Innovation Isn’t a Brainstorm: How to Build When the Playbook Breaks, with Michigan Labs’ Mark Johnson
Description
Most leaders talk about innovation. Mark Johnson actually builds for it.
In this episode of Founders & Empanadas, I sit down with Mark Johnson, Co-Founder of Michigan Software Labs, to unpack what innovation really looks like inside high-stakes teams, enterprise orgs, and day-to-day life.
We cover:
- Why the best innovation comes from crisis, not comfort
- What NASA’s Apollo 13 mission can teach you about leadership
- How to empower junior teammates to share ideas without fear
- The one exercise Mark gives every audience to spark better decision-making
- Tactical frameworks for managing AI expectations without over-engineering
- And what it actually takes to lead through chaos
If you’re building during uncertain times—or trying to evolve your team from order-takers to product thinkers—this episode delivers real strategies you can apply immediately.
📌 Timestamps:
00:00 – Origin story of Michigan Labs
03:00 – Hiring mistakes and early lessons
06:00 – Mark’s TED Talk recap: innovation, crisis, and courage
08:30 – The story behind M&Ms and building through rejection
11:00 – How to innovate in your personal life
15:00 – Empowering your team to speak up
16:30 – Getting engineers to think like product owners
18:00 – Avoiding a surveillance culture while maintaining accountability
19:30 – How AI is changing client demand and staffing
22:00 – The 10-20-70 rule for successful AI adoption
25:00 – Managing client expectations when AI becomes a buzzword
26:30 – Mental health and the agency business model
29:30 – The hardest conversation Mark’s ever had with a client
32:30 – Loneliness in agency life and lessons on resilience
36:00 – Mark’s hot take on the best way to innovate today
United States
