POSTED IN
Marketing
WRITTEN BY
Nay Madani
DATE
The significance of designers in business is constantly growing, especially in design-driven companies that can provide strategic and competitive advantages. Today’s designpreneur has inspired the business world. But, is leadership alone enough to become a designpreneur? What exactly is a designpreneur?
About Designer as Entrepreneur
Designpreneur is not just about building a business with design skills; you should train creativity to become an owner and innovator. A great designpreneur can adapt to change and always be able to lead. Designpreneur is inspired by ideas at the intersection of art, business, and technology.
A designer and entrepreneur have something in common, both of which are required to be problem solvers, empathize, have curiosity, perseverance, and flexibility. Design is not always about beauty; in the business, design is also about business strategy, innovation, and branding. Therefore, a designer’s primary ability when transitioning to founder is to focus on designing great products and organizations that design great products.
What is the challenge when you start as a designpreneur?
As a design studio owner, your challenges can teach you more about how a business works and adapt quickly. But, hang on, designpreneur commonly facing this challenge!
1. Limited resources
When you start a company, you quickly realize that you have limited resources, so you must make constant sacrifices based on your priorities.
2. Stabilize cash flow
Financial flow is a major issue when starting a business. Especially the capital used is not significant. Expenditure is continuing, and invoice is still waiting to be paid. You can consider a remote work system at the beginning of the business.
3. Time management
Building your own business or with several people will be difficult for you to manage your time. Especially, there are many things that must be done for the company to run to make a profit.
4. Create a marketing strategy
Before setting a marketing strategy, you must narrow down what kind of design services you provide and what uniqueness your business has. This will be a challenge for a designpreneur because if you apply the wrong strategy, you risk experiencing losses.
The designpreneur mindset
Challenge is constant, but with the right mindset, designpreneurs can always pass them easily. Jonathan Ng, a professional designer, says that these mindsets ensure the company has the resources to stay afloat.
- Embracing perfection is not everything
Challenges and obstacles are unavoidable in the creative process. It’s okay to strive for perfection, but perfection shouldn’t get in the way of greatness and shouldn’t define as greatness.
Imagine what would happen if we didn’t start something because we felt things weren’t perfect. We will be left behind; ideas will wither, and audiences or users will not be able to enjoy our product because it hasn’t even started yet. As a result, someone will eventually got ahead of you.
A designpreneur trusts the process and constantly reaches for perfection so that it will always be better in the next project.
- Have an effective reasoning mindset
Defining a goal as the first step is crucial, then developing a strategy to achieve it. For example, a designpreneur uses a trend, pattern, or insight as a “strategy” to achieve its big vision.
The future is inherently unpredictable but can be controlled by our own actions with practical reasoning.
Designpreneurs creatively adapt to changing environments. Adopt an effective mindset and try new goals whenever things don’t go according to plan.
- Embrace diversity
Designpreneur need designers from multiple disciplines with various skills to work together and solve today’s complex problems. This is the key to success for your design studio.
If we create an environment that encourages designers’ development, they can do more than we think. You can absorb much knowledge through collaboration with specialists, expanding the business strategy.
All you need is to just do it!
Every effort made must have its challenges. The task of a designpreneur is to analyze well and not in a hurry because designpreneur should be exploring that. But you’ll never know unless you try. Suppose you have the expertise and entrepreneurial ideas. In that case, we should at least explore its potential to see if that suits yours. Most importantly, you must start from small things, like starting a design career at another company before becoming a designpreneur and building something big.
