Many traits of successful entrepreneurs are common knowledge: vision, leadership skills, financial ability, resilience, decisiveness, work ethic. But there is one trait that is so important, and yet is often overlooked: curiosity.
Curiosity is key in creating businesses. Curious people look around them at something they know about and ask, “Does it have to be this way? How can I make it better? Can I improve, or expand, or reinvent it? Can I make it faster? Cheaper? Easier to use? More attractive?” That’s often how new products or organizations get started.
And once they have started their business, curiosity is perhaps even more important. What is the reaction to what I’m selling? What do my customers think? How is my competition doing? How can I improve my product or my service even more? Can I upgrade the packaging? Can I improve the way I market it?
And of course, how can I adapt my organization? Are there gaps? Are there too many layers? Are we operating as efficiently as we could? What do my employees think? What could I do to make them happier and more productive?
Much has been written about how Kevin Plank founded Under Armour almost 30 years ago. He didn’t like sweating through his cotton shirts during his twice-a-day football practices in August while he was on the football team at the University of Maryland. His teammates accepted it. But Kevin had been raised to be curious. He’d had a little T-shirt company in high school and college, and started investigating whether he could find a better fabric that would wick moisture. He started asking lots of questions, visiting fabric manufacturers along the East Coast. Today Under Armour does five billion dollars in sales. All because Kevin was curious how he could make sports clothes that were more comfortable and breathable. And because he has continued to look questioningly at the market, and adjust what they sell.
Joel Holland sold his first company, bought an RV, and started touring America. He loved exploring during the day, but he hated staying in RV parks at night. He was curious why he couldn’t stay in any of the interesting places he’d seen, like farms and wineries. He started asking questions. He found Harvest Hosts, which had 600 members and 6,000 locations to stay in across the country for one low annual fee. He bought it in 2018. Today it has 200,000 members and 5,459 locations for members to camp in. All because Joel was curious how he could stay in all the beautiful farms and wineries he was passing, instead of the boring RV parks everyone told him was the only option.
Successful entrepreneurs are curious. They identify opportunities, they figure out how to solve problems, they analyze how to adapt to change. They’re willing to try new approaches. They’re willing to experiment with new opportunities, and explore different strategies to solve problems. Being curious enables entrepreneurs to see gaps in the market, to pivot when necessary, and to innovate more cleverly than their competitors.
We are living through an era of extraordinary change. Entrepreneurs who embrace curiosity, are willing to ask questions, to evolve, to adapt, to push boundaries, and to embrace new solutions, will be successful. Those who are not curious and who accept the status quo, risk having their products or services become stagnant. They will not succeed in this environment.
Margot Machol Bisnow is the author of Raising an Entrepreneur.
Read the full article here
