A good business should solve a problem in your daily routine. There are elements and spaces in everyday life that do not work optimally, the more you focus on these gaps the easier entrepreneurial innovation becomes.
It is the moments when you dream about a drive through for milk and bread because you just couldn’t be bothered to stop and get out of the car on the way home. In truth it is an affirmation that whatever inconveniences you face, you are not alone and as such you will have a ready audience in agreement to convert into a viable market.
Good entrepreneurship requires community, partnership and multiple avenues of investment be it time or cash investments, the entrepreneur will take it ALL.
Good innovation on the other hand requires challenge with an element of frustration, it is like the last puzzle piece that you have to find before you go to bed. You work passionately towards the full picture placement without care if anyone else ever sees the beauty in what you have created.
In an ideal world entrepreneurship and innovation go hand in hand but it is only fair to state that many an entrepreneur are not innovators as much as they are service providers. The difference is in the element of creativity, to innovate you need to create new and dynamic solutions that meet community needs.
Why is this insight relevant to a small business owner? Always know which side of the fence you are sitting on; It helps to determine the steps required to reach your desired destination – success.
For a small business the rules of the game are an open book, assess what the product offering is, connect it with the target market at the right time, in the right way for the right price and ‘bob’s your uncle’ you will have a business. Thriving? not always, transactional – yes.
As a true innovator, your steps are not as clear, nor are you measured in terms of your investment and often you are not aware of the true nature of the desired outcome. You, like Thomas Edison just want it to work. So you will keep working on the light bulb regardless of the changing market needs – you will solve your puzzle.
“How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”
Great success is built on failure, frustration, …. even catastrophe.
