Level20

Mandy:

So Level20 is the in-house growth incubator for Progressive Insurance. And so the incubator is building new businesses from the ground up. We're building the product, but we're also building the business that supports each product.

Azadeh:

Progressive was a startup. 85 years ago, but it was a startup! So we've always had this innovation- growth mindset.

Christian:

Progressive is a household name. You say that and people think car insurance. We're not, for the most part, exploring anything related to car insurance. We're looking at how can we provide value to our customers or how can we solve a problem.

Mandy:

It's kind of the best of both worlds. You have the stability and reliability of a Fortune 100 company, and I think that ability to focus allows us to push through the work in a different way. We all follow a general pattern of a human centered design approach to the work. So we start with maybe a notion of an industry or a sub-industry that we want to explore, but we root deeply into the consumer need within that industry. So you spend a ton of time talking directly to consumers, interviewing them, surveying them, etc. to really try to unpack what consumer unmet need you might want to address. And then the fun starts because you get to really go through the design sprint process of trying to come up with the solution that may meet that consumer need.

Tomeka:

We have a really good mix of folks who've been on the traditional corporate side, folks who've done the startup thing on their own, like literally out of their garage and the meshing of those kind of two mindsets, experiences, and skill sets.

Christian:

We get exposure not just to that startup world, but also the knowledge base that exists in a company like Progressive that can find you 500 people that have worked in telecom and can give you answers to questions that might take months if you're in a startup and don't have that experience.

Mandy:

It's very special here, and I don't take that for granted for a second. Whether it's just walking around outside or it's physically being in this office, it's a space that lends itself to the creative work that we're doing.

Christian:

Progressive has stayed true to saying, you know, "we are a Cleveland company." I think it's the perfect place to have an incubator. We are trying to transition away from this idea that insurance is it and now trying to figure out where else we can grow and what better place to do that than in a place that is growing around us.

Azadeh:

If you came here and we told you, like, just go do steps one through ten exactly how we tell you to do it, that's not exciting for you. And I don't think those are the people that want to come here either.

Mandy:

People who thrive here are creators, are doers, are entrepreneurs at heart. If there's anyone who's interested in building something brand new from scratch and really having your fingerprints all over that build…this is the place to be.