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“Release the creative thinker inside you to take your idea and business to success”
How many of us had dreams that we have felt we cannot achieve, ideas we have tried to develop or problems we need to solve but have failed.
With the art of lateral "creative" thinking it is possible to train your mind to cope better and find the solution that you could not see before.
Did you know creative thinking is used by many of the most creative entrepreneurs who have lived in our time, such as Steve Jobs, Richard Brandson and Mark Zuckerberg.
Whether you like them or hate them they all have one thing in common, the ability to use creative thinking to build success in life and their business.
Through this book we go on a journey of discovery to examine those creative thinking traits in successful entrepreneurs and explore how we can use those same skills in our own daily lives to attain our own goals.
Оригинальное название
Lateral "Creative" Thinking for Entrepreneurs
“Release the creative thinker inside you to take your idea and business to success”
How many of us had dreams that we have felt we cannot achieve, ideas we have tried to develop or problems we need to solve but have failed.
With the art of lateral "creative" thinking it is possible to train your mind to cope better and find the solution that you could not see before.
Did you know creative thinking is used by many of the most creative entrepreneurs who have lived in our time, such as Steve Jobs, Richard Brandson and Mark Zuckerberg.
Whether you like them or hate them they all have one thing in common, the ability to use creative thinking to build success in life and their business.
Through this book we go on a journey of discovery to examine those creative thinking traits in successful entrepreneurs and explore how we can use those same skills in our own daily lives to attain our own goals.
“Release the creative thinker inside you to take your idea and business to success”
How many of us had dreams that we have felt we cannot achieve, ideas we have tried to develop or problems we need to solve but have failed.
With the art of lateral "creative" thinking it is possible to train your mind to cope better and find the solution that you could not see before.
Did you know creative thinking is used by many of the most creative entrepreneurs who have lived in our time, such as Steve Jobs, Richard Brandson and Mark Zuckerberg.
Whether you like them or hate them they all have one thing in common, the ability to use creative thinking to build success in life and their business.
Through this book we go on a journey of discovery to examine those creative thinking traits in successful entrepreneurs and explore how we can use those same skills in our own daily lives to attain our own goals.
Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org
Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs
By Richard Santoro
2 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org About the Author Richard Santoro has over 20 years of commercial and financial media experience that spans, sales, marketing, publishing, operations, tech services, web design, development and gaming. He founded his first startup business in London in 2000 at the age of 24, which he ran successfully for 5 years before selling privately to an international media company. Richard has operated in his native city of London and has had extensive Asia and China market experience working in Shanghai from 2005 and then based in Hong Kong since 2008. Richard is also an entrepreneur and been involved with several startups and web-based platforms. Richard has had management positions at Mccann Erickson and Haymarket Media Group. Contents* 1. Introduction 2. Lateral thinking for entrepreneurs 3. Outside your comfort zone 4. How far are you prepared to go 5. Actions outside the box 6. Shape your own future 7. Rejection does not mean failure 8. Planning and preparation 9. Dealing with competitors 10. Building relationships 11. Monetising your life and business 12. Learning and goals 13. Get it right then expand or exit *Note that this book contains only chapter 1, the full 200 page book is due for publication in November 2014
3 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org
lat er al latrl,latrl/Submit adjective 1. of, at, toward, or from the side or sides. "the plant takes up water through its lateral roots"
INTRODUCTION
Starting up on your own and running your own business is a challenge that isn't suitable for everyone. It takes an exceptional person with passion and a certain type of entrepreneurial attitude. Having the right type of attitude is one of the fundamental keys to success as an entrepreneur.
But hang on, there is more to it than just having the right attitude and being passionate about your idea. How about those who have reached a high level of success by thinking differently, finding unique and creative ways to solve a problem or create an innovative new way of doing something that can influence or change peoples life. Those that are successful may be using lateral thinking without even knowing it.
The art of lateral think is nothing new and it involves solving problems in a creative or indirect approach, often using a method of reasoning that is normally not obvious and using ideas that may not be achievable by using a traditional process of logic. The term "lateral thinking" was originally coined by a Maltese Professor of Psychology, named Edward de Bono in the late 60's. His famous method has also been described as "thinking outside the box". Professor de Bono has held faculty appointments at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London and Harvard and is most well known for his ground breaking book, "The Use of Lateral Thinking".
So by now I guess youre thinking, how does lateral thinking apply to me?
4 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org
Lateral thinking for entrepreneurs
Did you know that if you have held down a job before, or taken a job interview, been a student or have been involved in a position that demands your attention and have had to find a way to do something that you are unfamiliar with, then the chances are you may have already used some lateral thinking methods to solve a few problems.
For example I can remember one of my first graduate interviews before I got my first job. It was very stressful and to top it off I was thrown a question that I wasn't prepared for when the interviewer said Can you give us an example of a difficult situation where you had to think laterally to solve it?. Now that was a tricky question for me as I hadn't thought about this in advance, what the interviewer was really asking for was me to show my ability to use my imagination to look at a problem in a fresh way and come up with a fix.
Of course I had been in a few real life situations where I had to solve things creatively and you might have as well, such as:
A deadline you realised you couldn't meet A difficult customer at work Disagreement with a landlord Student organisation you were in that was struggling A team you were on that wasn't doing well, Conflict that needed resolving Needing to find work experience in a profession you are interested in but know nothing about Being lost somewhere, mislaying something essential, or having travel problems Perhaps one of the most important, Running low on cash and needing to come up with a way to make more
These are real life situations that might call for a creative approach and use of lateral thinking to solve. Try to think of some situations you have been in before that were heading for failure until you discovered a different approach that turned the situation around.
5 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org Another good example is if you have been in a small business or even an existing operation that is struggling financially, the first logical solution would be to cut costs. However if you are using lateral thinking you might come up with something completely different, such as crowdfunding online to raise capital or devise a program to boost affiliates or referral sale for your business or product. Approach a contact you have made to seek sponsorship. These days when you read these story's in the media about young entrepreneurs who have won millions of dollars of investment, chances are they have grabbed their investors attention through their powers of lateral thinking.
Without lateral thinking companies would be unable to innovate or create new products and would be in a cycle of churning out the same old stuff. Granted it might be a bit more efficient or a modified but hardly ground breaking or able to lead the way.
Nokia, once the worlds largest cell phone manufacturer whose most noted achievement was introducing the first mass-market mobile handset. However in 2013 Nokia sold off its devices division to Microsoft for $7.2 Billion, a small sum in comparison to the $250 billion it was worth ten years ago. Shake ups do happen and even giants can fall if they cannot compete creatively. Even the most advanced companies can score big then crash and burn if they cannot identify the next big trend or idea in the market. Other examples of this are Research in Motion and their good old Blackberry, Motorola, Friendster, Netscape, Kodak and many others. The problem is this didn't need to happen to the likes of Nokia if they had continued to develop into other products. Of course the biggest contrast to this can be seen from Apple Inc, whose iphone and ipad products have lead the way in both innovation and lateral thinking in both their products, design and applications.
Lateral thinking is highly prized skill set that is applied in creative industries such as media, publishing and technology. But did you know its also used across other industries and professions such as law, management consulting, retail and Information Technology.
Most graduates who decide to take up management position is likely to leverage upon lateral thinking skills to solve problems and lead a team. Lateral thinking can also be professionally assessed using psychometric testing. So to recap on this section, using your ability to think laterally will enable you to:
1. Think in an innovative way 2. Be capable of using a creative solution to solve a problem 3. Overcome difficulty's when an answer is not immediately obvious 4. Do things differently from how they have been done before 5. Find a way to cope in a situation you have never experienced before.
6 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org Typically entrepreneurs are self reliant and use their own creativity to produce wealth and income streams. Hover the modern young entrepreneurs of today go that bit extra. Many of these new, hungry young breed are the type of people who are able to use creativity to unlock the wealth and potential that already lies within themselves.
They are able to create value not just in physical products but in intangible assets such as intellectual property, brand, reputation and network. These entrepreneurs are adept at creating a personal brand and projecting the desired image both online and offline. They also understand use of Intellectual property, copyrights, patents, trademarks and licences in-order to maximize the full potential of their ideas. Whats more, the lateral thinking entrepreneur is not a freelancer.
Freelancers take on paid work for clients and earn their living doing jobs for others. The work is normally charged by the day, hour or on a project basis. Freelancers think about getting more work, but lateral thinking entrepreneurs think in terms of crating opportunities, delivering results and making profits. This enables them to develop, create and invent systems and business that generate wealth and free up their time for their next winning idea.
Jeff's story
There was a young designer who at high school only wanted to draw pictures. He was into graffiti, spray painting and air brush art. When he was 15 his dad cleared out a corner of the garage and gave him a space to use for his studio. Jeff spent most of his time here practicing and building up his book of designs. During college he went on to study graphic design and after graduation ended up working at a creative agency.
Whilst his job was good and he was making money from work and also some freelance gigs from friends - he wasn't satisfied with "designing to order" for other people. He began licensing some of his designs out to sports, music and urban street-wear clothing companies. Jeffs' income and level of satisfaction significantly began to increase.
Jeff began to diversify into other areas of media and took on staff to help him. Even today he still designs all the original artwork for his designs, before his staff "reformat" them for licensed products including T-shirts, Mugs, animated movies, skateboards and websites. Jeff became so successful he even launched a magazine that became a leader in his industry.
Now had Jeff continued on as freelancer, he surely would have had a comfortable career. But he decided to become an entrepreneur, licensing out his art and building his business around it. 7 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org Jeff's earning potential is unlimited and his artwork touches thousands of peoples lives, he has the freedom to choose his own path and has reached the highest levels of success being a lateral thinking entrepreneur. But Jeff's story is not unique, there are many others who are out there using the power of lateral thinking to transform their life, become financially independent and reach all their goals. If you believe in yourself and adapt your thinking you can achieve this to.
These days everyone is an entrepreneur
I remember after I quit my stable job of 4 years to join my second startup business with my partners, and thinking to myself that the steady job market and predictable career path have become relics of the old world society. Working in the financial sector within the publishing and data industry I had already seen the fallout from the major global financial crisis of 2008 that had brought down nations and some of the biggest banks in the world with the likes of Lehman Brothers who went bankrupt when on September 15, 2008, the firm filed for Chapter 11. This firmly initiated a way of thinking for me that the only security lies in taking an entrepreneurial approach to my own career. To move forward by taking responsibility to develop my own skills further, build up my network and reputation, therefore create opportunists for myself.
Don't get me wrong, taking up a regular job can be a terrific learning experience and huge investment in your future, but these days you cant assume its going to last forever. In my case as expat living and working in Hong Kong its even more high risk as we are often seen as transient expendables in the local employment economy.
Now if you are one of those clever entrepreneurs who values their independence and always seems to have a couple of side projects on the go, you will probably get board of your full time job and have moved on well before you get made redundant. That blog that you have been writing in the evenings has began to grow legs, as well as lading you a book deal your about to close it has put you in touch with collaborators across the globe. Youre now convinced you are on the verge of making it big time, but you are going to need a lot more than dreams to ensure success.
Many young and old hopefuls alike, are out claiming to be an entrepreneur or serial entrepreneur, startup expert or onto the next big thing. But In actual fact there is an awful lot of clutter out there, indeed there are some very talented people who genuinely are in the 99th percentile and will achieve huge success with their entrepreneurship, but the warnings still keep coming. Have you ever heard the statistics that that between 75-90 percent of all startups fail, or that 3 out of 4 new startups shut up shop after the first year of business, but for all the doom and gloom, for those talented few this wont happen and they will be on their way to bright future with their new business. 8 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org
There is a great article that was published on Forbes website, written by seasoned entrepreneur Eric Wagner, Eric said that the 7 traits of incredibly successful entrepreneurs were:
1. Abounding Curiosity 2. Bursting with Creativity 3. Clarity of Vision 4. Ability to Communicate 5. Leadership Acumen 6. Loving Risk and Taking Action 7. Tenacious Beyond Belief
The cool thing about this is that most of these traits also define lateral thinking entrepreneurs. Which is great for all of us who aspire to be more creative in our own approaches to success and problem solving.
Just like the rest of us, some of the most successful entrepreneurs have also faced challenges and difficulty along the way but have used examples of lateral thinking in their strategy's to overcome their problems. I have pulled out a few quotes from several successful startup founders that really highlight this:
As we are now in the new entrepreneur economy, its easy to take for granted that everyone should be jumping on the entrepreneurship band wagon, scheduling brainstorming sessions and launching kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns, but the reality is that's how you make your start.
Mashable Founder Pete Cashmore "You need space to try things and create. It takes a long time to recalibrate if you let people pull at you all the time. A lot of stress comes from reacting to stuff. You have to keep a certain guard [up], if you're a creative person.
9 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org Sir Richard Branson "Dont think what's the cheapest way to do it... think whats the most amazing way to do it"
Caterina Fake, Co-founder, Flickr "So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard."
Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldnt be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesnt know that so it goes on flying anyway. Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics
Gurbaksh Chahal, Serial Entrepreneur and RadiumOne Founder "Many [business] people focus on what is static, black and white. Yet great algorithms can be rewritten. A business process can be defined better. A business model can be copied. But the speed of execution is dynamic within you and can never be copied. When you have an idea, figure out the pieces you need quickly, go to market, believe in it, and continue to iterate."
Evan Williams, Co-Founder, Twitter Be a user of your own product. Make it better based on your own desires. But dont trick yourself into thinking you are the user.
Realistic Lateral Thinking Puzzles and Training Your Mind
Now I have talked about lateral thinking so here are some brain teasers that will get you started with training your brain how to think creatively to solve problems.
These lateral thinking puzzles are inexact, in a sense they are a mixture between puzzles and storytelling. In each puzzle, some clues to a scenario are offered, however the clues wont give you the full story. Its your task to fill in the details and complete the story with the right answer.
10 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org Have a go at these on your own first, or to make it more interesting try solving them with your peers, colleagues or friends. Perhaps after you have figured out the answers or read the solutions then try testing your friends to see how they perform. Solutions are at the end.
1. There is a man who lives on the top floor of a very tall building. Everyday he gets the elevator down to the ground floor to leave the building to go to work.
Upon returning from work though, he can only travel half way up in the lift and has to walk the rest of the way unless it's raining! Why?
2. A man and his son are in a car accident. The father dies on the scene, but the child is rushed to the hospital. When he arrives the surgeon says, "I can't operate on this boy, he is my son! " How can this be?
3. A man is wearing black. Black shoes, socks, trousers, jumper, gloves and balaclava. He is walking down a black street with all the street lamps off. A black car is coming towards him with its light off but somehow manages to stop in time. How did the driver see the man?
4. Why is it better to have round manhole covers than square ones? This is logical rather than lateral, but it is a good puzzle that can be solved by lateral thinking techniques. It is supposedly used by a very well-known software company as an interview question for prospective employees 11 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org
5. A man went to a party and drank some of the punch. He then left early. Everyone else at the party who drank the punch subsequently died of poisoning. Why did the man not die?
6. A man walks into a bar and asks the barman for a glass of water. The barman pulls out a gun and points it at the man. The man says 'Thank you' and walks out.
(This puzzle is one of the best in the genre. It is simple in its statement, absolutely baffling and yet with a completely satisfying solution. Most people struggle very hard to solve this one yet they like the answer when they hear it or have the satisfaction of figuring it out.)
7. You are driving down the road in your car on a wild, stormy night, when you pass by a bus stop and you see three people waiting for the bus:
i) An old lady who looks as if she is about to die. ii) An old friend who once saved your life. iii) The perfect partner you have been dreaming about.
Knowing that there can only be one passenger in your car, whom would you choose?
8. Acting on an anonymous phone call, the police raid a house to arrest a suspected murderer. They don't know what he looks like but they know his name is John and that he is inside the house. The police bust in on a carpenter, a lorry driver, a mechanic and a fireman all playing poker. Without hesitation or communication of any kind, they immediately arrest the fireman. How do they know they've got their man?
12 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org 9. How could you fall out of a twenty-story building onto the ground and live?
10. Bad Boy Bubby was warned by his mother never to open the cellar door or he would see things that he was not meant to see. One day while his mother was out he did open the cellar door. What did he see?
11. There are six eggs in the basket. Six people each take one of the eggs. How can it be that one egg is left in the basket?
SOLUTIONS
1. The man is very, very short and can only reach halfway up the elevator buttons. However, if it is raining then he will have his umbrella with him and can press the higher buttons with it.
2. The surgeon was his mother
3. It was day time.
4. A square manhole cover can be turned and dropped down the diagonal of the manhole. A round manhole cannot be dropped down the manhole. So for safety and practicality, all manhole covers should be round.
5. The poison in the punch came from the ice cubes. When the man drank the punch, the ice was fully frozen. Gradually it melted, poisoning the punch.
6. The man had hiccups. The barman recognized this from his speech and drew the gun in order to give him a shock. It worked and cured the hiccups-so the man no longer needed the water.
7. The old lady of course! After helping the old lady into the car, you can give your keys to your friend, and wait with your perfect partner for the bus.
13 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org 8. The fireman is the only man in the room. The rest of the poker players are women.
9. You fell out of a ground floor window.
10. When Bad Boy Bubby opened the cellar door he saw the living room and, through its windows, the garden. He had never seen these before because his mother had kept him in the cellar all his life.
11. The last person took the basket with the last egg still inside.
I hope you had fun with these and are starting to get the idea of how you can use your brain and way of thinking to solve problems.
Why are entrepreneurs big thinkers?
Thinking is the most important thing you are able to do, the power of thought defines who you are and what you do. It's what inspires you to achieve your goals and ambitions. You do it daily so why shouldn't you get better at doing it. Take a minute to think how vital it is for solving problems, planning, dealing with stress and responding to situations generally, however we spend far to little time using it as a skill. But that's what it is, just like drawing a picture, flying plane or riding a bike, and we can improve at these things if we put effort and practice into them. Doing any of these activities can seem alien, awkward or even unnatural at first, but after we have learned they can become useful and very easy.
Technology is nothing without humans to build it, in the same way that a computer is useless without software or an operating system to run on it. Our human brain is a terrific memory mechanism which can be programmed into a thinking machine. Like a computer you also need "software" to do this. These are skills that can be learned just like installing software, you can teach your mind how to think in a certain dynamic.
So how do entrepreneurs use these key actionable dynamics and what are they?
14 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org 1 - Present situation and future goals, what am I doing and where do I need to get to?
2 - Perception and assessment, analysing a situation from what is available to you
3 - Creating outcome, setting up new ideas and alternatives
4 - Decision making, choosing from options, reducing selection to a line of action
5 - Moving forward and putting thought into action
Practicing how to focus on these areas of your work, business or general life goals is vital in making the transition to becoming a lateral thinking entrepreneur.
How lateral thinking is used by entrepreneurs in real life situations
Several fresh graduates who were trying to find jobs using a number of innovative ways of getting the selectors attention. One for example enclosed a teabag, so that the selector could take a break with a cup of tea before reading his resume.
Another graduate who was trying to get into investment banking industry, with little success and who had exhausted all of the standard options came up with a fresh idea as a last resort. He had 100 postcard sized copies of his resume printed. He then went around City of London's "square mile", which is the financial district where many of the banks are located. He then proceeded to place once of his resume's under every top of the range Mercedes, BMW and Rolls Royce he could find. The following day he had had several phone calls with senior executives offering him interviews.
A student decided she wanted to intern as a trainee journalist for a local newspaper. She did some research and carefully analysed the content of the newspaper and compared it with other competing local papers. She conducted a small field study of readers' opinions on the paper by interviewing passers-by in the city centre. Using the results of her research, she drafted a list of potential changes to the paper, wrote a sample article to demonstrate what she had in mind and sent these to the editor. The following week the editor invited her to meet and discuss her suggestions - they had a positive discussion and shortly after she was hired. 15 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org
One New York based graduate who had decided he wanted to work at a 4A leading advertising agency Googled the names of the creative directors of the agencies and then spent just six dollars on a set of Google ads that were triggered when the directors searched for their own names. he adverts said "Hey, (creative directors name), Googling yourself is a lot of fun. Hiring me is fun, too" Of the five directors he targeted, four gave him an interview and two offered him a job. Here is the link to the youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FRwCs99DWg
The chocolate bar resume. A job hunter made his own resume as the wrapper for a chocolate bar. It turned out to be very popular with recruiters and was even featured on CNBC's website, you can take a look here www.cnbc.com/id/100482311
Through all these cases we can see young entrepreneurs who are using the power of lateral "Creative thinking" to solve a problem, or find a solution to achieving a goal.
The purpose of using the lateral approach in entrepreneurism is to allow you to cut through patterns to find new ideas. Just as with any creative approach, your ideas must be valuable and logical after they are developed. There are in fact formal courses and training that you can take, these specific programs are designed to enable you to p[practice these techniques to hone your skills. However hopefully by the time you have read this book, you will have gained some powerful tools and tips to help you to think like a successful creative entrepreneur.
In addition when a new idea is required in a specific area of your business, study work or project, you can train yourself to switch on your 'lateral thinking mode' and then use your new creative skills. However don't just use creative thinking to solve problems, you will need to use it to generate new concepts otherwise you will miss out on new opportunities.
As an entrepreneur you will need to use creative thinking after you have started your business or had your big idea moment.
Most budding entrepreneurs believe that the first idea they come up with or their first main business concept requires the most amount of creative thinking to get it off the ground. Seasoned entrepreneurs will know that the the initial concept or idea is the easy part, its the follow up and implementation that often requires the most creative and lateral thinking process. There are dozens of challenges to consider especially if your idea is in a competitive market. 16 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org
The reality is a balancing act between creative and logic process, starting and running your business or launching your idea will require a lot of analytical and logic processing. Whilst reading up on these things myself I discovered a book called creative Thinkering by Michael Michalko. which gives some good insights into using creative thought applied to both business and personal environments and I also found another great article on Forbes website published by Martin Zwilling. Martin also was influenced by Michalko's book and in his article offered the following recommendations on how to nurture and build your creative business capabilities:
Look for familiar patterns in unrelated subjects
Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change
Think the unthinkable
Intention is the seed of creative thinking
Change the way you speak, and you change the way you think
You become what you pretend to be
You cannot make a new idea just pop up out of the blue or a product build itself, but you can train your brain and imagination to blend and process different concepts into new and original ideas.
Lets end this chapter with a few crazy startup ideas that are great examples of creative thinking.
17 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org
Jafflechutes
A toasted cheese sandwich delivery firm using mini parachutes. In what may be one of the craziest (and most fun) ventures to date, the team behind Jafflechutes are taking a love of melted cheese to a whole new level in some cases seven floors up. They plan to drop in on New York City very soon. Those who pre-order can nominate the time theyd like to receive jaffles (aka: toasted sandwiches) and will receive instructions about where to go to await their special delivery
Grilled Cheesus
Who can forget this weird and wonderful campaign from Kickstarter, circa Dec 2011? The team behind it crowdfunded to create a GRILLED CHEESUS, an electronic sandwich press that toasts the face of Jesus onto your sandwich bread! Great for anyone who loves cheese, religion, or simply enjoys a clever pun! (Source: Kickstarter)
Gnome & Bow: Storytelling Bags
A bag that tells stories whod be keen on that? A lot of people it seems. These concept- driven mens fashion bags and accessories from Singapore have already received over $20k in pledges to crowdfund thier business. Not bad for a first-time crowdfunder! And if youre wondering how the bags tell stories? Each has its own unique story embedded into the them, i.e. zips that will forever tell the story of the hare and the tortoise.
It is possible to create a good startup with a good idea, but great startups are often the result of ideas that would have seemed ridiculous if you had heard them prior to seeing them working.
Ask yourself, if you were a venture capitalist pitched one of these ideas, what would your reaction have been?
And when these now mainstream success stories fist started up who in their right mind would have thought they would have made it. 18 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org
Facebook the world needs yet another Myspace or Friendster, except several years late. Well only open it up to a few thousand overworked, anti-social, Ivy Leaguers. Everyone else will then join since Harvard students are so cool.
Dropbox we are going to build a file sharing and syncing solution when the market has a dozen of them that no one uses, supported by big companies like Microsoft. It will only do one thing well, and youll have to move all of your content to use it.
Amazon - well sell books online, even though users are still scared to use credit cards on the web. Their shipping costs will eat up any money they save. Theyll do it for the convenience, even though they have to wait a week for the book.
Virgin Atlantic airlines are cool. Lets start one. How hard could it be? Well differentiate with a funny safety video and by not being miserable.
Mint - give us all of your bank, brokerage, and credit card information. Well give it back to you with nice fonts. To make you feel richer, well make them green.
Palantir well build arcane analytics software, put the company in California, hire a bunch of new college grad engineers, many of them immigrants, hire no sales reps, and close giant deals with D.C.-based defence and intelligence agencies
Craigslist it will be ugly. It will be free. Except for the hookers.
iOS a brand new operating system that doesnt run a single one of the millions of applications that have been developed for Mac OS, Windows, or Linux. Only Apple can build apps for it. It wont have cut and paste.
Google we are building the worlds 20th search engine at a time when most of the others have been abandoned as being commoditised money losers. Well strip out all of the ad- supported news and portal features so you wont be distracted from using the free search stuff. (and then put it back in later)
19 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org Github software engineers will pay monthly fees for the rest of their lives in order to create free software out of other free software!
PayPal people will use their insecure AOL and Yahoo email addresses to pay each other real money, backed by a non-bank with a cute name run by 20-somethings.
Paperless Post we are like Evite, except you pay us. All of your friends will know that you are an idiot.
Instagram filters! Thats right, we got filters!
LinkedIn how about a professional social network, aimed at busy 30- and 40-somethings. They will use it once every 5 years when they go job searching.
Tesla instead of just building batteries and selling them to Detroit, we are going to build our own cars from scratch plus own the distribution network. During a recession and a cleantech backlash.
SpaceX if NASA can do it, so can we! It aint rocket science.
Firefox we are going to build a better web browser, even though 90% of the worlds computers already have a free one built in. One guy will do most of the work.
Twitter it is like email, SMS, or RSS. Except it does a lot less. It will be used mostly by geeks at first, followed by Britney Spears and Charlie Sheen.
Out of the box http://www.wikihow.com/Think-'Outside-of-the-Box'
20 Lateral Thinking for Entrepreneurs 2014 Richard Santoro - www.entrepreneur-ideas.org
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