Innovating for Tomorrow: Carlo Rivis on Technology, AI, and Entrepreneurial Strategies

Wayne Zell interviews Carlo Rivis about his entrepreneurial journey, early projects, and work with visionaries. They discuss the business ecosystem, education’s role in tech adoption, challenges overcome, and examples like recyclable storage batteries. The conversation covers technology’s future, AI, global adoption, political influences, market-fit strategies, cross-industry innovation, and niche roadmaps. Contact details follow for further engagement.

Key Points

• Understanding human behavior and market mindset is crucial for successfully bringing innovative technologies to market.

• Identifying niche markets and specific use cases can help in the initial adoption of new technologies before expanding to broader applications.

• Creating a supportive ecosystem of partners and stakeholders is essential for overcoming market resistance and achieving business success.

Timestamps

0:00 Introduction and background of Carlo Rivas

1:48 Carlo Rivas' entrepreneurial journey and early projects

3:44 Business ecosystem and educational impact

6:11 Accelerating technology adoption and examples

9:30 Working with visionaries and overcoming challenges

13:46 Future of technology, AI, and global adoption

17:23 Technological development and political influences

18:36 Market fit and example of recyclable storage batteries

27:33 Solving market needs through technology

28:28 Cross-industry innovation strategies

30:18 Roadmaps and niche market strategies for visionaries

32:20 Contact details and closing remarks

Quotes

"The visionaries, they have the energy of a thousand people. They could power a city with their energy."

- Wayne Zell

"You have to understand humans, how their mindset is pushing back your solutions in a specific industry."

- Carlo Rivis

"It's crazy because politicians travel all around the world and all cities have the same issues, but some countries have already solved the problems in really great and smart ways using technologies."

- Carlo Rivis

"We don't do the right things for the environment. We do just the right things for our pockets."

- Carlo Rivis

Transcript

Wayne Zell: Hi. This is Wayne Zell, and welcome back to Blueprint for Wealth where we help entrepreneurs and others realize their personal dreams of wealth and freedom, but introduce you to new entrepreneurs and new innovators like Carlo Rivas, who is an amazing guy. He's been doing this for twenty years. Let me give you a little bit of background on him. He's a visionary.

He's a strategist, and he's an innovation enabler, which I think we're gonna dig into a little bit, and he's gonna tell us a little more about what that means. He helps and guides leaders to drive the future of technology, which is really where the future of this world is headed. In a world where technology is evolving exponentially at lightning speed, he stands at the crossroads of vision and execution, which it's really hard to bring those two together. We're gonna talk about some of the stories he's got on that. He's been doing this for over twenty years.

He guides inventors and startups and venture backed firms and venture capitalists and Fortune 500 companies in specializing and accelerating innovation execution, turning complex ideas into effective strategies, and then road maps, creating road maps that make a meaningful impact. After a career as a serial entrepreneur, I'd like to know more know more about that, Carlo, he is now helping technological products achieve market fit. He supports companies in building the right ecosystem as well for market success. So, Carlo, first of all, before we dig into what you're doing today, tell us a little bit about what you did before, how you spent the last twenty years and even before that, where you acquired your education and and your and your and your interest in becoming this innovation enabler.

Carlo Rivis: Sure. No. Absolutely. And thank you, Wayne, for inviting me and for the amazing presentation. You did an amazing job in presenting myself.

Wayne Zell: So Thank you.

Carlo Rivis: And so let's say this so for for the last twenty years, I've been a serial tech entrepreneur. So I love technologies from a young age. So I was always I I've always been curious about everything, you know, how stuff works, you know, and what will come next and so on. And this is my my nature. So I'm curious of my nature.

Wayne Zell: Give me an example of what you worked on, you know, twenty years ago and how you cut your teeth on technology.

Carlo Rivis: But, you know, twenty years ago, the world was a bit different than I was in Italy. You know? That was not so advanced sometimes as as US. You know? When I grow up, for example, you know, we always knew that the The US was twenty years ahead of Italy.

And so and this was why why this? Why why we must why US so advanced and the and the rest of you, the world is not so advanced? You know? And so, for example, you know, I I remember just, you know, for example, we were the first one to to explore the methane engine for the cars. So in Italy, normally, cars are are run on gasoline, regular gasoline.

You know? And there were the methane technologies coming on, and so I convinced my father, you know, to buy it, for example, you know Okay. Using it. But it was, you know, a totally different world at that point. You know?

For example, when I started my first business, the startup ecosystem in Silicon Valley was already strong. You know? In Italy, we didn't hear about that. You know? Was there something, like, really far away from us?

And still for running a business twenty years ago, I had to knock on the doors of accountants and, you know, low lawyers to understand that how to do it. Because online, you didn't find a lot of informations in in Italian.

Wayne Zell: Yeah. So when you when you're talking about the ecosystem, what do you mean?

Carlo Rivis: You know, all all the people, you know, in involved. So the the economical ecosystem, the investor ecosystem, how, you know, interact with marketing, sales, the people, the entrepreneurship, and so on. You know? Right now, for example, we are including also the ecosystem, the incubators, the accelerators, the venture capitalist groups. Everyone's that is enabling, you know, the business development and the business efficiency and effectiveness into the market.

Wayne Zell: So were you working you went to school, obviously. What did you study in school, actually? What was your your background?

Carlo Rivis: So I I was lucky enough, you know, to do an eclectic, let's say Liberal arts? Yes. Because, you know, in in the high school, my even in my high school was focused on electronics and communications Mhmm. I studied mechanic, physic, chemistry, and biology. So a lot of different, you know, topics in the school as well, and also IT, also software development.

And so in the college, I chose a software development degrees. However, it was I I I didn't know it from the beginning. You know? I I I enrolled in the in Bolzano, my city. That is was my first course of that type.

It was a software development. It was the first year of of a course, and they decided to create a manager with IT skills in order to help, you know, the digitalization. So, you know, help companies to understand better all the IT staff and integrating into the companies. Right. And so only one third of the of the courses was around, you know, IT, software development.

The rest was around the philosophy, anthropology, and, you know, people related stuff, economy. You know? So I was really

Wayne Zell: A broad education, which is good because you that that helps you think out of the box. If you're all you're doing is engineering and software engineering and software you're thinking in a box you never can get out of that box. And so your background is really conducive towards helping, visionaries. So so what businesses did you start up and did you, ultimately exit from, over the last twenty years? And then we'll start talking about some of the cool things you're working on today.

Carlo Rivis: Yes. No. Absolutely. One of the important part of my life was twelve, fifteen years ago when I decided to stick on the mission, my personal mission to accelerate technology adoption. Because before of that was, okay, I create my my businesses, just what I love and so on.

But fifteen years ago, I decided to say, okay. Why we cannot really adapt more technologies? Be in a faster ways, in a simpler ways. We continue to invent stuff, but we continue to use all the old products, and then we are not really solving the problems, you know, that we we are facing every day. And so thanks to that, I started jumping in more advanced technologies, and I help, you know also, I jumped also in accelerator programs, in incubators programs as founders first and later on as entrepreneur in residence, adviser for startups and so on.

So my first companies on this topic was Innovation Discovery where they we tried to create a technology search engine. So I interviewed the chief innovation officer about around the wars in different corporates, also consultants in innovations, and so to understand that that the pain points. And the first the first product in was an innovation database. But I I understood immediately that it was too hard to to keep it updated on the cool stuff all the times. You know?

It was a a massive work. You know? And so I decided to say to to identify something more lean and more effective and was a technology search engine able to identify the the best technologies aligned to a description. Like, Charge GPT today's. You know?

You are writing a prompt about what you're looking for, what type of characteristics that you're looking for, and so on. And he, you know, brought you to the patents, the startups, the products aligned with what you're looking for. And then another cool stuff that I work on during the years was digital avatar to accelerate medical research. So it was a digital copy based on mathematical models instead of AI and of entire physiology of a human body, able to simulate clinical trials on the computers instead of using animals and and people.

Wayne Zell: Well, those are some really impressive innovations there. Let me ask you this. You mentioned that you worked with a lot of venture capitalists and Fortune 500 companies, and also startups and founders. When you are working with these kinds of groups, what are the key pain points that you're running into?

Carlo Rivis: Yeah. So, you know, one of the the key is to understand that creating an innovation is one thing, but getting to market is totally a different thing. So the pain points, it's about, you know, the inventors, the visionaries, most of them are genius. You know? And they fall in love with the technology. They see the future. They create amazing technologies that is unbelievable sometimes that already exist.

You know, it can be it can be done. However, they think that the the best technologies can win the market. And this is, you know, just a bit naive sometimes because, you know, in check every industry in the world right now. Do we have a best solution in in some industries today that is winning into the market? Most of the times, the real answer is no.

We don't have a best solution in any industry because it's market. It's marketing. It's branding. It's has totally different rules. It's not about the technology itself.

And so they need to understand that having the best solution is just the starting point. It's but it's it's not really related to the market in in any way. So they need to transform that science into a market product, a market branding, something that makes sense for the market to be acquired, to be used, and to satisfy what the market needs today. And most of the time, the market is not needing the last latest technologies. You know?

So it's it's the job of this visionaries to understand these basic rules and understand that there is a wear workaround, you know, on this. But they cannot just pretend that these these rules are not applied for their product.

Wayne Zell: Yeah. I mean, well, not all the same rules apply to every product simply because not every product is adaptable to every individual or every industry. Right? So you're solving a problem by this technology. You're solving a need that is created in the marketplace.

You see a way to to solve that need by using technology or creating a new product. I mean, I I can think of so many different examples, some very simple, some very complicated, and some, you know, consumer oriented, some very, very, very focused on business, only. You know, it's a b to b type setting. So, therefore, there are different approaches to working with different technologies in different sectors. Do you work with any specific technologies in particular or any specific market sectors, as your specialization, or do you work in all areas?

Carlo Rivis: No. I'm technology agnostic. I love technologies. I'm curious about everything. So and this is also what helps me in helping the visionaries because, you know, today, innovations is more of a time most of the times, it's cross industries, cross technologies, and you connecting the dots between different stuff around and bring something from one place to another place and so on.

But the approach is is is exactly the same in any industry because we are not speaking about specific solution or industry here. My approach is about human behavior. So you have to understand humans, how their mindset is pushing back, you know, your solutions in a specific industry. And this is not related to your product or solutions. It's more related about the single market and the single person behind the market.

You have to understand them before understanding the market itself or the technology itself. So I sort of summarizing what you're saying is there are technologies being created because a visionary sees a particular problem that he's going to solve with this technology. He doesn't know how

Wayne Zell: to get it to the market. There are the experts that help provide him with the solution of how to actually make this, idea into something that is real and functional. And then there's you that helps bridge them from product prototype idea to identifying the market that it's going to fill and making sure that it actually will fill it and creating a helping create a business model that, can make the founder, successful economically on creating this new product or using this new technology. That's a tough a a long road to hoe. Do you create road maps for the, for the visionaries?

Is that one of the functions that you serve?

Carlo Rivis: Yes. Exactly. I'm working as a strategist behind, you know, and try to understand them how to hack the system. Because, you know, that you speak about the the the problems, you know, that the role needs. Many times, the visionaries has identified the root of the problem, but the market is still speaking about the symptoms.

And it's hard sometimes to guide the market, you know, the people in the market to the root of the problems because they don't believe that is the real problems. You know? They they want a a solution for the symptoms. You know? So sometimes this could be easy just to move a communication, the product, the solution communications from the root to the symptoms and using these as an entry points.

Sometimes that solution that they have created is based on amazing technologies most of the times that can be applied for many other industries. And instead of entering their market where they think that there is the the best, you know, market so far, it's better to enter in a different market where they understand the root of the problems, where the solution is a fit for that, and later on addressing the main markets that the founders has had in mind in the beginning. You know?

Wayne Zell: Yeah. So starting off in a specific niche, a specific function, solving the problem that the potential buyer also sees and identifies, and then using the technology to satisfy needs and demand in other markets that may be much harder to get to, but, you know, ultimately, you can try to fill later on. We're talking with Carlo Rivas, who is a innovation enabler is the best way I could describe him. I think he describes himself the same way, and an implementer help helping founders implement these technology solutions that are mind blowingly innovative. Carlo, how do people get in touch with you if they wanna talk to you more about helping them implement their technologies?

Carlo Rivis: So the best way is via LinkedIn. So I'm really active on that. They they can see, you know, some of articles about innovations, how to make it happen, market fit, whatever, and reaching out to me on LinkedIn is the best way they can.

Wayne Zell: But you also have a website. It's carlorevis.com. I saw that. And some

Carlo Rivis: Yes. Exactly. I I also remember my website, but, you know, that I'm so active on LinkedIn that most of the people are reaching me there. And so I'm

Wayne Zell: Through there.

Carlo Rivis: I sometimes twenty four hours a day answering, you know, their their their questions and so on. And I love, you know, to speak also with founders, to engage, to provide also free advice to everyone. You know? This is part of also of my knowledge. You know?

Speaking with visionaries, speaking with founders, I'm acquiring a lot of firsthand informations about specific markets. Even if I don't get money from them, you know, for for just having a call, that is fine because it's it's knowledge that is available. You know?

Wayne Zell: Well, I'm I'm really grateful that you took the time to spend some time with us on Blueprint for Wealth today. And I know that, the listeners, and there are many, and it's growing every week, are gonna be interested in reaching out to you. So, hopefully, you'll you'll hear some more from some founders that you haven't touched base with yet. And, I'm again, thank you for being on Blueprint for Wealth today.

Carlo Rivis: Thank you again for inviting me. Really nice to be here.

Wayne Zell: Nice nice to see you. And, again, Carlo Rivas, implement implementer of innovative technologies, helping founders, realize their dreams of wealth and freedom. Thank you again for being on Blueprint for Wealth, and tune in next time for another fascinating entrepreneur who's got a great story to tell. We love to tell them to you. Have a great day.