What this book written by Peter Sims covers and tells us based
on about 200 interviews with successful peoples, creators and innovators is
that the biggest ideas, successes starts from small discoveries (he names this
little bets) reworked than to achieve great results. It explain us how highly successful
innovators like Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos etc. had started
with brilliant ideas and discovered them and succeeded pretty well.
Peter Sims defined “little bets” as a low-risk action taken
to discover, develop, and test an idea.
New, creative
and original ideas - that’s little bets is all about.
Peter Sims puts in readers mind the idea on how to start small
and anyway if you fail you just lose less than start with big ideas and
investments and in this way you also learn from this, but if you succeed than develop
further your idea further, test it to have better and great results.
There are also many companies in Albania that have used let
say the same method as starting with little bets and becoming very successful but I just wanted to mention
one and very beautiful idea of the owner of “Arlecchino” factory Edmond Angoni who
produces carnival masks in Shkodra (I just wanted to share this with students who didn't know about this factory).
A little known fact for movie buffs is that the masks worn
by Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in their 1999 movie “Eyes Wide Shut” were
created by the Albanian artist Edmond Angoni. They are particularly in demand
in Venice because they are handmade masks, a tradition which is gradually
disappearing in the Venetian mask market.
In 1991, he immigrated to Italy to try his luck, as did many
of his countrymen. He found himself in many cities of Italy doing all kinds of
jobs until he reached Venice, where masks caught his attention. Angoni set on
creating his own mask designs, even though he faced stiff competition in Venice
with over 500 years of tradition. Undaunted, Angoni began his business in 1996
after returning to Albania.
Edmond Angoni with one of his handmade masks
In Shkodra, he established a mask factory called Venice
Art, which initially produced 3-4 simple types of masks at a low price.
Initially he designed all the models on order as well as all the characters of
"commedia del arte." He gathered people around him who now make up
the factory laboratory, called “Arlecchino,” after the hero of Italian
carnivals.
From the beginning Angoni had the goal to sell his masks on
the international market including Venice. With this well-defined goal into his
mind, he threw himself in this adventure. Venetian shops were invaded by
plastic Chinese products and this helped Angoni’s masks produced with paper-mache
technique to stand out. The masks ended up in the hands of Venetian
wholesalers, who supplied the local market and distributed them all over the
world.
“Venice was the first market I chose because I had lived there and knew its customs. Moreover, I had nothing to risk. The investment was minimal, no machinery needed, just a mould,” the artist said. Bit by bit Angoni was able to build up his business in Venice to six shops and later on expand to Las Vegas and Dubai, in effect supplying the world with masks and carnival costumes.
“Venice was the first market I chose because I had lived there and knew its customs. Moreover, I had nothing to risk. The investment was minimal, no machinery needed, just a mould,” the artist said. Bit by bit Angoni was able to build up his business in Venice to six shops and later on expand to Las Vegas and Dubai, in effect supplying the world with masks and carnival costumes.
“I can’t forget that it was in 2004 when I joined Swarovski,
the leading supplier of crystals. We used the crystals to create a new line of
masks, which were more expensive, of course. This line became successful in
Dubai,” Angoni explains.
Finally we need to try, observe, and practice a lot in order to turn
our little bets into big successes.
Very nice description, can you make this as your success story in our class as a presentation? It looks very interesting.
YanıtlaSil“Eyes Wide Shut” is one of my favourite movies of all times. And it is a very pleasant surprise to find out that the masks used there were made by an Albanian. To compete with Venetians regarding masks seems like an impossible task and yet he has succeeded. If Peter Sims knew about Edmond Angoni I’m sure that he would have included him in his book.
YanıtlaSilThanks for the comments.
YanıtlaSilMario I would like that our presentation had been about "Alecchino" factory but was a little bit difficult organizing interview etc.
So we decided to present "Alkaloid" pharmaceutical company considering it as a Star company as it generates every year more than 10% revenue comparing with the year before.
Elvis thanks for the nice story. There are actually other success stories of this kind too, in which Albanians go and emigrate to Italy or Greece or other countries in search for a better life and there somehow their star shines. People like Behgjet Pacolli or many other Albanian entrepreneurs who have been able to succeed in the countries where they live and work show us that Albanians have a high entrepreneurial spirit but it is the environment that may limit them to succeed in Albania. Hopefully things are changing here too…
YanıtlaSilI also enjoyed very much this blog, specially the history of this entrepreneur. I believe what this makes him special, is following his passion,and having self confidence, being optimistic and trying,...not being afraid of failure. This makes him quite original , and successful. this illustrate the arguments that Peter Sims uses in his book. He says not do make big bets, but little ones, so to try, (may be many times) and then succeed. In fact, this kind of histories makes us feel proud and also give hope that these "bets" are possible even here...so it is never late or wrong to try.
YanıtlaSil