I founded a fashion company in 2001 and worked as the creative director and subsequently principal style consultant for over a decade. These days I am just happy to sit on the board of same firm but that’s not the point. My point is that creators, creatives, inventors, innovators, startups and business people oftentimes create just to bask in the euphoria that ‘creating’ usually brings. A lot of times (like I have done in the past) they are not creating something useful but really very cool.
Think of a wooden swimsuit, the boiled egg squarer (if you wanted the edges of your egg to align with that of your sliced bread), the razor phone (a mobile phone you could shave with), a bicycle that could float and even more recent – the 3D TV. Cool stuff!
If your goal is to generate value, here are 4 things to consider when creating anything you will like to receive value for.
Ensure that-
1. It solves a problem
2. It is scalable
3. It can be sold with a decent profit margin
4. It is not easy to copy
We all like the attraction that ‘cool’ brings to businesses, products and services but if we are not trying to create things that many will simply admire and never truly utilize at scale then we may need to rethink the idea. However, if the coolness need not generate revenue then by all means INNOVATE AWAY!
Author: Familusi Akin Babajide
