Innovation and Soccer Stadiums: an interview with Patrick Copeland

At Exponentially, we know that a customer-centric focus and data to back you up are the basis of successful innovation; without these key elements, there’s no way of knowing if anyone will actually use or like the product you are creating. 

Current Vice President at Amazon Advertising and prior Senior Engineering Director at Google, Patrick Copeland is no stranger to fast paced innovation, or to pretotyping. Like us, he understands the importance of data and is a huge supporter of customer-centric business. During a recent *virtual* chat with The Official Pretotyping Podcast hosted by Robert Skrobe and Jonathan Sun, we had the chance to hear about his role in the birth of pretotyping, differences in culture between Amazon and Google, and why a crisis management system is at the top of his ‘favourite projects’ list. 

Kicking off the interview, podcast host Jonathan Sun asks Patrick to compare his time at Google to his current role at Amazon, looking for any notable differences between the two. For Patrick, it's clear that the key has always been to find places where he could innovate, avoiding the trap of working only within the parameters of a job description. I tried “to find places where I could actually do what I wanted to do,” he says, explaining that this list includes the chance to “try to take the technology that was existing and find new ways to apply it.” 

Though both companies have offered him the chance to do this, Patrick notes that of the two, Amazon really understands and supports a customer-centric approach to innovation. “There's a high focus on innovation, but there's also a lot of discussion about what we're trying to do as a company,” he says. As we discussed in our recent blog post on Amazon’s ‘Working Backwards’ method, the culture of Jeff Bezos’ invention incubator provides the chance to differentiate and come up with new things; ideas and failure are encouraged here. “There’s actually an interest in doing that” Patrick confirms, going on to explain that Amazon understands the need to collect data and build confidence around your product through experimentation; “first to market definitely has its advantages, but you've got to build love around your products.” 

By way of comparison, Patrick explains that his early years at Google were lacking in these areas. There were “a lot of, you know, kind of projects that weren't super focused on the customer” he explains, citing Google Wave as a prime example. “There were a lot of other projects that were kind of just chaos in the system” Patrick says, stating that “people would just dream them up and do them, and then try to figure out how to release them and get them aligned with Google.”

Understanding the negative effects of developing products that you don’t already know will work is central to Patrick’s work ethic, and part of why he loved pretotyping from the start. “The saying “If you build it they will come” is just so untrue” Patrick says, this time referencing Google Plus as an example. Though it was a really great idea, he likens it to “a massive soccer stadium that was built very, very well, but no games being played, no reason to go there, you know?” 

Patrick assures the audience that it wasn’t all bad though, saying “I loved Google. I mean, it was one of the best companies I ever worked for [...] I thought the culture was really great. It was very open.” Google certainly offered Patrick a lot of opportunities, including the chance to work on a project he counts as one of his favourites: a crisis management system that sends out alerts to people in the event of severe weather. Though he admits these kinds of projects were less of a risk to undertake, Patrick explains that it’s the projects that have helped people that stand out for him. In the case of the storm alert system, Patrick says it tops his list because “we were lucky enough to actually build software that did something, you know, that really changed people's lives.”

Aside from the opportunity to work on some great ideas, Patrick also remembers Google as the place where he met and collaborated with pretotyping’s founding father, Alberto Savoia. From their first meeting, Patrick says that he knew that he wanted to work with Alberto, though he wasn’t sure in what way to begin with. Over the course of many discussions, they both realised that while Google was filled with great ideas, those ideas were worth nothing on their own. “What we needed were people that could do innovation [...] somebody that can actually take an idea and come up with a concept that's doable, you know, and build confidence and actually deliver it.”

Prompted by Jonathan to relay how pretotyping got its start, Patrick explains that even the concept of pretotyping was pretotyped. “People got excited and so little teams started to adopt it, and they started to start challenging the process of innovation inside Google. And it just kind of spread like wildfire from there.” 

Patrick was amazed by how quickly the method caught on: “It was a really exciting time. I mean, to see an idea go from literally a piece of paper and just talking to Alberto, to seeing people really wanting it, paying for it, CEOs of companies like Coca-Cola [and] Kellogg coming to Google and wanting to hear Alberto talk about it.” 

In acknowledging that a customer-centric focus is always important, podcast host Jonathan asked Patrick another very poignant question: how do you balance the idea between having a small amount of customers who love your product, but at the same time, knowing that you need volume in order to drive the sort of attention that would bring in the kind of investors that you need?  

“I'm talking about the early stage, you know, as you're doing something you want to validate that people really care about it,” Patrick explains. He expands by stating that “if you focus on a small community and build from there, you can iterate and figure out how to parlay it into a bigger and bigger community that expands from that core.”

To elaborate, Patrick explains that by focusing on a small group of people who love your product, you can collect data and feedback that looks good to those investors. If you can show them that people truly love your product, that you have data showing that they have genuine interest in it, then there’s a much higher chance of success. Within this though, Patrick notes, you need to keep two very important things in mind: 

First, that instead of looking just for initial interest in your product, ideally “you're looking for recurring usage. That's the key.” Collecting data that shows that your audience will not only be intrigued by your product and maybe buy it once, but that they will return to use it over and over again, is generally the key to successful innovation (and happy investors). 

Secondly, that you are collecting data, and not just opinions (check out our blog on why this is important here). “I wouldn't say that listening to customers [...] isn't important because I think it really, really is. It's really the core of it,” Patrick explains, “but I think the thing that Alberto's talking about is like, don't take it on face value: go validate that their intent is real.” Your audience may tell you that they’re interested in your product (Patrick uses a ‘beer for dogs’ example to illustrate his point here), but where’s your proof that they’ll actually use it once it’s been built? 

Taking the time to validate an idea, collecting your own data and failing early In turn, can help you explain why you should (or shouldn’t) build something, giving you the proof you need to back yourself up against bosses and investors who think they know better. 

Alongside both of these, there’s two final tools that Patrick insists are essential in the kit of any innovator: taking time to switch off, and having confidence to disagree when people say no (and they definitely will). 

Patrick describes being run down and exhausted as being almost “the death of an entrepreneur or an innovator,” as it prevents you from being objective and being able to take a step back and consider all the options. Reflection is a key element in any successful innovator’s life, no matter the industry; Patrick emphasises this point by explaining that “every innovator I've ever talked to, they have something that they do [to switch off, think lucidly and reflect].” 

Patrick’s final advice for innovators? Be confident. 

“There are a lot of people that are gonna tell you [no] in a big company and if you have investors,” Patrick says. “You have to have a thick skin and confidence that you’re going to be right.” That being said, Patrick acknowledges that not everyone has this kind of confidence: “Not everybody can stand up to their company or their investors and say “I think I’m right.” If you’re not Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, then Patrick’s advice is as follows: “If you think you're right, you should try to move forward. You should try to protect your idea, give it a safe harbour and enough time to quickly iterate and validate.” 

“I think you owe that to yourself to try to take your idea from the ideation stage before it ends up on the cutting room floor, like those hundred thousand ideas at Google that are probably still sitting in a database.”

Want to experience Patrick’s chat with The Official Pretotyping Podcast in full? View the full video here.

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