Background: Curiosity is the key strength of a successful entrepreneur. Curiosity not only channels the out-of-the-box thinking of an entrepreneur, it also helps them connect with the world better. And only when you connect with the outer world better, you can question yourself about things and come up with real answers and solutions. Phani Pattamatta of TiE Hyderabad shares his interesting take on how curiosity can give birth to a great entrepreneur.

As the new Executive Director of TiE Hyderabad, I was intrigued by a recent article on curiosity. I asked our offshore partner of TiE Philadelphia, to build a concept on curiosity and connect it with entrepreneurship. During the same time, Bhat Dittakavi, a serial entrepreneur, startup mentor, data scientist and a blogger had visited our campus. We sat down together to crack this nut and came up with the following logic:

1. Curiosity + imagination = creativity

Curiosity is a strong desire to know or learn something. An entrepreneurial mindset needs various triggers to be curious about an unmet need. If you ask any entrepreneur about the reason why he picked a particular problem, his answer would probably land on one of these five triggers:

• I was not happy with the status quo. I was frustrated with the highly ineffective and inefficient solution.
• I was turned off realising that the seller has more information than the buyer. Inefficiency of information asymmetry.
• If John Doe can become an entrepreneur, why not me?
• Someone dear to me battled for his life and I wanted to do something about it.
• I couldn’t take a ‘no’ for an answer.

Once one of these emotion-driven triggers make you curious on ‘why’ and you start exploring various options in the mind. Here comes the play of imagination. Imagination is about forming mental images. Curiosity may be seen in most of the animals but humans are probably the only species with the blessing of imagination. Emotional trigger leads to curiosity. Curiosity leads to imagination. Together, they lead to creativity.

Only if your great idea is put to action to build an innovative solution or a product, that caters to multiple customers out there, you become an entrepreneur. 

2. Creativity + action = innovation

When I asked the former Chief Design Officer of Disney about the difference between creativity and innovation, he replied that creativity is about thinking and innovation is about doing. When you follow a creative idea with an action, you become innovative.

3. Innovation + customer = entrepreneur

Not every innovator is an entrepreneur, but the vice versa is true. Even if there is a fabulous innovation, as a result of a great idea coupled with creativity, if it cannot find its paying customers, has very low chances of becoming a successful enterprise.

Only if your great idea is put to action to build an innovative solution or a product that caters to multiple customers out there, you become an entrepreneur. Having customers alone also may not automatically make you successful. The bottom line of healthy profits with positive cash flows is a key to attract more investments to scale the enterprise. It all starts with a condition or a situation that leads to some kind of internal emotional unrest. This will generate curiosity and one question leads to the other. Add the power of imagination to it and you become creative. Put your creativity to work, an innovative solution emerges. A spin of paying customers to this innovation, you will transform into a real entrepreneur.

This when the real fun starts, may this tribe grow!

Interested in reading more related articles? Check out some of our other articles here:

Why boutique firms are outperforming their large mainstream counterparts

Get investment firms interested in your startup

Timeless advice for young entrepreneurs

Image courtesy: www.freepik.com

To explore business opportunities, link with me by clicking on the 'Connect' button on my eBiz Card.

Disclaimer: This article is based solely on the inputs shared by the featured members. GlobalLinker does not necessarily endorse the views, opinions & facts stated by the member.