Entrepreneurs design thinking and exploring financial DNA

Hout Bay Co-Creation Initiative director, Dudley Hartford.

A new initiative launching early next year will give entrepreneurs in Hout Bay and Llandudno a chance to develop their ideas and skills.

The Hout Bay Co-Creation Initiative is the brainchild of resident Dudley Hartford, whose booklet, Accessing the Genius in the Unknown, has won favour among Cape Town entrepreneurs as a template for innovative thinking.

In the past year, Mr Hartford has also been running an incubation hub from a three-car garage in Llandudno, teaching start-up owners the fundamentals of successful business strategies and out-the-box thinking.

This has spurred him to broaden the reach of his programme. “The aim is to ignite creative thinking among all age groups and help existing innovators bring their ideas, products and services to market. The lecture discussions, to be held every fortnight from early next year, will not only tackle the dynamics of entrepreneurship but will focus on “blue sky” thinking, or thinking not bound by conventions, design thinking, strategic thinking and exploring “financial DNA”.

“Essentially, we are appealing to people who have good ideas, but don’t have the confidence to promote them,” Mr Hartford
said. “My own background is in products, but what we want to do with the initiative is to use big data or an artificial intelligence approach to identify successful ideas that can be developed.”

The course will move on to selecting deserving products, services and ideas which merit “provoking” in order to find what their greatest selling points are. While he recognised that many entrepreneurship programmes existed, Mr Hartford was not concerned.

“Regardless of whether a product is ultimately made, the important thing is that the participants will take away key skills that will help them not only in business, but their lives as well. “Everyone walks around with great ideas, but many people do not have the conviction to follow through with them.

“The equation is, what you know x who you know x who you are as a person. That is something we are aiming to bring home to our entrepreneurs in the Hout Bay and Llandudno community.”

Given Hout Bay’s history as a fishing town, there was no shortage of ideas to enhance the local industry. Accordingly, the course intended to breathe life into these ideas. “A large part of this programme is to tap into local resources, and get everyone involved,” Mr Hartford said.

The cost of the course is R75 a month. Interested parties can call Mr Hartford on 082 460 8110 for more information.