Interview: Creative Entrepreneurs Founder Carolyn Dailey
THE WICK: What does a typical Monday look like for you?
Carolyn Dailey: Never typical! Unfortunately – or actually fortunately, as I don’t tend to like routine. It goes in rhythms. If I’m in writing mode, it’s a long stretch of hardcore head down graft. If I’m in real world mode, Mondays are mainly for imagining and planning, for example new content ideas, new event ideas, new interview ideas. To get space for that, I tend to keep external meetings to a minimum on Mondays, but I always make time to catch up with the team as it’s so important to brainstorm for the week ahead.
TW: You are the Founder of Creative Entrepreneurs, an international community empowering creatives to succeed personally and professionally. What do you think is the biggest challenge creatives face?
CD: By far the biggest and most urgent challenge is the lack of creative entrepreneur role models. Creatives don’t see themselves represented as successful business people. In one sense, this is understandable as mainstream conversation is more interested in the output of creative people, for example Roksanda Ilincic’s next collection or Thomas Heatherwick’s next building or Nile Rodgers’ next hit. But this means the entrepreneurial back stories are lost. The mission of my book is to tell these untold stories for the first time – to provide the inspiration and learning that is urgently needed to help people build creative businesses and careers.
TW:
You have just launched your debut book The Creative Entrepreneur. Why do you think creativity and business are often separated?
CD:
First, creatives don’t tend to have business backgrounds or contacts or, frankly, interest. So they normally avoid “the business side” as much as possible. Next, we have these gulfs of understanding which have grown up over time. From within the creative sector, “business” remains a dirty word, “commercial success” is shunned as “selling out,” and “entrepreneur” tends to carry negative connotations of tech-bros or cigar-smoking super yacht owners.
From outside of the creative sector, the stereotype remains that those within it are starving artists or hobbyists and should never be taken seriously when it comes to business. I hope my book can help break down these misconceptions and let creatives see that business actually empowers their creativity. It’s what lets something go from a creative idea to becoming something real that can go into the world and take flight. And while I find these misconceptions so frustrating, the other side of the coin is that if we can break them down and enable creatives to embrace business to empower their creativity, the potential is endless.
TW: Your book is an essential guide on how to build a creative business, with insights from ten of the world’s most inspiring entrepreneurs. What is the best piece of advice you have personally received?
CD: It’s the same piece of advice that every one of the entrepreneurs featured in my book also mentioned – be absolutely true to yourself. It sounds like a trite cliche, but it’s not. It’s so easy to get caught up in what you think is expected of you. The key is to stay in touch with what is uniquely you – that’s where your originality and success will come from.
“It’s what lets something go from a creative idea to becoming something real that can go into the world and take flight.”
