Martin Lindstrom on Entrepreneurship
Hear what trend expert and best-selling author Martin Lindstrom has to say about entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship seems to be a legitimate career choice in 2021. What mistakes do you think young people often make in terms of being an entrepreneur?
This is just one of the questions posed to Martin Lindstrom in ISSUE 1 (APRIL 2021) of The Soup is Getting Cold. Sign up below to receive the full interview and a new interview each month - direct to your inbox.
Martin Lindstrom is the author of seven New York Times best-selling books, including Small Data: The Tiny Clues that Uncover Huge Trends, Buyology - Truth and Lies About Why We Buy and Brandwashed - Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy. TIME magazine named Lindstrom one of the “world’s 100 most influential people.”
Martin Lindstrom:
Entrepreneurship as a trend is going to be much bigger than what we already think it is.
Everyone has gone through a learning curve, realising that there's no such thing as a lifetime job anymore.
Remote working will increase that trend. If an employer is only a link today, people will think “why don't I have five links?”
So then you become freelance, which means you have to drive traffic. In order to do that you then think “I have to become a brand.”
The personal brand story will become very very big in the future, much more than it is right now; we can see that trend happening already.
The biggest misunderstanding made by the younger generation is the thought that whatever you experience in a start-up is mirrored in corporations.
For example, when at some point these startups may or may not become dependent on collaborating with banks, insurance companies, car manufacturers for products, whatever it is, they will meet a huge brick wall, and really won't be able to knock on that wall, because they don't understand the immune system those corporations have.
And as a consequence of that if you're a startup leaning up against the wall with the thought that you'll get sponsorships or privacy or products, then you will have a huge learning curve.
If these startups stay within the game and deal directly with consumers, or directly where there is no such thing as a big conglomerate blocking their way, they'll be very safe. But a lot of people when they don't have money, inevitably come up against these conglomerates. These obstacles kill some start-ups.
Secondly, I think young people get wrong is that they do not necessarily understand the importance of culture. I think they know what good culture feels like, but I don't think they know how to build it up.
The third biggest mistake is that as you grow you inevitably become conglomerates yourself. So you forget about the perspective of the consumer and will forget about that sense of empathy you had when you started out. So as your business grows you will forget about handing that feeling on to your new staff; you forget about how you motivate people so they really burn for that sense of empathy which generates the logic of the company and removes nonsense.
This is just one of the questions posed to Martin Lindstrom in ISSUE 1 (APRIL 2021) of The Soup is Getting Cold. Sign up below to receive the full interview and a new interview each month - direct to your inbox.
In the Interview Lindstrom covers:
Covid-19 Consumer Trends
What Does Travel Look Like in the 2020s?
The Future of the World Wide Web
What Marketers Get Wrong About Data
Why Everyone Wants to Move to Farms
Martin Lindstrom is the author of seven New York Times best-selling books, including Small Data: The Tiny Clues that Uncover Huge Trends, Buyology - Truth and Lies About Why We Buy and Brandwashed - Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy.
TIME magazine named Lindstrom one of the “world’s 100 most influential people.”