are the most important characteristics of innovators.
  • Identify those that have had close entrepreneurial family relatives and have been directly involved in those entrepreneurial experiences.
  • Select those who can lead, but also will follow great leadership.
  • Find people that can exist in a team environment and contribute without being disruptive naysayers.
  • Find people that have great meeting facilitation skills and are likable.
  • Find people that have great innate enthusiasm; they will serve you well.
  • Select those with diverse and unusual or cross-disciplinary education and experience.

One of the most important organizational issues facing large organizations today is the lack of altruism within the weakly formed family oriented culture that is often fostered by HR professionals. This false sense of family within the organization creates a culture of mistrust within the silos that it mandates; this may be the heart of the innovation issue for many companies today. Innovation is all about people with the right stuff, and without them no Web 2.0 enterprise collaborative platform wiki from hell will ever help.  

The Erotic Ocean: Early Innovators in Marine Biology

The three innovators in this story all created similar unique businesses. They are: my uncle, John Auditore; Jack Rudloe, author and small business owner; and Ed “Doc Ricketts" of John Steinbeck fame, also author and small business owner. 

In the 1920’s Doc Ricketts was the earliest innovator and is best known for Pacific Biological Laboratories and his first book, Between Pacific Tides, published in 1939. Ricketts and John Steinbeck teamed up and completed one of the most innovative and pioneering studies of invertebrates in the Sea of Cortez. Their collaboration and innovative research brought us one of my favorite books, The Log from the Sea of Cortez, published in 1951. Steinbeck’s wife Carol worked for Ricketts for many years, and Steinbeck funded the rebuilding of the lab in Monterrey after a fire destroyed it. Steinbeck also rented the shrimp boat “Western Flyer” that was home for their four-month journey into the Sea of Cortez.

In 1957, my uncle John Baptist had decided not to spend his life at sea like his fisherman father and had noticed the tremendous waste generated by modern fishing vessels. His idea was to create a business selling the unwanted species of fish and invertebrates to universities and the supply houses that supported them. John Auditore met Rodger Babson, an early angel investor, and was given $10,000 to help start what would become the Gloucester Marine Biological Supply Company, perhaps the first of its kind in the New England. Around the same time a Princeton dropout named Jack Rudloe noticed shrimp boats throwing thousands of unwanted fish and invertebrates overboard. Not only did he start the Pensacola Supply House in Florida, in 1971 he published the bible for invertebrate collectors, The Erotic Ocean, which was the standard for many years when it came to preserving specimens.

I spent a great deal of my early childhood with my uncle John collecting invertebrates, but what I remember most about him was his passion and ways of looking at everything very differently. He once told me a story about how his mother and sister laughed at him one day as he collected starfish under a bridge. Twenty years later he was the most successful of all the sons and lived in the biggest house. But that was not his passion. At his Eulogy, ministers from three different religions sang his praise because he had tried them all and touched them and their families so deeply.  

All of these innovators had many things in common, including passion and commitment to the ocean. But most importantly, not one of them had a formal college education or degree. You can’t help but think that this had something to do with it. Self-taught, self-made business people are a rare breed today.

Until next time, I wish you great selling and marketing in the millennium and next time hire the passionate!