Winning ideas are amazingly simple.

They are always there; just that no one noticed it. Until a maverick comes and finds it out, nurtures it, builds it into a winning business enterprise – and leaves you wondering – Oh man, why didn’t I think about it.

Have you ever seen a DNA gel electrophoresis. It is basically a dull black and white map of ones DNA. Like this:

Now take this dull map, add lots of colour, design and excitement and phew, you get a unique and personalized painting, to decorate your house, like this:

or this:

This is exactly what Nazim Ahmed (a biotechnologist by education) and Adrian Salamunovic (a designer) did when they founded DNA11 – a firm specializing in use of genetic engineering to create highly personalized art forms (they call it as DNA Art). What they do is simple – extract your DNA, run a gel electrophoresis (it is simple, even I did it in my undergrad days), but instead of getting a black and white map, they make colourful and bright portraits.

DNA11 is an million dollar business now. And growing!

Winning ideas are amazingly simple.