Most entrepreneurs share similar qualities that make them stand out from the crowd. They have self-discipline, persistence, integrity, and creativity. The last quality is quite interesting since people have said that creative people can never be entrepreneurs. And nothing is farther from the truth. Creativity and entrepreneurship are ideal for each other. Here are some ways why these two concepts are closely related to each other.
Creativity and Entrepreneurship Share a Disposition
Creative minds normally produce innovative ideas that have a major impact on the business world. They give entrepreneurs a competitive advantage over their rivals in business. Entrepreneurship requires creativity and the ability to develop new ideas that can later change the world.
For instance, the late Steve Jobs is among the best innovators in the world. Even as he established his company inside his garage, his creativity and innovation have made technology user-friendly. He cultivated his creativity as he pursued diverse interests that allowed him to think out of the box more often. He was able to adapt to different situations and come up with innovative solutions that helped improve the world.
Creativity Allows Entrepreneurs to Develop Niches
When entrepreneurs enter a certain market, they do not limit themselves to what they can see in the market. Instead, they become creative and create a niche in the market that they can enter and get ahead of their competitors.
For instance, they look for a problem in the market and provide solutions to the problem through the product they offer. This allows them to build the value proposition that makes their product appealing to their audience. It also allows them to create a market within an existing market.
Developing niches can also apply to a memorabilia store where an entrepreneur can prove the authenticity of a sports memento through non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Using NFTs allows the memento to continue to appreciate its value while ensuring that the item is authentic and not a counterfeit. The NFT market is still in its infancy, but if entrepreneurs can create specific niches within it, they can get ahead of everyone else.
Four Stages of Creativity is Applicable to Entrepreneurship
There are four stages in creativity: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. Even as these four stages focus on producing innovative work, entrepreneurship can also use these stages in creating new business ideas that they can launch in the future.
The first stage is preparation, which applies to entrepreneurship when an entrepreneur identifies a problem to solve. The second stage of incubation is akin to an entrepreneur taking the problem and finding a solution. For the illumination stage, an entrepreneur will fully grasp the problem and already have a mind solution. The last stage is simply testing the solution if it can indeed solve the problem. In short, the entrepreneur verifies the feasibility of the solution to the problem.
Same Environment
Creative minds and entrepreneurs thrive in the same environment. They thrive when they are given the freedom to let their ideas develop. But when work within a structured environment with too much pressure exerted on all sides, people cannot expect any innovative ideas to emerge.
Additionally, many people are contented with nine-to-five jobs where they have a set number of hours to work each day. But when it comes to entrepreneurs and creatives, they require flexibility since they are self-starters who do not normally check their watches when they work.
Entrepreneurs and creatives need the freedom to work toward their goals. Having someone to constantly look over their shoulders while working will disrupt their rhythm and cause them to lose the creativity and innovativeness required in accomplishing their goals.
Entrepreneurs and Creatives Find Patterns
Entrepreneurs and creatives can find patterns in seemingly unrelated and dissimilar things. They can connect the dots and draw conclusions that normal people cannot understand. The thinking process of entrepreneurs and creatives is not consistent with established processes, which allow them to come up with solutions to problems that people may find unsolvable.
Similar to creatives, entrepreneurs are curious by nature. They do not stop learning and read a lot. Some voracious readers are also entrepreneurs, including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg. This allows them to create new niches in an existing market. They are also not afraid of putting together different disciplines to create solutions to existing problems. And it is interesting to note that some of the solutions they provide come from opposing fields.
It is noteworthy to know that creatives and entrepreneurs have a lot of things in common. Thus, creatives have a better chance of becoming an entrepreneur since an entrepreneur is creative by nature.