Entrepreneurs:
Leaders In Change
What is an Entrepreneur?
 An Entrepreneur is a person who
organizes and manages a
business undertaking, assuming
the risk for the sake of profit. Any
person (any age) who starts and
operates a business is an
entrepreneur.
Characteristics of an
Entrepreneur
 Ability to deal with a series of tough
issues
 Ability to create solutions and work to
perfect them
 Can handle many tasks
simultaneously
 Resiliency in the face of set-backs


Characteristics Cont’d
 Willingness to work hard and not
expect easy solutions
 Possess well-developed problem
solving skills
 Ability to learn and acquire the
necessary skills for the tasks at hand
Three Aspects of
Entrepreneurship
 1. The identification/recognition of market
opportunity and the generation of a
business idea (product or service) to
address the opportunity
Three Aspects of
Entrepreneurship
 2. The marshalling and commitment of
resources in the face of risk to pursue the
opportunity
Three Aspects of
Entrepreneurship
 3. The creation of an operating business
organization to implement the
opportunity-motivated business idea
Successful
Characteristics
 Drive, which is defined as the most important
attribute. Entrepreneurs can expect long hours,
high stress and endless problems, as they
launch a new business.
 Thinking Ability, or the characteristic that
encompasses creativity, critical thinking,
analytical abilities and originality.
 Excel at Human Relations. Recognizes the
importance of the ability to motivate employees,
sell customers, negotiate with suppliers and
convince lenders.
Successful
Characteristics
 Communication Skills, or the ability to make
yourself understood.
 Technical Ability speaks to the need of the
entrepreneur to know their product and their
market. They must consider the long- and shortterm implications of their decisions, their
strengths and weaknesses, and their
competition. In short, they need strategic
management skills.
1. I don't like being told what to do by people who are less capable than I am.
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I like challenging myself.
I like to win.
I like being my own boss.
I always look for new and better ways to do things.
I like to question conventional wisdom.
I like to get people together in order to get things done.
People get excited by my ideas.
I am rarely satisfied or complacent.
I can't sit still.
I can usually work my way out of a difficult situation.
I would rather fail at my own thing than succeed at someone else's.
Whenever there is a problem, I am ready to jump right in.
I think old dogs can learn — even invent — new tricks.
Members of my family run their own businesses.
I have friends who run their own businesses.
I worked after school and during vacations when I was growing up.
I get an adrenaline rush from selling things.
I am exhilarated by achieving results.
I could have written a better test than this.
Entrepreneurship
 Some advantages
 You are your own boss
 Enjoy the profits from you efforts
 Sense of pride in your business
 Flexibility in your work schedule
Entrepreneurship
 Some disadvantages
 Will need to put in long hours
 Need money to start
 Have to keep up with government rules and
regulations
 May have to mark hard decisions (hiring,
firing, etc.)
 May lose money
Competition is Healthy
 Competition is good for you
 -Validates and expands the market
 - Generates market awareness of the
need
 - Makes buyers more secure
 Opportunity to convert their customers
 Motivates your employees to work hard
and improve
Entrepreneurship
U.S. View
 SBA reports that small business
 Represented over 99% of all employers
 Provided 75% of ALL new jobs
 Produced 55% of innovations
(As of 2000)
Colleges and Universities
 With Entrepreneurship Majors
 1970 - 16
 2000 – over 1400
“E” Education
In High Schools
 Kauffman Foundation Gallop Poll
 90% of H.S. students rate their “E”
Knowledge as very poor or fair.
 7 out of 10 students want to start a
business
 84% believe it is important for schools to
teach Entrepreneurship!
Tomorrow’s
Entrepreneurs are in
our schools TODAY!!
You can either work for an
entrepreneur or be an
entrepreneur.
Which will it be?
**All information provided by BusinessWeek.com
Admiral Zheng He
b. around 1371, d. 1433
 In seven voyages
from 1405 to 1433,
Zheng He spread
China's goods across
the world and
returned with
treasures for the
Ming Dynasty
Benjamin Franklin
b. 1706, d. 1790
 A writer, publisher,
inventor, politician
and diplomat, he
always considered
himself a
businessman.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
b. 1744, d. 1812
 Rothschild's banking
empire would stretch
across Europe,
essentially becoming
the world's first
international bank
John Jacob Astor
b. 1763, d. 1848
 Came to New York in
poverty at age 20 and
built a near-monopoly in
the global fur trade.
 Astor poured his fur
profits into New York
real estate; the income
from the rents and the
value of the land
combined to make Astor
the wealthiest American
of his time
John Rockefeller
b. 1839, d. 1937
 Rockefeller started his
first business selling
grain and other goods
before he was 20 .
 By buying out oil
refineries around
Cleveland and New York
after the Civil War,
Rockefeller soon
dominated the market
Andrew Carnegie
b. 1835, d. 1919
 The Scottish
immigrant and
weaver's son built a
steel empire whose
mills churned out the
railroads, ships, and
structures of postCivil War America—
and created a fortune
for himself in the
process.
Estee Lauder
b. 1907, d. 2004
 In 1946, she founded the
company that bears her
name to sell makeup
and perfume in high-end
department stores
around the world
 Lauder became a giant
in the nascent beauty
industry by making sure
the quality of her
products exceeded the
expectations of her
target market, namely
wealthy society women
George Washington Carver
b. 1864, d. 1943
 Carver changed the
South from being a
one-crop land of
cotton, to being
multi-crop farmlands,
with farmers having
hundreds of
profitable uses for
their new crops
Henry Ford
b. 1863, d. 1947
 Ford did not invent
the automobile, but
he made it affordable
to the middle class
that he helped create
 His manufacturing
process created the
modern car industry,
and with it, the car
culture of the 20th
century
Milton Hershey
b. 1857, d. 1945
 In 1905, Hershey
built the world's
largest chocolate
factory in
Pennsylvania
 Millions enjoy what
once had been
reserved for the
wealthy. Selling "lowcost luxury" became
a viable business
model
Harland “Colonel” Sanders
b. 1890, d. 1980
 Kentucky Fried
Chicken, pioneered
by Colonel Harland
Sanders, became
one of the largest
quick service food
service systems in
the world
 A billion "finger lickin'
good" KFC dinners
served annually in
more than 80
countries and
territories.
Madam C.J. Walker
b. 1867, d. 1919
 Walker's line of hairand-beauty products
geared toward blacks
tapped into a market
ignored by other
businesses because
of racism
 She set an example
for generations of
entrepreneurs in a
time when women
were still struggling
for voting rights
Thomas Edison
b. 1847, d. 1931
 Edison's relentless
innovation made him the
most prolific inventor of
his time
 Started as a telegraph
operator but soon moved
on to refining that
technology and creating
others that would turn
the world on its head: a
device to turn power into
light, a machine to
record and play back
sound
Ray Kroc
b. 1902, d. 1984
 Ray Kroc turned a
California burger shack
into a brand whose
golden arches span the
globe
 By investing in
franchisees, Kroc drove
the inexorable growth of
McDonald's and created
one of the most visible
brands in history
Walt Disney
b. 1901, d. 1966
 The first multimedia
empire was built on
animation
 He also founded
Disneyland .
 His company owns:
Buena Vista Pictures
Entertainment, ABC TV,
ABC Family Channel,
and ESPN
Earl Graves
b. 1935
 Founded Black
Enterprise magazine in
1970, a publication that
recognized the
expanding financial
power of the black
community and helped
spur its growth
 Boasts a paid circulation
of half a million and has
been profitable since its
10th issue
Andy Grove
b. 1936
 He helped found Intel
and navigated the
company's shift from
making memory chips to
microprocessors
 During his tenure as
CEO from 1987 to 1998,
Intel grew at a rate of
30% annually
W. K. Kellogg
b. 1860, d. 1951
 Kellogg's accidental
discovery, promoted with
savvy marketing,
transformed the way
Americans eat breakfast
 Kellogg grasped the idea
that kids influence
buying decisions—
galvanizing the brand's
success
Martha Stewart
b. 1941
 Started a catering
business out of her
Westport (Conn.)
home in 1976
 Went on to expand
into retail, publishing,
television, and
merchandising
Bill Gates
b. 1955
 By linking his Microsoft
software to IBM's first
PCs, he dominated the
industry
 He developed a twoprong strategy of
expanding the market
while maintaining a
strong hold on
competitors
Jeff Bezos
b. 1964
 Founded
Amazon.com, in
1994
 Bezos pioneered
techniques that have
become staples of
online sales.
Michael Dell
b. 1965
 Created a new model
for PC sales
 Cutting out the retail
middleman and
custom-building
computers to suit
buyers' needs put
Dell at the front of
the class of PC
makers
Oprah Winfrey
b. 1954

Oprah Winfrey turned
her name into one of the
most successful and
respected brands in the
world
 Leveraged that fame into
other interests:
magazines, Web sites,
film and television
production and Social
Entrepreneurship.
Richard Branson
 Richard Branson turned,
b. 1950
Virgin, the mail-order
record shop he opened
in 1970 into a label he
sold 22 years later for
nearly $1 billion
 Brand includes mobilephone service, bridal
gowns, credit cards, and
life insurance. Virgin
Group encompasses
200 companies in 30
countries and boasted
$7.2 billion in sales in
2002
Steve Jobs
b. 1955 d. 2011
 The Apple cofounder combined
simplicity with
innovation to emerge
from the Internet
boom as one of the
lone tech companies
that can butt heads
with Microsoft
Mark Zuckerburg, Dustin
Moskovitz, Eduardo
Saverin, Chris Hughes
 Founders of
Facebook
 Started at Harvard,
but decided to
spread the program
to other Ivy League
schools and then
beyond.
Ralph Lauren
b. 1939
 Like many successful
entrepreneurs,
Lauren was selling
lifestyle more than
product
 Lauren imagined a
market for men's
fashion as large as
that for women
Sam Walton
b. 1918, d. 1992
 The man who built
the world's largest
retailer on low prices:
Wal-Mart
 Bought direct from
manufacturers and
made his stores as
efficient as possible,
sending the savings
back to consumers
Chad Hurley, 29; Steve Chen,
28 & Jawed Karim, 27
 Founders of
YouTube
 Broadcasts 100
million short videos
daily on myriad
subjects
 Sold to Google
Pierre Omidyar
b. 1967

Founder of EBay,
which made the
promise of the
Internet a reality by
connecting far-flung
customers with the
goods they wanted to
buy
Blake Ross and David
 Blake is an American
Hyatt
software developer,
who is probably best
known for starting
the Mozilla Firefox
project. Firefox was
released in 2004,
when Ross was 19
years old. Firefox got
over 100 Million
downloads within its
first year of being on
the market!
Jeremy Stoppelman
 YELP
Mario Lavandeira
 Perez Hilton
Matt Mullenweg (25 Years
Old)
 Matthew Mullenweg is
the founder of
WordPress, the software
that runs this blog and
millions of others out
there. genius, easy to
use blogging software.
He has been offered
over $250,000,000 for
his company which he
turned down.
David Karp (22 Years Old)
 Tumblr is a blogging
platform that anyone
can use. The service
was built with
customization and
ease of use in mind.
Noah Everett (24 Years
Old)
 Noah is the founder
of the popular image
upload website,
TwitPic. His website
has grown with the
growth of the social
media website
Twitter and is now
one of the top 200
websites in the world
Sam Tarantino & Josh
Greenberg (Both 23 Years
Old)
 GrooveShark was
launched in private beta
in early 2007, and is now
a huge online music
search engine and
streaming service.
GrooveShark employs
40 people (as of
december 2007) and is
part of the Escape Media
Group which was formed
in march 2006.
Conrad Hilton
 Founded the first coast
to coast hotel chain and
then the first
international hotel brand.
William Harley, Arthur
Davidson
 Put an engine on a bike
and created HarleyDavidson
Phil Knight
 Founded Nike
 an American business
magnate. He is the cofounder and Chairman of
Nike, Inc. He resigned
as the company's chief
executive officer in 2004,
while retaining the
position of chairman of
the board. As of 2011,
Knight's stake in Nike
gives him an estimated
net worth of US$13.1
billion,
Donald Trump
 Real Estate
 (born June 14, 1946) is
an American business
magnate, television
personality and author.
He is the chairman and
president of The Trump
Organization and the
founder of Trump
Entertainment Resorts.
Trump's extravagant
lifestyle, outspoken
manner and the reality
show The Apprentice
Dave Thomas
 Thomas was the
founder of Wendy's,
a fast-food restaurant
chain specializing in
hamburgers. He is
also known for
appearing in more
than 800 commercial
advertisements for
the chain from 1989
to 2002, more than
any other person in
television history.
Fred Smith
 is the founder, chairman,
president, and CEO of
FedEx, originally known
as Federal Express, the
first overnight express
delivery company in the
world, and the largest in
the United States. The
company is
headquartered in
Memphis, Tennessee.
Russell Simmons
 Def Jam Records
 pioneering hip-hop label
Def Jam, and creator of
the clothing fashion lines
Phat Farm, Argyleculture,
and American Classics.
 Russell Simmons is the
third richest figure in hiphop, having a net-worth
estimate of $340 million as
of April 2011.
Howard Schultz
 Starbucks
Ralph Roberts
 Ralph Joel Roberts
(born March 13, 1920) is
the co-founder of
Comcast
Communications and
was its chief executive
officer for 46 years. As of
2011 he serves as
founder and chairman
emeritus of Comcast's
board of directors. His
son, Brian L. Roberts, is
the current CEO.

Herb Kelleher
 During his tenure as
CEO of Southwest,
Southwest is
consistently named
among the top five
Most Admired
Corporations in
America in Fortune
magazine's annual
poll. Fortune has
also called him
perhaps the best
CEO in America.
Fernando Hernandez
 AT&T
Joyce Hall
 Hallmark
 he and his brothers were
operating a store selling
not only postcards but
also greeting cards. The
store burned in 1915,
and a year later, Hall
bought an engraving
business and began
printing his own cards,
which he marketed
under the Hallmark
brand name. It turned
into a bigger business
than he had had before.
A.P. Giannini
 Bank of America
Donald and Doris Fisher
 The Gap
Mary Kay Ash
 Mary Kay
 She considered the Golden Rule the
founding principle of Mary Kay Cosmetics
and the company's marketing plan was
designed to allow women to advance by
helping others to succeed. She
advocated "praising people to success"
and her slogan "God first, family second,
career third" expressed her insistence
that the women in her company keep
their lives in balance
Steven Spielberg Dreamworks
 Steven Allan
Spielberg is an
American film
director,
screenwriter,
producer, video
game designer, and
studio entrepreneur.
Vera Wang – Vera Wang
Fashions
 is a Chinese American
fashion designer based in
New York City and former
figure skater. She is
known for her wide
clientele of couture
bridesmaid gowns and
wedding gown collections.
Sean Combs – Sean John
Clothing / Bad Boy
Entertainment
 Sean John
Combs (born
November 4,
1969) is an
American rapper,
singer, record
producer, actor,
and entrepreneur.
Tyler Perry – Tyler Perry
Productions
 Tyler Perry (born
Emmitt Perry, Jr.;
September 13,
1969) is an
American actor,
director,
playwright,
entrepreneur,
screenwriter,
producer, author,
and songwriter
Paul Orfaleo – Kinko’s
 nicknamed "Kinko"
because of his
curly red hair,
founded the copychain Kinko's
Mark Burnett – Television
Show Producer
 Current series for
Burnett are
Survivor, Celebrity
Apprentice, The
Voice, Are You
Smarter Than a
Fifth Grader? and
the People's
Choice Awards.
Larry Page and Sergey
Brin - Google
 Still, the company
famously founded by the
Russian-born Brin and
Michigan-born Page in a
Stanford dorm room is
now a giant with a
market value of $174
billion, fast expanding
into new categories like
mobile devices and
software applications.