Steve Jobs Entrepreneur Skills - Essay Example

? STEVE JOBS ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS Steve Jobs Entrepreneurial Skills Steve Jobs, due to his overwhelming success as the chief executive officer of Apple Corporation has become a point of reference by many researchers who have carried out studies on business management and entrepreneurial skills. His way of thinking and doing things is what makes him unique from other business leaders. Mostly, he is referred to as a simple but creative thinker who spends considerable time in evaluating a simple feature about a product. It is the simplest things that people take for granted that are his major area of concern to him. Jobs actively get involved in the process whether that is his department of operation or not. Due to his different style of management and remarkable success in global business, most references relating to entrepreneurship are drawn from him. He portrays a different way of doing the same things we are used to, and sees the normal things that we see in a different version. Any start up businessperson who aims to succeed has to draw quite a lot of inference from Jobs, and then apply creativity in running of the enterprise. Most start up business actually does not live beyond the initial stages and end up collapsing a few days in operation. Their owners loose hope, focus, and vision too fast that their dream becomes nothing more than a curse. At liquidation, the owners loose capital invested, time, and efforts. It is due to these reasons that learning how Steve Jobs managed to put Apple Corporation and provide great products to the world is important for any aspiring start up business owner (Napier, 2006). A start up business requires owner involvement and participation in the running of the business. Just as Steve Jobs was involved in every aspect of the production process of the products Apple manufactured and was able to monitor them to the product, a startup business owner should be there to monitor the progress of the business. Understanding the weaknesses and majoring on these weaknesses are the strengths of a business. The entrepreneur understands the various difficulties that the business is facing. Environment of operation of the business is yet another aspect of a business the entrepreneur understands by involvement in the daily operations of the business. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses the business faces is key in its success. For Steve, the simple things regarded as final touches of a product matter to him a lot. The color of the computer casing, the sound a product produces when opened or closed or the size of the product to him is strength. He asks questions relating to these issues, and makes sure that he understands every bit of them, for example, why the designers opted for a black casing instead of a blue or yellow one. Through this, Steve has managed to understand the kind of weaknesses the business face with in its operations. For a businessperson, understanding the simple things goes a long way in understanding the needs of customers. Prioritizing on these needs wins the business more customers and gives a competitive advantage over other companies (McDaniel & Gitman, 2009). Knowing where an entrepreneur’s talent and passion lies is a better way to develop a business idea. According to Jobs, his area of passion is what brought the huge success that he is today. Entrepreneurship is a hard task and requires patience and not unless a potential entrepreneur majors on his area of strengths and where he feels he is more passionate, the hurdles experienced in the field would be will definitely break him (McDaniel & Gitman, 2009). Jobs, while advising young entrepreneurs said, “Go out and get a job as a busboy until you find something you’re really passionate about.” Passion drives desire and investing in a passionate field makes a person look forward to working the following day. Great ideas are born out of creativity, with a broader understanding of a particular phenomenon or aspect of a product leading to a breakthrough in finding what others have not (Gallo, 2011). Steve believes creativity is the ability to connect ideas and things, and his belief that quite a general and broad set of experiences helps to expand how we understand of human experience, which means seeking inspiration from other industries. For Jobs, sources of information are not limited to just the industry that one is operating. He has constantly found ideas and inspiration from a phone book, the fine details of a Mercedez -Benz, food processors or even the Four Seasons hotel chain. Customers, according to Jobs, are people who buy Apple products to help them achieve their dreams, make true their hopes and ambitions. Young entrepreneurs should purpose on selling their dreams to the public and not the product itself. In business, it is essential to give customers minimal choices to win loyalty. Most computer manufacturers produce an array of various products that have different specks. Job realized that simplification was the only key to success and instead of offering various choices, and Apple Corporation put its focus on a few Mac product lines each with a different target user. This in itself placed the company at a better competitive edge than other companies since minimal choices of apple products are available in the market. Understanding that people are not concerned with durability of a product is a key strength. Apple iPads, iPods and iPhones barely lasts for just a few years, yet the loyal customers do not mind about this. In fact, they are excited and willing to buy the latest model of the products. As a strategy, apple keeps on upgrading its models and adding more features to the product to make them more and more appealing. Products that have lifetime durability are no longer fashionable. The biggest concern customers have now is the kind of service the particular product gives them. To increase sale, the most important thing an entrepreneur should focus on is accessibility and not elitism. A product does not need to be too complicated to win the hearts of customers. In fact, the simplicity of the product and ease of use is exactly what makes people love most about a certain product, Steve knows this, and so Apple has made its products easy and simple to use. Thy do not require special skills and training in order for a person to be in a position to use the product. People, as old as 99 years, can use an apple iPads, while a child of 2 years can still master the workability of the same device due to its simple nature. Unlike other types of iPads and computers that require specialized training (Gallo, 2011). Loosing hope in business is worse than going bankrupt. Setbacks should be a source of inspiration to help an entrepreneur build a better company. Steve however insists that setbacks are a form of motivators. Although Apple was facing hard times back in the 980s, Jobs managed to get it back on track and make good business. It is unlimited as to what people can learn from Steve Jobs and his success story at Apple Corporation. What is important, however, is that what people gets to learn adds value to the kind of business they are in. Works Cited Gallo, C. (2011). The innovation secrets of Steve Jobs: insanely different : principles for breakthrough success. New York, McGraw-Hill. Gitman, L. J., & McDaniel, C. D. (2009). The future of business: the essentials. Mason, OH, South-Western Cenage Learning. Napier, H. A. (2006). Creating a winning E-business. Boston, Mass, Thomson Course Technology. Read More