culturalentrepreneur.org

This week I listened to an inspiring interview on the Tranquility du Jour podcast with Poppy King, the founder of Lipstick Queen, and author of Lessons of a Lipstick Queen: Finding and Developing the Great Idea That Can Change Your Life.

One of the ideas she came back to over and over again was embracing and incorporating your personality into your business, and allowing your own uniqueness to set your own apart.

She also talked about the importance of understanding why you created your business, and sharing that story with your customers:

“Often people who start something, they’re shy about saying why they did, when really, that’s what makes something capture people’s imagination. It’s not so much, what it is, but why it is.”

In the case of King, she started her own lipstick brand in Melbourne, Australia, at the age of 18, because she couldn’t find a lipstick she wanted to wear.

She also said that understanding why you’ve created your business can act as a touchstone as you make decisions:

“If you keep on knowing, and take the time to understand your core reasons for doing what you’re doing, that gives you the direction to take. But you also need to understand in having a point of view, that it means that you can’t get everybody, but you’ll always be able to know what to do next, because you’re following a core value.”

So, take a moment to ask yourself:

• Why am I a cultural entrepreneur?
• What challenging decisions about the direction of my business do I need to make right now?
• How can reflecting on why I created my business help me make those decisions?

Flickr photo credit: Question mark uploaded by Marco Bellucci