Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Javier Edwards. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Javier, appreciate you joining us today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you to move beyond an idea and actually launch?

“Execution over ideation.”

This was a key core value from one of my previous employers. I have no doubt it was created with the best of intentions – but I think it falls short of painting a clear picture of how we can better relate and measure ideation against the execution.

I want to share the framework I often use to execute ideas and create products and services that make an impact.

I’ll use a recent venture as an example.

I launched a product photography studio www.elroistudios.com in 2020, and it’s generated close to $175,000 in revenue to date.

During the ideation phase, I consulted with a market research expert – it was here I realized that my photography business was too general; I needed to niche down, focus on a target market and drive brand presence with marketing and campaigns.

Getting to this point in the ideation phase is worthy of significant attention and investment. Many call this subphase of the ideation process the “Discovery” phase.

Here, you’re doing competitive audits and gaining insight on your target market and user.

The discovery phase is also where you flesh out the idea and collect inspiration and artifacts to help clarify and refine the big-picture idea.

Now, we’re better equipped to develop tangible objectives, build teams and scope of works.

The goal of starting with discovery is to gain clarity. It’s important to invest the resource and time necessary to clarify exactly what your idea is, who the idea will serve, their core problems and how your idea will help, if you except your product to appeal to your target audience.

Be curious and build with empathy.

When you approach ideation with curious and empathetic posture, you’re better able to clarify if your idea is good or bad.

If you have not done the work of defining your goals, understanding your audience and empathizing with them, you have not done what it takes to know if your idea is even worth pursuing to execution.

Now, once I completed the discovery phase for my startup, I was ready to switch gears and start working to bring the idea to life.

This phase is more mechanical, but should also be considered an art form of its own. Being organized takes vision – and organization is the oxygen of the execution phase.

Now, began to delegate resources and capital to activate and build internal infrastructuree, workflows and the user interface and experience.

Additionally, this is where I iterated, critiqued and refined outputs from my team – until we are confident that the outputs addressed the needs of our target audience.

Done.

Now it’s time to share my idea with the world – and continue to iterate based on user insight.

In summary, the quality of our products and services is measured by the systems and processes we use to build them.

Be curious.

Learn more about your audience.

Lead with empathy.

Get organized.

This basic framework should help clarify and refine your ideas – you’ll create better output that have more impact.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I’ve spent the past 10-12 years clocking over 15,000 hours, directing and producing creative outputs for e-commerce businesses. I was the 4th member of Chewy Studios, the in-house agency for unicorn Chewy.com.

ince lea a founder and creative producer. I curate creative conversations and build creative tools that solve creative problems.

I’m building a micro-startup called El Roi Studios: a product photography studio based in Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Palm Beach FL. We provide e-commerce businesses with a remote solution for product photography.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice

Highly speculative and not worth much for now – but these assets do give a preview on what the future of royalties and licensing could look

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Business financial education resources. It’s critical to know about the resources and capital available to you as a small business owner.

• Website: www.elroistudios.com
• Instagram: @javierbedwards
• Linkedin: javierbedwards
• Twitter: javierbedwards

Image Credits
Image taken provided by El Roi Studios, LLC