Strawberry Pizza is the key to a more prosperous economic future.
I’ve been on a vegetarian kick lately and I’ve found that by limiting myself a bit — no meat Brink! — I’m forced to get creative about my dinner, and this creative cooking mentality leads to new discoveries which I never could have imagined if I had not gotten more experimental in the kitchen. Case in point — strawberry pizza. If you don’t believe me, do it. I included my secret recipe below to inspire you. You won’t regret it, and it may just convince you that you can be a vegetarian for a week and not go hungry.
I think startup ideas are a bit like this. After all, startups (SMEs) create the majority of economic growth for our global economy, so anybody who wants to create more wealth and prosperity in the World should be experimenting with strawberry pizza and countless other counter-intuitive recipes, and from these experiments — magic happens, and our future appetites are sated and markets are born and the ideas feed off each other (pun intended 🙂 )
The great thing is — everyone (including YOU!) has their own strawberry pizza recipe inside of them just waiting to be discovered. All you have to do is get creative with the ingredients, and as you do — possibilities are literally endless. It’s all about experimenting, taking risks, and most important — choosing your favorite ingredients. Imagine that strawberries = your passion. No matter what you do with strawberries, you’re probably going to be at least somewhat happy with the results. It’s the same with starting your own business — by including your passion in your key ingredients, you’re basically mitigating risk, because no matter what happens at least you’ll still be cooking with strawberries.
Stanford economist Paul Romer describes innovation and economic growth with the following cooking metaphor:
Economic growth occurs whenever people take resources and rearrange them in ways that are more valuable. A useful metaphor for production in an economy comes from the kitchen. To create valuable final products, we mix inexpensive ingredients together according to a recipe. The cooking one can do is limited by the supply of ingredients, and most cooking in the economy produces undesirable side effects. If economic growth could be achieved only by doing more and more of the same kind of cooking, we would eventually run out of raw materials and suffer from unacceptable levels of pollution and nuisance. History teaches us, however, that economic growth springs from better recipes, not just from more cooking. New recipes generally produce fewer unpleasant side effects and generate more economic value per unit of raw material. Every generation has perceived the limits to growth that finite resources and undesirable side effects would pose if no new recipes or ideas were discovered. And every generation has underestimated the potential for finding new recipes and ideas. We consistently fail to grasp how many ideas remain to be discovered. Possibilities do not add up. They multiply.
Well said Dr. Romer. Economic growth is all about creativity, innovation, and the entrepreneurial spirit — it’s about taking risks and putting those strawberries on the pizza to see what happens. Guess what? The first time I did this the strawberries seemed to explode with flavor through the melted cheese, and now I’ve started buying more strawberries just so I can make pizzas with them. Boom. Economic growth. A new recipe, another happy customer and a blog post to boot.
What’s your counter-intuitive cooking creation?
What life passion (core ingredient) will you include in your recipe for success?
Brink’s Economic Growth Veggie Pizza Recipe:
1. Pesto Base
2. Broccoli Sprouts to help hold the sauce
3. Glorious fresh veggies from the local market (including at least 1 random fruit item)
4. Cheese
5. 10 minutes max to retain veggie nutrients
6. Devour it
