Last Updated on October 9, 2023 by Editorial Team
Individuals with dyslexia are significantly more competent than traditional insights. Astoundingly, they are game-changers in many industries. They offer solutions to baffling issues. A study by the American Management Association reveals that almost 35% of entrepreneurs in the U.S. are dyslexic. Many abiding big names like Nick Jones, and Ingvar Kamprad are grounded in remarkable businesses.
The above lines evidently manifest dyslexics having an added advantage in business. We have already talked about creative thinking skills in Dyslexics in our previous posts, where we comprehended various components that are either snag or snap for them. In this accord, we will look into some finest business ideas for such aspirants taking their abilities on board.
Why are Dyslexics Pre-eminent in Business?
About 10% of the population in the U.S. is claimed to be dyslexic. However, a great margin of them are entrepreneurs. This conveys most of them are victorious. But, what attributes make them master trading and merchandising skills? Here, we analyze various obligatory business traits in Dyslexics:
1. Imaginative Skill-An edge
Dyslexics by popular belief are as smart as their peers when it comes to visualization. Possessing an ability to process information distinctly, they are inherently creative. Research by Martina Hedenius[1] shows them to have better picture memory, which supports this affirmation.
2. Emotional Intelligence-Can be Grasped
Emotional Intelligence is the ability to interpret, avail, and manage emotions to conquer stress and empathy. The extent of such traits varies from person to person, the same is the case for Dyslexics too. However, dyslexics have the potential to learn emotional intelligence.
3. Leadership and delegation- Their Upper hand
Being aware of strengths and weaknesses, they have better cognizance of themselves and others. According to research[2] by Julie Logan, Dylexic entrepreneurs have unusual leadership and delegation skills. Traits like question design, communication of vision, and divergent thinking are noted in these persons.
4. Statistical analysis – Recompensed with Straight-Forwardness
Evidently, Dyslexics can face challenges in Statistic learning. While there are no perfect inferences that prove the causes behind it, Dyslexics usually recompense them with straightforwardness. Since Businesses come with a lot of complexities, they spectate challenges on a whole picture, thus can effortlessly simplify them. They can act fast and boldly seizing opportunities.
5. Ardent and peculiar- Routine Coping Strategies
Their attribute of being curious to know the essence is uplifted by their passion. Developing coping strategies to get ardent and peculiar eventually leads them to win over their weaknesses. Research[3] by Jilie Logan props up the same.
Potential Business Ideas for Dyslexics
Learning about the various strengths of dyslexics can show that they are truly business personnel. Aspiring candidates may be bewildered in penetrating through lots of ideas. Therefore, we here provide sieved picks to make their forage easier:
1. Distribution consultation
With smartphones and PCs in hand, people are inclined towards online purchases rather than procuring from local stores. This has reasonably shrunk the demand for commercial spaces. These spaces can be transformed into distribution hubs to facilitate online trade. However, the wise use of these spaces is obligated.
This is where distribution consultants come to the scene, by suggesting how to refit spaces as per need. Dyslexics are creative and thus can be great consultants. When it comes to strategizing how a space is to be wisely partitioned, one needs to visualize their plan of action. This is where Dyslexics can undoubtedly excel.
2. Cybersecurity Software Firm
The digital world today is adorned with lots of devices, all connected to the internet. In this context, threats to online content continue to increase drastically. Since most of the personal data like photos, bank accounts, and social media are accessed and stored on these devices, the need for online services is escalating.
Not everyone can give custom-tailored solutions for every device unless they have great critical thinkers and visualizers. Dyslexics can try their hand in such areas where they need to be divergent.
3. Travel Planning
While anyone with time and funds can peregrinate, not many can frame an exceptional plan to relish the trip to the fullest. Creative people with logical thinking are often masters in compiling such schedules, which signals Dyslexics can promptly try their hand as Travel Planners.
The responsibilities don’t just stop at designing the agenda but also encompass organizing all the obligatory arrangements for clients. Envisaging and apprehending maps is often pivotal for travel planners since they need to fabricate appropriate lineups. Dyslexics can thus be apposite in such professions.
4. Retail fixtures and Distributors
Retailing and distribution are not taxing for innovative people. Communicating with stakes and excavating new channels to supply forms the base of this commerce. Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA is a dyslexic who innovated a business model to serve people with furniture and other home needs.
Therefore, this proven trade can be a great kickstart for aspirants. Procuring fitments for every corner of homes and offices may need an eccentric mindset to content customers, this is where Dyslexics can prove to be emanating traders.
5. Event Photography/ studio Business
With the increasing demands of people requiring creative photos and cinematic videos in various events, competition for photographers has been increasing exponentially. With a relatively low start-up investment, all the individual needs are to be creative to excite clients.
Artistic Lensmen can instinctively create brand value. While Dyslexics may loathe numbers, they esteem pictures and visual professions. Photography and cinematography are some appreciable businesses to start with.
6. Hyper-Local Marketing
While more and more small businesses are established, the market gets closer to saturation. In this scenario, no store can grab a notable market share. This is where hyperlocal marketing becomes crucial. The procedure includes online marketing of the store to local residents to escalate awareness, favorably in a distinct way.
This demands creativity. Composing engrossing posters and videos form a major share of this business. On the other hand, promotion often urges the person to be inventive every time. Dyslexics can undoubtedly be plump for kicking off with such professions.
7. Restaurant/ Cafe
People who love cooking often dream of starting a restaurant. Cooking is an art and the chef needs to be creative to decorate recipes and innovate new ones. On the management level, being an owner may need them to take care of sales and promotions. Brands like KFC and Pizza Hut started with a single restaurant and drastically grew their chain of restaurants all over the world. Thus, both these responsibilities need them to be creative enough to make a brand value.
From grasping recipes of various dishes to fabricating exceptional promotions, restaurants need the possessor to master multiple expertise. Dyslexics intriguingly often grasp various skills to recompense their compromises, thus feeling it effortless to manage all of them concomitantly.
8. Boutique
Boutique differs from other cloth stores with their unique offerings in garments and jewelry. As a designer, the owner makes specialized attire for customers to adorn special occasions. This profitable business model is not everyone’s cup of tea.
Creativity embellished with forethought forms the base. Every new order demands a set of fresh ideas and divergent extents of complexities. For people like Dyslexics who are often solicitous to be ingenious, this business is sparsely taxing.
Recompensing with skills learned- Dyslexics formula to success
While we comprehend Dyslexia as a learning disorder that deals with challenges in reading and identifying sounds, some often wonder how individuals with such compromises can turn into successful entrepreneurs. These inferences are the result of conjectures.
Individuals with this learning ailment often cultivate pliability and compensatory mechanisms over the years in their school days. All these habitually instigate better skills in areas like interactions, fine arts, and selective sciences, which transmute into pivotal attributes to turn them into entrepreneurs. Thus, they can become equitably successful in the fullness of time.
As successful entrepreneurs, they are good at entrusting tasks. Though they may not be competent in roles that obligate little artistry, success is always the result of skills they learned to recompense personal limitations. Research by Julie Logan[3] manifests that Dyslexics develop strategies by copying and learning from others to overcome their weaknesses
Summing up
Apart from legal structure and plan, every business requires perseverance and ideology. Enduring these can ensure triumph. Successful entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and Steve Jobs evince dyslexics have the ability to flourish. Collaterally we must outline that they assimilated necessary skills to compensate for their compromises.
Not only this, people with any disability can taste victory when they analyze what their strengths are, thus enduring a befitting path. Dig into the above-mentioned business ideas to see if any of them allure you to start with.
References
- Hedenius, M., Ullman, M. T., Alm, P., Jennische, M., & Persson, J. (2013). Enhanced Recognition Memory after Incidental Encoding in Children with Developmental Dyslexia. PLoS ONE, 8(5). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0063998
- City, University of London. (2012, June 29). Unusual talent – a study of successful leadership and delegation in dyslexic entrepreneurs | Bayes Business School. Bayes Business School.
- Logan, Julie. (2009). Dyslexic Entrepreneurs: The Incidence; Their Coping Strategies and Their Business Skills. Dyslexia (Chichester, England). 15. 328-46. 10.1002/dys.388.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,