The Future of Mobility with Clement Barbe

In this week's episode of Codex Futures, we sit down with Head of Open Innovation at Ayvens, Clement Barbe, to discuss the future of mobility. The conversation dives into the rapidly evolving industry, where the way we move is being reinvented in real time. Clement uncovers how tomorrow’s transportation choices will be shaped by smart technology, on-demand flexibility, and the unique priorities of every traveler. From the purpose behind each journey to the context and preferences that define it, we explore how these forces are converging to create a more dynamic, personalized, and thrilling future of movement.

Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed by the guest on this podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Ayvens

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

But you can also imagine that the the developments in uh virtual reality and the kind of experience you're gonna be able to have without going as far is gonna have really wide implication in terms of the the work experience, but possibly also in terms of uh what you would call tourism today.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello and welcome to Codex Futures, a triptych podcast decoding how we'll live, learn and play in the future. Each episode we dive into a different industry to uncover the trends, cultural shifts, and powerful forces reshaping it, and what those changes mean for the people driving innovation forward. In today's episode, we are thrilled to be joined by Clement Barb, head of Open Innovation at Avens, a global leader in sustainable mobility. Together, we'll explore how creativity, technology, and purpose come together to drive innovation in mobility, shaping a more connected and sustainable future for communities around the world. Welcome, Clement. Lovely to have you.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

All right, thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Of course. So let's dive right in. I'd love if you could start by introducing yourself and tell us a little bit more about your role and Avens.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah, so I'll start actually with uh with Avans. So, like you said, global um Avans is a global leader in sustainable mobility. More specifically, we're the largest leasing company, at the very least in Europe, possibly in the world. It's the new, I mean, some people might be more familiar with our previous name, which was ARD Automotive, and the company where we acquired, which was Lease Plan. So we created this giant of leasing. And so when I say leasing in practice, that means we provide the financing of vehicles, aggregate a number of services like maintenance, repairs, reporting, anything that's going to help a company manage a fleet. And uh we also operate the the leasing for a number of large OEM brands.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Okay, fantastic. And so innovation within that context, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

And so so I myself sit in the central innovation team at uh HQ. So we are headquartered in in France in the Netherlands. I sit in the in the Paris office, working with different countries around the group on uh innovation topics. And so these have well, there is some major themes that you would probably expect. Things like in the past, there was things around electrification. Now this is a whole business topic, uh, things around connected vehicles, uh, things around access to new mobility modes or new ways of accessing the cars. In the past, we've worked as well on flexible subscription. And in general, we try to animate this aspect around innovation, how to empower employees to innovate themselves. And we as a team also carry a number of topics ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Oh, interesting. So it's you're both doing into innovation but also empowering and creating a culture of it within the organization.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We we are doing things like uh design thinking trainings, or we do innovation campaigns where we're actually quite hands-on in terms of running workshops to help people with ideation, or actually helping them to go through the different staging of uh maturing an idea, actually going from an idea to a concept to something that they actually test and and that's ready at some point to to launch.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Okay, oh, fantastic, really interesting. And could you share a little bit about maybe a particular project or partnership or something that you've worked on that brings to life, I guess, what you do, maybe something you're particularly proud of?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Yeah, sure. Um, well, for for me, the the most representative of that is a project I worked on for for several years, which is a completely new business model and new market for Avens, which is what we used to call corporate mobility as a service. So some people might be familiar with the term with the term mass. Initially, the idea was to be able to buy a number of mobility topics, a number of mobility modes, sorry, with the same mode of payment. So in practice, uh within a company uh that took a specific form of a budget, so essentially the employer grants uh maybe like 200 euro, 300 euro, whatever amount uh the employee is uh eligible to. And then we provide them into a digital platform and payment card to actually spend that money with um within the rules that are addicted by the employer. Things like you can maybe rent a bike or ride a kick scooter, but you cannot take a taxi because it's not allowed for whatever reason. So it it then it's up to the employer to decide basically how flexible or how open they want to be. So this is really kind of the kind of thing that you would not typically would have expected from a link company initially, but this is actually something that serves our client base today. So it made sense to develop it.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Okay, interesting. So it made the whole process a lot more seamless for the customer, essentially, if they can do everything with one mode of payment?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yeah, well, it does two things. The the first one is it addresses current drivers where they might want to actually bundle other mobility modes with their current cars. Uh, it could be, for example, the ability to buy train tickets with the same budget, or it could be about I go to the office three times a week with my car and two times with public transportation. Well, I have the flexibility to pay for that. And then it addresses also actually typically the the employee population eligible to accompany car, of course it varies per country and stuff, but let's say it's 20 to 25% of the employee base. Well, the other 75% uh either don't get anything typically, they in some countries, like in France, for example, uh, it's mandatory to reimbur the public transportation package. So this is a product that's typically actually addressing this new employee uh base. So a new market for us. This is what I was talking about.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Fantastic. And how do you, you know, when you're thinking about an innovate creating an innovation, where do you start? Is it a problem that you identify? Is it, you know, there's a pain point? Like what's the what's the start and the ending process for you?

SPEAKER_01 6:06

First, there is a number of strategic themes uh which are established. So I was mentioning a few of them earlier. So things in the past around electrification. So in that case, mobility as a service was one of the big themes that led to this mobility budget offer, connected vehicles, et cetera. So within that area, then we search for opportunities and to create new revenue streams or work on operational efficiency. And now you can also have the other way around, but typically it's it wouldn't be led by the headquarters on this, it would be led more by the operational teams in the countries addressing specific problems. And where I might have them then is either through the type of coaching we talked about at the beginning, or actually with this open innovation aspect of I maintain links with a number of accelerators, venture capitalists, incubators, corporate partners, etc. And I know roughly what they're working on, and so I can connect them basically with the right solution or with people that might be interested in working on similar topics, et cetera.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Okay. Oh, fantastic. So your role is almost like a connector and a facilitator as well as a you know, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Brilliant. I'm curious about your journey into this role. How did you get into this space in this industry? Was it always a particular passion point, or was there a particular turning moment for you?

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yeah, so so I I've been at Avens for the past six years now. I actually entered mobility about four years before that. So in my journey, I I lived abroad quite a bit. And when I came back to France, uh, where I was from originally, I decided that I really wanted to work on topics that had a strong environmental impact. And mobility was not the only one, but it was one of the very strong ones that emerged quite naturally. And so I worked in a in a corporal startup. Uh, I worked on uh some entrepreneurial project on linking the mobility data with uh the need for planning for for local governments, and then I joined uh then I joined Avons. And and you were talking about that, you know, that that triggering moment, let's say. Uh I mean that there was a bit of a spark, I guess. Uh it was quite a long time ago now. But uh in 2010, I lived in Seoul in South Korea. And at the time, I mean it's not gonna sound exceptional right now, but think about it, it was more than 15 years ago. At the time, you had these cars, they were called T-Money cars, so you could go into any convenience store, you bought them maybe for like a couple dollars or something like that, and uh then you could load money on it. Okay, so you would put, let's say, the equivalent of 50 euro, and then you could use that card to actually go into the public transportation system, so you could enter the metro and come out, like the oyster system in London. So far, nothing exceptional. But what I found amazing, really, at the time, was actually first, if I went to another city in Korea, like if I went to Busan, I could actually use the same card already. So that was quite convenient in itself. So it was pretty seamless. And another thing is if you wanted to hop on a cab, you could actually pay also with a T-Money card. And so you had kind of this premises of this concept of mobility as a service that was implemented in a very simple way, but very effective, because it created this kind of freedom of I just need to go from A to B, and I can just go about my trip and just not have to worry about it. I don't have to wait in line every time 15 minutes to buy a ticket, try to understand how it works and stuff. No, I just tap in, tap out, I pay, etc. It's very, uh, very convenient. And so that's when I thought, yeah, technology, mobility, yeah, there's definitely something there uh that would be interesting to think about more.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Oh wow, fantastic. That's really interesting you say mobility as a service. I mean, I think that you know, the everyday person when they say when you say mobility, I think you know, vehicle and you know, something that gets you from A to B. What does mobility in your mind and in Avon's world, what does it mean?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Yeah, so so well, you people mean different things when they talk about mobility. In the automotive world, of course, a lot of people refer to automotive, very simply. But the concept, I mean the the shift really to the concept of and the term mobility, the semantic for me, was actually carrying quite a bit of meaning, meaning it was no longer about whichever transportation mode you were using, but it became centered around the individual. So it was really about hey, I'm a person, I need to go from A to B. Then what is the most effective way based on my criteria? And my criteria can be different from yours and they can vary from one day to the next. I depends on the context. If I'm traveling for work and if I'm traveling on a Sunday, if I'm traveling with someone else, I'll prioritize whatever cost, comfort, etc. But again, it was this idea of flexibility and adapting to the person rather than being dogmatic about whichever mode is right.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Yeah, yeah, really nice. Like almost thinking about it as an enabler and it's centered around like the human-centric mobility and how you want to move. Yeah, really nice. And I guess bringing in sustainability and innovation into that lens, where do you think the need is greatest now? Where is sustainable innovation in mobility needed most at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 11:24

I'm always pretty amazed in a very positive way with the time I spend at all these accelerators and then reviewing uh hundreds of startups every year on in the mobility space because there is a an amount of creativity and people really trying new things, which is really and for me, it's creating a lot of enthusiasm because there's a number of things to be fixed in general in mobility. It's by no means perfect, but a lot of people are are trying things. So, in terms of the appetite, let's say on the solution side, that there's plenty of push and and new things happening. So that's uh that's my first remark. The second thing, a bit closer to to what I'm saying, is so again, plenty of opportunities with uh driven by technology around the fact that vehicles are connected, that they're going to become autonomous for some of them, etc. That a lot of them are electric. And so all of that requires adoption, adaptation, creating new opportunities. In terms of the some of the major, uh some of the major issues that probably will need to be addressed, one of them that we start hearing about uh a bit is uh around tires, especially the tires wear, because we know that it produces uh some pretty crazy amount of macroplastics. So this uh also I actually saw a number of solutions on this topic, which whether it's actually tires specifically designed or it's for for different types of vehicles, or it's tires which are built uh 100% of renewable materials, or even so some UK startup as well that is trying to essentially grab all the small particles as they were and capture them right off the wheel to to store them. This is one of the biggest environmental problems that we don't talk about so much so far. We talk a lot about CO2 impact, which is the the big obvious one, but for which we have a number of solutions that are currently being deployed. For me, this is the next one where there will be a need to accelerate the the pace at some point.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Okay, interesting. I think thinking about Avon's role, because I guess it's you you don't own the product, essentially, isn't it? It's the the service and the business model. Where are you thinking about um innovating? Where are the hotspots for innovation in within that journey and within that business model?

SPEAKER_01 13:45

So the biggest one at the moment is actually addressing this aspect around CO2 emissions. So we've been working on electrification for a number of years. Our clients have been really pulling that into practice, and we have very large deployments of battery electric vehicles. So, roughly to give you a sense, we have more than a third of the orders coming in today globally, which are for electric vehicles. So, this is representing a massive, massive amount for us. So it went from well, how do we help our clients understand electrification and adopt it? And so, for this, in the past few years, we did things like a consulting machine, and we still are doing them, but it was new a few years back in terms of really running with consultants, helping the clients decide on joining the net zero commitment with the the renewal rate of the fleet and determining a pace of electrification, I think identifying the right driver profiles, et cetera, all the way to actually ordering the cars in practice. So that was before. Now that's still happening, and depending on the client maturity, it's it's some of them can still be on the journey. Now it's also about wow, so electrification is happening. So what do we do? Because it has a number of consequences. So some of them are operational for the clients. So things around, well, how do we help with the charging? So can we help with the charging infrastructure? We have some offers around installing some chargers at home. Uh, we're launching, for example, an EMSP with in some countries, which is basically a plastic card, an RFID uh card to access charging points in public stations. So, like this, we give a view to the fleet manager about how the card is being charged and how much that's costing to really control the cost. And then in general, we know that electric vehicles need less maintenance, which in practice means less uh revenue for avens. So then we have to think uh a bit more about well, which extra services can we provide, which kind of new reverse revenue streams we can create. And and here, a big part of it centers around the battery of these electric vehicles, which represents uh a massive amount of the value of the vehicle. And that uh that asset in itself, the battery, can probably create a number of extra value. So some of them will be in the future in terms of you know re-injecting electricity into the grid. So that's one thing. But we don't even have to wait that long. Already today, we can you know uh we can optimize the cost of charging. We can so all of these are things that Avens is developing and trying to help like client with to uh further optimize the cost of their energy and also optimize the cost of owning the car overall.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Okay, oh fantastic. So you're actually seeing the range of services that you provide expand as the you know, as the shift towards electrification.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Yeah, yeah, and it will it will continue to expand. I'm sure there will be plenty of other opportunities. So now we're working on the obvious one, which are very visible, but there will be others as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Could you tell us you mentioned the strategic themes or the shifts? Could you tell us a little bit more about that? Like I guess we're thinking about what what are the major forces that you're seeing that are gonna shape the future of mobility? What do you think they are?

SPEAKER_01 17:03

So, first obvious one is the deelectrification that we started discussing. That's gonna keep happening, and and of course, not every country is at the same level of maturity on this, so that's gonna carry on for many years uh ahead of us, but it is this happening, and so again, lots of it is gonna be about adapting and which new opportunities it creates uh with that. Another part uh which uh is we do hear regularly about uh is autonomy. That's further down the line, of course, but it's really gonna create a profound shift into the ways people use and approach mobility, I believe. As I mentioned in the past, I worked on uh in a car pooling startup. And so one of the challenges we had at the time was well, how do you actually make it easier for people to to share that car and be there at the right moment and stuff? So it was kind of trying to find uh an affordable way to travel every day in a car without using an Uber, right?

SPEAKER_03 18:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

With autonomy, you can start imagining actually a lot of that in between. So you cannot justify missioning a bus or even a minibus with a driver because it would be really expensive to do this for three, four people. Now, if you have a small shuttle that can move around on its own, well, you're kind of changing the game. But it's in terms of coverage in rural areas, that's probably gonna change a lot, which then carries on. Because the way one of the reasons why people use car all the time is because it's so convenient from one point to another. Again, the convenience here is going to change probably quite a few things. On the other side, if I mean this transition is not rightly managed, it can create some real headache in terms of traffic jams, for example, created by autonomous cars. You could imagine a lot of cars dropping in people in downtown and trying to park outside on their own without any passenger waiting for the next thing. And while you could have traffic jams of empty cars, I don't think anybody wants that. So there's a number of things to think and to imagine in terms of the actual usage of these uh of these vehicles. So that's of course a big one. More, you know, taking a much larger perspective. I think a lot of people now are really asking more and more the the why question about uh lots of things in their lives, and mobility is one of them also. And uh, you know, we've seen it for commuting uh since COVID, pretty much. People asking, well, why would I come five days a week in the office if uh if it's just to come into the office and sit at my desk with my head set on calling people? We can do the same at home. So basically, so it's it's not changing mobility, it's just making it happen less. Uh so that's one way. But you can also imagine that the the developments in uh virtual reality and the kind of experience you're gonna be able to have without going as far is gonna have really wide implications in terms of the work experience, but possibly also in terms of uh what you would call tourism today. Do I really need to go to, let's say, Egypt, for example, to see the pyramids when I can actually go see an exhibition right now in Paris with a year aheadset where I'm gonna see everything probably even better than if I'm there. So, I mean, of course, it's still not a hundred percent there and stuff, but at least we can expect that there will be some impact. And probably people will travel a bit less, I would expect, but probably with more intent. The same we see with work today. I go to the office because I want to engage with people, because I have a workshop, because I have something really to do. Not just because that's what I do every day. No, it's it's much more aware, let's say. And of course, all of that has implication in terms of how you consume mobility.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Yeah, no, I love I love that kind of that perspective, like really rich. Like actually two things that made me feel like, you know, when you're talking about the autonomous vehicle and the traffic jams, it's actually not just that singular journey, it's almost the ecosystem of how do you how does how do communities and populations move in sync and and how do you create that infrastructure? Um then yeah, I love, I love the less, less travel but more intentful. Really, really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then that opens up uh yeah, many possibilities in terms of you know where people live, how they live their lives. It's it's actually when you start thinking about it, you start thinking about everything that becomes possible in that new world, which is quite quite exciting.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Yeah, yeah. And I guess also the role of moving. I guess when you say if you take the commute out of it, like there's something about because I do, I I do feel like I need, like me personally, I need to do something before I start work, whether it's just go for a walk or something, because it gets you into a different headspace and it helps you segment the day a little bit. Whether it's not, if it's not commuting, can you do something else that fills that role of moving, but without actually commuting or something? moving in the the way that you yeah you typically do.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Yeah no I I I completely understand and but I mean if I take my my personal examples do do I prefer to to take the commuter train where I'm gonna be with people crowded. I mean you know how it is for example in your site in London. Do I prefer to spend an hour like that possibly with even the the train stopping on the tracks and telling you there's a signal problem etc we all know that or do I prefer to spend that one hour going for a run in the park and then getting back to my uh fully refreshed and ready to engage in the right mood. I think the answer is pretty obvious yeah it's like a whole meaningful mobility kind of opportunity space it feels like how do you create that yeah and and actually I think a lot of people experienced that since COVID also is when you start going to the office let's say two, three times a week instead of five times, you can move a little bit away from just following habits of just moving the same way every day to actually being a bit more conscious and saying actually if I go twice this week maybe I'll do once with my bike and once with the train.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Whereas before you would have been less open to doing it because you just wanted to get it over with and that was it. Now you actually start to become less of a creator of of habit and a bit more making conscious choices about this uh this way to move around. Yeah really interesting do you did these type of kind of human insights and does this this feed into how you think about innovation within Avens so I mean what I've been mentioning the this past two trends on the autonomous mobility and and people questioning the the why of mobility I think this is a you know a trend that's gonna take a lot of time to come and to feel the implication for Avens so this is not this is always in the back of my personal mind but it's not informing the the products of today which again is much more linked to within the next few years the big topic is really around electrification possibly around mobility budget that I was talking about if there is some major fixation changes. And these are actionable today. And so this is what we concentrate our efforts on.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Okay. What uh what are you most excited about when you think about the future of mobility?

SPEAKER_01 24:17

It's I think it's actually linked to the last trend that I mentioned about you know really having more intent with moving around because I'm um well like everyone I think I hate when I have to go somewhere too often and stuff and I'm I'm really in this you know forced mobility but I'm extremely happy when it's something that I'm choosing to do. And I'm actually really happy to go see clients, to move for the weekend, etc. And so really shifting the balance towards the second one is something that I find quite exciting personally. And um that opens the door I mean it it's not as sexy as autonomous mobility for example and stuff but actually it's much more profound in terms of how I think it's going to change the the ecosystem.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yeah yeah yeah really interesting. I mean it's almost it it's it reminds me of your career story in a way isn't it it's kind of in making that more meaningful and intentful you've got to take away the friction so you can focus on the human and what they actually want to do and when they're moving.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yeah yeah yeah and uh so where where I where I grew up which was a mid-sized town in in France I could had to go to high school with public transportation. And then until I was 18 it was actually very difficult for me to move around because I was in the suburb and so I was limited in my uh possibilities. I mean I could take my bike but I was surrounded by mountains so every time I had to do it was quite a big effort. As soon as I turned 18 I got a car and then it was really that feeling of complete freedom really the I was the perfect candidate for an advertising for for a car company because it was really like oh that just opened up my world really I could just go see my friend I could go see the measure I could go into the mountain easily like I could really literally change my life and that feeling of freedom I got something very similar actually when I was in Korea not with a car because if I had to move with a car in Seoul in a city of 20 million plus people that would have been just horrible. However I could take yeah just a bus uh I could take a metro I could ride go to the mountains very easily because they're just around then I take a cab to come back because I'm tired and all of that just feels extremely easy. You don't even think about it. So it just removes the it's it's not only like physical or like user experience freedom it's just actually it just frees up your mind. You don't think about it then you're just like I'll just go there and it just comes.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

You just go yeah yeah yeah no I love that the freedom I love that thought around kind of that feeling of freedom um that came with you know yeah moving around and car ownership what do you think autonomous vehicles as if and when they do become you know increasingly mainstream is that gonna dull down that feeling or is it gonna help or hinder it? What do you think it's gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 27:13

No I mean I see actually um I see it as an enabler for me it's actually it has the potential to create more of that freedom um because I mean especially if you live in areas that are underserved by public transportation today. So right now a lot of people don't have a choice it's like either I get a car or I just don't move around period and and I mean that's really problematic in and of itself but also if you think really of the again that sense of freedom you can choose something different tomorrow if you want. You could potentially just ride that autonomous shuttle just for a couple of kilometers until you get to the town or you might make the choice still to get a car but you know it it you're not forced again to do anything much it's much more in link with what it is you want to achieve where you want to go to yeah yeah and absolutely I guess when you think about you know different different communities and you know the aging population when you can't drop when you can't physically do things yourself anymore, it gives it you keep that freedom for longer. Yeah yeah yeah and and actually it's uh it's very interesting that you that you mentioned that because quite a few years ago I had worked on uh so this concept of inclusive mobility and one of the things that had really struck me at the time was actually we tend to think of it as people that are in a wheelchair. And actually why it's much broader than that because you have a whole range of categories of people that have limitations to move around. And so like you said, I mean at some point or another you and myself we're gonna be old enough that we're gonna have trouble moving around. So I'd really at some point in life most people will experience it. Then you have all the people there have a temporary restriction in the mobility and think about people that are I mean women that are pregnant. Okay so for a few months in their lifetime again same they have restrictions about how they move because they don't want to go in a in a crowded train during that time. And you have also very simply you know people that travel for whatever reason but carry your luggage very simply same you are restricted in your movement because you can't just go about the same way that if you were just standing on your two legs. So when you start thinking about that it's actually encompassing a number of scenarios in a and uh quite a wide part of the population and you need to start thinking about well how how do you actually address that? And and even personal use case but when I lived in Paris so I really like to move around by bike but sometimes you know it's just too far to go by bike. So I had bought a a Brompton bike which is great but at the time it was actually not authorized to take in the metro. So I mean there was some kind of tolerance for it but it was just I mean people would just give you bad looks and stuff. It was just very very unpleasant. And so basically well that that doesn't really encourage the fact of taking public transportation then I'm like well actually whatever I'll put my Brampton bike into a taxi for example in the trunk and then I'll go and then I'll I'll take the bike at the very end of my trip or whatever thing. But so so there is a number of scenarios combinations uh there are possible uh and I always think about like when I was studying in the US there there used to be these buses where you could actually put the the bikes in the front and I don't know if you see it's like a bike carrier but set in front in front of the bus. So you could put your bike and then hop on board you would move around and then you would come at and you just uh carried on with your bike. I mean simple things like that can really change a lot of things about the rate of usage of bikes, the rate of usage of different mobilities because you make it practical for people.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Yeah no it's really interesting I think it's that ecosystem point again isn't it you can't it's not just creating the the means of transport it's actually how do you create it so that can move seamlessly through wherever you want to go. Yeah fascinating okay um coming coming towards the end thank you so much Clement really really interesting journey we've been on through this conversation final two questions but you know based on your experience hugely many many years in mobility and sustainable mobility what advice would you give to organizations or listeners or individuals who want to get into this space and and want to create innovations with real sustainable impact?

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Well here it's actually very straightforward for me because there are many, many good ideas but to take it to the next stage really what's necessarily it's always the same thing. It's an excellent value proposition at some point you know you come down to very basic stuff. But I'm always surprised by how we try to rush through the initial stage and move to the scaling part before we've actually figured out properly what is really the value proposition and what are the economics linked to that. Because if you don't sell that on a small scale I mean you can go as big as you want it's just not going to work. It will just crumble at some point or another and fixing a problem when you're at two people working on it is a lot easier and a lot faster than when you're working at a hundred people on it. So yeah just sp I would say yeah spend the the right amount of time at inception really getting down to the bottom of the the value proposition the economics before scaling scaling is absolutely essential because this is where you will you will deliver on the actual sustainable impact but figure out the rest before. Yeah absolutely love that and how do you how do you know when something's ready to scale because you can't wait to perfect either can you there's a there's a I agree I agree and I've been struggling with you know how do you strike the balance between the two when when it it's it's either too fast or too slow but there is no perfect. So yeah sometimes depending on which world you are if you're in the startup world you probably want to go a little bit too fast. If you're in the corporate world you probably want to go sometimes a little bit too slow because you're more conservative. The best way that I found to actually try to make this more objective is uh there was this idea of a a scoring of the product market fit. I don't know if you've heard about that before but it's kind of a modified version of the NPS where you ask current users of your platform typically like beta users of your product uh how unhappy or how no what is the exact term they use how dissatisfied not how disappointed that they would be if you start the product tomorrow. And that gives you actually a very strong indicator of how useful it is to that person truly it's not it's no longer about oh yeah that's a nice idea like you know it doesn't cost anything so everyone says that but it's actually well okay so really if you stop it I'm either going to be in trouble or that's fine I can do without and either way you know where you stand because if you're not in the category of getting that very strong traction you're coming against probably other competitive offer of whichever kind and to take off the ground you need this very strong pull at least at the very beginning.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Yeah I love that I love that it's interesting so you asked how disappointed they would be if you stopped it rather than how much do they want to turn it around.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Yeah yeah yeah because there's a very strong bias of people finding everything wonderful or or having trouble giving you negative feedback. And so this puts it in the right uh frame and especially if you ask it in a nice anonymous way with a survey that makes it even easier for people to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

That's really that's nice I'm gonna I'm gonna try that thank you thank you. Final question um no thank you for a really wonderful conversation what's one idea that we've talked about or you thought about that you'd love listeners to carry forward into their into their lives from this conversation really that I mean mobility and I think that's true of actually many many areas today they're changing and that's an excellent thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Some people do get a little bit scared or stiff when they see so much change but actually that's excellent news I think because there is a number of problems with the the way mobility is operating today. The most obvious one is everybody's aware around the paradigm of CO2 emissions. Well that's one where we need to accelerate things and yes there will need to be a number of adaptations for that. But it's I mean this is the time also to influence actually to take part in that change. And there there's many ways. I mean you don't have to be the one leading a project on this but you can I don't know help a project by actually testing the product and getting feedback. I mean that's the simplest way and actually it's very pleasant experience usually so I encourage a lot of people to do that. But it's really kind of yeah take part in that change and yeah mobility typically has been a matter of habit but now we need to collectively rethink that whole system. So this is the time to to do it.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Yeah yeah absolutely it's only going to be you know it needs people to come together. I think it's it's one of those things that it's you know you it's it's easy to not hold yourself accountable because there's so many it affects everyone isn't it but actually it's only going to get solved and move forward if every individual you know throws their hat in the ring and and gets involved.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Yeah yeah because I mean of course some of the technical solutions uh exist some of them need to be developed further but I mean that there is no endpoint when everything is ready you know there is and and I've had this discussion with many people uh before they were like oh no but I'm not gonna change an electric car for example because I'm waiting for um a fuel sales car. Well first good luck with that I mean there is some on the market but good luck uh waiting for the infrastructure it's gonna take some time but even assuming it is whatever if it takes 30 years or 50 years I mean do we really have that time? Yeah pretty sure we don't so let's take it it's moving it's changing let's go with it and let's make the most of it fantastic what a what a powerful night to end on.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Thank you so much Clement really appreciate your time great conversation thanks for listening to Codex Futures. If today's episode sparked new ideas we'd love to hear from you. Email me at louise.newson at triptych.com or click on the link below. Follow Triptych on LinkedIn and subscribe to our Codex newsletter as we explore more perspectives shaping tomorrow