As venture designers we are always rooting for brave and bold entrepreneurs who are embarking on their new business, trying to solve a problem or thinking the new. The world has become better, simpler and more delightful owing to this brave, intrepid tribe of founders and innovators. And we need more of them. The world needs more of them.
Reimagining, thinking the new, acting upon ideas and giving them life and business legs make and remake the world every minute. Making it better and more delightful.
So what can help reimagine? What can spur new ventures?
Disruption rarely occurs in warm waters.
Start with the status quo. What keeps us warm and comfortable often prevents us from thinking the new.
This is possible if more and more people, start thinking about and questioning the status quo, the "what is" and look at ways in which they can make the state of things better.
Thinking about how they can solve persistent problems both obvious and non-obvious in a new way. The biggest handicap that prevents this from happening is either a blind spot or being comfortable with the way things are.
Familiarity they say breeds contempt. And we say, also blind spots.
In the world of business, familiarity with a subject also breeds blind-spots and contempt for likely disruptions. At the work place, when often we are in the midst of time tested, regulation processes, routine work and data, we are either so close to it, inside it or so dulled by it, that we develop blind spots. This lulls many into believing that status quo would be maintained and industry leaders would continue to be invincible in the marketplace.
These blind spots can be detrimental to innovation and imagining the new. And often oblivious to dramatic challengers emerging.
Here are 3 possible ways through which one could sight a new venture. They would foster a culture of innovation.
1. Spotting the blip.
Discontent is an opportunity for smart entrepreneurs. Some of the most invaluable insights lie camouflaged in plain sight for its most obvious audiences. To notice aberrations or patterns behind the data, simmering problems below the surface is what holds the key to innovations and breakthrough work.
The blip could be an underserved set of users, customers. It could be an unmet need. It could be a crack in the system that existing players or management have been oblivious to and if mended could be a significant revenue generator.
Such unmet needs and pools of under-served customers have led to the birth of businesses like the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company. Madam Walker is recorded in history as the first self -made lady millionaire in the United States. She made her fortune by developing and marketing a line of cosmetics and hair care products for black women who were underserved by the businesses, then.
North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company was started by a group of black social leaders who put together their own funds to create an insurance company for the underserved African-American community.
Angela Samuels reimagined the fashion world by seeing a blip in the industry where retailers cater to women, traditional sized 0-10. Having been a successful plus-size fashion model, and with degrees in child and youth care, she founded the Toronto based Voluptuous Clothing, a thriving plus-size online clothing store brand. All of this when she was just 23. The opportunity was as much around fashion as it was about the sheer impact of positive self esteem that her brand offered under-served customers in the market.
Apple moved in to address the differentiated needs of the design conscious users who thought and expressed themselves visually and were uninspired by Windows. The rest is history. Fred Smith wondered why letters couldn’t be delivered overnight when he conceived FedEx. Blips and the ability to notice them matters.
2. Joining the dots.
The ability to connect the dots as they say - to connect seemingly discrete, unrelated strings of data and information or insights throws up fascinating opportunities. These could be social data points or statistics, consumer trends, technology waves, financial behavior or platform adoption.
Uber literally might have joined the dots between (a) customers seeking instant on-demand mobility, (b) easing vehicle leases, (c) desired independence of cab owners and the (d) general urban nightmare of owning a car that both goes obsolete and is a pain to park in busy cities. What you as an entrepreneur offer as a solution, would be a unique way to string all these dots together. That is the unique ability of a founder, entrepreneur. Today Uber serves 633 cities and has been valued at over $70 billion.
So do we often take out time to join seemingly disparate information and insights across social, political, behavioral, technological and regulatory changes? If we cultivate this habit, one would see patterns forming that would hold the possibilities of new ventures.
3. Stretching the line.
Extrapolating refers to taking a piece of insight and extrapolating possibilities from it. This could be an observed trend in society, behavioral change amongst consumers, a successful model in action, which is spotted by someone who can extrapolate possibilities in a different context or area. It is the ability to sight a trend and having the stretch vision to see its implications in a completely different market. Hence, you might not disrupt, if you continue to think like the industry. Bento boxes, Complan and many such brands thrived with extrapolated markets and audiences.
Examples of modular builds or rapid assembly slowly making their way into industries like housing and hotels and phone manufacturing (an ambitious project by Google called ARA where the buyer could put together components that mattered to her/him in a phone) are later instances where possibilities were extrapolated by founders.
Another very interesting example has been the rise of the design counterpart of Apple in the Android world i.e. One Plus. It is possibly the only cult that exists in the android phone world (we do hope Samsung fanboys don't take offence).
They are deeply inspired by what Apple does. From top spec phones that launch online directly cutting off leakages in margins and ensuring better prices for customers, design & packaging sensibilities that are progressive, original features and material advancements, the clean and slick Oxygen UI (that has been the smoothest version of android), update supports that are guaranteed for 2-3 years and an inventive developer community have seen this mid range brand slowly climb the premium scale and popularity charts. This is the Apple of the Android world. How long they retain that mantle, what with the merger of the Color OS, remains to be seen.
For all the three routes mentioned above, a fresh pair of lenses and an open mind are pre-conditions.
Closed minds and insular attitudes can shut off possibilities. To spot the unusual in the usual often needs outsiders or a fresh pair of eyes and ears i.e. a bit of an outsider's mentality. And most of all, an open mind that is willing to consider the unobvious. An outsider often is more curious. More atypical.
Design doers and design thinkers use the method of inside - out i.e. adopting the true insider's role, getting into the user journey, anthropology and mindset of users and customers to unravel what opportunity lies to make the customer's life simpler, better and more productive. After all innovation is the new, improved normal that comes to life when adopted by the user/s.
Role of venture design in helping your business reimagine the new.
Venture design teams could be extremely useful for businesses and budding founders in co-ideating, co-creating and designing new ventures. The outside in thinking which an interdisciplinary team brings is conducive for innovations and blue oceans.
Today for large corporate houses, and businesses, agility is the most valuable currency. If as a business you are not imagining and acting upon threats to your normal yourself, someone else will be conceiving ventures and ideas that will simply disrupt you out of the market. Corporate venture development and co-creation with venture design pools can be a smarter and faster way to carve newer roads to growth and profitability. As also to out-think challengers.
We would love to see businesses and creators get more adventurous with more delightful products, services and experiences. We would love to see them experiment a lot more. For that precedes better futures. For everyone – for people, for business, for creators and ideators.