"Kickboxing" at Adobe Systems
"Kickboxing" at Adobe Systems
They wandered in slowly to the large, high-ceilinged conference room on the ground floor of Adobe Systems' office tower. An authority on sound mixing. A typography designer. An e-commerce specialist. As the crowd of forty assembled, the room began to take on the air of a kickoff meeting for a major new product development effort. However, if all went according to plan, this had the potential to turn into a kick-off meeting for forty new products.
The Adobe employees-ranging from a twenty-year veteran to a newbie who just received her access badge three days before-all noted the bright red boxes arrayed on the stage. The boxes had become quite famous within the halls of Adobe's San Jose, California headquarters and, indeed, in many other Adobe facilities around the world. The cardboard containers held the tools the Adobe team-members would use to investigate business opportunities and build new ventures from scratch over the next several weeks-including some seed capital.
Behind the red boxes was the black-shirted Mark Randall, the creator of this innovation and intrapreneurship program-“Kickbox” (an amalgamation of "kick-start" and "box"). A sound technician attached a lavaliere microphone to Randall's shirt as a videographer checked a camera on a mount nearby. This Kickbox session would be recorded so that it could be shared with other Adobe employees and, potentially, with other companies. Eager to get started, Randall started to address the crowd even as the film crew continued to adjust sound and lighting levels. "Hello, and welcome to the Adobe Kickbox program! Somewhere in this room is the thousandth person to go through our program. I think that's pretty cool."
Randall, Vice President for Creativity of Adobe's Digital Media Business Unit, had developed the Kickbox program almost two years before with a simple premise: participants would learn how to test the potential of a new product or service without having to go through the kind of processes associated with most large companies. Drawing from the principles of the "lean startup" movement, Randall called on participants to get products in front of customers quickly, learn from early user interactions and adapt plans swiftly. Randall and David Wadhwani, the executive sponsor of the innovation initiative, were gratified by the high levels of volunteer participation in the program.
A half-minute into his introduction, Randall was cut off by the film crew due to some technical glitches. He started his spiel again-and was halted once more a few seconds later. Keen to kick off, Randall, in a manner especially appropriate for a savvy veteran in the media software industry, declared to the film crew, "OK, let's get this rolling! We'll fix everything in post!"
From Entrepreneur to "Intrapreneur"
From Entrepreneur to "Intrapreneur"
Mark Randall grew up in Arcadia, California, thirteen miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. After attending California State University, LA, Randall found employment in Los Angeles' early tech startup scene. He went on to work for a series of early-stage companies in the Midwest, Bay Area and Sacramento. In nineteen ninety-two, Randall joined a startup that would go on to develop one of the first computer-based systems for editing video. Their product was dubbed "The Video Toaster." In a speech at the nineteen ninety-three National Association of Broadcasters Conference, Randall proclaimed, "Someday your favorite TV show will be made by you or someone you know."
In nineteen ninety-five, Randall, now a "veteran" in a still embryonic industry, cofounded Play Incorporated with his best friend Paul Montgomery and a handful of others. The firm created professional-grade software for video editing, animation and special effects, as well as some applications geared toward the consumer market. About a year and a half after starting Play, the team was approached by investment bankers. "They wanted to take us public at two hundred forty million dollars, but we didn't think the company had reached its full potential yet," Randall stated. The founders decided to build the business for a few more years before considering an initial public offering. When discussions started again, the bankers ascribed a six hundred fifty million dollar valuation to Play, according to Randall. However, in the midst of the preparations for the IPO "roadshow," Montgomery, on a short trip to Seattle, died of a heart attack at age thirty-nine. After the unexpected death of his friend and business partner, Randall reflected. "I began to think about the focus we'd let creep in: letting the financial returns define our feelings about our own success. When suddenly Paul was gone, it highlighted to me that we really missed something about our motivations ... why we were there ... and what the focus was." Play was sold in a private transaction in two thousand one for "substantially less than six hundred fifty million dollars." Randall had already left his management role within the company.
Randall took some time away from business and most other activities for personal reflection. Within a few months, however, he felt drawn back to the startup world. "When I left Play, I thought I might never be involved in another startup," he remarked. "I wanted to focus on what I found fun and fulfilling: identifying a major customer need, recruiting and motivating a great team and then building an amazing, high quality product." Randall founded Serious Magic in two thousand one to explore emerging niches in the digital media marketplace. The company built software for video blogging, video editing and green screen visual effects, among other uses. Serious Magic was acquired by Adobe Systems in two thousand seven and Randall joined the San Jose software maker as a part of the transition.