Brit Morin: Creators by Nature

So Brené Brown says this, I'm not very creative doesn't work. There is no such thing as creative people, non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and those who don't. And I fully agree with this statement. And that, again, is the point of my business. And that's when the light bulb did go off. And I was like, is this a business? How could I make this a business? Clearly, I'm really passionate about it. I could see myself doing this for a long time. It matters in the world. It's a problem I see. So I started looking at the industry. And of course, I thought of Martha Stewart. I was like, she was the leader of creativity for my mom and my mom's mom. But it doesn't really resonate with today's consumer. The stuff Martha would make would be like, beautiful cakes and table settings that might take you the whole day, but it would be really amazing and your friends would be so jealous. And it felt really aspirational but not really relatable. Today's society has maybe 30 minutes, has never done it before, is totally freaked out about doing it in the first place. So what are the hacks to get them there faster? I also thought about the retail world of crafting and arts and crafts. Michaels is the leader of that space. They do $5 billion in revenue a year. Followed closely by Joann's and Hobby Lobby, who each do multi-billions of dollars of revenue as well. The whole craft industry at large in the US alone is a $34 billion industry, which has not been disrupted in a very long time. Then I started, of course, going to data. So I looked up terms on Google search trends. How-to had been growing over the years. 3D printing, of course, was a new technology that was starting to grow as a search term. And the maker movement, which I found the most interesting, was a term that didn't even exist before about 2007 or 2008. So the maker movement is about this new cultural shift in how people, especially young people, want to be making and creating, and how these new types of machines and internet resources are helping them do that. So why is all of this happening now? Why are young people really interested in this? I have some hypotheses. I think a lot of it is cultural. So we're seeing each other do it a lot. We're seeing trends of artisanal. We're backlashing against packaged food brands. We don't want to buy frozen dinners anymore. I know my parents bought me in the '80s and early '90s. Buy small and support our local communities. We also have a research report that says, if I could actually— if I had the right resources, I could make products that are better than the ones I buy in stores. And this is from about 20- to 50-year-olds, consumers who said that. I also just think we're tired of screens sometimes. Sometimes we want to disconnect. And we haven't been able to do that. This is the first generation that's really grown up without being forced to take home economics or shop class. Who's had two working parents while they were growing up as children, and really just never learned to do this stuff before. Finally, it's just our human nature. Look back at our ancestors. They literally had to create to survive. They had to build things. They had to cook for themselves. It was a part of society. Now, of course, we can outsource all these things if we want to. We can Postmates our dinner over if we want to. We can have people do all the building and making for us. But inside, we are literally made to be creators.