2.2 STEVE JOBS
Steven Paul Jobs was born February 24, 1955 and is , and of Which he co-founded with Steve Wozniak. Jobs created one of the most successful personal computers and in the 80s he was among the few who thought the mouse will be commercially viable. Steve Jobs was listed as 's Most Powerful Businessman of 2007. Jobs acquired Pixar animations studios in 1986 until its acquisition by walt disney in 2006. Jobs is currently a member of walt disney company board of directors.
3.0 THE ENTREPRENEURAL PROCESS
Bygrave and Zacharakis Framework (2004), explains the entrepreneurial process as a combination of personal, sociological, and environmental factors, which influence an entrepreneur from the beginning stage of business innovation to the maturity stage.
3.1 INNOVATION
The major factor in the environment that had an impact on Job was opportunity and creativity. Job’s adopted parents were very indulgent parents who even moved locations at one time because of Jobs. Jobs grew up spending most of his time around older people like Wozniak. He had summer internships at Hewlett Packard and working with such smart people created an atmosphere for his creativity to grow. Job’s most early show of creativity was when he took a job to improve the design on a chip. He gave the work to Wozniak, and he received $5000 for the job but told Wozniak he was given only $600 and ended up giving Wozniak only $300. Jobs always showed strong confidence and leadership skills which was one of the things that got him his Job at Hewlett Packard (HP) when he was bold enough to ask a manager for the parts he needed to finish an assignment. Bolton and Thompson (2004) cited Hisrich, 1990 that leadership and self confidence are important factors in the emergence of entrepreneurs. The skills and networks he had acquired working for HP influenced his decision later on to start Apple which he co-founded with someone he met working at HP.
Yemi was born into an entrepreneurial family. Her grandmother ran a fuel distributorship and Yemi often helped out in running the business and earn some money. Her grandmother served as a role model and probably endeared her to running her business. This may support many school of thoughts that being familiar with entrepreneurial activities increases the chances of growing up to become one. (Bolton and Thompson 2004). She also was highly intelligent and studied from primary to university on various schorlarships.
Jobs on one hand started his own thing with no history of an entrepreneurial family while Yemi could be said to have grown into the idea.
3.2 TRIGGERING EVENT
Jobs’ trigger occurred in 1975 and was attributable to his capability to recognize possible money making ventures. Wozniak developed a circuit board and Jobs considered the possibility of combining it with a microprocessor to make a computer. This thought gave birth to Apple computer, right in Jobs’ bedroom.
For Yemi, her triggering event was lack of job satisfaction. She realized that although she was well paid, she was not fulfilled. So she started out with about N600 in 1983 (the money she received as gifts at her child’s christening) to travel and buy commodities she could sell in a retail shop. It seems both of them echo Bolton and Thompson (2004)’s belief that real entrepreneurs do not need to be pushed to start off, but that they motivate themselves into starting.
3.3 IMPLEMENTATION
Figure 2 - Opportunity Recognition Process (Barringer and Ireland, 2008)
Jobs capitalised on the rising demand for personal computers (PC) in the late 1970’s. He identified a store owner who wanted 50 PCs to sell to college students. Jobs and Wozniak sold their first PC for $666. They immediately filled the demand they recognized and ended up selling about 600PCs making $774,000 in the process. In the following year they sold over 16,000 PCs. Then Jobs started tinkering with the idea of competing with IBM and realised he would need more marketing and he brought in more people. Eventually Markhula (a venture capitalist) bought into the company and within the next three years, apple had a growth of over 700% (about $139mn). [Halliday, 1983, p. 206] This was a huge feat considering the research according to Burns (2007) that many start-ups fail within the first three years.
Yemi as stated earlier started with money she received as gifts and started her first retail store from that. The impact of the family sociological factor in the Bygrave and Zacharakis (2004) framework is seen in Yemi’s starting with money she received as gifts and Jobs receiving help and assistance from friends. Yemi developed her credibility and got wholesalers and distributors to sell to her on credit, eventually she grew her business through using other people’s money, thereby reducing her own risk.
Apple’s success came when Jobs was able to envision competing with IBM and the entrepreneurial spirit of believing in himself played a huge role in this. Eventually, Apple became the standard setters in the personal computing industry.
Effectual reasoning according to Sarasvathy (2001) was employed by both Yemi and Jobs. They both used their personality, networks and knowledge of the market in carrying out their plans successfully.
3.4 GROWTH
The next stage in the entrepreneurial process is the growth stage. Many models could be used but the one that best fits the 2 entrepreneurs being considered is the Churchill and Lewis (1983) model shown above.
According to the framework shown above, the limiting factor to growth is access to resources required for growth. Yemi was able to gain access to the financial resources she required having established her integrity and brand image. She was able to get financing from the bank which she used to open another outlet in 1988. Another key resource required for growth is management. Yemi was able to retain and keep her staff loyal by allowing them opportunity to grow within the organization. Currently each one of her stores is managed by staff that used to work with her and grew into management roles.
Jobs got the needed financials especially after Apples went public in December 1980 with its initial public offering of stock, becoming Apple Computer. Shares opened at $22 but increased to $29, making Apple's value $1.2bn. Jobs owned 15% of the company stock and was the leading shareholder. His shares were worth about $239 million. Over the next 5 years, Jobs had no official authority but ruled by sheer force of personality.
4.0 A SUMMARY COMPARISON
The nine F’s framework which identifies factors that differentiate a successful entrepreneur from the ‘also – rans’ is used in summarizing the analysis because the factors it considers affect both the entrepreneur and the firm (Bygrave and Zacharakis 2004).
5.0 CONCLUSION
The essay clearly point out that entrepreneurship is a process and a journey not a destination. The success or failure of entrepreneurs does not depend on their personal wealth or how much they start out with, but on recognition and exploitation of opportunities, resources and skills available.
Entrepreneurial background is not necessary to become a successful entrepreneur as Jobs exemplifies, neither must entrepreneurial endeavours be started only when pushed, as Yemi started left the comfort for the unsure in starting her own business. Entrepreneurial traits which stand out include self belief, confidence, commercial awareness, opportunity recognition, risk taking, analytical and innovative skills. The impact of friends and social networks has also been shown to play a large role in entrepreneurial endeavours.
I will conclude by saying that although some entrepreneurs discover themselves earlier in life, it does not rule out those who did not discover themselves early. Societal and environmental impacts play a greater role or impact in determining entrepreneurs compared to genes.
6.0 EVALUATING MY ENTREPRENEURIAL PROFILE
I began running one of my mother’s retail shops at 15years. I finished college, worked on a short term project, did a stint for 6 months in a bank, I found it boring so I moved to New business development and product innovation. I worked for over a year and moved to brand management. I was about getting bored so I came for my MBA. One things I find that plagues me is I get bored easily. I often wondered if I should start my own company and if I have the entrepreneurial mindset and skills to succeed in it. I used the Entrepreneur Next Door and the GET2 online tests to measure myself and provided a summary of the information in table (d).
6.1 ENTREPRENEURIAL TEST SUMMARIES
6.11 General Enterprising Tendency Test (GET 2) – Highlights
Score: Highly Enterprising
6.12 Entrepreneur Next Door
Entrepreneurial Personality: My Score – 78
6.2 SWOT ANALYSIS
I present a SWOT analysis based on feedback from my friends, colleagues and the various assessment tools and test used.
6.3 MY ENTREPRENEURIAL CAREER PLAN
To my surprise, I scored quite high on all the tests measuring entrepreneurial tendencies. GET-2 (highly entrepreneurial), Entrepreneur next door (78), and the entrepreneurial self assessment (37/50). I have discovered that I get easily bored working on routine jobs, so my end goal is to start up a Management consultancy firm. I believe the skills I have acquired in business management and the networks I have built offer a very sound footing to make plans. I believe the internationally recognized MBA is definitely a step in the right direction. My network from previous work experience and my ability to network effectively will afford me an unending client base and referrals..
My usual style is intuitive (Richardson and Clarke (1993) but I will be combinigs an incremental approach towards realising my goal. I have had previous experience in Marketing and business management, and I focussed my MBA on strategy to provide me with a wider job market option. I plan to gain more work experience in a management consulting firm so I can learn and increase my knowledge.
From the results of the test and feedback I received from friends I scored well on drive, leadership, communication, resilience. All these are attributes I consider to be important in my entrepreneurial endeavours, and I plan to further develop these skills.
My weaknesses are another matter, I don’t seem to manage my time well and I cant seem to relax and enjoy life. I took up Time management as one of the soft skills I would like to develop in my Personal development module and I am working on it. My propensity to work too hard have had negative impact on my health in time past and I realize I need to take a break from time to time. I recently developed a plan to take a holiday at least one weekend every month. After 3 months I found this not to be effective because I constantly was busy working or reading even while on my purported holiday. I am yet to find a way to overcome this but I hope getting into a relationship and eventually getting married will put this responsibility on my spouse!
I believe the knowledge and experiences shared on the Entrepreneurship module will help me in the successful implementation of my plan to start a management consultancy. While I continue to gain more valuable work experience, I will begin to scout for likely partners with similar drives but other area of specialty which I can partner with. I also have reactivated my relationship with my mentor whom I had not gotten in touch with. I have shared my dream with him and I believe his mentorship, experience and contacts will be valuable assets in the future.
I was initially sceptical about entrepreneurial tests and their measure of entrepreneurial capabilities but I was shocked to have them confirm the things I guessed about myself. It sure does help to have a scientific measure which can serve as a guide in assessing entrepreneurial tendencies. They are a welcome complement to other measures such as feedback from friends, experience, and colleagues in assessing entrepreneurial capabilities. In my own case, they actually are serving as a trigger to embarking on my entrepreneurial journey. I must however sound a note of caution that the tests should be used only as guides and they are not predictive, self reflection along with other measures I stated earlier will provide a more holistic measure of entrepreneurial ability.
REFERENCES
Applegate, L.M., (2001). Entrepreneurial Mindset Tool. Harvard Business School
Bygrave, W.D., Zacharakis, A. 2004. The Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship, 3rd edition. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Bolton, B., Thompson, J. 2004. Entrepreneurs: Talent, Temperament, Technique, 2nd edition. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinmann
Burns, P. 2007. Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2nd edition. New York: Palgrave Macmillian
Entrepreneur Next Door
Available at
[Accessed June 03, 2009]
GET2 Tests
Available at [Accessed June 03, 2009]
Harvard Business School Spotlights Entrepreneurship
Available at [ Accessed June 04, 2009]
Halliday, David. 1983. "Steve Paul Jobs". Current Biography 5 (February): 204-207.
Leading American Businesses
[Accessed May 30, 2009]
Low, M. B., & MacMillan, I. C. (1988). Entrepreneurship: Past research and future challenges. Journal of Management, 14, 139-161.
Rasul, S., 2009 Entrepreneurship Course Manual, Bradford MBA
Sarasvathy, S.D., (2001). What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial? University of Washington School of Business.
Stevenson, H. H., & Jarillo, J. C. (1990). A paradigm of entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial management. Strategic Management Journal, 11(1), 17-27.
