The Making of Steve Jobs - Entrepreneur Extraordinaire - Essay Example

The Making of Steve Jobs: Entrepreneur Extraordinaire TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Steve Jobs: Entreprenuer Extraordinaire ………………………………… 1 II. Planning is the Beginning of Everything…………………………………….2-3 III. Funding is the Hardest Task…………………………………………………3-4 IV. Business Assistance and Training: Did he or Did He Not?.............................5-6 V. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Steve Jobs as an entrepreneur did not follow the traditional path of entrepreneurs. Usually, entrepreneurs begin with a business plan and strategy. From this plan, he would have to make considerations such as legal liabilities, taxation and employees welfare. After elaborate training and reading, he would then proceed mapping out his marketing strategy to conquer the market. As for the case of Steve Jobs, he became an instant entrepreneur when his brilliance in developing Apple came out. Nevertheless, Steve Jobs was able to build a business empire by immersing himself in the industry and gaining experience. Moreover, he surrounded himself with the right people that shared his vision. This paper is about the unconventional ways Jobs took as an entrepreneur. Xxxxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxxx Steve Jobs: Entrepreneur Extraordinaire What makes an average person an entrepreneur ? What makes a college graduate not follow the mainstream path of being employed in a big company? Like Bill Gates, what made Steve Jobs pursue an entrepreneurial path blazing all the way to glory? Entrepreneurs are a special breed of people since many new business fold up annually and become statistics in a warehouse. Having an idea or a dream is not enough, even having guts would not guarantee one would succeed. However, Steve Jobs is a success that until today, people respect him for his entrepreneurial skills. In this paper, we would analyze how Jobs became successful as an entrepreneur and examine the path he took that made him different from the rest. Way back in 1983, it was reported that Jobs convinced then Pepsi-Cola CEO John Sculley by asking a simple question “ Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water to children OR do you want to change the world?”( Leonard, 1998). Indeed, that was a very bold statement since Pepsi-Cola is already an institution by itself. However, Jobs believed that Apple could reach better heights in the field of technology. Indeed, Apple changed the landscape through its laptop with graphic-user interface. How did Jobs put his act together and build a business empire? Did he begin with a lot of money? Did he conduct due diligence and figured out business ratios? Or did he leave managing to those who can handle it. These questions would be the guiding point in analyzing Steve Jobs as an entrepreneur. Planning is the beginning of everything In order to successfully analyze the difference of Jobs approach in setting up a business, let us analyze first how entrepreneurs start a business. Usually, most start-up business guides would advice a newbie this: look for a business that you really want to do for the rest of your life. When a person had enough time writing his dreams on a paper-napkin, he immediately seeks counsel from so-called “business advisers, mentor or guru “ in a respected field thinking that one person’s experience is applicable to all. Sometimes, would be entrepreneurs would read volumes of books that would give them advice hoping that they would learn from something. Nevertheless, any business start-up needs a plan. Planning precedes everything else since it provides direction for an entrepreneur. According to Stemmy in his online article Business Structure Basics for Entrepreneur .com, one of the first planning decision to be made in starting a business is considering the business structure. Should the company be an LLC? Partnership? Corporation? This is a crucial question since the structure has implications on legal liability as well as taxation according to the article. So how about Steve Jobs? If we were to analyze Jobs as a young person, he is not one who makes plans for the future. He dropped out of college after one semester and attended lectures at Hewlett-Packard. From this behavior, we can see that he is more interested in the “beef” than spending his time in college learning about theories. As compared to other entrepreneurs, they would often try to get an MBA degree in the hope that this would be the key to having great business. Even then, Jobs deviated from the traditional path because apparently, he is a pragmatic person. In fact, his main purpose then to in getting a job at Atari as a computer technician was to save money for a spiritual trip to India and returned with a shave head later( Andrews, 2009. ) Moreover, a potential entrepreneur would also try working in a company so as to accumulate work experience that can give him a background of the industry. Job’s concern was not anything like that at all. His first break came as a challenge when he was tasked ( along with Wozniak) to design a motherboard that had less computer chips. They did succeed and that was start of partnership between Wozniak and Jobs. Apple I was born but the next generation Apple II cannot happen without funding. Funding an enterprise is a hard task Most people who start as entrepreneurs do not have adequate capital, such is the case of Jobs and Wozniak. Like any traditional entrepreneur, they needed a capitalist who can bring in the money. The person who fit in the bill was an Intel product marketing manager /engineer named A.C.” Mike “ Markkula Jr. who retired early and made some fortune out of his stock option plan ( Markoff, 1997). Some top-notch people from Silicon valley introduced Markkula to Jobs and Wozniak since Markkula himself is an engineer who believes in innovation. According to an interview with Wozniak, Markkula invested “US$250,000 ($80,000 as an equity investment in the company and $170,000 as a loan) and became a one-third owner of Apple and employee number “ ( Livingstone, n.d. ). This happened in the year 1977. In fact, the group is lucky since Markkula did not only provide money but also his expertise in managing a company. Because of this investment, Apple became a company. Traditionally, start-up financing begins with looking for people who can invest and become co-founders ( Berry, 2007). The only way that a capitalist can be convinced to invest is to know the financial ratio and see if he would make money out of a venture. This is not what exactly happened to Job’s group. Markkula went into the project because he wanted to make a difference. In fact, he stood by with the company for many years not only as an investor, but as manager as well. Apple grew and Jobs founded another company that redeemed him later. Of course, the world knows that Jobs lost his job at Apple and it was a good thing he founded the company NeXT. He was able to gain hold of Apple again when Apple bought NeXT. Apparently, Job’s success and survival can be attributed to his relentless pursuit of creativity and innovation. Due diligence and ratio-analysis were not really his main concern. He firmly believed that his products would sell (even if the cost is prohibitive ) since the products serve the demands of the market. Honestly, Jobs is a visionary which is needed in a leader. Because of his ideas, he blazed the trail with Ipod, Iphone and Mac Os X. Who could have thought of such products? Business Assistance and Training: Did he or Did He Not? According to business.gov, one of the steps an entrepreneur must accomplish in setting up a business is getting business assistance and training. This would mean having an assessment to check if one ready in setting up a business. Also, various videos, podcasts and actual training can be attended so one would be equipped with business skills. Apparently, Jobs missed this part since he was and always would be in good company with Wozniak. Most of the time they used intuition in launching a new product. This was not of course by chance but by hard work in the area of Research and Development. Job’s concepts were well ahead of his time and he surprised the market most of the time. Innovation was Steve Job’s legacy to the industry. Business Guru Peter Drucker himself is a supporter of innovation. In fact he asserted that the “ entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it and exploits it as an opportunity” ( Drucker, 2007 :xiv). In an interview with Jobs in 2006, BusinessWeek revealed that: “Of course, that entrepreneurial zeal is there for a reason: Hes one of a shrinking collection of tech chieftains who are actually entrepreneurs. "I was very lucky to have grown up with this industry," Jobs told BusinessWeek in 2004. "I did everything coming up -- shipping, sales, supply chain, sweeping the floors, buying chips, you name it. I put computers together with my own two hands. As the industry grew up, I kept on doing it."( qtd. from Steve Jobs Magic Kingdom, Businessweek, 2006) Jobs business training was already inculcated within his industry. He surrounded himself with people who are not only techies but entrepreneurs so that he can share his passion to them. Moreover, he has experienced all aspects of operations that he has fully absorbed everything. For Jobs, experience is the best teacher. There is one thing that Jobs is well-known for : his amazing business presentations. He is electrifying onstage and simplifies technology so that users would love to have his product. This he achieved by practicing many hours on business presentation. Jobs knew very well that a good marketing strategy is to talk about his passion, in fact: "Jobs unveils Apples latest products as if he were a particularly hip and plugged-in friend showing off inventions in your living room. Truth is, the sense of informality comes only after grueling hours of practice." ( Gallo, 2006). Jobs maximized his communication skills so well that he looked effortless in convincing people to try his products. Conclusion Steve Jobs is a billionaire by no accident. Although many circumstances in his early life as an entrepreneur shows that he did not follow a traditional approach in setting up a business, he focused on much important things such as research and development and marketing strategy to build his empire. He also invested in companies such as Pixar and Apple not because of their potential, but because he is passionate about his mission “to change the world”. Jobs may have not followed the steps in building up a start-up business but he went into the right direction. It seems that the only traditional thing he did was to source funding for Apple II. Although his temper may have made him commit early mistakes, his business acumen and intuition delivered his vision. Moreover, he immersed in the industry and surrounded himself with the right people who can share his vision. Steve Jobs succeeded as an entrepreneur because he was passionate, relentless in the pursuit of excellence, innovative and knew his market well. He also took a lot of risks which is a quality that entrepreneurs must possess. No guts, no glory. Although we cannot all be like Steve Jobs and most entrepreneurs stay within the guidelines of creating a business, we can all look up to Steve Jobs when we falter during hard times. References Andrews, Amanda. ""Steve Jobs, Apples iGod: Profile"" Telegraph.co.uk. 14 Jan. 2009. Web. 22 Jan. 2010. . Berry, Tim. "Be Realistic About Startup Financing." Entrepreneur.com. 31 Aug. 2007. Web. 20 Jan. 2010. . Drucker, Peter. Innovation and entrepreneurship: practice and principles. The Classic Drucker Collection. 2007 ed. Vol. 2. PublisherElsevier, 2007. Print. Gallo, Carmine. ""How to Wow Em Like Steve Jobs"" BusinessWeek. 6 Apr. 2006. Web. 18 Jan. 2010. . Leonard, Andrew. "Do penguins eat apples?" Salon.com. 28 Sept. 1999. Web. 20 Jan. 2010. . Livingstone, J. Founders at Work - Stories of Startups Early Days. Print.p.56. Markoff, John. "An Unknown Co-Founder Leaves After 20 Years of Glory and Turmoil"" NewYorkTimes. 1 Sept. 1997. Web. 18 Jan. 2010. . Stemmy, T. "“Business Structure Basics." Entrepreneur.com. Jan. 2010. Web. 18 Jan. 2010. . "Steve Jobs Magic Kingdom." Businessweek. 6 Feb. 2006. Web. 15 Jan. 2010. . United States. Dept.of Trade. Small Business Assistance and Training. 10 Dec. 2009. Web. 5 Jan. 2010. . ANNEX A Table below is Annual Fiscal Report of Apple for 2007 Source: Annual Report Pursuant to Sec.13 o fthe Securities Exchange Act of 1934.Retrieved from http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/10/107357/reports/AAPL_10K_FY07.pdf. Read More