As a small business running a generally small operation, with only a bare-bones team of 9, it’s hard to squeeze innovation into the equation, when everyone’s running at 110% focused strictly on their core competencies. Sure, we each get the occasional ‘light bulb’ idea, that seems like it will be a game-changer in our space, but how can we possibly find the time to implement and execute this new and exciting concept?
There are always issues with innovation, which usually starts with the failure to fully configure exciting new ideas. We’ve tried things such as scheduling weekly meetings to brainstorm new ways to innovate with our businesses on the product side, the technology end, even on the marketing front, and with quite possibly five-to-ten awesome new ideas each week, even having three might be a bit much because at the next weekly meeting we might realize that we weren’t even able to fully execute on two whole concepts.
Businesses are never, ever short on creative ideas for pivots and improvements. What they’re mostly short on is resources both in human capital and money, which limits their ability to constantly innovate because a lot of efforts are spent on constantly maintaining what they already have.
Moving forward though, we’re pledging to innovate more often, allocating a little more time each week in each department to try something new for the betterment of the business because after 16 months in business, we realize that the only sin a business can commit is by being static, and even if things are going fine without any changes, things can’t really get any better and as a startup, we’re looking to constantly improve because staying the same is nothing short of failure.
Danny Wong is the Brand Manager for Blank Label Group, working with the startups Blank Label, Thread Tradition and RE:custom. Danny also blogs at HuffingtonPost, TheNextWeb and ReadWriteWeb.
