Keeping it Simple!

Most of us would agree that to have any type of entrepreneurship, it involves the creation of something new. Just consider—entrepreneurial action almost always leads to creating new products or processes, a new market, a new ventures, new channels of distribution or even personal initiatives. Most entrepreneurs think big ideas need to be revolutionary -- that in order to make a lot of money or achieve the kind of success they dream of, they have to come up with a life-changing idea. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Life-changing ideas, like the iPhone, are few and very far between. The reason being, our natural tendency as human beings is to avoid change, especially when it comes to our behaviour. Disrupting an industry can be extremely difficult.

Simple ideas are the easiest to bring to market. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel to create an impactful, lucrative idea. Revolutionary ideas are costly and take a long time to develop, and most people have neither.

The benefit of striving to make improvements on existing products is that one can count on there being a market for the idea. It’s easy enough to come up with creative ideas. But the only way to be sure that consumers will actually pay for the idea is to test it extensively. That’s why it’s helpful to start out innovating in a market that already exists. Simply put, there’s less risk. Looking at things from a different perspective can be highly illuminating.

Examples of the success of simple ideas abound.

Frustrated by one too many soggy pizza deliveries, a gentleman from Mumbai thought of adding vents to the top of a pizza box -- not the sides where they are normally found. Heat is retained but steam is released. No more soggy deliveries. Drawing inspiration from the products around us is one of the most dependable ways to innovate. The next time you find yourself thinking, “I wish this had a better design” try coming up with an improvement yourself.