International
entrepreneurship
[GEST-S421]
Individual Assignment
Pr. Judith Behrens
Amandine Lepidi
000410536
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
5 LEARNINGS :
- When you do things with passion you can achieve great things
- It's sometimes in moments of disappointment that we do things that change our lives, if he hadn't
been turned down by Monica, Facebook might never have existed.
- Don't react on the spot like mark did with the girl and he regretted it for a long time
- Always read what you sign so you don't end up like Eduardo
- When you have an idea, file it or sign a document with the person to whom you are sharing the
project to avoid ending up like the two brothers and their friend
LINKS TO THE COURSE :
Mark is creative, determined and hardworking. According to the « big five »:
1. Extroversion: Mark can be described as extroverted, not afraid to discuss his ideas, very energetic
but still task-oriented, working tirelessly to get what he wants.
2. Emotional stability: Mark is even-tempered, robust, self-satisfied. He is very self-confident, even
too much sometimes. In the film he can come across as full of himself, for example when he is called
to the Harvard disciplinary board and tells the committee they should thank them for showing the
flaws in their security system.
3. Agreeableness: He has a big ego but he is friendly. He has so much self-esteem that he doesn't feel
in competition with anyone.
4. Conscientiousness: Mark is organized, when he has an idea, he goes all out until he gets it right. He
is trustworthy in his work and reliable. He has worked tirelessly on his project and as he likes to say,
"Facebook will never be finished". By this he means that there will always be work to do to improve it
and he can be counted on to get the job done.
5. Openness to experience: Mark Zuckerberg is very creative. He has saturated the Harvard networks
by creating a network to elect the prettiest girls in the university while coming home from a date and
being drunk. He's very good at computers and he knows it.
He works tirelessly and is full of good ideas which he writes down directly so that he doesn't forget. In
addition to being creative, he has the talent to execute his ideas.
In term of entrepreneurial process:
The Winklevoss brothers spotted Mark when he overloaded the Harvard network, and with their
friend, they decided that Mark was the right person to create a network to bring Harvard students
together. Mark will create this network which he will call "The Facebook" at the beginning and he will
create it alone at the beginning with as associate his best friend Eduardo who will invest thousand
euros to create it. Then Mark, seeing the extent of the network, adds more and more functions and
extends it to several highly reputed universities. When he met Sean Parker, he took the opportunity to
raise impressive funds to develop the social network that we know today and which is a hit all over the
world, he then monetized it to make money and the network has continued to grow to extend to
everyone. Nowadays anyone can use it, a lot of features have been added and it now makes billions.
His creativity and above all, his knowledge led him to incredible business opportunity even if at first,
his goal was absolutely not to make money. He just wanted to share it with students.
In term of the definition of an entrepreneur:
- He saw an opportunity and he took it. Mark has shown unwavering commitment to creating and
developing Facebook, even to the point of falling asleep at his computer when he reached the end of
his idea instead of going out to bars with Eduardo
- He didn’t count the hours, he was totally dedicated to his work.
- He knows his worth and has great confidence in himself and what he does
- He took risks, he worked at the beginning with the money that Eduardo invested in him, is their
project. He took the brothers idea but he was convinced that in any case he was the person to develop
and implement this project. He acted.
THE FOUNDER
5 LEARNINGS :
- Never give up, perseverance is the key
- Always read what you sign
- Always get documents signed and reread them without rushing before letting the wolf into the
henhouse
- Being a woman of her word, I hated her unfulfilled handshake
- Be grateful, without the Mcdonald’s brothers, he could never have created this
LINKS TO THE COURSE :
In terms of the definition of an entrepreneur, the McDonald’s brothers has been very strong in their
approach. At the beginning, they had created a drive-in with many different dishes on the menu, but
their sales quickly reached a ceiling, their clientele was not very good, the waiting time was too long
and there were often mistakes in the orders. So, after brainstorming of what could be improved, they
invented a new kind of restaurant, fast food. They assessed their situation and realized that 87% of
their sales were burgers, fries and soda and that they could do without waitresses. People could go to
the counter themselves. The big innovation was that the orders were ready in 30 seconds and the
products were qualitative. For the design thinking, they mobilized their employees for 6 hours on a
tennis court to reorganize the kitchen in order to optimize the positions of each employee so that it was
perfect. At first side, people were not used to going to get their order, they waited for the waitresses to
arrive and it was not a success, so they had to learn the principle to their customers. Do to so, they had
the idea of doing an opening with jugglers and other activities to attract customers, and a nice clientele
with some families, children. They wanted going to McDonalds to be perceived as a time saver for the
women who didn't have to cook and a good time with the family and it worked. They also added
jukeboxes and cigarettes machines, they captured the consumers' desires.
The thing that they lacked was risk-taking and determination, they tried to franchise but it failed
because they had difficulty controlling the quality in other restaurants than their own. And they just
gave up on the idea instead of persevering and it's what differentiate them from Ray.
Ray is the definition itself of the entrepreneurship in his 4 aspects:
- He thought big when he met the McDonalds brothers, he saw an opportunity and he took it. He was
persuasive in getting the brothers to agree to franchise the fast-food.
- He doesn't count the hours, he is totally dedicated to his work and wants every fast food restaurant to
be perfect and developed on a national scale.
- He felt gratified, important, it was no longer he who was chasing people but people who were
chasing them.
- He took risks, he mortgaged his house for his project and it paid off. He had been a salesman of
various products, he was often turned down but he never gave up and his determination was his
strength throughout his ascent.
Ray also knew how to surround himself well. He first offered his franchise to investors he knew but it
was a fiasco because the only thing they were interested in was money and they didn't respect the
McDonald's model. So he surrounded himself with people like him, who were canvassing companies
to sell them products, determined people and it worked very well.
Ray took opportunities when they came his way:
The first time was when he met the McDonald’s brothers and franchised their fast-food model
The second time was when he met a financier by chance at the bank and he told him that there was a
problem if he didn't start to have a small fortune, so under his advice he created a real estate company
to rent out the space to the franchisees
The third was when the wife of a franchisee, who is now his wife, gave him the idea of transferring the
milkshakes with ice to powdered milkshakes to save energy and storage costs.
STEVE JOB (2015)
5 LEARNINGS :
- Be determined, if you want you can
- Being aware of customers desires
- To be successful, you have to be tough
- Always be respectful to people
- Be persistent even if you fail because failure is a step towards success
LINKS TO THE COURSE :
According to the « big five »:
1. Extroversion: Steve is outgoing, a great speaker, talkative and energetic
2. Emotional stability: He has a big ego, he is self-sufficient and rather selfish. He knows what he
wants, and he is not prepared to compromise when he has an idea in mind.
3. Antagonism-Agreeableness: He is self-centered, anti-pathetic and sympathetic at the same time. He
is a complex character and a control freak. He’s confident but very suspicious. He’s competitive as we
can see with his company named “NEXT” that he created after being fired by Apple. He is hard on
others but also on himself.
4. Conscientiousness: Steve is organized, trustworthy and dependable. Here is the paradox of the
orchestra conductor he talks about in the film. The conductor doesn’t play an instrument but “he plays
the orchestra”.
5. Openness to experience: He is curious, creative and artistic. He is very attentive to the aesthetics
and design of his products. He pays a lot of attention to detail and that's what made Apple so
successful. Steve has an excellent overview of the product and a marketing genius.
Steve is the definition itself of the entrepreneurship in his 4 aspects:
- He thought big in term of sales with his IMAC and personally I can remember I had a blue one when
I was a kid and at school we had informatic lessons on these computers. Steve was an excellent
persuasive orator.
- He was very hard with people but also with himself so we can't really reproach him. He was
dedicated to his work and attentive to customers desires which is why Apple has been so successful.
- He's self-confident because he truly trust in himself and his ideas.
- He took risks with the launch of his company NEXT, which was really just a bait-and-switch to get
back in charge of Apple. It was a bold move that he had the courage to make.
In term of entrepreneurial process:
Step 1: Steve is creative and has innovated where his competitors have not, he has seen to it that Apple
and its products are "sexy" and "attractive". He captured the desires of consumers.
Step 2: He knew that the launch of the IMAC would put him back in charge of Apple and that Apple
would allow him to cut costs and bring it to market.
Step 3: Apple allowed him to launch his flagship product, the first IMAC in several colours
Step 4: He kept innovating which made him grow. His daughter, to whom he became closer and more
loving and compassionate over the years, was always listening to music on a walkman that was taking
up space and he had the idea, thanks to her, to create the iPod.