Tag: entrepreneurship

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Where do you look for your new business idea that you can turn into gold?

English: , Hungarian fashion model
Hungarian fashion model (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A fashion model in Sri Lanka came up with an idea for a new business when she was selling hair care products to salons and garments from the boot of her blue station wagon. Although she was a successful model her father wanted her to do something in business. Her idea was to come up with a fashionable brand that could cater for both local and international visitors. Now her fashion house is one of the largest and the only publicly listed such company in Sri Lanka.

It all started with a promising new business idea. Some business advisers like owngrading the value of an idea mainly because they are interested in selling their business training and consulting time. But the creativity, the most valuable part, the core element is the idea that comes at the right time. As the fashion house owner who built a business from scratch says, an entrepreneur finds a gap in the market even in a sector that is highly saturated and does something which may never have been seen or done before, or does something differently – something that is correct for that time and for the future. Continue reading “Where do you look for your new business idea that you can turn into gold?”

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Finding a gap in the market

IMG-20150808-00845A fashion model from Sri Lanka decided to go into business for herself when her father wanted her to do something in business. She decided to give it a try. She started selling haircare products to salons and subsequently also added garments from a factory which she sold to family and friends. Through selling garments she learnt all she could about the fashion business and eventually came up with her own fashion brand. She now owns a publicly listed company. Continue reading “Finding a gap in the market”

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Do you need to review your goals?

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Some time ago I went to the farewell party of a successful entrepreneur who built up a marketing consulting business over many years. It was interesting to learn how many awards he had achieved over the years for brilliant work and how he had always been able to attract blue-chip clients. But now that he’s in retirement, he has had to set new goals. He will be lecturing at universities, engaging with the media and communicating brand and marketing leadership and helping to nurture young brand leaders.

Continue reading “Do you need to review your goals?”

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Can you use strategic doodles for coming up with new business ideas?

 

IMG-20160101-01170A business magazine was extolling the virtues of strategic doodles, which is really defined as scribbling absentmindedly, saying that it has gained credibility so much so that one Internet giant has appointed a chief doodler and give staff time to doodle and generate ideas.

Apparently doodling can help because when you draw your thoughts it slows down your thinking, allowing new perspectives and time to “go deeper following a particular thought”. Strategic doodling in teams or with business partners and clients gives them a deeper level of “ownership and understanding”. Apparently the term used for doodling has gone so far as “strategic doodling”, “visual thinking” and “graphic facilitation”. Continue reading “Can you use strategic doodles for coming up with new business ideas?”

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How do you turn a promising business idea into something tangible that will provide a source of income?

IMG-20150616-00599I came across a Grade 8 student who produced a solar air heater using basic materials. The solar air heater will be presented at a science and technology competition in 2015. Something like this solar air heater is a project that more students at schools should be looking at because it teaches them about solutions for the environment, technology as well as starts to build basic entrepreneurial thinking. Continue reading “How do you turn a promising business idea into something tangible that will provide a source of income?”

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Do you have the ability and experience in generating new business ideas?

(Copyright © 2016) by Chesney Bradshaw, all rights reserved)
(Copyright © 2016) by Chesney Bradshaw, all rights reserved)

A professor who teaches on a Masters of Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship program recently said that our ability and experience in being able to generate ideas is not in question but felt that there was general inexperience in applying the tools for innovation to transform these ideas into something more tangible.

While I agree with the part about inexperience in commercialisation of business ideas, I question his assertion that our ability and experience in being able to generate ideas can be almost taken as a given. Yes, I think anyone, almost anyone, with the will to succeed can use their creative imagination, observation, listening skills and personal brainstorming to come up with a promising business idea. But how often does this happen? Is it really so easy? Continue reading “Do you have the ability and experience in generating new business ideas?”

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Do you celebrate mistakes in your small business or whip yourself because of them?

(Copyright © 2015 by Chesney Bradshaw, all rights reserved)
(Copyright © 2015 by Chesney Bradshaw, all rights reserved)

Businesses, including small businesses, make mistakes all the time. Some of these mistakes are petty and the person who makes them in the small business apologises, feels bad and the business owner moves on. Other mistakes are more serious and can lead to disastrous consequences, even closure. Just think about it for a moment, if your cash flow dries up, especially in this economy, and you can’t get funds to resuscitate your business, the mistake you made in managing your cash will have the potential to put you out of business. Continue reading “Do you celebrate mistakes in your small business or whip yourself because of them?”

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Where there’s smoke, there’s fire

Potato mash, as served in the Swiss mountain r...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We dined at a restaurant in a country town and saw that they had smoked mash potato on the menu with one of the dishes. We tried to figure out how they got this smoky flavour into the mashed potatoes, searching the Internet and finding various home-made approaches, including one where you put wood chips into the bottom of a pot, place a grill inside, put the potatoes under the grill and smoke it on the oven. It sounded so complicated and messy, we forgot about the idea.

The other day I heard on a radio talk the entrepreneur who had started Liquid Smoke in South Africa. The guy who started it has come up with several variants which you can put on poultry, meat and even vegetables. This is a good example of someone who has taken the idea for a new product or service and turned it into a viable business.

Some people might say this is an unusual or exceptional case. How many people come up with new business ideas and end up implementing them? How many people take a look around their domain expertise or business area or industry where they are working, look for and find opportunities where they can solve problems or come up with new solutions? Continue reading “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire”

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Creative approaches necessary for solving everyday challenges

(Copyright © 2015 by Chesney Bradshaw, all rights reserved)
(Copyright © 2015 by Chesney Bradshaw, all rights reserved)

A standing joke of an optimist is someone who believes that they won’t encounter a pothole on their way to work, will find their electricity on in the morning, running water from their taps, have mail delivered, experience a drop in energy prices and not get robbed at their home or their car hijacked and stolen.

Creative living requires responding to life’s challenges. Blackouts have provided opportunities. Last Christmas new types of gifts appeared in Father Christmas stockings such as battery-powered torches and lights, LED reading lamps and butane and propane gas cylinders for boiling hot water. Outdoor and camping stores have many blackout survival tools these days. Not to mention the investment in generators and renewables for residents and business. Continue reading “Creative approaches necessary for solving everyday challenges”

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5 essential questions you need to ask before launching a big new idea

Did you see this news photo in the Huffington Post? The photograph was taken by Zac Noyle of A-Frame Photo and is the property of the photographer and the photographic company.
Did you see this news photo in the Huffington Post?
The photograph was taken by Zac Noyle of A-Frame Photo
and is the property of the photographer and the photographic company.

We are creatures of habit. Sometimes to our own detriment. I thought about how we are creatures of habit this morning on my run when I came across some rubbish piled at the corner of one street. A few months ago during the cold someone had smashed open dirt bin and made a fire from the rubbish to keep warm. Much later the concrete dirt bin was removed for repair and all that remained was the circle or base in which the dustbin was previously seated. But pedestrians still take their rubbish to the same spot and place it there although there is no dustbin anymore. Continue reading “5 essential questions you need to ask before launching a big new idea”