The StartUp Lessons from 7 years of Crafitti consulting - the story of Crafitti was the main themewith following lessons (a year later - I must say just reinforced)
IT HAS TO COME FROM WITHIN YOU! – Discover your Passion!
YOU have to define what you are doing!
YOU will become a CATEGORY in someone’s mind! Create your own category!
YOU have to invest time to understand Value to each Customer
Create a system
A system to understand and deliver Value to your clients as soon as possible
Remember Everyone is you customer and you are everyone’s customer – as “Ideas” can come from anywhere
Understand – World, Customers and Business – its your responsibility!
Key messages from three interviews after starting Crafitti was the content on which I built this write up.
....Then, what lessons did you learn from your failures?We
were told many times to get out of the room when we presented our ideas
to potential investors and potential customers. I run a consulting
agency for innovation and meet new start-ups regularly. At that time, I
thought because the professors at the university also consult the
companies, we could approach the professors with our innovation
frameworks. But it did not go smoothly. Personally, I have failed many
times in business and in trying to apply these new methods and
frameworks for innovation. But I have learnt that you can empower people
just by saying good words.
The engineering mind - always will reduce the problem into
smaller more manageable problems while an artist will always try to
construct patterns from observation.
.... before the ideation process - what was the state of your mind -
whether it was more right brained excited or left brain excited will
impact how you solve the problem.
From the age of machines to the age of information, we will be moving to the age of Mind. A rather logical evolution of humanity and human created reality.
Here, I must invoke evolution - and not the survival of the fittest
advocated by popular press and wrongly attributed to Darwin, but,
evolution which we can call "Open Evolution".
The "Open Evolution" and "Unpredictability of Evolution" does not allow
us the luxury of reducing our options of the future. Rather, my
hypothesis is that with integration of Space-Time with Energy-Matter and
now Information, i.e., STEMI, we will be integrating the STEMI with
Mind - an unexpected explosion of creativity that evolution has not yet
seen.
The attempts fail because of a peculiar
propensity to start the attempt NOT with identification of needed change
- assumed that everyone knows and we also know what is needed to be
changed - BUT with How to make "whatever you change or whatever way you change" successful?
I call this Success Anxiety. This anxiety is so
overwhelming that we are blinded to seeing or putting an attempt to find
out what change is needed - "why to change something that anyway is
working?"
I have been writing on LinkedIn since June 2014. I blogged about on this site HERE
On Xmas day 2014 I wrote a post my interview titled Invent Smart. Once can read the post HERE
It was fairly straightforward post and I dont think very different from my previous posts. However, It was picked up by a Linkedin Channel Big Ideas & Innovation
The Black Swan Post
For next two days my linkedin profile exploded to a viewership of more than 5000+. My average readership is about 200+ per post on an average. It was wonderful to get the experience of a real "Black Swan" in my posts. It seems people loved what they read as well.
Adding to my posts on linkedin I wrote couple of more that haven't received explosive response of Invent Strong.
If you are on linkedin, you would have seen the opportunity that LinkedIn provides to publish your writings.
It was there, and I did not know whether to avail or not, since I write this blog, as well as a column on Frontier India , I was hesitant to start.
A late night chat with a friend on facebook resulted in a quick article which I promptly published on linkedin as
CHANGE IS DESIGN - one can read it on linkedin HERE
The response was quick and interesting, I could see how many have viewed the article and how many shares etc.
Since then in less than two weeks I have written 5 more posts (small articles on topics, experiences and views that I have)
Need for changing the Indian IT services companies -
(a) Needed Revolution can be read HERE
(b) What the IT Services Revolution will require can be read in part 2 HERE
How networks help in connecting. The way one can connect utilizing the hidden power of networks is what I have discovered and written as My Mother's Recipe
Then I wrote couple of my personal experiences on how people use certain phrases without actually connecting with the reality. How one can counter those people. You can read it as I want it Yesterday Syndrome
A facebook post led me to write on when should one start on a new idea - or start a new enterprise - and I wrote Soon After, Never.
Overall it has made me spend more time on LinkedIn and also quick publishing and feedback on thoughts and ideas.
