Everyone is looking for that trailblazing, groundbreaking idea. An app that makes your homework. A medicine that prevents you from hangovers. A pan that never allows your food to burn. Or a simple beer brewery. Even though you do not know anything about beer. Nor marketing. Sounds like a plan, right?
It happened to Aussie Liam Mulhall. No starting capital, no entrepreneurial knowledge. Just the wish to start his ‘Brewtopia’. Sounds like a doomed failure to me. Now, fifteen years later, Brewtopia is Australia’s #1 producer of custom branded beverages (Brewtopia, 2017).
So what happened along the way? Crowdsourcing happened! Mulhall asked his network via an email to think together with him about how to set up this idea. Within only three years, Mulhall saw his beloved Brewtopia grow to a publicly-listed enterprise with millions of profits per year.
His smart technique has been adapted by many, from small start-ups to large worldwide enterprises. In 2006, it finally received a name: crowdsourcing. Ever since, thousands of projects have been realized with a little help of the creativity of others. Doritos used customer’s ideas to create its yearly Superbowl commercials (Mainstreethost, 2016), Starbucks encouraged its customers to decorate their Starbucks cup (Starbucks Newsroom, 2015), and Airbnb asked their travellers to submit videos, to make the short film Hollywood & Vines (Skift, 2014).
Given the benefits, you would almost forget about the downsides. It is important for companies to realize they should still come up with their own creative ideas; they should not become dependent of crowdsourcing as a means to new business ideas. There will never be the guarantee that enough qualitative ideas or solutions will arise.
So, crowdsourcing is an amazing idea, but do not lose your own creativity. To quote Albert Einstein: “creativity is intelligence having fun.”
