From the numerous tips found online on creating a viable business concept, one realises that it is key to research and brainstorm in order to find out what is relevant in today’s market to meet customers’ needs. The majority of successful new companies are based on existing ideas, products or services with maybe a tweak or improvement in the offering, thereby creating its appeal in the current market.
And more often than not, it is borne out of a bad customer service experience. However, sometimes it’s far less complicated than that. For example, you could be having breakfast one morning when it dawns on you that the grooves in the waffle iron being used by your wife would be an excellent mould for a running shoe.
This was the case for Nikeco-founder Bill Bowerman in 1971, in a time where he had been searching for a way to make shoes lighter and faster. It’s definitely an odd inspiration, much likehow the special effects designers for Matrix: Revolutions based Machine City on the San Francisco skyline. They drove eight miles out of the city one night and boom, “Wouldn’t it be cool if Machine City looked in part like San Francisco “
Much like the Matrix special effects team, management consultant Richard King found inspiration while watching a movie: Scarface. In one scene, actors Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer are in the glamorous Babylon Club. And while the protagonists sip cocktails, a sultry jazz singer performs for them. King wondered if such a club existed in real-life London.
“I suddenly thought: ‘Theres nowhere in London where you could do that, where pleasure-seeking Londoners could be in a sophisticated setting and enjoy live entertainment of that calibre,” King said. “All the best live entertainment is either in spit-and-sawdust pubs in Camden or the east-end, but theres so many people that would never go to the places where these guys perform.
“I felt there was a real opportunity to bring all this talent together into one show at a stylish and central venue. So, on the back of that, I decided to set up my own company and host my own monthly show featuring a range of performance art, such as burlesque, cabaret, circus, jazz, poetry and comedy.
“Bonobo, the club’s name, refers to an ape found in the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which are renowned for regularly engaging in sex. They also retain many juvenile traits into adulthood. They’re sexy and playful, which is the spirit of our entertainment.”
For Sam Sharma, founder of Rico Logistics, as real-life as his inspiration may be, it still seems rather odd. What is said inspiration you ask Well, apparently its Labour Party’s Neil Kinnock with an angry disposition carrying a bag of compost.
“At the time, 20 years ago, I was managing a Do-It-All store in Ealing when there was a knock on my door,” Sharma said. Standing in front of me was the rather dishevelled leader of the opposition, Kinnock, with a bag of compost on his shoulder. He proceeded to tell me that our delivery policy was atrocious as this was the second time he had to come to the store to collect his compost. It made me think about the whole business of delivery.”
Sharma resigned from Do-It-All soon after to start his own firm.
Scarface and MPs are just two examples of the strange inspiration that entrepreneurs cite for starting their businesses, but to find out more keep reading on.
Kinnock isn’t the only politician to have influenced a business decision. PaulTustain noted that Gordon Brown had a great role to play when it came to conceiving his company.
“Betfairs clever bit is the exchange, which matched buyers and sellers of bets using the internet, instead of needing betting shops on every high street,” he explained. “It duplicated the low cost of wholesale betting, and made it available to retail. I had been looking for a similar industry when Gordon Browndumped 395 tonnes of gold at $280 an ounce, while the price now is $980. When governments start selling public property for doctrinal reasons, it is always sold too cheap. So when Brown dumped our gold, between 1999 and 2002, I began BullionVault.
“In early 2001 gold was so depressed it seemed much smarter for to me to buy gold than to sell it, so I decided to try, and I found that gold had the same expensive retail and cheap wholesale characteristics that betting had. It was what I had been looking for another industry badly in need of an internet-based exchange sitting between the professionals and the private customer.”
And Sophie Baxter’s grand idea started when she was sent a balloon in a box as a gift. Some 18 months later she started bigfatballoons.co.uk from.
Baxter said: When my first baby was born I received an inflated helium balloon in a box that made me go ‘wow’. It was a great gift, unusual, unexpected and cheerful. A few months later, I decided to send a balloon for a friend’s 50th birthday. She absolutely loved it.
“It seemed an instant hit a great gift you could send to anyone, whatever the occasion. At last an idea that made giving and receiving gifts easy, enjoyable and great fun.
But that seems rather normal in comparison to Gary Frank, who claimed to havefounded Fabulous Bakin’ Boys muffin business on the back of a dream, where he was “visited by a tall old chap with a long white beard” who told him he’d make his fortune out of making doughnuts.
As for AskHerFriends.com founder Ben Blomerley, everything was kicked into motion when he decided to buy his girlfriend a worm farm. His logic was: she loved gardening; worms break down compost faster than bacteria; she would appreciate something for her hobby.
He suggested that relationship ended promptly afterwards, but it had ended up giving him an idea. It occurred to him that the mistake he’d made was a common one. Men, he said, thought of the practical uses of buying a gift before buying, whereas women thought first of the emotional value. “My worm farm idea is a standard trap that men fall into. Men can be quite sensitive about gift-giving, they worry about getting it wrong. So to mitigate the risk of getting it wrong they get something practical they know she will find useful.
“The business for me was an outlet. I got into the habit that, when I was talking to friends or colleagues or journalists, telling them to think about the gift they want to buy; are they falling into this trap [like I did]” It’s very cathartic. One guy said, ‘you’re just like Funky Pigeon’. It’s not true. I would be willing to bet quite a lot of money that most of their customers are men. Because men don’t put much value by a card. Women are more likely to do something more handmade.”
And according to Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda, the inspirational force behind its monetary stimulus is Peter Pan!
?I trust that many of you are familiar with the story of Peter Pan, in which it says, the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it ,” he said.
Yes, what we need is a positive attitude and conviction. Indeed, each time central banks have been confronted with a wide range of problems, they have overcome the problems by conceiving new solutions.
According to the Financial Times, his remark is the latest in a series of unusual analogies. The governor has previously compared his policy to a rocket trying to escape the earths gravity.
