Background of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Entrepreneurship is considered as the potential and willingness to establish, run and manage a new and innovative business venture. According to many reports, entrepreneurship is a force that fosters the economic development of a country (Drucker 2014). The entrepreneurs are known as the risk takers as they possess the capacity to bear the risk of new initiatives. The term entrepreneurship has been originated in the year of 1920. As opined by some analysts that entrepreneurship is a process of designing, implementing the design and running an autonomous business organization and entrepreneurs are those who prefer to establish their own organization instead of working for any other organization (Mair, M., 2016). There are many successful entrepreneurs who have brought revolutionary changes in the business world. They have shown a new path to run an individual business organization in a systematic manner. Elon Musk is known as one of the famous Canadian-American entrepreneur in the world. He is the founder and CEO of SpaceX, Telsa Inc, X. com. He is associated with many other famous brands like SolarCity, OpenAI, Zip2 and X.Com which is later named as PayPal. He has become world’s 80th wealthiest person in 2017 with the net income $13.9 billion (Bae et al. 2014). The primary objective of Musk is to save the worth from the effect of Global Warming. Thus, he has designed his organization accordingly. Musk has taken several initiatives to make the world healthy for future generation. Elon Musk possesses two bachelor degrees Physics and Economics. Elon Musk is not only an influential person but according to many reports Elon Musk is a real life superhero (Granade 2014). The bellow mentioned article discusses about creative and enthusiastic ideas about Elon Musk. The article has presented a literature review on the entrepreneurship of Elon Musk. It has enlightened all the aspects of Elon Musk’s business development story to give a vivid idea about what makes Elon Musk not only a successful entrepreneur but also a superhero for the world whose basic motive is to make the earth a better place to live.
Elon Musk was in 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. His father was South African and mother was Canadian. During Childhood Musk had a great interest in reading, he used to read many books. Elon Musk is renowned for its self learned skills. He has learned most of its skills either by reading or by practicing. Elon musk possesses two bachelor degrees from renowned universities. He has earned bachelor degree in physics from the University of Pennsylvania. Later on, he admitted in Wharton School of Business, from where he has received bachelor degree in economics (Williamson 2016). In 1995 Musk got enrolled in Stanford University for pursuing PhD, but he has left the program in the middle of the session to follow his dream. During his PhD he has realized that his actual dream is to run his own business and not working for any other organization. Musk has stated in one of its interview that he has found the slow pace of college lectures and classes frustrating, instead of the slow lecture he prefers to download the study material and read it by own. Musk is very much fond of study. He used to read for ten hours per day in his childhood. This statement is highly influential and beneficial for the students as it is important to earn degrees from the colleges and schools but one can develop his or her skills in an effective manner by self learning (Victor 2015).
Elon Musk’s Journey as an Entrepreneur
Elon Musk has started his journey as an entrepreneur in 1995. He and his brother have started Zip2. It is a web software company. The company is renowned for the development of software called ‘City Guide’. This software is useful for newspaper publishing houses. The New York Times and Chicago Tribune, the name of such big newspaper houses are associated with Zip2. However, the organization has faced various challenges due to disagreement between the board of directors and Elon Musk (Lin, Clarke and Baruah 2016).
In March 1999 Musk has started an organization called X.com for online financial services and online payments purpose. Musk was the co-founder of the organization. Later on X.com has merged with Confinity, a money service organization. X.com was renamed as PayPal by organizational management. The main focus of PayPal was on viral marketing campaign. The main motive of the organization was to draw the attention of a large number of buyers. In 2000 Musk has resigned from the post of chief executive officer (CEO) due to disagreement with management (Kessler 2015).
Elon Musk has started as project called Mars Oasis in 2001 to experiment the effect of green house gases on the land of Mars. Musk has founded the organization called SpaceX in May, 2002 to expand the humanity to Mars to save them from the effect of green house effect. Headquarter of SpaceX is situated in California. Space X has produced first privately funded, liquid-propellant rocket to reach to the space (SpaceX, 2017).
Telsa Inc. has been started in 2003. Mertin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning were the fonder of this organization. They played a significant role in establishing the organization. Later on, Musk has joined the organization as a member of board of directors. Musk has reconstructed the style of product designing to marketing. Elon Musk has a significant role in the development of the organization. Telsa has produced its first electric car in 2008. Later on Telsa has taken many unique initiatives that have made it one of the leading organizations in the world. Although, the organization has faced financial crisis in the year of 2008, but the issues have been resolved very soon under the strong guidance of Elon Musk (Tesla.com, 2017).
Elon Musk has great influence in the development of Solar City. It was initially conceptualized by the Musk. The organization is co founded b y his cousin Lyndon and Peter Rive. Solar City is considered as the second largest solar system provider in United States. The objective of Telsa and Solar City is to save the humanity from the effect of global warming. In 2013, solar city associates with Telsa to use the batteries of electric vehicles. The motive of this collaboration is to influence the effect of rooftop solar to the power grid (Solarcity.com, 2017).
Zip2 and X.com
Another innovative creation of Elon Musk is Hyperloop. In 2013, August Elon Musk has launched a new type of transportation named Hyperloop. According to Musk, this form of transportation will help to travel between the major cities and save the travel time. This transport system will be operated by renewable energy. Musk has stated that this idea will take seven to ten years to be completely accepted and implemented. He has stated that this way is safer than other transport system. Elon Musk has encouraged the development of this innovative idea (Gonzales 2016).
Elon Musk is known as the risk taker and a perfect example of entrepreneur. Ashley Vance (2015) has written in his biography of Elon Musk that Musk is another influential hero of Silicon Valley after Steve Jobs. Although Musk is now known as one of the rich people in the world, he has taken some serious steps that could be harmful for his entrepreneurship. Musk is now the owner of $12 billion, but few years back the scenario was different. After few years of starting the first company Zip2, Musk has sold the company for $20 million and he has invested the whole amount in his next initiative and become the co-founder of PayPal. This initiative was quite successful and musk has become richer due to the development of PayPal, but then Musk decided to take out all his money from PayPal and start a new organization Telsa and SpaceX. These tow companies has faced massive financial crisis in 2008. However, Elon Musk as a true leader was ready to save his organization from this crisis. He has taken the help of his in-laws to overcome the financial crunch (Yoffie and Cusumano 2015). Due to these efficient techniques of Elon Musk his organizations are flourishing day by day. His life is an inspiration for others. Musk possesses a quality to take risk and overcome any crisis with intelligent and efficient decisions. According many reports, every successful entrepreneur needs to be smart and intelligent enough to take smart and efficient decisions to deal with various challenges and entrepreneurs must be willing to take risk. It will influence their initiatives to develop (Pultarova and Loughran 2016). Being a perfect entrepreneur, Musk is always flexible enough to take new challenges and new technologies. In 1995 when Musk left his PhD course in the middle of the session he was only twenty four years old. It was too early to become an entrepreneur, but he was determined to follow his dreams and dedicate his life to establish a business organization where he will be the leader not just an employee. According to many analysts, the basic quality of an entrepreneur is to think in an innovative manner, so they can shape their organization in an exceptional way that will distinguish his or her organization from other companies (Tran 2016). While thinking about the career, Musk has identified that internet, space exploration and use of sustainable energy has the potential to help the future generation. His primary objective is to shape the future generation by some quality service. He expects that may be someday his idea will inspire everyone and they will use cars driven by solar energy. He has given the world some excessively innovative ideas like space travel. According to him, human and other animals often suffers from various kinds of natural calamity, in future people could survive in the mars to avoid the risk of natural disaster. In order to fulfill his dream Musk has started his organization SpaceX. He has structured all his organization according to his innovative ideas. His organization Zip2 promoted the use of internet. The objective of Telsa and Solar City is to promote the use of sustainable energy. There are many criticisms against Musk that he is like other business person, nothing is different about her and his main motive is to make profit. Elon Musk is a business person, he wants to make profit but unlike many other business people he wants to help the society and works for the betterment of the earth (Carland, Carland and Stewart 2015). He wants to save the civilization by using his innovative ideas. Musk is concerned about the effect of Global Warming. He wants to save the future generation from the curse of global warming by using renewable energies. He ensures that his organizations produces zero garbage and reduces zero percent carbon in the environment to eliminate the global warming gases from the atmosphere. His organization SpaceX concentrates on making the earth livable for the human being and they want to expand the life beyond the earth. It is not easy to change the whole world within a short span of time but Elon Musk is aware of the fact that little effort can make great changes and improve the quality of life (Webb 2016). This quality of Elon Musk distinguishes him from other entrepreneurs as well as business person. According to most of the Business person and entrepreneurs, making profits is the major and only goal. In order to achieve the target they avoid their social responsibility. However, it is considered as one of the important feature of every successful business organization that it must play the role of good citizen. It helps the organization to raise the brand image in the society. Eventually it increases the market demand of the organization. It is an integral feature of every successful entrepreneur, they must think beyond the success of their organization. They are an important part of society and they have some responsibilities towards their society. They must play the role of responsible citizen; they must not implement any business strategy that can be harmful for their locality and people around them. It is evident in many cases that organizations produce a huge number of garbage that is harmful for the environment, such practices are highly preventable. According to many analysts, entrepreneurs are the leader of their own organizations, they are responsible to set the norms for their organization and follow and implement those rules within the organization (Blodger 2016). Entrepreneurs must be careful enough while making strategies and rules for their organization. They must practice such things that can harm the society and the people around them. Entrepreneurs must be dedicated towards their goal and dedicated to achieve their target. According to many theorists, dedication towards the goal will help the entrepreneur to implement unique and efficient strategy to achieve the target (Blodger 2016). It can be seen that Elon Musk has a great determination as well as dedication towards his goal which leads him to leave his PhD and to become a successful entrepreneur at the age of 24.
SpaceX
While considering the story of Elon Musk, it can be seen that he follows the Blue Ocean Strategy to develop his business organization. According to this theory, every leader of the organizations must fight to develop its inner quality instead of competing with other organizations (Herron 2016). The founder of blue ocean strategy has stated that organizations must concentrates on their internal qualities and improve those qualities to draw the attention of the consumers. This method will provide long-term benefit to the organizations. The strategy suggests that organizations must offer some innovative, unique, scientific and efficient products and services to their consumers to match the expectation level of their consumers. The leaders of the organizations must generate some innovative ideas to enhance the productivity and market demand. They must promote creative ideas of their experts for the betterment of their products. It will help them to match the expectation level of their consumers. Leaders must provide healthy and friendly atmosphere to their employees to boost their motivation and influence the productivity level of the organization. This type of environment will help the organizational management to achieve the objective. In this competitive era, where every organizational management is busy to fight against their competitors Blue Ocean Strategy is providing a different idea about enhancing internal features to earn the reputation in the society as well as to achieve the organizational goal. Elon Musk is a great follower of this strategy. He has generated some extraordinary ideas for his organizations that have helped him to earn the reputation as well as to make huge profit. Musk’s creative ideas has led him to become one of the most influential and wealthy person in the world (Nordqvist, Wennberg and Hellerstedt 2013).
Another important strategy for successful strategy is to study the market. Musk has the capability to study the market. According to analyst, every entrepreneur must possess the capability to scrutinize the market demand to identify the requirements of the people. It will help the leader to offer most required product of the society and it will make the organization to become the most desirable brand among the consumers (Chell 2013). It can be seen by his business ideas. He is aware of the market situation. This has led him to meet offer online payment service to its consumers. In this modern age, people are very mush busy with their lives and they are becoming tech savvy day by day. In order to help people to save their time and make their payments Musk has provided online payment service with PayPal. Musk is not only smart, he is well-aware about atmosphere and the challenges the earth is facing every day, to resolve the issue and gift people a healthy place to live he has started the organization that promotes the use of renewable energy and eliminate the co2 from the environment. The organization Solar City promotes the use of solar energy to prevent the production of harmful gases that may lead the environment to meet an unwelcomed consequence. To save human being from the effect of natural calamity, the organization SpaceX putting their efforts to extend humanity to Mars. The organizations founded by Elon Mask are highly committed to save the existence of human and other animal planet (Arenius 2016).
Tesla Inc.
As per the previous discussion, it can be stated that Elon musk has brought revolution in the business world. He has presented new and unique ideas that have influenced the whole world. He preserves all the quality of being a successful entrepreneur, such as- smart, intelligence, responsible, flexible. He has influenced the world by his innovative ideas and smart moves. Although he has faced several challenges and obstacles, but his dedication towards his goal has helped him to fight against all the obstacles. He has overcome all his challenges by smart, intelligent decision making. He has offered some unique products and services to the world that has paved the path of his success. His ideas include use of solar and other renewable energy, Mars exploration and online payments and so on. He has played the role of responsible citizen and his basic objective is to save the society and people around him. He is aware of his duty towards the environment. Environment and human plays a significant role in all his business ideas. He is a great follower of Blue Ocean Strategy. Instead of fighting with all the competitors he has focused on his own strengths and that has led him to produce creative ideas to make the earth a better place for the future generation. Musk’s main objective is to save the environment for the future generation. This idea can be reflected from the performance of his organizations. Elon Musk does not encourage the use of Non- biodegradable products in his organizations and try to produce zero garbage as he is concerned of the fact that non-bio degradable products can be harmful for the environment and can cause various diseases. Elon Musk is a perfect combination of successful business man and responsible citizen. Such ideas has maintained the reputation of his organization in the society and promoted his brand name among the consumers. Such practices have led him to become world’s 80th wealthiest man and one of the most influential people in the world.
Reference:
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