Overcoming entrepreneurial block
For an aspiring entrepreneur, entrepreneurial block can be crippling.
During a lengthy bout of entrepreneurial inertia, it can be tempting to cast your start up dreams aside, and stick to living a more conventional working life. Cultivating new concepts can feel an impossible task and your entrepreneurial journey can feel fraught with failure before it’s even begun.
You needn’t give up though, as there are ways to instigate ideas and methods that’ll help ease the creative process. Sometimes ideas have to be urged, so here’s five ways you can set about urging them…
Firstly, consider your strengths and ponder your passions
‘Pondering your passions’ might sound a little pretentious but it’s something that can really exacerbate creativity, as by knowing a product, issue or industry inside out, you’ll know better how it can be improved.
Elsewhere, considering your strengths can help crystalise ideas, as this’ll help you determine how best you can apply them to solving a problem or issue (more on this next..)
Seek problems and see how you can fix them
As I’ve alluded to, pondering things you’re passionate about can help here, but by merely taking some time to study the things around you, you’ll quickly see that the world is ripe with archaic products and industries ready to be improved.
Jeff Bezos is perhaps the greatest living example of this disruptive entrepreneurialism. Through the prism of Amazon he’s dramatically altered the worlds of retail and publishing, addressing problems that previously faced consumers.
He’s repeatedly asserted that this is Amazon’s aim, not profit margins, and as a net worth of $24 billion dollars reflects, it’s a philosophy that’s worth sticking to.
Keep your eyes and ears open
Not all of us are as blessed as Bezos, so If you’re struggling to identify problems on your own, seek them elsewhere.
See what’s causing your friends and family grief, spend some time trawling internet forums, keep your eyes and ears open wherever you go. Here in the UK people love a good moan, so listen and learn and think about how you can solve their issues.
Inspiration can come from the strangest of places and a little looking, listening and learning can help instigate the creative process.
Study ahead
Something else that can help creatively is studying ahead.
Cast an eye over government reports, examine trends and keep a keen eye on technological developments. A great example of those that did this are the early dot.com entrepreneurs who foresaw a growing trend, took a risk and many received huge rewards.
Although it may not always feel like it, there is a wealth of opportunities out there. It sometimes just takes a little time and study to find them.
Finally, never fail to underestimate the power of cutting costs
Something worth bearing in mind is the age old adage ‘price is paramount’. By merely cutting costs, you can draw customers in. If you can increase quality whilst doing so, even better.
The success of ASOS reflects the sheer power of cutting costs. Their concept was to recreate the clothes worn by celebrities ‘As seen on screen’. Tapping into the culture of celebrity they created garments similar to the bigger name brands, providing mere mortals with the chance to dress like Rihanna, for a fraction of the cost.
13 years after their birth, their revenues are in the hundreds of millions. Clearly then, you don’t always have to innovate like Apple.
An experienced Business Writer, Mark James currently works in-house for Crunch Accounting, UK based small business accountants.
http://www.twitter.com/teamcrunch
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