There is no magic formula for entrepreneurial triumph. Otherwise, as the cliché has it, we’d all be doing it. Get-rich-quick schemes tend to prove either illegal or illusory, often leading to financial loss for those who invest and sanction for the so-called entrepreneurs involved. Legitimately profitable innovation arrives in many ways. These days, especially in mature economies, opportunity tends to come about following a precise mathematical scrutiny of likely future demand. In Silicon Valley, one nuanced nerdy tweak of an existing algorithm can lead to the making of a fortune.
While there is nothing wrong with that, it is nonetheless gratifying when one solitary flash of inspiration proves all it takes to hit the jackpot. Witness ex-model Alexia Inge’s sale of her company Cult Beauty to The Hut Group for a reported £275 million. Ms Inge’s insight was to identify those cosmetic brands that potential customers actually rated and desired, as opposed to those products basking in a gilded, and yet perhaps unearned, reputation. In a similar sector, the runaway popularity of Sweaty Betty and Gymshark workout gear underlines the same point. Such is the nature, and the beauty, of the market.
While personal enrichment may sometimes, indeed often, serve merely as a happy by-product rather than a motivation of inventive endeavour, it is not cynical to observe that genius usually finds its most congenial home in a free, open, mobile society. For good or ill, given the nature of their eponymous creations, the work of Laszlo Biro and Mikhail Kalashnikov provide notable exceptions. Even so, their design classics came about following an instant individual spark, rather than after years of collective committee pondering.
Much entrepreneurial progress is akin to modern art. The initial idea is all. It’s no good saying: “I could do that.” The point is actually to do it.
