Reasons to Innovate

One of the advantages of starting a Micro Business is the ability to innovate quickly if desired or necessary. No need to consult investors or your upline or downline. Just do it! In a micro business this kind of innovation needs to be done without costing much (with minimal start up capital one cannot over-extend in early stages.)

With Beautiful Bracelets, where we have a product that is working and selling well, one might think there isn't any reason to innovate. However, it is wise to listen to both your clients and your “gut” feeling. Since the beginning of this Radio 702 Money Show R1000 Startup Challenge, “Beautiful Bracelets” have been designed as Bracelets with lots of “bling”. And selling really well in this design. However, I have never been a “bling” person until recently: a great way to market the product is to be wearing “Beautiful Bracelets”, a matching one for each outfit, each day! And very often people including my Personal Business Banker and a colleague at a Business Dinner function, have bought the Beautiful Bracelet off my wrist! So this marketing technique has worked really well.

I have been aware that perhaps there are some people out there prefer an “understated elegant” look. So today, we decided to innovate and very soon a few of the new Beautiful Bracelets will appear on our Products List for sale on the website – once we have tested the market by presenting a few of these new designs “For Sale” at a local country market, one of the better markets in South Africa, the Irene Market. The new designs have the “understated elegant” feeling, a more simple design, very classical, and the kind of Bracelet that would actually go very well worn together with gold or platinum jewellery. Perhaps a bit soon to talk about any kind of innovation before it’s even tested in the market place, but I have a very good feeling about the new range!

Other innovations that Beautiful Bracelets will be displaying soon will be a small range of matching accessories, “Beautiful Pendants” and “Beautiful Earrings” both ideas having come up in conversation with clients who purchased Beautiful Bracelets and have actually pre-ordered and requesting matching necklace and earring sets.

Reasons to Innovate:

1. Survival: Companies that don’t innovate don’t survive 
2. Revenue: It’s a tough market out there. If you want customers to open their wallet you need to keep innovating so that you’re giving the customer what they want. Especially in the Fashion Accessories market this means following the trends including whether clients are wanting bright or muted hues.
3. Culture: South Africa is a Melting Pot of different cultures. It is amazing that even within the Cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria, where from one suburb to the next, a certain group of clients when purchasing accessories might prefer the “brights” yet in another suburb, neutral shades sell really well.
4. Creativity: Businesses with competitive growth patterns demonstrate creativity with an appetite for risk.
5. Entrepreneurship: The best entrepreneurs have the ability to transform useful inventions into valuable innovations.

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.  (Peter Drucker)