Each of us has the capacity to spot opportunities, invent products and build businesses – even $100 million businesses.
By Amy Wilkinson (Author, The Creator’s Code)
How does a college dropout build a technology with the potential to revolutionize the healthcare field? How do two cash-strapped San Francisco designers build a breakout sharing-economy business? What makes a University of Maryland football player turn his sweaty problem into a global sports brand?
The unlikely stories of these creators are surprising only because no one has cracked the code that explains how these iconoclasts gain traction to achieve lasting results. Until now. The Creator’s Code is based on interviews with 200 entrepreneurs who have started companies that generate more than $100 million in annual revenue or social enterprises that serve more than 100,000 people.
Some of these creators have started businesses that generate more than $1 billion in revenue every year.
Crisscrossing the country, I spent hours interviewing creators in technology, retail, energy, healthcare, media, mobile applications, biotechnology, real estate, travel and hospitality, working to understand their approach. Across my research, I witnessed individuals turning small notions into big companies time and again.
From the creators who invented online storage provider Dropbox (annual revenue $200 million), fast-casual restaurant chain Chipotle ($3.9 billion), discount airline JetBlue ($5.7 billion), to a myriad of other successful businesses, I found that they achieved entrepreneurial success in much the same way.
Without exception, creators describe their work as doing something much more than achieving financial ambitions – they aim to make a mark on the world. “This generation of technologists thinks about bringing people together to do all sorts of interesting things,” eBay founder Pierre Omidyar told me. “That’s intoxicating and incredibly motivating and creates a stage of human development that is fundamentally new.”
Analyzing nearly 10,000 pages of interview transcripts and more than 5,000 pieces of archival and documentary evidence, I worked to understand how creators, sometimes dismissed as unrealistic dreamers, not only come to disrupt competitors but also to reshape entire industries. The research is based on grounded theory method, widely used in qualitative analysis.
My extensive interviews were recorded and the resulting transcripts combed for common attributes that were coded and then grouped into concepts. These results allowed me to identify the categories that provide the basis for developing the theory of six essential skills that enable the success of every creator.
To test and support my conclusions, I immersed myself in the literature relevant to entrepreneurial endeavor from the fields of organizational behavior, psychology, sociology, entrepreneurship, economics, strategy, decision theory and creativity. I reviewed more than 4,000 pages of academic research, examined hundreds of studies and experiments, and consulted leading scholars.
It was a five-year odyssey that led me to six skills that make creators successful.
Creators are not born with an innate ability to conceive and build $100 million enterprises. They work at it. I found that they all share certain fundamental approaches to the act of creation. The skills that make them successful can be learned, practiced and passed on. Each is the topic of a chapter in my book:
1. Find the Gap
By staying alert, creators spot opportunities that others don’t see. They keep their eyes open for fresh potential, a vacuum to fill or an unmet need.
Creators tend to use one of three distinct techniques: transplanting ideas across divides, designing a new way forward or merging disparate concepts. I characterize creators who master these approaches as Sunbirds, Architects or Integrators.
2. Drive for Daylight
Just as racecar drivers keep their eyes fixed on the road ahead, creators focus on the future, knowing that where they go, their eyes go first.
Creators move too fast to navigate by the confines of their lane or the position of their peers. Instead, they focus on the horizon, scan the edges and avoid nostalgia to set the pace in a fast-moving marketplace.
3. Fly the Ooda Loop
Creators continuously update their assumptions. In rapid succession, they observe, orient, decide and act. Like legendary fighter pilot John Boyd, who pioneered the idea of the “OODA loop,” creators move nimbly from one decision to the next. They master fast-cycle iteration and in short order gain an edge over less agile competitors.
4. Fail Wisely
Creators understand that experiencing a series of small failures is essential to avoiding catastrophic mistakes. In the course of practicing and mastering this skill, they set what I call failure ratios, place small bets to test ideas and develop resilience. They hone the skill to turn setbacks into successes.
5. Network Minds
To solve multifaceted problems, creators bring together the brainpower of diverse individuals through online and offline forums. They harness cognitive diversity to build on each other’s ideas.
To do this, creators design shared spaces, foster flash teams, hold prize competitions and build work-related games. They collaborate with unlikely allies.
6. Gift Small Goods
Creators unleash generosity by helping others, often by sharing information, pitching in to complete a task, or opening opportunities to colleagues. Offering kindness may not seem like a skill, but it is an essential way that creators strengthen relationships. In an increasingly transparent and interconnected world, generosity makes creators more productive.
The six essential skills are not discrete, stand-alone practices. Each feeds the next, creating synergy and momentum.
This excerpt is adapted from THE CREATOR’S CODE: The Six Essential Skills of Extraordinary Entrepreneurs by Amy Wilkinson. Copyright © 2015 by Amy Wilkinson. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Which skills do you admire in other founders and why?
Photo credit: PHOTOCREO Michal Bednarek via Shutterstock.
