5 reasons why creatives & entrepreneurs need each other

As someone with a creative background but interacting on a daily basis with local entrepreneurs and startups, I’ve found an interesting dialogue that often repeats itself: creatives looking to connect with entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs who have a lack of creative talent within their businesses.

Why should these communities connect more?

Here’s 5 reasons:

1. At the bottom of it, both creative professionals and entrepreneurs value idea-creation and execution. Having this common denominator guarantees a meeting of minds.

2. Entrepreneurs often have the ideas but not necessarily the ability to execute them. Creatives do what they do because they have great execution skills. What better match could be made?

3. It’s not just about creating business opportunities. It’s also about collaboration, cross-pollination, prototyping and making better products together. What’s stopping the Singaporean startup scene from growing, is the creative thinking and processes that are tacit in the day-to-day practice of creatives,

4. At the end of the day, creatives and entrepreneurs are in the same business ecosystem. It is in the enlightened self-interest of both sides to ensure that the other succeeds. With great creative contributions to businesses, businesses can take their products and services to a higher level. And when businesses do that, they’ll call on the creatives to help realize more product offerings, and the cycle continues.

5. Because we can have more fun together. Who knows what will happen when creatives, hackers and entrepreneurs get together in a meaningful and engaged way?

At Relay Room, we’ve come up with a concept help increase interaction between the creative and entrepreneur scenes:Creative Mixer.

Creative Mixer brings together creatives, hackers, entrepreneurs into a single space to redefine creativity. The first event, held on 15 Dec 2011 at Smartspace, saw a whopping 88 people attending. At each event, we invite eight speakers to enlighten us with bite-sized presentations on creativity across their diverse fields.

Because we believe in collaboration between entrepreneurs, developers and creatives in design, photography, film, architecture, animation/illustration and writing, we would love to have you join us, to create a new, synergistic community of “creative entrepreneurs”.

Creative Mixer 2.0 is happening on 28th March 2012 at Sinema Old School. Registration can be made at www.flickevents.com/creativemixer. More details at www.creativemixer.co.

About the author
Sarah Cheng-De Winne is a media & performing arts professional. She is also the Business Development Manager of creative agency Relay Room.