INNOVATORS AND INFLUENCERS
WHERE DO BIG IDEAS COME FROM AND HOW DO THEY SPREAD?
Ideas are the lifeblood of business and have the power to drive change and growth. At our Mash Up, we wanted to find out what we could learn from the world of entrepreneurs and influencers about where ideas come from and how they spread. We spoke to a broad range of experts from diverse fields to explore the topic; from tech city to government, fashion, social media, the alcohol industry, crowdfunding and angel investment. THE ENTREPRENEURIAL PARADOX What struck us most was that, as big businesses, we’re often trapped in an entrepreneurial paradox. On the one hand, we aspire to emulate the passion, agility, dynamism and the innovative mindset of small, entrepreneurial businesses; but balancing this with the reality of institutional forces – which, after all, are often the drivers of largescale success and stability – can make this transformation feel extremely difficult, if not impossible.
This gives rise to a number of interesting tensions:
• Businesses need the products of tomorrow to survive, but management is judged on the performance of the products of today “In large organisations, it is sometimes easier not to do anything about it, not to change. While businesses grow, they lose their ‘edginess’, they have more to lose.” Helene Martin-Gee, Government advisor on Entrepreneurship - Short-term results and incremental change will only get you so far: step change innovation will ensure your business is future-proofed - Big companies don’t take enough risk – but this is a hard mentality to change. Starting by going back to your roots and trialling new ideas where you feel comfortable means you’ll become more open to risk over time • Businesses crave entrepreneurial spirit in their people, but fail to give it the top-down support needed for this to be effective “Corporate culture defines how a company is able to innovate.” Joe Scarboro, Head of Entrepreneur Relations at Tech City - Change within a company is impossible without buy-in from senior management - There is a real culture change needed within large companies to enable them to be nimble and creative enough to compete with a start-up mentality - Promoting entrepreneurship gets your employees further involved in the creative process. Involving front-line employees and consumers from the get go will make them want to be part of the change and make change happen - To be a successful entrepreneur, it helps to be mentally stable and unstable in equal measure! - Being sociable and a good networker is a crucial weapon in the entrepreneur’s armoury, even when you don’t feel like it - Entrepreneurs have to be good ‘generalists’ in all business elements, especially the ones you don’t enjoy - Resilience is key - most successful businesses have people behind them that are passionate about their business and confident enough to promote their ideas even against opposition
• An entrepreneurial approach is about speed and flexibility, but managing senior stakeholders takes time and careful planning “Great entrepreneurs are those that have passion and belief in their ideas, and can successfully navigate through management to make change happen.” Helene Martin-Gee, Government advisor on Entrepreneurship - In large organisations, ensuring you have all relevant departments on your side and invested in the idea is key to embedding an idea - Use the right tools and platforms to sell the message, whether that’s a meeting with key stakeholders or multimedia - Innovation is just as much about minimising risk as it is about drastic change – communicating this will help people buy in to your idea • The best consumer driven ideas come from solving people’s problems- but often these come from behaviour and observation, NOT what they tell you their problems are “Ideas have to have some relevance and have to revolve around a genuine problem” Mark Champkins – Inventor at Residence from the Science Museum & successful Dragon’s Den applicant - Ideas often come from dealing with personal challenges or problems faced in business/life. If other people will need to face those issues as well, then there may be an entrepreneurial business in assisting those people - First-hand experience of navigating issues can provide the platform for understanding and solving those issues for other people/businesses - Big ideas often come around through changes in one of five areas: social, technological, environmental, economic or political
• Great ideas you don’t always start with the consumer – follow your passion and create something from gut instinct, and then find your market “Influence and inspiration can come from anywhere.” Lucy Tammam - sustainable fashion entrepreneur - For an idea to succeed you must believe in it, want it to succeed – stand up and fight for recognition within the business - Coming up with ideas is just the start: execution of ideas and the structure to allow that to happen is vital - Being single-minded is critical. People don’t like choice making things simple is key to success - When assessing an idea, it’s crucial to assess whether the sector is interesting/growing. What stage of development are we at? What investment would be needed? How credible is the idea? What’s the ROI? - A key factor in the success of an idea lies in the ability to sell it – using analogies, knowledge and passion. Those who lack these skills struggle to progress even the best ideas - Give it a try – entrepreneurs don’t hold back. They never know 100% what will happen but they give things a try and adapt if it’s not working. They don’t test things to death and listen to consumers to tell them whether an idea is good
PTO
• Niche ideas often get the most passionate following – you need to give them the time to seed in their ‘home turf’ before scaling them “Sticking to principles and core beliefs is key to ‘making it’” David Garofalo – entrepreneur and investment expert - Most businesses build success organically rather than forcing it immediately, giving themselves a solid basis first before pushing for accelerated growth - Start-ups often start in a more general sphere, then become more niche and focused - There’s nothing wrong with a smaller niche audience – the passion for an idea will make it grow - However the downfall of many entrepreneurs is too much focus on starting businesses, and not enough on scaling them up. Give the idea a real chance to live by keeping a firm eye on scale and opportunity • Many people believe themselves to be creative and entrepreneurial in nature, but feel that the only outlet for this is outside of their “day jobs” “‘Create or die’: it is exciting to see how big companies are increasingly creating with talent in-house or with consumers.” - Helene Martin-Gee, Government advisor on Entrepreneurship - The most powerful way to initiate innovation is if people want change and know that their input will change the roadmap - Invest more in the people behind the idea rather than the idea itself – so if you have great people working on something let them have the space to come up with something, trial it, finesse it
6th Floor 103-113 Regent Street London W1B 4HL Jonathan Williams +7734 563 541 jonathanw@mash.uk.com