Analysis of Mark Zuckerberg as an Entrepreneur - Case Study Example

Analysis of an Entrepreneur Name: Institution: Date: Part A: Introduction to the Entrepreneur： Explanation of Mark Zuckerberg: history, development and growth Facebook which is a popular online social networking website kicked off at Harvard University campus in 2004. The social networking website has received immense recognition among college attending Americans and the youths across the world. Following its profound recognition, no one has received huge financial benefits than its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. His entrepreneurship orientation made him a billionaire at a tender age of 23. Many youths his age can only dream about such kind of wealth (Shane & Nicolaou, 2013). Zuckerberg visionary and innovative approach has transformed him into a self-made billionaire with a net worth of US $4 billion by 2010. Mark Zuckerberg was born in New York at White Plains and subsequently brought up within the Dobbs Ferry village within the same state. Zuckerberg is President, CEO, and Founder of Facebook which is an online social networking website. He started the Facebook idea with his roommates Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes while at Harvard University. The roommates are the co-founders of the company. Facebook started spreading rapidly. Mark Zuckerberg together with his friends moved to Palo Alto in California where they laid the first foundation of Facebook. Following the large investments from Peter Thiel as well as venture capital firm ‘Accel Partners’, Facebook was able the Ivy Schools boundaries. By the end of 2005 Facebook had about 6 million users across the world (Zahra, 2009). By 2010 the Facebook users had grown to 500 million. Part B: Entrepreneur background analysis： (a) Background to Mark Zuckerberg in terms of family & socio-cultural The family and social-cultural background of Mark Zuckerberg helped in developing his entrepreneurial skills. Exposure to computer program development at a young age was very important since it proved to be critical to Zuckerberg in later years. Mark Zuckerberg started writing software as early as in the middle school. His father taught him the maneuvers entailing Atari BASIC Programming and farther enlisted the services of David Newman to be a tutor to his son privately. Newman eventually referred to Zuckerberg as a prodigy (Ramoglou, 2013). His father played a big role in introducing Zuckerberg to programming at a tender age. He excited his passion in technology especially programming that eventually bore the idea of social networking websites. The kinds of friends that Zuckerberg hanged around with were a motivation and pillar to his entrepreneurial skills. His roommates at Harvard played a key role and those friends that he moved with to California gave him the encouragement that he badly needed at the beginning of his career as an entrepreneur. The surrounding at Harvard gave Zuckerberg the opportunity of starting to develop a social site. He tried his skills of social networking at Harvard before moving to Palo Alto in California. Zuckerberg married his long term girlfriend; Priscilla Chan. Zuckerberg is a generous donor to charities around the world and has participated in many noble causes for the purpose of bettering peoples’ lives. He signed an initiative that requires billionaires to donate 50% of their wealth to charities in the course of their life or after their death (Ramoglou, 2013. (b) Key businesses developed by the entrepreneur The first program developed by Zuckerberg was known as “ZuckNet” which he came up with while still in high school. This program permitted computers between his father’s dental unit and his home to communicate like a precursor to AOL Instant Messenger which was released within a year later. Zuckerberg also came up with a music player known as Synapse Media Player that had the power to learn an individual’s listening habits. It received a score of 3 out of the maximum 5 from the PC Magazine. Whereas AOL and Microsoft all wanted Zuckerberg and his Synapse, he turned them down and instead enrolled at Harvard in 2002. It is while at Harvard that started the development of Facebook (Hisrich, 2011). While at Harvard he created CourseMatch that gave an opportunity to Harvard students to pick courses basing on what courses the other students had selected. This made is possible for formation of study groups or landing in class with people that one liked. He developed ‘Facemash’ that was a program that permitted the users to pick the best looking person from a group of photos. The site’s popularity caused a stir at Harvard. People did not like their photos being used on a public website and it also overwhelmed the network switches making the students not to access the Internet. Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to pursue his dream of social network in the course of his sophomore year (Ramoglou, 2013. Facebook simply started as a Harvard social site but included more Ivy League colleges and later colleges. It has grown to be a social network for everyone. The net worth statistics of the founder speaks it all. Zuckerberg has integrated search engines, advertising, gifts, games, local business, and apps, among others hence making his business empire more productivity. Facebook has continued to grow. The company acquired Instagram in 2012 and hit the one billion active users (Chaudhary, 2015). (c). Analysis of competitive advantage of Facebook compared to other entrepreneurs While raising money for Facebook, Zuckerberg took several major risks. He avoided major investors, ignored important phone calls, and cancelled meetings for the purpose of driving demand. He finally had 12 major investment companies wanting to fund his site. Whereas many people would have been scared of being left out, Zuckerberg and his team had the guts to wait. Consequently Facebook under Zuckerberg has an advantage of accessing a huge capital base at their disposal that other businesses cannot access (Shane & Nicolaou, 2013). A huge capital base is very important in expanding the business through acquiring the right resources and human capital. The huge capital base allows Facebook to grow through acquisition like that of Instangram in 2012. Facebook has a huge customer base that cut across all ages in all parts of the world. Everyone can find a use or interesting part of Facebook that he is in love with. Having a huge capital base is important in making profits through advertising. Many companies use Facebook as an advertising avenue. Zuckerberg is visionary and dynamic and making able to seize opportunities that other entrepreneurs cannot realize in good time. Facebook as social networking site is an original ideal that stands out. It commands a huge following and its uniqueness makes it attractive to many investors (Chaudhary, 2015). It is easy for Zuckerberg to raise capital for expansion as compared to other businesses that have a lot of justification to do. Part C: Future Entrepreneurial Suggestions: (a) Where the entrepreneur can develop different types of businesses In 2012 Facebook declared its plans for the Facebook phone. The Facebook home was released in 2012. Android Smartphones’ users were the first one to benefit and the company promised compatibility with other devices. For the purpose of getting more users on Facebook, Zuckerberg has gone ahead to partner with largest mobile technology companies across the world. In 2015 he launched Internet.org. This project is simply a partnership between Facebook, Nokia, Samsung, and Qualcomm Inc. (Minniti & Moren, 2010). The main goal is to get the majority of the world’s population on Facebook in the shortest time possible. The company aims at making Internet accessible to the world that are yet to be connected. The project comprises of developing smartphones that are cheaper and tools that can reduce the data needs for running apps. It is important for Facebook to continue working with smartphones apps’ developers and other technological companies to unravel the emerging needs among the Facebook users. (b) Different avenues or the entrepreneur can explore in the future Zuckerberg has opportunities to develop his business venture farther. Zuckerberg can invest in developing educational program and selling them to emerging economies on entrepreneur and other topics. The interactive forums can be carried on Facebook or a separate program or website that allows tutors to interact with learners from time to time. The educational need in developing or emerging economies is huge hence the importance of coming up with such a program. Many students from developing economies are going to pursue business courses in developed countries. Zuckerberg can hire highly qualified scholars to develop the curriculum for such courses and cut down the course of learning for those students who travel for miles seeking the same opportunities. Mark Zuckerberg can also provide a form for researchers to publish their findings and critics other researchers’ work (Fauchart & Gruber, 2011). People have to pay a fee to be allowed to publish their work and paid back some fee if advertising is done on those sites. Research can be in different fields like education, medicine, technology, psychology, political science, anthropology and many other fields. Through research and innovation emerging customers’ needs can be met easily. References Chaudhary, Ali R. (2015). 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Journal of Business Venturing 24 (5): 519–532. Read More