MEL #021 | From Co-op Student to Startup Champion through Relationship-Driven Leadership with Dan Miller

MILLER (00:00)

If your network is going to flourish, it’s always a two-way street. Everything is a two-way street. And I think the end goal is when I have a problem, I want to be able to pick up the phone and call somebody or call several people who I think could have some insight or lend a helping hand. And by the way, I want that to happen to me too. I want the other part of the network to call me.  And if you don’t have your reputation of having some area of expertise and a reputation for follow-through, that will not happen.

Angelique Adams (00:58)

In this episode, I speak with Dan Miller, Director for Innovation Crossroads, a US Department of Energy lab-embedded entrepreneurship program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dan grew up in a family of engineers and followed in his parents’ footsteps, attending Kettering University. After starting his career in mechanical design, he pivoted into tech transfer through a dual MS MBA program at the University of Tennessee, eventually leading him to Oak Ridge National Lab.

In our leadership segment, Dan shared a compelling case of negotiating with multiple stakeholders to bring an entrepreneur into the Innovation Crossroads program. The challenge required listening deeply, aligning competing interests, and building consensus, skills he believes are essential for engineers stepping into leadership. 

Dan encourages aspiring engineering leaders to first master their craft, build reputations of follow-through, surround themselves with people they can learn from, and actively listen to understand what motivates others. 

Without further delay, here’s my conversation with Dan Miller.

ADAMS (01:59)

Hi, Dan, welcome to Mastering Engineering Leadership.

MILLER (02:02)

Hi, good to be here.

ADAMS (02:05)

I’m glad to have you. Can you start by telling us how you got into engineering as a career path?

MILLER (02:09)

Yeah, so my path, I would say probably typically like a lot of people would start off with, I sort of coming up in school, kind of gravitated towards STEM like subject and activities. So that kind of laid the groundwork. My parents are both engineers, in the, or worked in the automotive industry. Dad started off working for Ford and then moved, and then my parents moved to Tennessee from Michigan around when the Nissan manufacturing plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, just a little south of Nashville opened. And that was in the early eighties. And then mom worked in GM,

most of her career, worked at a Corvette in Bowling Green, Kentucky for a while, and then transferred to the Saturn plant when that plant opened in Spring Hill. And then mom actually just retired while she’s in the process of retiring. She’s been working for about the past 12 or so years for a small supplier in the Nashville area.

And she’s in the process of retiring. She’s training the new person they brought in to replace her. So she thinks it’ll be in the next couple of months before she’s able to step away. So yeah, so that was the groundwork. I actually ended up going to college at the same school they both went to, which is a small engineering school up in Flint, Michigan.

Back then when they went there, it was called General Motors Institute. Now it’s called Kettering. It’s a co-op school, which I really liked. Everybody works, well, goes to school for every other quarter. And then on the off quarters, they work at a co-op job and starting when they’re freshmen. So I went to school in the summer, in the winter, and then I worked actually back in Nashville in the spring and fall. Kind of funny, I didn’t start off thinking I wanted to go there, but I visited a lot of schools. And then my mom kind of strong-armed me into going and taking a tour of that. it was unlike any of the other schools. The schools I went to were bigger schools and Kettering is very small.

When I went there, was about 2,500 students total. it’s even smaller than that because at one time, there’s half that there.

ADAMS (04:31)

Right, because the other half’s out on co-op. wow, yeah.

MILLER (04:35)

So I kind of went there and I said, oh, this is very manageable. There’s like four buildings on the whole street. I can see them all right here. So I don’t know, something about that appealed to me when I was doing this. And I’m glad I did. It kind of gave me a lot of experience working. So I worked for a machine design firm, actually a company that I designed and built.

ADAMS (04:43)

Wow, yeah.

MILLER (05:03)

automated assembly equipment in Nashville. Back then it was called Wright Industries. Now I believe it’s called, it’s been bought and sold several times, but I think it’s called J &W Automation, I believe. But that, man, that was such a, it’s an eye-opening experience because that was my first real job. And so I worked there all through college and I worked for about a year after I graduated there as a mechanical design engineer, but I was out on the floor a lot.

Um, especially at the beginning, when I like didn’t really know how to do anything and just being around the, those teams and the, engineers and the builders and, you know, just kind of taking my lumps and, uh, just absorbing it. And then gradually I kind of learned how to do be useful. so that was, I really enjoyed that. And I’m trying to like also, set the stage for some, some maybe advice.

ADAMS (05:55)

Okay, great.

MILLER (05:56)

Yeah, and then I gradually though I realized I didn’t want to do this long term. I’m grateful I had that opportunity, but I didn’t want to do that long term. So I went back to school at the University of Tennessee and into the MS/MBA program. And I think that still exists. When I came in and

This would have been in summer of 2005. There were six of us in this dual degree program. And it just so happened that that ORNL at the time was looking for several students in MS/MBA students to work in the tech transfer office as interns.

They wanted four and there were six of us. So like the odds were pretty especially since a couple of, people in the program didn’t want to do that. you know, right, right place at the right time, the at the MBA program. And I know, you know, but for, everybody listening is when you come into the full-time MBA program, they’re like,

The first thing you want to do is you want to get your internship settled because you don’t want to be the one that has to come crawling back to the university and say, I couldn’t find anything. Can I work here? So that’s, you know, kind of how I got to Oak Ridge as an intern. And yeah, so I worked as an intern for about a year and a half while I was in the MS/MBA program and then.

Thankfully was able to kind of use my network to get introduced to some people looking for licensing managers when I was graduating. And that’s when I moved to Houston to work at Rice in their tech transfer office. And I worked there for about two and a half years. And that’s when I got a call from somebody back at Oak Ridge who was looking for somebody to come back and work in their partnerships group to help manage and run some projects. And that was about 15 years ago. And so I’ve done various things at Oak Ridge. And

ADAMS (08:03)

Yeah, there’s a couple of things I wanted to explore a little bit. So first of all, you’re the first one who’s both parents were engineers, which I think is really interesting. Some people have like one parent or engineering adjacent or something like that, but you have two engineering parents. And I’m curious, mean, did that mean that you becoming an engineer was sort of inevitable or was it just they saw these aptitudes and they’re like, that’s sort of what engineers do.

MILLER (08:27)

I would say they were not very heavy handed on this at all. I have three siblings and none of them are engineers. My youngest sister is an architect, so she’s, I’d say, maybe kind of engineering adjacent. But yeah, none of them became engineers and they were very much kind of letting me make my own decisions.

ADAMS (08:33)

Okay, yeah.

Sure.

MILLER (08:50)

Yeah, I would say there and again, I wasn’t even planning to go to the school I was ended up going to until I, you know, until I was kind of very much encouraged to give it a shot. So, yeah.

ADAMS (09:02)

Yeah.

And it does sound like such a unique educational experience, Kettering. mean, I know here at UT, we’re really trying to promote internships and co-ops and really trying to get students to do it and find value in it and to have a school where it’s just embedded. Like it’s embedded in the curriculum. It’s embedded in the schedule, I think is really amazing.

And I’m sure that you had a lot of opportunities to try different things. And as you said, you learned pretty early on that you did not want to be a mechanical design engineer your entire career. I’m curious about tech transfer though, because I don’t think it’s a well-known career field for engineers. And so I’m curious, did you already know about it when you got the internship with Oak Ridge or did you really just completely learn on the job? How did you learn about tech transfer as a career opportunity?

MILLER (09:57)

Yeah, so short answer is no. I had no idea what even tech transfer was before I went and talked to the guy that was at the Oak Ridge table at the career fair for the MBA program. I barely kind of knew honestly what Oak Ridge National Lab was. So yeah, I would say, so I was very much learning on the job as in that internship position. What Oak Ridge was looking for though, was people that had a little bit of a technical background, but also could help them work through some market analysis for the inventions they were doing. in that position, we worked with the the licensing managers on their cases and kind of help them determine if basically if the lab, if it was worth it for the lab to spend resources on protecting intellectual property and then trying to license it out. So yeah, but no, I did not know about this going into it. And yeah, it’s definitely a very niche a niche field. And I remember probably one of the best things I did that maybe launched my career, you know, I’d like to say it was like a lot of hard work and stuff, but

Really it was, and I don’t know if I’ve really told many people about this, but yeah, I remember I, towards the end of my internship, I went and I think I even brought her flowers, the tech transfer director at the time. And he said, you know, just want to say thank you, you had such a great job. I had such a great experience.

Being able to work here for the year and a half and I really appreciate it if you could help me find a position and she made some calls through her network and got me two interviews. Wow. And then pointed me in the direction of several other kind of where I should be focusing and that probably made all the difference.

ADAMS (11:42)

Yeah.

I actually want to re-emphasize what you just said because having the courage to ask your network to help you pursue something that you want is in fact the way that people get what they want. And so, yeah, I really want to explicitly state that because I think far too many people

And my audience skews students. And so there’s a lot of hesitancy there thinking, this isn’t right, or I don’t want to do this. But this is how people get access to resources, get access to the network. And of course, we’re going to talk more about what you do now. But it is all about making the right connections and building those relationships so that you can then ask for what you need and help each other. And that becomes now something that gets people through their careers. And you work with entrepreneurs now, and that’s like the key lever they have is to build this strong network. And so you’ve been in the tech transfer space in various forms for over 15 years. What is it that you like about it?

MILLER (13:03)

I, what I enjoy most is that the subject matter for me is always changing. I enjoy that very much. And it, the, I would say that the field by nature is about innovation and people bringing new ideas.

And I enjoy that. I like helping people try to navigate these new ideas and bringing technology to a place where it can solve problems. That’s what I enjoy most about it. And I’ll bring it back to when I was a when I was a design engineer, it got to where things were starting to look the same, even on different projects. a lot of people really enjoy that. And I’m not saying that’s bad or good, because it takes all kinds. But I knew that wasn’t for me when everything was starting to look the same. So yeah, but what I like about tech transfer is helping people solve problems. And a lot of times it’s people that have expertise in a couple of different areas and are melding that to bring something new that’s never been thought of before and then trying to apply that.

ADAMS (14:23)

And so now you are the Director of Innovation Crossroads. Can you talk a little bit about, first of all, what that program is, and then a little bit about your role?

MILLER (14:30)

Sure. So Innovation Crossroads is a program run by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It recruits entrepreneurs to come and spend two years working collaboratively with scientists, engineers, and researchers at our laboratory in the hopes of growing and sustaining high impact startups in the energy and advanced manufacturing spaces. So we’re bringing in and by nature the program is designed to cater towards early stage entrepreneurs. And that meaning usually it’s pre revenue and usually it’s if there’s any seed funding it’s by definition it has to be less than $2 million.

So that’s kind how we define early stage. But we’re working with, yeah, people who have, usually have some sort of bench scale proof of concept and they think that they can basically build a business around that because it solves a problem. A lot of times it’s single person founders or people with only like one or two other people on their team. And so they’re, not only are they trying to develop and scale the technical aspects of the business, but they’re looking to scale the people aspects of their business too and everything else associated with it.

ADAMS (15:41)

Yeah, and when I think about, you talking about really liking variety, I mean, there’s the variety of the incoming cohort. So, you you’ve got new people coming out all the time. there and each each cohort has a variety of different technologies, and then they’re at a variety of different stages. And then they’re I mean, it’s just like, I don’t think chaos is quite the right word, but there’s a lot of

Yeah, there’s just a lot of variety through a lot of different dimensions and a lot of moving parts. And it sounds like it’s right up your alley and it clearly is because you love it and this program is wildly successful. Can you talk a little bit about your role and just sort of how you kind of think about managing all of these different pieces?

MILLER (16:18)

Yeah, so we run it pretty lean. And so myself and one of my colleagues, Kelly Wampler, we are the be all end all of the operations from within the lab that run this. as an aside, I kind of think it’s

In my opinion, I think it’s important to kind of run things lean kind of like an early stage startup.

What I mainly do is responsible for recruiting these people. you know, building and maintaining the funnel and then leading the down select every year that we do that when we’re vetting candidates to come in. And then, you know, I’d say the third thing,

Yeah, the third thing I’d say is helping them get acclimated to the lab and making sure they have everything that they need. If I’m on it, Kelly actually does probably the majority of that. And then, you know, and then the fourth thing, which I think is the most important is helping them be successful as a business, whether that be inside or outside the laboratory, because that’s

That’s what our sponsors care about, which is good. And I try to keep this aligned and keep this at the forefront is that these are not research projects. It does not matter if they come in and they do a successful research project. That helps and we want them to do that and we want them to be successful in whatever they’re doing with the lab. But really what matters is if they’re building a successful business.

And so we try to that and we do that through various means, most of them through partnerships. And so, know, partnerships and growing our network as a program is integral to this. I know Angelique, you are very familiar with this. You have a kind of a front row seat. Your involvement in this is integral to any piece in this.

Because what we try to do is, and which is the same thing I try to do personally is surround myself with people that I can constantly learn from. so we try to do that, try to enable our founders to do that and build environments that they can do that while they’re building their businesses.

ADAMS (18:34)

Can you talk a little bit more about some of your strategies around building networks? mean, as you said, it’s an integral part of your role, and you have to help all of these pieces within the community, across the country.

MILLER (18:50)

So it’s, I don’t know if I’m going to have a succinct coherent answer to this, but, the, the first thing you have to do, I would say, and this kind of goes into the advice. So I may be bleeding into.

ADAMS (19:02)

We can do that advice multiple times.

MILLER (19:04)

So, the kind of the groundwork for that is you have to be good fundamentally and you have to follow through whatever you do. That’s, that’s, that’s sort of the fundamentals.

And I think everything kind of stems from that. cause when you’re, when you’re growing your network, if your network is going to flourish, it’s always a two way street. Everything is a two way street. want it. And I think the end goal is what you want is at least kind of how I think about it is when I have a problem or don’t know how to do something, which is pretty often, I want to be able to pick up the phone and call somebody or call several people who I think could have some insight or lend a helping hand. And by the way, I want that to happen to me too. want the other part of the network to call me, right? that’s, so I think that’s, and if you don’t have your reputation of having some area of expertise and a reputation of follow through, that will not happen.

ADAMS (20:14)

All right, Dan, what leadership example are we talking about today?

MILLER (20:17)

So the one that comes to mind lately, I was actually, when I was preparing for this, I was looking around at my whiteboards here in my office. because I have a lot of the startups that we work with on for some inspiration. And it didn’t take long for me to zero on one that I thought was good and I think embodies a lot of the what I like the advice I would have for engineers looking to pursue leadership. And that was when, several years ago, an entrepreneur to come into our program. And this person is Anca Timofte with Holocene. I first heard of Anca,

and her company, actually from our leadership team at the lab, who said, yeah, you should look at this one And when I did it, I can see why they had that opinion.

Anca, everybody we recruit is incredibly talented and was in a position to take advantage of some of the unique assets we have at the lab. And first and foremost is the people. So Anca was developing a direct air capture technology, carbon dioxide technology that ORNL invented basically. And she was trying to scale that up. and she’s actually done phenomenally since coming here. the problem was, to get her in it, I, it wasn’t, wasn’t a straightforward shot. So Anca was admitted to the Breakthrough Energy Fellowship program, which is a wonderful program. It started by Bill Gates and the Breakthrough Energy team. The problem, so she already had a fellowship and that was out of the norm for what we did and kind of what DOE did and our sponsors at the time. But it was clear if Anca for her company to progress at the pace it needed to be, she was going to have to be here in Oak Ridge in East Tennessee working with the inventors no matter what. So I remember calling the people at Breakthrough several times and trying to get them on board. I knew the lab was on board. That was kind of, I knew that. So I had that. And then I had to remember, I had to get the sponsors on board too. And it was kind of like putting a puzzle together. And the main part was convincing the breakthrough people that this was good for them. so what I remember, what I had to do, and it took several times, like this. 

So the one thing was I had to be patient. Be patient. And I’d say that the other thing is I had, listen.

So first, I remember the first time I called and I had the the breakthrough people on the phone. I kind of introduced what I was thinking and then I just listened. And then I, you know, and they had to tell me, at first all the pitfalls and why this wouldn’t work, which I was helpful, but. You know, I had to kind of understand where they were coming from.

After, I know there was at least one other call maybe, and then maybe three total. Like I had to build my case with them why this was going to be a win-win. And then once I had buy-in from them, I had to get buy-in from the sponsor, and then we were off to the rages. Um, and then there were some other things after that, that was, we wanted that we were helped.

Tried to help Anca be as successful as she could be, as quick as she could be. Because she was on a, the nature of the technology space, but also the team she was building, she was just in a different space than a lot of the people we bring into the program. So we kind of had to make sure we were prepared to help her with things that she needed help with the most.

And that kind of gets back to why I think it’s important to have our program structured the way it is. It’s very lean. we can be, I think, responsive like that and sort of turn on a dime with the companies in our program, as opposed to forcing them in a more structured thing down roads and towards resources that maybe they already have or don’t need as much at that time.

You know, you hear a lot, especially, you know, you know, business or technical books, you know, one thing, common theme is define the problem, right? You spend most of your time defining the problem and understanding the problem. And that also, I think it doubly goes towards your, your interactions, you know, with your network is you want to hear what motivates people and, and then.

And then you can, that’s how think you can come to it. You know, win-win situations.

ADAMS (25:05)

Yeah, I love this example. You if I kind of were to just give it a high level descriptor, I would call that a negotiation, So you had to have a negotiation with this other entity that, that Anca was in. So you had a prime candidate that very clearly aligned with your individual stakeholders. They absolutely wanted this to work. And then you had another organization who had a different set of goals, a different set of objectives, and also had some objections to this kind of partnership or this alignment happening. And so you had to negotiate your way into, as you said, a win-win situation. And you did it very well, and you highlighted a couple of the key things, which was listening. So you had to really listen to, OK, what are their objections? How could we overcome them?

And also can we, you know, probably reinforce this shared goal you have? Like we all actually have this shared goal of getting this entrepreneur and this technology out into the marketplace in a space that is rapidly growing. And, you know, she has all these success factors behind her that say she might be the one that we, you let’s all put our money on this horse, if you will. And I don’t mean the Onkka’s not a horse, but you know what I mean?

And so I just think that’s a really, that’s a great example of how to actually successfully do a negotiation. And oftentimes I think negotiation is really portrayed poorly, like in the media and on TV and stuff where everybody just thinks they entrench in their own side and people feel like they have to, they have to be really tough and focus on their own. And you’re saying, no, in fact, listening and focusing on the win-win is the way to go it and you were very successful in that.

MILLER (26:55)

Yeah, the other thing too is that I’ll add is it didn’t help that I knew the people at Breakthrough. I would say I knew them well, but I knew them and they knew me so I wasn’t coming in as a guy off the street. So that helps and that I think is it’s important to like, it’s another reason to keep your network.

I should always refresh your connections and because you never know when things come back around.

ADAMS (27:28)

Hi everyone, Angelique here. Not long after Dan and I recorded our interview, it was announced that Holocene, the startup Anka co-founded, was acquired by Occidental Petroleum through its subsidiary Oxy Low Carbon Ventures. A huge win for the Holocene team and the community of organizations and entities that have supported them, including Innovation Crossroads. I’ll post a link to the press release in the show notes.

ADAMS (28:01)

All right, Dan, what advice would you give to engineers who want to move into leadership roles?

MILLER (28:06)

The first I’d say is big first be a good engineer, learn your craft, develop expertise, learn to be a good engineer, and follow through.

That’s kind of like table stakes  for leadership. and, related to that is don’t be afraid to ask for help And in fact, that’s kind of how you learn and it’s you, you, stretch your limits and you go to your limits. And when you need help, you ask for help.

And that’s kind of how you grow. I would say that’s the number one thing.

And that all relates to building your reputation. that’s what you want to be known for. I, in my opinion, you want to be known for somebody that’s dependable that people can count on that’s, would say you want that as kind of like your base. And then something that, you know, we also just talked about was be a good listener. You have to be a good listener and be a good employee or follower first, especially if we’re talking to students or people maybe in entry level positions or no matter where you are, be good where you’re at, be really good, be the best that where you’re at. And I know everybody has aspirations to

to do bigger and greater things, but be the best person where you’re at right now. Learn what motivates people. That’s a caveat to being a good listener is to learn what motivates people and

Because that’s how you learn to, you’d be surprised if you listen to people and kind of like gain some insight as to how you can work with them and develop really good relationships.

Let’s see.

You know, another thing is kind of hit on this earlier too is, uh, surround yourself with people that you can learn from. Um, you know, a lot of people, know, the, the common thing is trying to put yourself with people that are smarter than you. And of course I’d say that, like smarter and you in different ways. That’s what I would say is, uh, and that’s always try to do that. Um, and, uh,

A part of that is realizing that you don’t know everything because you don’t. So I would say that and that’s what I’ve tried to do. I always try to do. And another thing is be looking to learn from people like in a, don’t be afraid of like a mentor protege role. And it also doesn’t even have to be that formal, right? Just.

ADAMS (30:24)

Right.

MILLER (30:45)

Just continue to surround yourself with people that you can learn from.

Yeah, build your network and don’t be afraid to try new things. And I think that goes hand in hand with surrounding yourself with smart, intelligent people. You kind of always want to be in the right place. Always want to be in the right place. If you’re always in the right place sooner or later, it’ll be the right time.

ADAMS (31:06)

Right. Yeah.

MILLER (31:08)

But that I would say the key to that is like the people you spend time with and that you surround yourself with. One of the things, you know, looking back on that I got involved with early when I was at Oak Ridge was an organization called First Robotics. And that’s it’s a it’s an elementary through high school program that basically teaches students about robotics and developing robotic solutions to problems. Early on when I was at Oak Ridge, they were looking for volunteers to volunteer at one of the events here. And it was one of those things like kind of nobody wanted to do. And I kind of got…

Convinced to try it. And I’m so glad I did not, just because of what the organization embodies, but the people that are involved in it. It was like a really great opportunity for me to grow my network. When I was, when just starting out, know, 14, 15 years ago at the lab, because the people that were involved in it were not only others from the lab, but others like leaders and fairly senior people in the area at other organizations and businesses. And I’ve continued to stay involved in that. Just there’s a lot of benefits from it. things like that, I would say kind of fall into the category of don’t be afraid to try new things and surround yourself with new people, even if it’s maybe not like super in your sweet spot. But if you’re around, you know, it can help you. It can help you build your network. So. And that’s paid dividends.

I don’t know how many times, like people that I can call and like that I would never have met. And that now that I know really well and can ask them for help when things come up.

And also it’s okay if you don’t exactly know what you want but try to keep developing that because these strategies obviously will be different for different people depending on what they want to do. So always I would say be honest with yourself about what you want and where you want to be and that and your strategy for how you employ these tools will evolve with that.

The last thing I wrote down was be able to laugh at yourself. That’s something I wasn’t good at early, but I’ve learned that that’s critical.

ADAMS (33:22)

Yeah. Well, there’s one thing, if you don’t mind, I wanted to go back to, so you said something about learning how to learn how to motivate people, which I think is important. But you followed that with by listening to them. And I think that’s so important because a lot of people think that you learn to motivate people by like reading books on motivation. And I think I share your point of view, which is to say, if you listen, and people can tell that you’re listening, they’ll tell you. They’ll just actually tell you what they really want, what they need, what will motivate them. And so I’m curious where you maybe got that point of view from, but also do you have any specific listening approaches, you would suggest to people to help them develop their listening skills?

MILLER (34:07)

Yeah, I would say I don’t know exactly where that came from, but what sticks out in my mind was when we, when I, when I came into the MBA program at, at the University of Tennessee, um, one of the first classes we had, I don’t even remember what it was called, but I remember the instructor and her name was Elaine Seat, Dr. Elaine Seat. And one of the first things she imparted to everybody, and it’s going to sound very kind of rudimentary, but it was, guess what? 

People are different.

People are different, they like different things, they’re motivated by different things. And if you aspire to leadership, you have to recognize that one and realize that a one size fits all approach, especially in big organizations, does not work really well and that people respond better to usually more tailored approaches. And that’s why I…I don’t know if I have like a go-to approach, but it’s more just kind of like a manage by walking around principle. know that’s kind of like an old school approach maybe seen now, but I think that’s important. And I think that it’s not for a number of different reasons, but one of them is it gives you a chance to interact and it gives you a chance to listen and to learn what people are motivated by, what their aspirations are, in addition to a lot of other things, getting feedback on lots of other things.

ADAMS (35:43)

What I got from that was that you started pretty early on in your career with this notion that, as you said, people are different. And so it seems like you go into interactions with people with the orientation of, I’m going to learn something about them. I’m going to learn something about what they care about. might be the technology. might be about their family. might be who knows what it’s going to be about.

Part of your own motivation for having these interactions with people is that you’re going to learn something about how this person’s which is interesting because I know that when we’re working with the entrepreneurs, we’re trying to impart to them

Somewhat of that concept, which is to say, You’ve got to do some digging. the National Science Foundation has an entire national program associated with learning how to ask questions called I-Corps about learning how to ask questions to discover how the people that you’re talking to who may or may not be potential customers or partners or whatever, what they care about, how they’re different. And it’s hard to teach that if it’s not something that you were exposed to, but also if you’re so highly motivated to communicate about your idea and get people to adopt it. makes it doubly challenging. And it just sounds like you, as you said early on in this MBA program, you learned.

People are different and so you go into interaction saying, can I learn?

MILLER (37:14)

Well, bringing it back to customer discovery is brilliant. Didn’t even think of that. I wish I would have wrote that down. But yeah, that’s a hundred percent why it’s the most successful entrepreneurs and startups have that ingrained into every day what they do are the elements of customer discovery and keeping the finger on the pulse of what motivates an industry, different companies, and even different people within different companies. 

It’s vitally important.

ADAMS (37:51)

Dan, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us.

MILLER (37:54)

It was great. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.