From this assignment, we clearly understand the importance of the enhancement of entrepreneurial skills and personal qualities of successful entrepreneurs in Malaysia and the world. As we know, it is not an easy task to achieve our target as what we wish for.
We learned that most successful entrepreneurs share similar characteristics, such as persuasion, self-confidence, work commitment, efficiency oriented, tolerance for failure, high initiative level, information seeking and problem solving. To succeed in their business venture, they had sacrificed times, money, energy and spirit in the process of entrepreneurship. Becoming a successful entrepreneur is not because of the gift by nature, in fact, it involves various strategies, characteristics and personal quality of person who wants to become a successful entrepreneur.
Although all the eight entrepreneurial traits are essential for an entrepreneur, we learn that the most important trait is tolerance for failure. We often face our difficulties, obstacles, and obligations in our daily life. An entrepreneur will never easily give up when he is facing some problems in their business venture. He will accept the failure as the challenge and try to rectify the problems he faced until he achieves his goal.
If we want to be successful entrepreneurs in the future, we should start practicing these positive traits in our daily routine as the saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.
Saturday, 12 November 2016
Five Entrepreneurial Traits Possessed by Steve Jobs
One of the entrepreneurial traits that Steve Jobs had possessed is persuasion. Initially, to sell more Macintosh computers, Apple Inc. invented iPod, followed with an app of the iTunes Music Store. In 2003, Jobs negotiated with the music company which wouldn’t give the permission of their songs to the company like Microsoft to sign up with him. He persuaded, the Apple company was not that big at that time, and most of the users might start sharing songs from iTunes because it was a new thing for them. He continued argued, the record labels looked at Apple’s tiny market share, which is a low percentage of the whole PC market, and reckoned they’d sell about a million songs per year. The company accepted his offer. Only in U.S., Apple sold a million when iTunes had released in the first week. It sold 3 million within a month. Nowadays, Apple sells apps, books, TV shows, films, as well as the music. Without Jobs’ persuasion skill, Apple will not be here at all.
Besides, Steve Jobs had a high level of self-confidence. When he was designing the iPhone, he planned to replace the surface to a scratchproof glass, instead of plastic. So, he met with the CEO of Corning, Wendell Weeks, which had developed and discovered “gorilla glass”. Jobs wanted a huge shipment of gorilla glass within six months but Weeks explained that Corning didn’t have that such capacity. He strongly disagreed Weeks’ premise. He was so confident that Corning could make it. His self-confidence made Weeks to change his mind and called his managers to produce gorilla glass all time.
On top of that, Steve Jobs showed the trait of tolerance for failure in his life. Like Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Jobs was a college dropout. He spent only 6 months in Reed College because his adoptive parents could not afford such an expensive education. Although he didn’t complete his study, but he still never gives up his hope. In 1973, He was interested in Eastern spiritualism. To save his money to India to study Eastern culture and religion, he took a part-time job designing video games for Atari.
Furthermore, Steve Jobs had also a high level of initiative. He renewed his friendship with Wozniak when he returned to the U.S. from India. Wozniak tried to build a small computer because of his hobby. But the visionary Jobs took the initiative because he believed that the device had the marketing potential. Jobs convinced Wozniak to go into business with him. Jobs and Wozniak set up shop in Jobs' parents' garage, dubbed the venture Apple, and began working on the prototype of the Apple I in 1975. Jobs sold his Volkswagen microbus and Wozniak sold his lovely calculator, Hewlett-Packard calculator to generate the $1,350 in capital they used to start Apple.
Lastly, Steve Jobs is a problem solver. Jobs introduced Macintosh as home computer in 1984. But the consumers could not afford because it was too expensive, which its cost was $2495. He tried to pitch Macintosh to business computer, but with little memory, no networking capabilities and no hard drives, almost none of the America companies wanted it. Jobs still believed that Macintosh would be a success. But due to company’s loss, he sold his Apple shares and quitted in 1985. Jobs didn’t escape from his problem. He tried to solve it by launching NeXT. After 12 years, Apple Company acquired NeXT, brought Jobs back to his company. He became CEO again in the following year. He drove his company to the greatest success, from iPod to iPhone and iPad.
Besides, Steve Jobs had a high level of self-confidence. When he was designing the iPhone, he planned to replace the surface to a scratchproof glass, instead of plastic. So, he met with the CEO of Corning, Wendell Weeks, which had developed and discovered “gorilla glass”. Jobs wanted a huge shipment of gorilla glass within six months but Weeks explained that Corning didn’t have that such capacity. He strongly disagreed Weeks’ premise. He was so confident that Corning could make it. His self-confidence made Weeks to change his mind and called his managers to produce gorilla glass all time.
On top of that, Steve Jobs showed the trait of tolerance for failure in his life. Like Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Jobs was a college dropout. He spent only 6 months in Reed College because his adoptive parents could not afford such an expensive education. Although he didn’t complete his study, but he still never gives up his hope. In 1973, He was interested in Eastern spiritualism. To save his money to India to study Eastern culture and religion, he took a part-time job designing video games for Atari.
Furthermore, Steve Jobs had also a high level of initiative. He renewed his friendship with Wozniak when he returned to the U.S. from India. Wozniak tried to build a small computer because of his hobby. But the visionary Jobs took the initiative because he believed that the device had the marketing potential. Jobs convinced Wozniak to go into business with him. Jobs and Wozniak set up shop in Jobs' parents' garage, dubbed the venture Apple, and began working on the prototype of the Apple I in 1975. Jobs sold his Volkswagen microbus and Wozniak sold his lovely calculator, Hewlett-Packard calculator to generate the $1,350 in capital they used to start Apple.
Lastly, Steve Jobs is a problem solver. Jobs introduced Macintosh as home computer in 1984. But the consumers could not afford because it was too expensive, which its cost was $2495. He tried to pitch Macintosh to business computer, but with little memory, no networking capabilities and no hard drives, almost none of the America companies wanted it. Jobs still believed that Macintosh would be a success. But due to company’s loss, he sold his Apple shares and quitted in 1985. Jobs didn’t escape from his problem. He tried to solve it by launching NeXT. After 12 years, Apple Company acquired NeXT, brought Jobs back to his company. He became CEO again in the following year. He drove his company to the greatest success, from iPod to iPhone and iPad.
Steve Jobs' Biography
His biological parents were Abdulfattah “John” Jandali and Joanne Schieble Simpson. They were both unmarried at the time. Due to his girlfriend's family objected to their relationship, they give up the baby for adoption. Then he was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, and grew up with one sister, Patricia (Patty).
In 1972, Jobs enrolled Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Because of his adoptive parents could not afford him a university education, he dropped out of the college after one semester. He spent the next 18 months to learn calligraphy. He was taught by Robert Palladino.
In 1975, a member of Homebrew Computer Club named Steve Wozniak, invented the Apple I computer. It drew Jobs’ attention with the marketing potential of such a computer. Then he and Wozniak formed Apple Computer Company.In Apple Inc., Jobs created a lot of invention. There are Apple II, Macintosh, iMac, MacBook, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, and iPad. Unfortunately, in 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour. After battling pancreatic cancer for nearly ten years, he passed away around 3pm on October 5, 2011 at Palo Alto, California. He was 56 years old.
Problem Solving
Walter Elias Disney was an American entrepreneur, animator, voice actor and film producer. Disney developed an interest in drawing at an early age, and he took art lessons. He set up Disney Brother Studio with his brother. In 1928, he developed the character Mickey Mouse which is his first highly popular success. He also provided the voice for his creation in the early years.
At the age of nine, he started working with only eighth-grade education, without any art training, and suffered from multiple business frustrations. But, he didn’t see these as failure but as the stepping-stone that assisted him to be a successful and perceptive businessman.
Disney planned to build a theme park for many years. He wished to build a theme park that can make adults and children enjoy their fun. Nonetheless, the land to build the park near to Disney Studios was not that big. To rectify the problem, he bought a larger plot in Anaheim which was 56 kilometres away from the studio. Another problem came through when the shareholders were unpleasant and dissatisfied due to the distance of the project from the studio, Disney used his own pocket money to hire designers and animators team to continue his project. This action portrayed Disney is a good problem solver.
Information Seeking
Mark Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and CEO of social networking website Facebook. He developed an early interest in computers. When he was about 12, he created a messaging program named "Zucknet" which is convenient for his father in the dental office and the communication in the house.
Zuckerberg launched Facebook on February 4, 2004. During college, Zuckerberg's Facebook started off as just a "Harvard thing" until Zuckerberg decided to spread it to other schools, with the help of his roommate, Dustin Moskovitz. They began spreading to New York University, Columbia, Dartmouth, Stanford, Penn, Cornell, Yale and Brown. From this we know that he is trying to get information from people to improve by spreading the launching of Facebook.
He was smart enough to protect his business from being swallowed by investors. He knew he had to have money to bankroll his business. He sought advice of Peter Thiel and Peter also invested in his business. He also sought the advice of former Netscape CFO Peter Currie about financing strategies for Facebook. After the death of Steve Jobs, he accepted an interview said that Steve Jobs had advised him on how to create a management team at Facebook that was "focused on building as high quality and good things as you are". We can conclude that although how successful how smart an entrepreneur is, we still need to seek for information to improve our business.
High Initiative Level
Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong was born on 28 February 1998. He was a well-known Malaysian Chinese businessman. He was the founder of Genting Highlands. When he was having a dinner in Cameron Highlands, he popped out the idea of constructing a casino resort at the top of the hill. He discovered that Gunung Ulu Kali was an excellent place for his plan. Many people thought his ideal was a joke for turning an unexplored hilltop into a tourist resort. Although most people did not support him, he still went ahead firmly with his plan. This shows that Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong is an initiative person as he did not give up any golden opportunities in his life.
He began the project after he got the approvals from the federal and state government. He faced a lot of problems such as built the access road towards the hilltop, utility supplies, fire safety and sewerage system but he still showed his determination in solving all the problems. Besides, during the project had caused a lot of financial issues. Without any others’ helps, he managed to go through all this difficulty.
Genting Highlands was built completely and started opening the business on 8 May 1971. He continued to develop and expand Genting Highlands for the next 30 years such as improved the infrastructure of Genting Highlands. Now, Genting Highlands is one of the most successful casino resorts in the world and is one of the main tourist attractions in Malaysia.
Tolerance For Failure
William Henry "Bill" Gates III was born on October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington. At age 17, Gates with his friend, Paul Allen who met at Lakeside School developed Traf-O-Data which is to read the raw data from roadway traffic counters and create reports for traffic engineers. At first, they tried to sell the processing service to the local authorities and successfully they earned money, but later their first demo failed because the State of Washington offered traffic processing services to cities with free of charge.
In 1975, Gates and his friends met the President of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), Ed Roberts for a demonstration of Altair emulator. The demonstration was success and they work at MITS. They named their partnership "Micro-Soft" and had their first office located in Albuquerque. But then, Microsoft had led to failure as people could get it for free which caused them involved in financial problems.
Although facing many failures and challenging for him and his employees, they still can establish the business until Microsoft become the largest software company in the world today. He needs every of them together make it successful with every part of their work commitment.
Efficiency Oriented
Lawrence “Larry” Page is the founder of Google, which is an American multinational technology company with Sergey Brin in 1988. He went from the chief executive officer (CEO) of Google to CEO of Alphabet which is Google’s parent company in 10 August 2015.
In 1998, Page and Brin created a searching engine that listed results according to the popularity of the pages and they called it as Google with the initial domain name of “Googol”. On 4 April 2011, Page officially became the new chief executive of Google.
Page always run a meeting with efficiency oriented. He set rules for his meeting to become meaningfully. He wanted to ensure that meetings are for work and must have one clear decision maker. He limited participants at a maximum of ten and only active participants involved to make sure every person give input, or otherwise they should not attend the meeting. The uses of laptops and cell phones are prohibited during the meeting. Page has proved that efficiency oriented is important as an entrepreneur.
Work Commitment
Tan Sri Dato Loh Boon Siew, also known as “Mr. Honda”. He was a millionaire in Penang. He is also the founder of Honda Motorcycles in Malaysia. He was originated from China. At the age of twelve, he arrived in Penang. He started his business of selling buses by using his savings since he was eighteen.
He had the strong work commitment so he did not give up his business although the money he earned was confiscated by the Japanese army during WWII. He restarted his business of selling motorcycles accessories, bicycles and tires after WWII and then expand his business to used cars and buses.
To expand his venture, he worked very hard by building a factory in Penang to assemble the Honda Cub. Boon Siew Honda, was the name which replaced the Honda motorcycle assembled in Malaysia. The Honda Cub became the bestselling motorcycle in Malaysia. He was the very first person who bring the Honda Cub motorcycles into Southeast Asia. Although he didn’t receive any formal education at his young age, but with his work commitment, he was still able to be a successful entrepreneur.
Self Confidence
Tan Sri Tony Fernandes is one of Malaysian successful entrepreneurs. He is the one who found Tune Air Sdn. Bhd.. He also introduced the very first budget airline, Air Asia to Malaysians with the slogan “Now Everyone Can Fly”. He turned a failing government-linked commercial airline into a highly successful budget airline public-listed company.
Leaders with self-confidence believe their ability to handle challenging tasks. Tan Sri Tony Fernandes mortgaged his house and used his savings to buy the company, comprising two Boeing 737-300 jet aircraft and debts of RM40 million, for one ringgit. Not everyone can make this kind of decision but only the one that believe in himself/herself. Besides, Tan Sri Tony Fernandes started his operation just after the biggest crisis in the history of commercial aviation when nobody wanted to fly. AirAsia had broken even and cleared all its debts one year after his takeover.
Persuasion
Jack Ma is the founder and executive chairman of Alibaba group, a family successful internet-based businesses. He is one of the world’s greatest living examples of entrepreneur today. He was born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China on 10 September 1964. He started to learn English since young age. He tried his best to improve his communication skill by giving free tours for the foreigners who lived in a hotel near his residence for nine years. Then he get the nickname “Jack” from one of the foreigners who was also one of his pen pal.
In 1994, Ma get to know about the internet. He thought that the internet was a great business opportunity and decided to start an internet company although others didn’t believe in his thought. In 1995, he visited the United States frequently to learn about internet. Then he started an internet company named “China Yellow Pages” with $20,000. Within three years, his company obtained 5,000,000 Chinese Yuan, which is equivalent to US$800,000, he started another e-commerce company named Alibaba with 17 friends.
Jack Ma showed the traits by attracting a group of IT elite to establish his business empire Alibaba. To expand its global operations, he also successfully persuaded the founder of SoftBank, named Masayoshi Son, to invest 20 million dollars in Alibaba. Besides that, he tried to search for more talented young students on and persuade them that they should work for Alibaba when he gave lectures at Stanford and other universities.
Introduction
Who are entrepreneurs? According to an economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1965), defined entrepreneurs as individuals who exploit market opportunity through technical and/or organizational innovation. The word “entrepreneur” comes from 13th century French verb “entreprendre”, which has the meaning of “to do something” or “to undertake”. Nowadays, an entrepreneur can be defined as a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.
Why entrepreneurs are so important in our life? They contribute to our economy. Entrepreneurs can change the way we live and work. If successful, their innovations may improve our quality of living, such as bulbs, computers, smart phones, thumb drives, and others. Apart from that, they also create job opportunity to the community.
In fact, everyone has a chance to be an entrepreneur, but not everyone can be the successful one. To succeed in the field of business, an entrepreneur should possess some good quality of entrepreneurial traits. These characteristics will assist the entrepreneurs to sustain their business.
In this assignment, we will identify and analyse the eight entrepreneurial traits, which are persuasion, self-confidence, work commitment, efficiency oriented, tolerance for failure, high initiative level, information seeking and problem solving. These entrepreneurial traits are applied by the successful entrepreneurs to operate their business.
Why entrepreneurs are so important in our life? They contribute to our economy. Entrepreneurs can change the way we live and work. If successful, their innovations may improve our quality of living, such as bulbs, computers, smart phones, thumb drives, and others. Apart from that, they also create job opportunity to the community.
In fact, everyone has a chance to be an entrepreneur, but not everyone can be the successful one. To succeed in the field of business, an entrepreneur should possess some good quality of entrepreneurial traits. These characteristics will assist the entrepreneurs to sustain their business.
In this assignment, we will identify and analyse the eight entrepreneurial traits, which are persuasion, self-confidence, work commitment, efficiency oriented, tolerance for failure, high initiative level, information seeking and problem solving. These entrepreneurial traits are applied by the successful entrepreneurs to operate their business.
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