Creativity vs. Business

QUESTION

Joey, how do you balance creativity with entrepreneurship? The classic starving artist example comes to mind. You may love your work but if no one wants to buy it, you will not be able to make a living. 

Many friends tell me they want to open a photography business but they do not realize how much work and effort goes into running and growing a business. They feel their creativity will be the key to their success. 

Do you feel in some instances creativity can hinder success? At Baronfig, do you have a way of sorting and screening out creative ideas before they are turned into finalized products? Does creativity bias the selection of ideas? Especially if it’s your creativity that led to the idea in the first place.

—Raf S.

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ANSWER

Raf, this is a powerful dichotomy. Creativity and entrepreneurship have a lot of synergies, but they can just as easily work against each other.

I have a passion for making things. It’s a borderline obsession. Because of that, Baronfig was born. And, together with a team of similarly passionate makers at Baronfig, we’ve given birth to many more products.

There are times, however, when our passion for creating works against us. If we aren’t careful, we can favor new ideas and forget to tend to what we’ve already made. (I am particularly guilty of this.) 

Our team has several dozen unpublished products in various stages of ideation. Some were developed for months, some are the result of a single conversation. It’s understood that we won’t necessarily make them all (or even half), but nonetheless we collect the ideas in a repository.

At the end of the day, no matter how excited we are about a product—or how much we personally want to use it—we have to shelve our creativity and bring in the entrepreneurial logic. If a product won’t sell, it just isn’t viable.

In this regard, creativity has an adverse bearing on entrepreneurial success. A great creation does not equal a great seller. Likewise, a great selling product isn’t necessarily a mind-blowing one.

The best way to test a product (or service or other creation) is to invite others to use it. Just a small group. Pay attention not to what they say, but how they act. You will find your answer soon after.

—Joey

Creator of Baronfig
Author of The Laws of Creativity

The first shipment is finally here! I imagined opening this box for close to two years. Now the book is in my hands and it feels ... unreal. Coming October 2022. Thanks for the support thus far. :)