Column Chronicles: Steps for innovational business creation

Steps for innovational business creation

Frank Cotolo
May 7, 2015

Several years ago, the word psycho might have conjured up thoughts of bad behavior. Today, it's the same but when you pair the words creative, innovation and economy and leave out psycho when in the business world, it's a way of thinking. As we continue in the 21st century, having no choice but to do so, change is rampant at an rapid pace and rapidly rampant at the least. Change without going psycho can bring us the answer to our dreams.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, businesses run by a single person rose for the third year in a row to 22.7 million in 2012. Some of those single people were married but they got no help from their spouses. Still, sole proprietorships, corporations and partnerships were established without a staff and sometimes without an office or money, which sounds psycho but is the result of innovation.

Here are some tips to help you as you follow your innovation to riches.

1. Have an idea
Filo Martendale was an early investor in companies that became successful when one day he wanted to start his own company. He had always wanted to start his own Internet, so he began to work on starting one. Of course Filo could not start an Internet. There was already a perfectly good Internet. Filo didn't realize that you have to have an idea that no one else has already used for a company.

2. Find a backer
In the 1960s and 1970s, backers of new companies were everywhere. If a person had a good idea to launch a company, he or she would go to Zurich or Madrid or Pretoria or some other country where rich folks hang out and find these people. Then he or she would wine and dine them and before you know it the start-up money was flowing into their hands. But all of those people died or went broke, so today an innovative company has to look harder for rich people to back their businesses. This may mean degrading oneself, begging and being submissive but if you can find creative ways to do those things you are on to something.

3. Work all the time
If you really want to succeed you will have to devote every waking hour to your project. There is no time to waste because even though you may have an original idea, someone somewhere may have the same idea or a friend of yours may have stolen your idea when you weren't looking. So don't waste a moment of time, get to work, eat less, sleep less, forget about your love life and work, work and work some more. Remember that every successfully innovative business sucked the life out of its creator before pumping money into his or her pocket.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.