Unicorn club – and how to become one in the world of Business (2 – my creative appendix to analysis)

Unicorn club – and how to become one in the world of Business (1)

In the first part, I you’ll find my sum-up of an interesting article about the common characteristics of successful mega-companies that emerged since 2000

Btw some of them are here: Google, Amazon, Zynga, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Airbnb, Booking, HomeAway, Pinterest, Canva, Evernote, Groupon, Alibaba …. and there are many more.

If you read the article, you will discover that, apart from the millions $$ profit, these companies and their founders have a lot in common. To me, the very interesting part of analysis is one about the founders, since they and  I have some things in common:

  • The founders started the company when they were 35 and 52 yrs old- ok, I’m on the upper limit, but I’m there
  • They had the previous entrepreneurial experience – I count 9th year
  • they teamed up with partners – okay, I tried it once and didn’t ended well, so I’ll skip this time
  • most of them did not have the work experience in digital companies – I had kind insider experience here
  • 80% hold a degree in prestigious tech universities – I hope the MA of Architecture is prestigious enough
  • only two of the 39 listed companies were founded by women – okay, I surrender 🙂

I hope you don’t mind that putting me in the same row as those exceptional business people.

My goal was to point out that one who is capable of inventing and managing such a successful company as mentioned, is not, as we usually imagine, the digital genius boy ( or the girl) in early twenties, but a rather mature business owner, with previous entrepreneurial experience, an engineering mind, and a structured way of perceiving that what is invisible to an ordinary eye.

Okay, except for Zuckerberg, but he’s just one.

In the previous article, and especially in the original one, the link of which you will find in the first part, the similarities of  Unicorn companies and their founders are described in detail.

Creativity Comparison

Given that they are unicorn magical beings, I would like to add one more, my dimension to this analysis, and compare the level of magic, or more simply the creativity that these companies have introduced into our lives and the world by their existence. Viewed through the lens of creativity, I easily found them with other common features:

  • some of them have introduced a spell into our buying mode – like Amazon, Alibaba, Fab …
  • some have changed the way we find ALL information – Google
  • some of them have introduced the magic in our way of going on vacation / and enabled us to earn money from other people taking a vacation – Booking, Airbnb, HomeAway
  • some introduced some magic in a way how we drive through the city and how we make extra money – Uber
  • some introduced the magic of communication within the project teams – Asana, Trello, Jira …
  • some made all of us become successful photographers – Instagram
  • and some made us become skilled graphic designers – Canva

Yes, the magic can be replaced by the term  of Creativity – and Yes, all of these companies are extremely creative in terms of perceiving  the space for the new business model they have offered, and even more creatively in how they have spent it in life, and all of us have enabled us without much distress , effort and effort become networked, informed and far more creative than we ever thought we would be.

If I wanted to sum up all magical, creative features, the list would be this:

* All listed companies are digital – and this allowed for them to turn the whole world into their market

* All of them had an innovative idea and a business model that did not exist before

* All of them have excellent Creative Hot Spot – the place where their authenticity meets customer experience in a creative way – indeed, each of these companies actually is one big Creative Hot Spot

* All of them have a superb creative potential, starting from visual identity, and the way they fulfil creative needs of their users or provide a creative entertainment

and all of them grew at the right time, and perfectly met the newly-born needs.

By preparing this article, I found a great TEDx speech: The single largest reason why startups succeed | Bill Gross.

I know it’s not cool to tell the end and conclusion of the video, but I have to, because it’s very unexpected: Bill followed the Start-Ups to see which common characteristics the successful ones have, compared to those who are failed – and found out that they are original idea, super team, business model and finance important – but the most important ingredient of success is a good timing!

Unicorn companies introduced the magic into our lives, and made impossible things the possible, both for themselves, and for us as their users – and they carefully listened to the needs of the market and allowed themselves to respond to what they “heard” in the most creative possible ways –  placed in at the right moment and in the right way, led them to huge sucess.

It was just what we needed, as if they read our thoughts

The working process, the methodology that creativly listens to the market , and corresponds to it using creative solutions, that is Design Thinking. By practising it, we can recognise the need that is emerging, and respond to it by modifying its product and service into new one that perfectly fits the future that our client is not yet aware of.

I know, it sounds like a spell – but its real name is its creativity 🙂

Design Thinking?

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