Being Both Creative and Corporate Enough

Creative is a complicated word. Regardless of what comes to mind, I believe that you can call anyone “creative” who decides to make that leap into the unknown and earn money for themselves by starting a business.

Entrepreneurs have a bad habit of not giving themselves enough credit. It takes a lot of creativity in the beginning. If only being creative enough to make someone write you a check.

While there is a dividing line between what it means to be a creative entrepreneur and what it means to be an entrepreneur within a creative industry, both creative types start out doing everything themselves. But as they grow, they see it’s not enough.

They need more support.

Entrepreneurs are free spirits, to a certain degree, and it’s important to stay in that zone of freedom, creativity, and productivity. Nobody wants to be bogged down by the minutia of a spreadsheet.

As a business co-pilot, the entrepreneurs within creative industries (record industry, architects) that I work with typically don’t want to hear, do, or touch anything around structure.

However, the entrepreneurs who were creative enough to start their own businesses, that might work in more traditional brick and mortar business, are no less creative. They’re just usually more open to adopting and implementing structure, but they don’t know how to get them rolling.

Whether you work better on the left-side of the brain, right-side, or mix of both, everyone hits a plateau where doing things individually is not enough. This means that systems and processes need to be put into place for the business to thrive.

But just enough to keep the creative spirit alive.