Title: Thinking outside the
Box
L/O: To identify the main types of
creativity that entrepreneurs use
To explore the process of creative thinking
and consider how creative
you are
What do we mean?
• Thinking creatively means coming up
with an idea that is unique and did
not exist before.
What makes a good business idea?
Good business ideas…
•
•
•
•
•
•
Solve a problem
Offer a better, cheaper way
Simple & practicable
Can be delivered quickly
Have a clear focus
Anticipate trends & exploit
growing markets
TrueCall – an end to
nuisance calls?
Example - Glasses Direct
Entrepreneur: James Murray-Wells
Felt ripped-off by prices charged
by high street opticians
Researched supply-chain
Simplified customer purchase &
lowered price
http://www.glassesdirect.co.uk
/about/story/
Focused on glasses
Focused on e-commerce
Two More Examples
King of Shaves
Entrepreneur: Will King
Will had sensitive skin & was fed up with razor burn during
wet shaving
Girlfriend suggested using oil on skin during shaving – a new
product was born!
http://www.thekingofshavescompany.com/corporate/pages/kos_shaving/KOS_Brand.htm
Green Thumb
Entrepreneur: Stephen Waring
Meet someone at a wedding in the US who ran a lawn
treatment service
Stephen was first into the market with the same idea in the
UK – launched as a franchise
http://www.greenthumb.co.uk/our-history.html
Good ideas need customers
There is no point creating a
product or service unless
someone wants to buy it!
Gap in the
Market
Market in the
Gap?
…but is there a
Good sources of business ideas
• Business experience
– Good way of getting insights into
what works + more realistic business
plan
– Less need for market research
• Personal experience
– Day-to-day activities, interests &
hobbies
– Bad experiences or frustrations
• Observations
– Watching closely what happens to
customers (including in other
markets)
– Look for poor customer service
Remember that
• There are very few original
business ideas. Well-worn ideas
work too, with a fresh approach
• Good ideas rarely come in a
flash - they take time to develop
• The idea doesn’t have to be
yours – you can copy someone
else so long as it is legal
• Good ideas rarely come from
committees!
Creative thinking for business ideas
1.
2.
3.
4.
Blue skies thinking
Lateral thinking
De Bonos Six Hats
Mind-mapping
1. Blue Skies Thinking
• Kind of brainstorming
• No limits in what is suggested and no
preconceptions about what the answer might be
• Encourages contributors to throw in as many
ideas as possible
• Only when the flow of ideas has stopped is
commercial potential considered
• Lets try it....... with the Making St Chads Park
more popular.
• You have 5 minutes.
2. Lateral Thinking
• About reasoning that is not immediately
obvious
• Ideas that may not be obtainable by
using only traditional step-by-step logic
• Sometimes called “thinking outside the
box”
• Tries to come up with new and
unexpected ideas
3. Thinking Hats
Thinking hats (created by De Bono) is a
technique to help focus and organise
ideas.
• There are 6 different coloured hats
• Each hat represents a different style of
thinking
• The hats are ‘put on’ one at a time to
think about a problem
3. De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats
Neutrality
Considering purely what information is available, what are the
facts? Quantitative data on a market (e.g. sales) would be
(white Hat)
considered with this hat on
Feeling
Instinctive gut reaction or statements of emotional feeling (but not
any justification). Many entrepreneurs rely on their instinctive or
(red hat)
gut feel with their business idea
Negative
Logic applied to identifying flaws or barriers, seeking mismatch.
judgement (black The black hat encourages the entrepreneur to think about the
hat)
things that might go wrong with an idea
Positive
Logic applied to identifying benefits. This is the opposite of the
Judgement (yellow black hat – what are all the positives or upsides from the idea.
hat)
What is the best that might happen?
Creative thinking
Statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a
(green hat)
thought goes. This is the hat which encourages lateral thinking.
Process control
Thinking about thinking. The blue hat encourages the
(Blue hat)
entrepreneur to consider and evaluate the ideas coming from the
other five hats!
3. Six Thinking Hats
Lets try it with the
new I-Phone 6
Protecting a business idea
Why protect a business idea?
•
•
•
•
Keep control of intellectual property
Maintain “unique selling point”
Maximise return on investment
Reduce threat of competition
Patents
• Strict rules: process must be
– New
– Innovative
– Capable of industrial application
– Not be excluded (various
categories)
• Key benefits
– Right to take legal action
– Protection for up to 20 years
– Able to licence right to use patent
Trademarks
• Something that identifies a product
– Symbol
– Name
– Logo
• Must be distinctive
• Protection last for 10 years
Copyright
• Important protection for many
industries – e.g. media, design,
publishing
• Protection is automatic for any
original work
• Lasts for 70 years after authors
death
• Can control how copyrighted work
is exploited (e.g. licence, royalties)
• Widely used as a way of protecting
creative work of all kinds
Homework