Initiative

         Initiative has the meaning of the ability to evaluate and found new idea and things independently. (Initiative)  The entrepreneur who totally shows this ability in his business said “Lots of company does not succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They usually miss the future.”  The person that said this sentence is one of the most popular web search engine, Google co-founder, Larry Page.

Larry Page and another co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin start their initiative after over a year they met each other in Stanford University. (Karch) In 1996, both of them were the graduate student of computer course, and they began to work together to form a search engine which called BlackRub. However, over a year of the development, BlackRub cover too much of bandwidth which cannot be used in their campus. In the next year, Larry and Sergey decide to create a new name for BlackRub, and Google came to their mind as the word is derived from mathematical term “googol” which means that 100 of zero follow behind the number 1. This name also shows their aspirations to integrate the unlimited information network. In 4th September 1998, Google finally registered as a company in California.

            Form the history of Google we can clearly find out that Larry and Sergey are the initiative entrepreneurs which they start their initiative during their university time. Although their first online search engine is not named as Google, but it cannot be doubted that the effort of creating BlackRub have become the importance step for Larry and Sergey to success in managing Google. The initiative of Larry had helped him in becoming one of the co-founder of the world best online search engine. Without the initiative of Larry who creates the Google search engine, people nowadays cannot get any information they wish or have to know easily.

Continue reading →

Versatility

         Steve Job was a successful entrepreneur and inventor, who was the co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc. Steve Job was also the formerly Pixar. He was well-known for his innovation and creativity in Apple’s products. As the CEO of the company, he invested and developed the products such as iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone and iPad. Next, he also focused on the service side like the company’s Apple Retail Stores, iTunes Store and the App Store. Because of these products and services, the company financial returns are stable and well-built in several years. Thus, Apple became the world’s most valuable publicly traded company in 2011.

Through Apple, Steve Job is commonly accepted as a charming, versatile and design-driven pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in technology fields. (Rogers, 2011) Steve Job is a versatile and talented entrepreneur. This is because he took control over minute details of a product while being the CEO of Apple Inc. He always believes in what he did and believes that the path he has chosen is the right way. Besides that, Steve Job’s early work at Apple helped to make the computer a mainstay in both the professional consumer realms. Moreover, his incredible versatility had been shown when building Pixar into a powerhouse animation. In conclusion, Steve Job is the versatile entrepreneur behind the success of Apple Inc.

Continue reading →

Decisive

     Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft Corporation. According to the survey done in 1997, it shows that almost 40% of people own computers and 80% of them light up with the flying window on the computer screen, which the signature of Microsoft’s Windows operating system is displayed. Today, he founded the largest software corporation and become the richest person in the world.

            Bill Gates is the key person in the Microsoft Corporation. He plays a decisive role in Microsoft Corporation and also heading the company’s direction. He makes most of the strategies and highlights the things that are important. Besides, Bill Gates also able to make decisions quickly when emergency situation is faced by Microsoft Corporation. Much of his success can be attributed to his quick response of decision making process.

In the early of 1984, VisiCorp developed a mouse-driven computer system, which graphic interface is used to display image on the screen. This is the major challenge that faced by Bill Gates as Microsoft Corporation only develop text and keyboard driven MS-DOS system, where all the text formatting displayed on screen as code and users do not know what actually will be printed. In this situation, Bill Gates made an important decision. He innovated on Microsoft’s products and produced a new Microsoft operating system that can use graphic interface, which is known as “Windows”. As a result, the decision that made by Bill Gates causing Microsoft Corporation reported USD140 million in revenue, including USD46.6 million from oversea users in the same year.

           Today, although he give Steve Blamer control of the CEO position, Bill Gates still remains one of the key person in the most important matters that company encounters. 

Continue reading →

Integrity and Reliability

"We strive to conduct our business with the highest level of integrity and honesty, and we believe that investing our reputation is as important as investing our capital" (Dell, 2015)

Michael Dell is the founder, chairman and CEO of Dell Inc. He was born on 23 February 1965. He is a successful entrepreneur who helped launch the personal computer revolution in the 1980s with the creation of the Dell Computer Corporation. Dell Inc. is one of the world’s leading sellers of personal computers because of Michael Dell’s determination.

         Michael Dell is an integrity and reliable entrepreneur. He articulates a clear organizational vision for his employees. He listened to employee feedbacks and opinions. He also encourages all employees to perform at a high level to help Dell Inc. achieve its vision and goals. Employees responded well to Michael Dell’s hand-on leadership style, which has resulted in a hardworking and committed workforce. Employees have trust, admiration, loyalty and respect to Michael Dell because he is a good leader who is willing to work harder. Michael Dell believes that communication is an essential way to build trust and motivate employees. He spends most time in communicating to his managers and employees. Michael Dell is a good leader not only to his employees but also to the customers and suppliers. He always focuses on the customers and understands the needs of the consumers. Hence, Michael Dell is an entrepreneur with integrity and reliability.

Continue reading →

Time Competence

         Time competence is one of the key entrepreneurial traits that are highly needed to operate a business. It is the ability to link what have been done in the past and what is desired to accomplish in the future in order to allocate resources available to meet the goals. This requires the well-developed skill of building functioning plans and strategies. It can also be described as planting a tree to take shelter from today while learning from the past and forecasting the actions need to be taken to create the desired future.

            Eckhart Tolle has been a great example of demonstrating the traits of time competence. He is a world renowned spiritual teacher and author who is a German-born resident of Canada. (About Eckhart Tolle) He has been described as “the most popular spiritual author in the United States” by an article in the New York Times and ranked first by the Watkins Review as “the most spiritually influential person in the world”. (Eckhart Tolle, 2015)

            Eckhart Tolle has a depressed childhood due to a broken family and hostile school environment. After suffering from long periods of suicidal depression, a profound inner transformation totally changed the course of his life at the age of 29. He began writing his first book entitled “The Power of Now”, published in 1997 which reached the New York Time Best Seller list and being translated into more than 30 languages later. Eckhart published his second book, “Stillness Speaks” in 2003 and third book, “A New Earth” in 2005. 

Continue reading →

Perceptiveness

     Perceptiveness has the meaning of having or showing the sensitive vision. Gerald Norman Pencer who born in April 26, 1945 and ended his life in February 3, 1998 due to brain tumour was the most suitable entrepreneur who possess the perceptiveness characteristic. Gerald Norman Pencer is the successful entrepreneur who took over an infamous soft drink manufacturer named Cott to its biggest high.  At the mid-1980s, Cott Corporation was facing some problem, which they needed to find out a way to beat the giant of soft drink industry, Coca-Cola and Pepsi. (Entrepreneurial Characteristics) Gerald Norman Pencer who was very perceptive had successfully made the Cott become one of the biggest selling items in the industry.

        Gerald Norman Pencer decided to develop Cott as private label bottler. Gerald contracted with some retail stores and supermarkets to provide the diverse of soft drinks that could be packaged under retailer’s brand. Gerald challenged Pepsi and Coca-Cola with his whole new method of distribution one that allowed retailers to make more profits with offering the cheaper soft drinks to the customer. Nowadays, Cott have successfully become the world’s largest retailer brand label soft drink provider. The perceptiveness of Gerald Norman Pencer had made the changes in Cott Corporation.

Continue reading →

Ability to Learn From Mistakes

       Robin Chase is the founder of Zipcar, the largest car sharing company in the world, which provides innovative rental car service to customers. Today, it has more than ten thousand vehicles in 27 markets. Robin Chase is also the founder of Buzzcar, a peer-to-peer car rental service, which provides service in order to gather the car-owners and the drivers in the car sharing market.

     Later, Robin Chase developed GoLoco, which is an online ride sharing community. It combines online carpooling as well as social networking in order to reduce the customer’s cost and emphasis on trip more efficiency. The concepts of GoLoco and Zipcar are totally different with each other. GoLoco emphasizes on ride sharing service whereas Zipcar provides car rental service to customers in a simple way. However, the start-up of GoLoco did not as successful as Zipcar as there is no appetite for ride sharing service in United States.

Robin Chase said that she made a big mistake when GoLoco is launched. She did not take customers’ wants and needs into consideration, where website was built first and customers were being asked about it later. A lot of money was spent on the website development and they just ignored the customers’ wants.

         In the end, Robin Chase learned that it is important to meet the customers’ wants and needs before launching projects. 

Continue reading →

Ethical Consciousness

         Ethical consciousness is an important entrepreneurship trait in a business operation. Ethics is a set of principles that helps to judge what is right or wrong, fair or unfair and proper or improper. It also outlines the responsibilities and moral obligations to the society. Ethical standards in business are crucial for a smooth functioning economy. If ethical standard are abandoned, it will lead to a lower quality of life with less desirable goods and services at higher prices.

   An example of entrepreneur with ethical consciousness is Richard Branson, the founder and the chairman of the world famous Virgin Group that holds more than two hundred companies in over thirty countries today, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia and South Africa. He started his entrepreneurial life in the music industry and later expanded into other sectors making him a billionaire. From a mail order record retailer in 1970, the Virgin Group has continuously developed successful businesses in various sectors ranging from mobile telephony, travel, leisure, financial services, music, and holidays. One of the businesses developed is Virgin Galactic. (Branson, 2014)

 After Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo crashed into California's Mojave Desert, having one test pilot killed and the other injured, some of the people who booked the flight tickets asked for money returns. Normally there are very few executives and communicators have had to publicly give explanation on the deadly crash of a spacecraft except for those who work for national space agencies. In a press conference, Richard Branson admitted that “we fell short” and would correct mistakes. He said that they are not going to push on blindly and they are going to learn from mistakes. He promised to push on with the program once they had investigated the reason for the crash. Besides that, a series of blog posts about the crash and how Virgin Galactic is taking corrective action has been published by him instead of denying any faults and concealing the mistakes. 

Continue reading →

Foresight

Warren Buffett is the most successful American investor and ranked 3rd in the 2015 world’s billionaire. Warren Buffett is the biggest stockholder of his diversified holding company, Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett be known as “Wizard of Omaha” due to he has a good foresight about value investing.

Subsidiary companies under Berkshire Hathaway include food and beverage sector, clothing, insurance and finance, logistic, media and others. Class A stock of Berkshire Hathaway is the most expensive stocks among public United States companies. Buffett being trusted by people and if people know that Buffett is interested to buy a particular stock, that particular stock’s price would increase by 10%.

Buffett only invests in companies with steady returns. Although Buffett didn’t know anything about farming, but he able to made a good profit off the Buffett Farm. Buffett has tripled its earnings and five times more valuable than the cost that he paid after 28 years. Berkshire bought 1.3% of PetroChina, one of the dominant oil companies in China for $488 million in 2002 and 2003. PetroChina had a market value of $37 billion, but Buffett think that it was worth $100 billion. PetroChina’s market value reached $275 billion due to the rising oil price and new discoveries. Berkshire reaped a $3.6 billion gain after sold the shares of PetroChina by the time 2007 due to his foresight about the future value of PetroChina.

 Buffett bought Berkshire Hathaway which is a textile company in 1965 with the price of $12 a share. Buffet became a billionaire after he started selling the Class A shares of Berkshire Hathaway in 1990. Berkshire Hathaway would be the most successful investment of Buffett. Because of the foresight of Buffett, Berkshire successfully generates cash from its insurance business and invests the cash very good. Berkshire Hathaway has annual average compounded return of 22% and total return of 1745300%. (Gandel, 2014)

Continue reading →