Inspiring Leader Tristan Kromer, Global Lean Startup Coach, in a #Digitalfirst world
We share interviews with inspiring leaders taking a proactive role in a time of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) and embracing the digital world.
Many business leaders feel less knowledgeable or involved in digital transformation and social media, why we believe it is important to take inspiration from some of the more digital leaders, to understand more of their personal journey and get access to some of their insights.
Our next leader is Tristan Kromer. Tristan is a highly Experienced Innovator and Global Lean Startup Coach. Tristan is passionate about innovation in ecosystems, entrepreneurship and startups.
Tristan’s journey to become a #Digital Leader
So how did Tristan come into this Innovation and Startup Coach Leadership position he currently holds? Listen to Tristan’s response;
One of the defining moments on Tristan’s journey was during the involvement with a startup and Tristan came across Steve Blank and his now bestselling classic book, that eventually launched 10000 startups and corporate ventures, – “Four Steps to Epiphany”. The Lean Startup approach is being adopted across the globe by both startups but also by large corporations and governments, and is changing the way companies, business and organisations are built and new products and services are launched. The book gave Tristan a lot of insight but also created a lot of questions, and the questions became his mission – to be able to fill in the blanks. He became focused on improving his skills in entrepreneurship and he continued his route and worked with an accelerator sponsored by the Mexican government and he also worked with Janice Fraser, another very experienced startup leader. He started to engage himself in the nonprofit organization Lean Startup Circle and worked with many accelerators in many different countries as well as with hundreds of entrepreneurs, many corporations and many government agencies. There are many routes that take you into leadership positions in the digital world, again it is proven that a core drive will be for leaders to be passionately curious and embrace risk to move forward in this new world.
Which #Digital Trends, Businesses and Leaders to monitor?
Which trends and examples of businesses and leaders does Tristan believe we should keep our eyes on going forward? Listen to Tristan’s insights here:
To find fun examples and still moving a business Tristan finds and follows almost ridiculous companies like “ Relax my dog”. On the more serious note he advises us to follow trends and companies in the forefront of vast technology changes like 3D printing, with examples like Makerbot and with Drone companies, and finally in the finance industry look for Bitcoin related companies.
For inspirational leaders he points us to leaders like Lean Startup Guru and associate professor at Stanford, Steve Blank , the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and one of the founding contributors to the lean startup movement Eric Ries and startup expert and Fomentor at Pivotal Labs Janice Fraser.
But Tristan thinks it is of equal importance to recognize people like Spike Morelli, Justin Wilcox, Nick Noreña , Zac Halbert, William Pietri, Kevin Dewalt, who are all helping entrepreneurs on the grass root level, growing knowledge and building the community and encourage peer to peer exchange of knowledge.
Tristan also believes it is important to follow, help grow and be part of ecosystems. Ecosystems can be cities, can be industries with examples like shipping and gaming, or can be within corporations. He draws similarities between the issues in Tallinn with fewer educated investors that would be inhibitors of the ecosystem, and that could be similar to what he has seen in major corporations where the lack of educated business sponsors also have proved an inhibitor. Where knowledgeable business sponsor instead of asking for only ROI, also asks – “…show me conversion rates, show me market demand”. Tristan encourages us to put in place tolls, processes and inspirations to educate business leaders, which would accelerate innovation in the corporate ecosystem.
Give and get inspiration and value through networks
What networks does Tristan believe will bring value to both to himself as well as to his business? Don’t miss out on Tristan’s response to our final question – which furniture he would be…
Tristan is a user of Twitter to interact with people and grow his business, to Quora to quickly grow more knowledge and to Pandawhale to share, inspire and connect.
He feels that he gets great value from his peers in the Lean Startup Circle community group – where his peers challenges his assumptions and help push him to the next level.
There is no doubt that social networks, both digital and in real life, are increasingly important for us in both our business and private life.
Finally, as furniture, Tristan would be ……… a small pile of rocks in a Zen garden! He choose that because he finds them peaceful, which you can understand when you get insights into Tristan’s busy schedule!
How to become more #digitallyInvolved
To get more insight of what Tristan knows and shares, we highly recommend you follow him on Twitter @TriKro and check out what he shares at Tristan@Pandawhale and you can also check out his homepage or his website TriKro.
To further expand your own network of inspiring digital leaders – we recommend you to follow Steve Blank on Twitter as @sgblank and read his new insight full book “The Startup Owner’s Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company” .
You can also follow some of the other leaders on Twitter that Tristan mentions as Eric Ries @ericries and Janice Fraser @clevergirl .
If you like to get inspiration on lean startup and innovation you can also follow the other mentioned leaders on twitter as @spikelab , @justin_wilcox , @njnorena , @zachalbert , @williampietri , @kevingdewalt .
We believe it is important to share insights from inspiring #digitalfirst thought leaders, if you are one of them or know someone we should talk to, please send us a hint via http://digoshen.com/
These interviews are shared both on my own blog www.liselotteengstam.com
At Digoshen we believe that Companies, Boards and Business Leadership Teams need to understand more of the digital world to fully leverage the potential when bringing their business into the digital age.
We provide inspiration and support to help transition business leaders into more insightful digital positions for themselves and their companies.
Follow us on twitter: @digoshen , CEO @
katycaroan and Chairman @liseeng