Entrepreneurship is incomplete without ample doses of creativity
This conversation unleashed one of the most memorable taglines in Indian advertising: Bajaj motorcycles’ ‘Hoodie Baba!’. Balki of Lowe India created a phrase out of nothing at all and built it into a brand that phenomenally pushed Bajaj’s sales figures. In this, Balki has a very powerful lesson to teach entrepreneurs: one must take creative risks while building a business.
“Sometimes you just have to do something that makes you feel like a fool. You have to take that chance. Because somewhere a lot of being successful is telling yourself that you are not a fool. You move on with it, even though you know you might fall flat on your face. That’s the only way to do something creative,” Balki says.
What Balki did with his tagline, entrepreneur Prakash Mundhra did with his business idea. He launched a rather unusual product, especially, perhaps, for an MBA from a top institute. Prakash packages ‘Ganga jal’ with other puja items in a neat orange box. His product Blessingz, launched in 2006, brought in revenue of Rs 34 lakh in the first year. Mundhra says he owes his success to the creative edge he enjoys over his competitors.
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But, as Tina Seelig, Executive Director of Stanford Technology Ventures Program explains, the role of creativity in entrepreneurship is not limited to a business idea or a marketing strategy. “Creativity defines the starting point, the middle point and the end point of a venture. You have to be creative while identifying a business opportunity, while building your team, while streamlining your processes. In fact, you even have to be creative while shutting down your company. Creativity is essential for effective problem solving throughout the life-cycle of a company,” Seelig says.
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To Raman Roy, the ‘father of BPOs in India’, creativity is a “survival technique.” “Entrepreneurs need to constantly think out of the box to survive,” stresses Roy, who claims to get his creative kick in finding innovative solutions to client problems and seeing them work.
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Interestingly, the power of creativity is being realized not only by entrepreneurs who have been there and done that, but by aspiring entrepreneurs as well. Entrepreneurship clubs across campuses are experimenting with creative games to help students think differently.
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written by nike dunks low, November 18, 2010
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