As an entrepreneur you will be selling either products or services to people in a market place. When you zero in on a business idea you are bound to have 2 broad choices: going with what’s on offer in the market place either by offering the same product or service or a similar one OR coming up with something so imaginative that customers will have no choice but to opt for your innovation.
The first route is easy, the second, not so easy but definitely the one to take if you want to make it BIG in business. Your imagination is the only limit to your creativity and ability to develop products and services that are widely seen as solutions by people who could have never thought about the possibility of such a thing.
Design Has the Ability to Capture Interest
Design is the core of any offering…be it a product or service. How it looks, functions, what it can do, what it can save or restore are key elements that capture consumer interest.
Design is what remains when you strip away everything except elegance and functionality from a product or service. Steve Jobs became the icon that he did because he had the power of imagination. Every product that Apple came out with was an ode to imagination and creativity.
See Opportunity Where Other People Don’t
Your products or services must be born out of a desire to be different that is the key to success. Recently I came across an interesting venture called FunkyJunkRecycled.com. Established by expats in Cambodia it is a creative solution to two problems that plague Cambodia: garbage and employment generation.
Built on a model that involves recycling plastic bags from the mountains of garbage that Cambodia has to deal with to turn them in to products that look good, are functional and are produced by local communities, FunkyJunkRecycled has got it right on the imagination front. Here’s why…
The founders of this venture saw opportunity where others saw waste; they worked towards creating a sustainable solution by using plastic to create long lasting products that were easy to use and good to look at. They were ahead of other people in their thoughts and actions. That has made all the difference.
Your Competition can’t Copy Your Imagination
Imitation is the best form of flattery and I would say that every entrepreneur who finds people ripping off his designs and ideas should stop fuming about it and take it as a compliment. People will copy a successful model, so chill…they are copying you because you are successful. If you weren’t successful they wouldn’t copy you and no one would even care about whether or not you existed.
Having said that, you need to remember, people can copy your work but they cannot copy your imagination and subsequently your hard work and creativity. They will never be able to replicate that. While they copy something you did, you will be working on the next thing you thought of and as such you will always be ahead of them.
That’s precisely why you need to imagine, innovate and create instead of fretting about competition.
Bizarre Has Takers
Yes, products and services that are bizarre and different will always have takers. They might not be lapped up by everyone but then, you need to ask yourself…are you catering to everyone? If not, then you can always come up with the unthinkable and people will go for it.
Just this afternoon I was reading about an Austrian chef who has come up with fashion food, edible chocolate dresses, miniskirts and the like. Not something for everyone but definitely your cake if you are the type who wants to have your cake and eat it too.
He spotted his market…people who love to eat in a different manner!
A lot has been said and written about the many qualities of an entrepreneur. People have written volumes on the ingredients for entrepreneurial success and I’m sure all of what has been said and written must be backed by experience either personal or that of others. Through my posts on Noobpreneur this month, I’m going to talk about some characteristics of entrepreneurs which I believe make or break a venture. Imagination, being the first and there’s more coming up!