When put into simple terms, entrepreneurship is the willingness to take risks when seizing an opportunity that we determined as profitable.
An Entrepreneur, on the other hand, is a person behind the act, or we can say, the person who searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.
Along the journey of building a profitable business as an entrepreneur, we find some factors which fuel the act of entrepreneurship. Creativity, leadership, vision, and sustainability are some of the main pillars of entrepreneurship. In this article, we are going to look at how we can navigate starting from creativity toward entrepreneurship via innovation as this couple is the cornerstones of entrepreneurship.
We sometimes mistake creativity and innovation to be the same due to their near similarity but the two words occur in respective order. Creativity is thinking new things, the ability to develop new ideas and to discover new ways of looking at problems and opportunities while Innovation is doing new things, the ability to apply creative solutions to those problems, and opportunities to enhance people’s lives or to enrich society.
Creativity
As we came across earlier, Creativity is the ability to develop new ideas and to discover new ways of looking at problems and opportunities. The fascinating thing is anyone can be creative if they put the effort into it. Creativeness is not something you are born with and have to remain with it for the rest of your life. It is like any other skill, no matter at which position you get started, you can improve, sharpen your creative skills if you put constant effort into developing them.
There are four phases in the creative process that can help to remove our ‘idea blocks’ and enhance our creative thinking.
Each of the following phases in the creative process can be fostered and augmented.
- Preparation
- Incubation
- Illumination
- Implementation
Rather than bombarding you with facts and info, I will give you simple examples for each of these phases which you’ll be able to understand quite easily and take the value to your heart.
Preparation
Commonly known as the ‘work’ stage where background knowledge accumulation is done.
A painter, for example, messes with paints, does some conceptual pre-paints or visits an art gallery; while an entrepreneur analyzes, problems to solve. This stage is referred to as the ‘work’ stage due to its relatively mundane and tedious processes. However, creators have experienced that this process is necessary to plant the seeds that lead to the incubation process.
Incubation
This phase is somewhat mystical because one cannot exactly point out that his mind is currently incubating an idea. The process often takes place without your knowledge.
The term ‘sleep on your idea’ implies that most of the time during our sleep or while meditating, our subconscious mind resurfaces and syncs with the conscious mind. This process leads to uninterrupted working on the idea, making new connections, and separating weeds from the crop.
We cannot force this stage, but continuous pondering about your creative ideas and falling into sleep with those thoughts can often navigate you through this stage and lead you to your ‘eureka’ moment.
Illumination
Often known as the ‘eureka’ moment. Usually, this phase is slow, but surely it formulates the solution.
Most of the time “illumination” moments happen at times we are resting our minds to wander freely. If you have the first-hand experience you know, this stage often happens while we are taking a shower, driving leisurely by ourselves, or gazing out of the window on a rainy day.
What we can do in such an occurrence is to pin that idea down quickly before it vanishes. Take it down in your notebook or cellphone.
Implementation
The time that your idea, which was in incubation, sees the light of this world. This stage is all about implementation and evaluation. The time for the canvas to reveal the painting by itself. If you were thinking about a design this is the stage for prototyping and take down its strengths and weaknesses.
The above processes clearly show that it takes effort and work for creativity to emerge and if you have the will you will see the way.
While we explored the process of creation we must be aware of some of the barriers to creativity such as,
- Searching for the one ‘right’ answer
- Blindly following the rules
- Becoming overly specialized
- Fearing looking foolish
- Fearing mistakes and failure
- Believing that ‘I’m not creative’
The above mindsets can hinder your flourishing creativity. Therefore, you must also be aware of your thoughts and believe in positivity.
Innovation
Entrepreneurs are those who marry their creative ideas with the purposeful action to capitalize on marketplace opportunities. The ‘purposeful action’ here is none other than ‘Innovation’ where we apply creative solutions to the problems. This is the phase where we put our creative ideas into action. Innovation is more than an idea or an invention, it’s the result of taking it to market.
Our mind is limitless and the creations that occur there also tend to be somewhat impractical. Even established companies and startups spend billions of US dollars on product research and development every year because coming up with innovative products and services are not that easy at all. Although it seems very desirable not every great idea is realizable.
So, researchers have identified that for a successful innovation to occur, an idea needs to address three important factors:
- Desirability
- Feasibility
- Viability
Desirability
The product or service you innovate needs to be desirable to customers by having a positive impact on their life. This phase tests whether your innovation is solving the right customer problem. According to the ‘VOA Labs’, when we identify a desire within people for innovation, we first have to figure out if it is a “vitamin” or “painkiller” to the end-user.
‘Vitamins’ are ‘pleasant to have’ while ‘Painkillers’ are ‘need to have’. Vitamins can enhance your quality of life while painkillers are needed to prevail in your life.
Both of them have pros and cons and whatever you choose, what you must remember is ‘Look for the illness first and create a pill to cure it’.
Otherwise, you would have to look for a potential market after your innovation came to life.
You can use these key questions to determine if a solution is highly desirable:
- Does your solution fill a need?
- Is the solution a “vitamin” or a “painkiller”?
Feasibility
The solution needs to be feasible in the aspect of sustainable engineering. This means that even though a product or service is highly desirable, it may not be possible to build it within time, budget, and social constraints. So, if it is possible within the above three constraints we say it is feasible.
Judging by whether your business is a new start-up or an established corporation, the above constraints affect differently in scale.
Therefore, it is always better to ask the following questions from yourself to be aware of whether your innovation is feasible or not.
- Is it possible to build the solution within the given constraints?
- Do we and our customers have the technical and organizational capabilities to build and operate the product/service?
Viability
The final test for a solution focuses on your value chain for long-term sustainability and profitability meaning your innovation must be economically profitable to you.
This is a crucial factor because many start-ups driven by Design-Driven Innovation becomes a victim in this phase. They miss assessing if the cost of a solution is being covered by the revenue it generates because it is possible for a solution’s business model to not be profitable initially. However, they must have a determined timeline on when the business model becomes profitable otherwise you are not making money but rather losing.
Here are some of the key questions that will test the viability of a solution:
- How can we build a sustainable business around the solution?
- Can revenue outweigh the cost?
- How can we make the solution even more profitable?
The intersection of these three factors gives us the Innovation Sweet-spot which is harder to locate yet brings you certainty in success.
Both Entrepreneurs and Business Personals try to seize the best opportunities they come across yet the factors that distinguish entrepreneurs from other business people are innovation and creativeness.
From the idea generation to successful product development and launch, creativeness and innovation become the seed-bed in entrepreneurship. Charged with the coordination of the innovation process are the Entrepreneurs. Their role is to nurture creative vision through development and testing on successful commercialization. It is the aspect of Entrepreneurship within them that sees not only the product or the process but also the opportunity to market it.
Written by: Dulshan Dharmaratne
Sinhala Translator — Rumeshika Pallewela
Tamil Translator — Mohamed Izad
