wrinkle
Wrinkle means a small, clever twist on an old idea that makes your business stand out without changing what the business fundamentally is.
In plain English
Think of an old cloth iron. The shirt underneath it is still the same shirt, but one clever press in a new direction and suddenly the collar sits differently, and people notice.
That is what a wrinkle is in business. It is not a whole new invention. It is the small twist you add to something everyone already knows, so that your version becomes the one people remember and talk about.
Take the woman selling suya in Yaba who started wrapping hers in foil with a printed tag that says the exact pepper level inside, mild, medium, or fire. Suya is not new. Foil is not new. But that little labelling twist means people now ask for hers by name instead of just buying from whoever is closest to the road.
In the United Kingdom, think of the launderette that added a coffee machine and two armchairs by the window. Washing clothes is still washing clothes, but now people choose that one over three others nearby because of the small comfort added on top.
A wrinkle costs almost nothing to add but can be the whole reason a customer picks you over the next person doing the exact same thing. It is the detail that makes strangers say, oh, that is the one that does it differently.
The danger is stopping there and thinking the wrinkle alone will carry the business. It will not. The suya still has to taste good. The wash still has to come out clean. The wrinkle just gives people a reason to try you first.
A tailor in Aba who makes regular ready made shirts starts sewing a small named tag inside the collar with the buyer's initials for free. The shirt itself costs the same ₦8,000 to make, but customers now tell their friends about the personal touch, and he sells out his weekend batch of 40 shirts instead of the usual 25.
Questions people ask
Is a wrinkle the same thing as innovation?
Not quite. Innovation often means building something genuinely new or solving a problem in a way nobody has before. A wrinkle is smaller and cheaper, a twist on something that already exists, meant to make your version stand out rather than reinvent the whole idea.
How do I find a wrinkle for my own business?
Look closely at what your customers complain about or wish was slightly different, even in small ways, and see if you can fix that one thing cheaply. Often the best wrinkles come from paying attention to tiny frustrations that everyone else in your line of business has simply ignored.
Can a wrinkle wear off if competitors copy it?
Yes, and that is normal. Once your twist works, others will copy it, and it stops being special. The businesses that last keep adding fresh small twists over time instead of resting on the first clever idea they had.
Last reviewed