What Made These Amazing Companies So Disruptive? They All Built Platforms
Consider the companies: Google, Amazon, Uber, Airbnb, and eBay—is that they aren’t focused on selling products, they are building platforms. Also: Walmart, Microsoft, Nike, John Deere, and GE.
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t…. You are right.” — Henry Ford
All great things begin with a vision…. a dream — Estée Lauder
“When I thought I couldn’t go on, I forced myself to keep going. My success is based on persistence, not luck.” — Estée Lauder
“Inventors must be poets so that they may have imagination.” — Thomas Edison
Sometimes we are just stuck. Organizations and companies at some stage need a paradigm breakthrough. What is that next thing to move on to…. I can be difficult, but think it can happen and be very valuable.
Sometimes we grow by new things, sometimes we are just too scared to make a change. Hard to know how to take care of the user at every stage. Creative marketing and creative thinking is needed at every stage. Be more user-centric.
Yes a paradigm breakthrough is needed.
My quick thoughts:
It is hard for an east coast culture to build a billion dollar tech company. (but not impossible) They think too much financial and not what would users want and fun to build.
Some people are great managers, but don’t know how to take a company to the next level. We all have our place.
Like Steve Jobs, in marketing use 5th to 6th grade language with three simple points. In many campaigns one has only about 2-4 seconds to capture attention. People make purchase decisions based on EMOTION, not logic. So how does the campaign “FEEL“.
Priest Lake, Idaho
Many top CEO’s from General Electric to Walmart to Army generals have these “gut” feelings about things, sometimes called “seeing around the corner”. Is it real or fake. Most of the time they seem correct in hindsight. I understand that psychologists have studied this and came to the conclusion that the sub-conscious brain is looking at trends, data, past history, competition, user complaints and finances and coming up with certain predictions. It usually comes as a feeling, but if ones takes time to think about it the data is also available.
For example a CEO may say: “that marketing campaign is wrong”, maybe a correct feeling, but why. Maybe it does not connect with users, too wordy, wrong words or just boring.
Here is a reference: When to trust your gut feeling by Jack Welch (General Electric)
Also look at these quotes from BrainyQuote.
Tenacious – a great word to describe how one needs to just keep going. Don’t give up on a great idea. Some creative business ideas just do not take off because the visionary gave up too soon.
Qualities of Successful Creative Thinkers and Entrepreneurs – This is Creativity blog number 2
Creativity in business is not new. It has been around a long time. In fact, any enterprise to be successful requires a bit of creativity, whether it be creativity in product design, in marketing approach or in distribution. Nowadays, creativity is considered to be the paramount quality desirable for a leadership role in the business world. And the reason is not hard to fathom – with greater advances in technology, the marketplace is inundated with products. Therefore, an enterprise needs to be creative in its products as well as marketing strategies so that it can carve a niche for itself.
According to a recent Gallup study, highly creative entrepreneurs are rule breakers who don’t like to conform to the norms and traditions of the industry. Keeping the rules is sometimes verses creativity. They look to be creative so that they can forge new paths beyond the present and sculpt a future that lies beyond the obvious. They use novel methods whether they are introducing new products or services, moving into new markets or developing new production processes. They not only use creative thought to develop new ideas and methodologies but use innovation in presenting older ideas in a newer space.
Beauty helps us in creativity
Creative entrepreneurs have their finger on the pulse of the industry – they are fully conversant with the opportunities and threats to their ideas and are aware of the larger economic scene – and hence are able to take advantage of the gaps and be the pioneers in their chosen fields. Creative entrepreneurs are always reading, learning and considering many things even outside their primary area.
The essence of creativity is innovation and the creative business people understand this well. Herein lies the greatest and the simplest truth of business leadership– an invention that is just creative may not be innovative, but the invention that is both creative and useful will be innovation – and the successful entrepreneurs understand this tenet extremely well.
There are certain limitations that these creative individuals have to guard against to remain in a leadership position. They have to constantly innovate – they cannot just sit on one innovation and let it run its course. They have to launch their product, gather feedback and improve, and this cycle has to go on. The creativity also has to be balanced by efficiency and industry. An entrepreneur cannot let efficiency be marred by creativity or vice versa. They have to run hand-in-hand for a successful business. Their failures have to be learning experiences. Risk taking, knowledge gathering and independent thought are a few other assets of successful creative thinkers and they allow them to produce better technologies and remain in the forefront of their business.
Ok, there is a lot in this article, any comments?