Jonathan Craig Rich is an entrepreneur and former investment banker with experience in raising capital for growth companies in the healthcare, technology, and consumer sectors. In the following article, Jonathan Craig Rich, formerly of National Securities in New York, discusses how entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart, requiring a unique blend of creativity, innovation, and risk-taking to achieve success in the ever-changing business landscape. However, those willing to embrace these qualities are not only paving the way for their own success, but shaping the future of industries and economies worldwide.

In today’s competitive business environment, those who stagnate rather than innovate doom themselves to fail. However, some entrepreneurs don’t quite understand what innovation truly means, and more importantly, how to implement creative solutions while managing the risks they entail.

While innovation can mean the development of new products or services, it can also be as simple as building upon pre-existing business models to develop new and creative solutions. Wise entrepreneurs accept that new models mean new risks, and they develop contingency plans for any obstacles they might encounter.

Jonathan Craig Rich, formerly of National Securities in New York explains that these contingency plans take time, effort, and foresight to develop properly. Before getting into how to do so, it’s important to discuss why innovation is so valuable to new business owners in the first place.

Jonathan Craig Rich on What Innovation Means to Entrepreneurs

Anyone can start a new business in a saturated market, but those who wish to truly stand above the competition and protect their bottom line must understand that the best new business models must be proprietary in some way. They need to offer something their competitors can’t, or else anyone can easily step up to challenge their hold on the market.

Jonathan Craig Rich, formerly of National Securities in New York says that for some, this means offering a new product or service that can be patented and protected from copycats. However, products and technologies can be patented without already being fully developed from the ground up. Taking a product that already exists and finding unique ways to improve it may still be proprietary enough to earn protection from the patent office.

Innovation means more to most entrepreneurs than an immediately guaranteed success.
There’s a term for embracing this type of uncertainty head on, called strategic risk. While some business risks should be prevented outright, and others are absolutely uncontrollable, strategic risk takers put themselves in the firing line while aiming to come out on top. It’s a scary position to be in, but according to Jonathan Rich, successful innovation is virtually impossible otherwise.

Why Innovation Necessitates Risk

Innovators take on risks for all sorts of reasons. Even a groundbreaking business model that appears brilliant on paper may fail for any number of reasons, such as:

• A once-popular trend or technology going out of fashion
• Poor marketing that fails to adequately sell consumers on a product or service
• Failure to find investors and meet production demands
• Unforeseeable market changes that make production models unaffordable
• Lack of planning to account for a new product or service’s shortcomings

Jonathan Craig Rich, formerly of National Securities in New York says that it’s important to note that many of these risks cannot be adequately predicted. Many entrepreneurs will have to take their results as they come and do their best to adapt on the fly. However, there are a few strategies that new business owners can utilize to mitigate the risks of innovation and better ensure success.

Managing Risk in a Growing Business

Jonathan Craig Rich, formerly of National Securities in New York suggests setting contingency plans to manage the risks of innovation. This can prove especially difficult for those unfamiliar with running their own business, but most who excel will often follow these key strategies that help pave the way for success. The four main approaches are:

1. Identify the risk – This should be obvious, but many potential innovators fail because they simply neglect to properly identify what risk factors they’re facing in the first place. Entrepreneurs must understand what’s so unique about their product or business model and how to analyze the risks associated with that quality.
2. Take advice – The smartest business leaders surround themselves with even smarter advisors. When innovating within a particular field, it’s always important to get experts from that field on board and take their advice to heart. Trying to go it alone will only exacerbate the risk of failure.
3. Train employees diligently – It may seem difficult to train employees in the implementation and maintenance of a product or business model that’s never been tried before, but it’s a truly important step in the process. Remember that NASA once sent a team of men to the moon when no one had ever been there before. With the help of skilled advisors, any entrepreneur’s team can receive the training they need to thrive.
4. Study industry history – Just because one business model might be a pioneering success doesn’t mean that real-world statistics on similar models are of no use. By studying how similar businesses have succeeded or failed, it becomes easier to predict the potential challenges posed by a new innovation.

Conclusion

Jonathan Craig Rich says that the risks of innovation may appear frightening to first-time entrepreneurs, but the simple strategies detailed above will go a long way toward managing them and ensuring the successful implementation of new business models. Entrepreneurs must simply remember to continue analyzing risks at every turn and manage them wherever possible.