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Marketing 101 teaches the principle of setting your business apart from the competition to be successful. In today’s competitive business landscape, this is not a simple task for any startup. Now more than ever, savvy consumers expect high-quality products, and equally high customer service experiences. A valuable tool to help you stay ahead of your competition is understanding customer insights.

Taking a closer look, customer insights can be defined as the understanding and interpretation of consumer data and behaviors to improve your product development and customer experience. These insights help you understand your customer better when it comes to product purchasing decisions. Business owners who have a deeper understanding of their customer behavior patterns outperform their competitors by 85% in sales growth, according to Microsoft.

As a creative entrepreneur, harnessing customer insights can help you grow your startup in the following ways:

To deliver personalized experiences- Customers who feel they are receiving personalized attention to their needs are most likely to become repeat customers and also a promoter of your business for generating new customers.

To predict future industry trends- identifying consumer pain points is key to keeping up with new trends in your industry and providing better service and/or products for your customers.

To create the most effective promotions- Understanding what products your customer is most likely to buy gives you the opportunity to streamline your targeting to your customers for successful promotions.

To create product pricing- Knowing what the industry’s going rates are for your product and/or services is important. It is equally important to know what your customer is willing to pay. The combination of these data points will help you determine the optimal product pricing.

To help streamline your markets- Having accurate data on customer sales will help you determine where to expand into new markets or which markets you should leave because of underperformance.

These are just a few benefits gained by using customer insights in your startup. When properly used, customer insight data can help you organize and make the improvements necessary for building a thriving business.

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The Center for Creative Economy thrives on the creativity of entrepreneurs, and at February’s Momentum meetup our panelist, Kevin Clark, and our moderator, Ryan Schmaltz, introduced a great way to do just that. Last month, in part one of this two-part series, Kevin introduced Web3 and the Metaverse. For part two, Ryan led an interactive and engaging discussion on NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Kevin guided the attendees to create a collective. Kevin is an artist who is passionate about technology and creative entrepreneurship. He is the co-founder of Point Motion, a tech company whose vision is to improve the quality of life for people through the intersection of music and technology. 

Ryan kicked off the discussion with a quick survey of the audience and discovered that most of the attendees knew what NFTs are but did not fully understand the concept. The audience’s primary interest in NFTs was art, profiting/investing, fundraising, and providing the infrastructure for NFTs. The information gathered from the poll allowed Kevin to lead right into his presentation. The presentation addressed the following topics:

1. Difference between Web 2 (3rd party trusted system) and Web3 (trustless system)
2. Non-fungible and tokens
3. How the creation of NFTs is changing the industries of art, fashion, and music through the use of wearables and the ability to release your art virtually for sale
4. The profitability of NFTs and how royalties are connected

After the discussion, Ryan led an interactive and informative Q&A session with the audience. Kevin then guided the Momentum group into the creation of the Center for Creative Economy’s first-ever NFT, a canvas painting that was co-created by the participants attending Momentum. An auction was then held live to purchase the creation and also receive an hour of coaching from Kevin on the Metaverse and NFTs. 

Thanks to Ryan and Kevin for an informing, engaging, and creative discussion! 

You can view the recording from the Momentum February event on NFTs in our Youtube channel using this link. 

Momentum returns on Wednesday, March 23rd when Rahul Kulkarni, CEO of Sukhi, will be leading a discussion on Leveraging Mindfulness for Optimum Focus. We hope to see you then!

A few helpful links about the Metaverse & NFTs:

Helpful Links

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Furniture Today’s Associate Editor, Anne Flynn Ear interviewed Preet Singh, Founder of Live Furnish. Preet is a member of the 2019 cohort of CCE’s Velocity Creative Accelerator.

Live Furnish has reinvented how home furnishings and textile companies bring their products to life in photographs. Preet founded his company in New Delhi, India but since completing Velocity, he has relocated to Winston-Salem, NC.

Read Preet’s interview on Furniture Today.

 

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 “NC IDEA, a private foundation committed to supporting entrepreneurial ambition and economic advancement in North Carolina, announced today that the organization is awarding thirteen grants, totaling over $1.5 million to organizations throughout the state that support the Foundation’s vision to empower North Carolinians to achieve their entrepreneurial potential.

“Today’s announcement is the Foundation’s largest single funding to date, bringing our total in ECOSYSTEM grants to nearly $3 million to 24 organizations over the past two years,” said Thom Ruhe, President and CEO of NC IDEA. “By partnering with these organizations, we create greater opportunity for the statewide exchange of ideas, experiences and connections,” Ruhe added.”

Read the full article here.

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 The 2018 Creative Startups Winston-Salem Winners Margot and Trevor Toppen of Edumotion, Wendy Hickey of ArtPop Street Gallery, and Kevin Clark of Point Motion

 

“During the past two months, ten creative enterprises completed an 8-week business educational program and came to Winston-Salem, NC, to compete for a split of $50,000 in seed stage investment offered by the Center for Creative Economy as part of the world-class Creative Startups Southeast Accelerator program. In North Carolina alone, creative industries generate $14 billion in wages, salaries and benefits and are a driver of the state’s economic future.”

Recent news articles:

Yes! Weekly – Three Creative Startups Are Winners of $50,000 From The Center For Creative Economy

 Want to learn more about Creative Startups Winston-Salem? Learn More here. 

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At the Center for Creative Economy, we define creative enterprises as companies and individuals that combine design, arts, and technology to create a product or service that gets created, made, and distributed into the economy. According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis,  creative industries contribute $700 billion to the US Gross Domestic Product and $26 billion in revenues in North Carolina.

In fact, the creative economy is growing faster than any economic sector. Our Creative Startups cohorts are included in that increasing number of creative industry professionals that are revolutionizing education technology, print and digital design, creative R&D, software, fashion, film, music, and countless other fields that specialize integrating arts and innovation.

Hair Styling, Make up, and Prosthetics

Christal Schanes, Creative Startups alum and Founder of MEDwig, is changing the world of possibility for medical patients suffering from hair loss. Her career expertise in commercial and stage wig building, hairstyling, makeup, and prosthetics with UNC School of the Arts inspired a company in constructing high quality, custom, medical wigs. Her approach uses state-of-the-art materials that allow patients to have the look and security of natural hair while still allowing hair regrowth to occur.

Creative Tech

Another alum, Carrie Shaw, works at the intersection of health education and virtual reality storytelling. She is the CEO and founder Embodied Labs, a virtual reality platform for healthcare services workforce training. As a medical illustrator and health educator, Carrie developed an interest in the possibility of using virtual reality storytelling to convey the perspective of vulnerable patient populations. Embodied Labs now specializes in creating interactive VR programs that promote healthcare professionals to share expertise and value patient care.

Embodied Labs has just celebrated 1.5 years and currently have 13 academic institutions and 11 long term care & home health agencies using Embodied Labs for caregiver training and development.  For further context, the academic institutions that have signed with them are using Embodied Labs across MD, DO, PA, PT, social work, and nursing programs.  Here is an article by University of New England on how their medical students are using Embodied Labs.  All of these institutions have subscribed to their software to be used on VR hardware that they house in their sim centers, libraries, or centers for faculty teaching & learning.  It’s great to see the uses for VR-based training continue to grow!

These companies are only a couple of examples of how creatives are building the economy and community through the channel of creative industries. Creative Startups Winston-Salem shares in the vision of stimulating innovation and creativity by providing an environment in which creatives can grow in this rapidly expanding industry.

Need help tackling those difficult obstacles in your business?  

If you are a creative entrepreneur, check out Creative Startups’ high impact business accelerator. Join Creative Startups for an online info session on May 24th, and learn how to launch, grow, and scale your creative business.

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Creative Startups Impact Report

In 2016 the Center for Creative Economy launched Creative Startups Accelerator in Winston-Salem, with the mission to provide resources to creative entrepreneurs by offering access to a dynamic curriculum, mentorship, funding, and a supportive cohort. 2017 marks the second year of this program and the fourth year of Creative Startups nationally and the results of the participating cohorts have been striking.

In two years, Creative Startups Winston-Salem has seen 24 startups and 34 individual creatives achieve their goals. Alums have raised $503k in investments for their companies and have earned $654k in new revenues. Even better, Creative Startups has had a 100% participant success rate, meaning that to-date all participating creatives are still in business. Those numbers alone are a staggering testament to the impact Creative Startups has been able to create, and the testimonies of the participants are even more substantial.

“I am eternally grateful for the experience, knowledge, community, and mentorship we received through creative StartUps. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping us grow and open our wings!”

-CSWS 2017 Alumni

Creative Startups globally has accelerated 64 startups and 110 entrepreneurs and created $22.3 million in new revenue earnings, boasting a 93% success rate across 5 countries.

 

Click here to view the full 2017 Impact Report

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Drafting off its first, highly successful business accelerator program, the second annual Creative Startups Winston-Salem is now accepting applications. The world-class program helps creative entrepreneurs develop business models and identify funding. Hosted by the Center for Creative Economy in Winston-Salem, NC, this year’s participants will compete for venture and angel funding up to $75,000 from a range of companies and organizations.

Read the full article here.