Entrepreneurship

Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Tuan Nguyen, PhD
Ideas – Innovation - Entrepreneurship

Ideas Entrepreneurship
Innovation
Connecting dots Customer validation
Product development
Creativity Prototyping Business modelling
Day dreaming Value Creating Venture building
Envisioning Making Scalability
Thinking Problem solving Repeatability
Studying Designing Discovering
Extrapolating Building
Experimenting
Iterating
Tinkering Iterating
Refining
Inventing Customer serving
Creative Problem-Solving Methods

▪ A Stanford University study found that walking improves creative thinking.

When you launch an entrepreneurial journey and set out to innovate and
create, or when you hit a sticking point that requires a creative solution, it
may be time to take a walk. Better yet, if you can find a friend, walk and talk.
It might energize your creativity and lead to innovation and, possibly, to
invention.
Creative Problem-Solving Methods
Creative Problem-Solving Methods

▪ The first ideation practice comes from Stanford’s Design School. The
objective is to generate as many ideas as possible and start to develop some
of those ideas. This practice is the quintessential design thinking practice, or
human-centric design thinking exercise, and it consists of five parts:
accessing and expressing empathy, defining the problem, ideating solutions
(brainstorming), prototyping, and testing
Creative Problem-Solving Methods

▪ Empathy is the human ability to feel what other humans are feeling, which in the
context of creativity, innovation, and invention is essential to beginning a process
of human-centric design.
▪ Practicing empathy enables us to relate to people and see the problem through
the eyes and feelings of those who experience it.
▪ By expressing empathy, you can begin to understand many facets of a problem
and start to think about all of the forces you will need to bring to bear on it.
▪ From empathy comes the ability to proceed to the second step, defining the
problem. Defining the problem must be based on honest, rational, and
emotional observation for human-centric design to work.
▪ Third in the process is brainstorming solutions.
▪ Designing for other people means building a prototype
▪ the fourth step—and to test it.
▪ Once you apply this process to developing a product or service, you need to
return to the empathetic mindset to examine whether you have reached a viable
solution and, thus, an opportunity.
Creative Problem-Solving Methods

▪ The Six Thinking Hats method: encouraging thought by limiting the mindset of
those involved in the game.
▪ Being encouraged to embody one mode of thinking frees you from considering
other aspects of a problem that can limit creativity when you are looking for a
solution.

▪ White Hat: acts as information gatherer by conducting research and bringing

quantitative analysis to the discussion; sticks to the facts
▪ Red Hat: brings raw emotion to the mix and offers sensibilities without having to
justify them
▪ Black Hat: employs logic and caution; warns participants about institutional
limitations; also known as the “devil’s advocate”
Creative Problem-Solving Methods

▪ Yellow Hat: brings the “logical positive” of optimism to the group;

encourages solving small and large problems
▪ Green Hat: thinks creatively; introduces change and provokes other
members when needed; new ideas are the purview of the Green Hat
▪ Blue Hat: maintains the broader structure of the discussion and may set the
terms by which progress will be judged; makes sure the other hats play by
the rules, or stay in their respective lanes, so to speak

By being responsible for only one mode of thinking, each participant can fully advocate for
that point of view and can think deeply about that particular aspect of the solution. Thus,
the group can be deeply creative, deeply logical, deeply optimistic, and deeply critical.
Creative Problem-Solving Methods

▪ The “statement starters” method asks “How might we ________?” or “What

if we ________?” in order to open up new possibilities when you seem to
have reached the limits of creativity.
▪ Statement starters assume that, at least, there might be a solution to every
problem.
▪ Creating a list of statement starters can help entrepreneurs examine
different possibilities by simply adopting different points of view when
asking questions.
▪ For example, the question, “How might we keep rivers clean?” is similar to
the question, “How might we prevent animal waste runoff from entering our
city’s waterways?” but the implications of each question are different for
different stakeholders.

Stakeholders: a large group that includes all those people and organizations with a
vested interest in the business.
Shareholders: a small group who are the owners (or stockholders)
Matching Innovation Methods to Circumstances

• Innovation refers both to the output and the process of arriving at a

technically feasible solution to a problem triggered by a technological
opportunity or customer need. Innovation process is driven by the
exchange of technical, market, and other environmental information in the
face of a high degree of uncertainty. Innovations are new ways to achieve
tasks.
• Product innovation: results in new or improved products. An example of
this might be a new type of razor blade that is sharper and lasts longer
than previous blades.
Matching Innovation Methods to Circumstances

• Process innovation: occurs when the manufacturing processes are

improved to make the production of existing products cheaper, or when
new processes are developed specifically for making a new or improved
product. The process of innovations can also be classified as Market-pull
and Technology-push innovation
• Service innovation: occurs when new ways of delivering services are
developed e.g. the use of automatic telling machines (ATMs) in banks to
replace human tellers, drive through take-out lines.
• Experience with a product results in feedback and leads to improved
innovations.
Matching Innovation Methods to Circumstances

➢ Technology-push innovations: advancement of technology oriented

primarily toward increased technical performance
a) Require that the firm’s scientists, engineers, and inventors have direct
experience with users
b) Occur more frequently with new and emerging technologies
c) Tend to be the major source of breakthrough innovations

➢ Market-pull innovations: advancement of technology oriented primarily

toward a specific market need
a) Occur when customers are technologically sophisticated
b) Occur more frequently with older technologies
c) Tend to be incremental innovations
Matching Innovation Methods to Circumstances

• Open innovation is “the use of purposive inflows and outflows of

knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for
external use of innovation, respectively.”
• Open innovation involves searching for and finding solutions outside of the
organizational structure.
• Open innovation models also allow innovations to be shared widely so that
they can seed other innovations outside the original firm or institution.
• The open innovation model is far easier to describe in idealistic terms than
it is to put into practice without ethical consequences. Unfortunately,
industrial and corporate espionage, theft of intellectual property, and
lawsuits are commonplace.

Henry Chesbrough. “Everything You Need to Know about Open Innovation.” Forbes. March 21, 2011.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/henrychesbrough/2011/03/21/everything-you-need-to-know-about-open-innovation/#1861dd5275f4
Innovation as More than Problem Solving

• Innovative entrepreneurs are essentially problem solvers, but this level of

innovation—identifying a pain point and working to overcome it—is only
one in a series of innovative steps.
• Solving problems is an important part of the practice of innovation, but to
elevate the practice and the field, innovators should anticipate problems
and strive to prevent them.
• Striving for continuous improvement helps innovators stay ahead of
market changes. Thus, they have products ready for emerging markets,
rather than developing projects that chase change, which can occur
constantly in some tech-driven fields.
• Some innovators even have the goal of innovating far ahead into the
future, beyond current capacities.
• Thus, innovators are problem solvers but also can work with forms of
problem creation and problem imagination. They tackle problems that
have yet to exist in order to solve them ahead of time.
Innovation as More than Problem Solving

The innovation pyramid is one multileveled approach to innovation.

Innovation as More than Problem Solving

• The marketing guru Guy Kawasaki, have built on psychological principles to

suggest new ways to approach innovation. According to Kawasaki,
innovative products include five key qualities: deep, indulgent, complete,
elegant, and emotive—DICEE
Innovation as More than Problem Solving

• Deep products are based on the logic of innovation that we’ve just
established and anticipate users’ needs before they have them.
• These types of innovations often have masterful designs that are intuitive
for new users while still being capable of completing complex tasks.
• For example: Adobe is an innovative corporation working in several fields,
such as software, marketing, and artificial intelligence. Adobe often creates
software applications with basic functions that are easily accessible to new
users but that also enable experienced users to innovate on their own.
Innovation as More than Problem Solving

Design Principles
Innovation as More than Problem Solving

• a complete product includes the services wrapped around it and

underlying it such that users understand the product well enough to be
comfortable using it.
• Information about how it works and how it is meant to work is readily
available.
• If you truly have solved a problem in the marketplace, users will
understand what that problem is and how your product and related
services deliver.
Innovation as More than Problem Solving

• Elegance also is part of a product’s UI. It refers to intuitive design that

immediately makes sense to consumers. Elegance conveys more
information with fewer words.
• Emotive innovations evoke the intended emotion and demand to be
admired and shared.
• You can’t force people to love your product, but you can give them
experiences that create a sense of excitement and anticipation of what you
might come up with next.

Go to www.menti.com and use code To be appeared

Entrepreneurial Quiz
Entrepreneurial Quiz
Reasons why most startup fail

Reason Description
Low sales Entrepreneurs may have overestimated sales, assuming they could
take sales away from established competitors.
Lack of experience Running a business is hard, and a new business can be especially
challenging, as it is difficult to prepare adequately for the
unexpected.
Insufficient capital When calculating how much money you will need to start your new
business venture, be sure to account for the time it will take before
your business breaks even and be sure also to allow for some
contingency funds for when the unexpected happens.
Poor location For some types of businesses, location is critical. Of course, location
may be less important for a home-based business and not at all
important for an Internet business.
Poor inventory management Too much inventory results in the business becoming cash-strapped
and unable to buy advertising or other important goods and
services.
Reasons why most startup fail

Reason Description
Overinvestment in fixed Especially when starting a business, it is usually less expensive to lease or
assets purchase used equipment, thereby saving cash for meeting operational
expenses.
Poor credit Start your venture small and limit the amount of money you need to
arrangement borrow. Work with your banker from the beginning by sharing your
management business plan and vision for the business with the banker and, most
important, show that you are proactive in planning for when you will need
to borrow money.
Personal use of The owner should pay him/herself a minimal salary and not dip into
business funds business funds. If the business has done well, the owner will earn
additional funds at the end of the year.
Reasons why most startup fail

Reason Description
Unexpected growth Surprisingly, some businesses fail because the business owner cannot
manage growth. Growing a new venture, especially if the growth is at a
higher rate than expected, can create surprising challenges. For example,
if creating a product, you need to consider the capacity of the factory
where you are producing the product. If you are at 100 percent capacity
and your orders increase, you will need to think about what actions can
support this increase in demand. If you cannot meet the demand, you will
have unhappy customers and negative publicity that will reflect negatively
on your leadership and managerial skills. Your lack of planning for this
surge in sales may open opportunities for someone else to start a
competing business.
Competition Many small business owners underestimate their competition. Remember,
if there is money to be made, there will be competition! Larger
competitors can beat you every day of the week on price, so find another
way to challenge competitors.
Exercises

With the list of ideas your group produced in Lecture 1 & 2 exercises, you now
• Select one idea which you believe there is a business case
• Fill the business idea template (supplied) to answer several questions listed there
• Create a recorded video to pitch your business idea
• Upload your submission (business idea, video) to a submission point (will be listed on
Blackboard)
Note: Your idea will evolve over time based on many factors
THANK YOU