Zero to One

By James Eelbeck

Having celebrated our first birthday recently, here are some reflections on some of the big lessons we have learnt during our first year.

Lean, smart, flexible

Going from zero to one is hard. Starting from scratch - no equipment, no finance team, no office, no telephone, no SOPs. There are hundreds of small problems to solve in the early days as you try to get everything set up properly whilst still staying lean, smart and flexible. One thing we’ve learnt is that this start-up mindset of being lean, smart and flexible resonates with our partners and clients and, whilst born of necessity, is now a mantra for how we work.

Build good habits

The easy option is to carry on as you did before, bringing in old habits and working practices without challenging the status quo. Of course you want to keep the good stuff, but there are always bad habits mixed in there, default ways of working that are hard to change in established businesses. But when you start from scratch, these habits don’t actually exist (only in your head). So with a bit of conscious effort, we’ve found it’s been a great time to reinvent ways of working and build good habits for the future. It’s not easy, and we’ve done a lot of experimenting to develop new ways to work as a team, collaborate with clients, as well as learning new skills (Cake Wednesdays, has also become a firm habit thanks to Runway East!).

Paper-less Working 

Based out of a start-up hub, we’re surrounded by tech companies and digital ways of working, but we still have one foot firmly in the paper camp. Workshops without the wallpaper of project content are just bare rooms, and you can’t beat working physically to collaborate. However, we have become far less dependent on paper and physical working thanks to some amazing digital platforms that allow us to collaborate paper-free in different ways. So whilst we still have a post-it note addiction, our use of them has definitely reduced, and we are increasingly incorporating virtual workshopping practice into our projects.

Network of Collaborators 

We have met and worked with some amazing collaborators in the past year, based all around the world. Collaboration is core to our vision and one of the biggest joys in our work is being able to bring a diverse range of thinkers, experts and creators into our projects. Every collaboration teaches us something new and helps us get to better outcomes and new thinking. So, a big thank you to all our amazing collaborators locally and globally (you know who you are!).

The Power of Purpose

Purpose is rapidly becoming one of the defining business drivers of our era. We see this in big business as well as small. In a roundabout way, it’s also been the number one question we get asked when we meet people and talk about what we do. People want to know why are we doing this, what motivated us to start up and what’s our point of difference. For us, this is an evolving thing, but what motivates and drives us the most is helping innovators on their journey. Whether that’s by helping them solve challenging problems or by giving them the skills to do it themselves. By focussing on the innovator, we’ve developed a range of new approaches, from bite-size collaboration tools to reimagining how to gather global insights. We’ve also expanded our approaches to include ways that help innovators influence and drive ideas through the business more effectively.

Culture of Learning

One of the biggest changes for us has been shifting into a learning, or growth mindset. Both learning out of necessity (like learning accounting software and how to review legal contracts), and, more fundamentally, learning to develop a deeper understanding of the science of creativity and behaviour in order to improve our practice and add to the field of understanding in this area. (Read Kate’s article on the power of Growth mindset here). Actively adopting a growth mindset leads to more rapid progress, improvement, and the ability to adapt to our fast-moving and ever-changing world. This is why we believe in embracing a culture of learning. 

We see this as just the beginning so with some great foundations set, we’re excited about what’s ahead in our second year of great projects, collaborations and continuing to grow and learn.