Entrepreneurship has been defined as a process of making a new pure business, as a small business or startup company rather than working in other person company, or using franchise as a business. According to economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883-1950), “entrepreneurs are not certainly motivated by profit from the business but entrepreneur may set it as a standard for measuring achievement or success as the entrepreneur.” Schumpeter (1965) also defined “entrepreneur is an individuals that exploit the market opportunity through idea that entrepreneur develop with technical innovation”. According to Zimmerer (2007) “entrepreneur is an amazing group of people, that is creative and innovative, entrepreneur become the triggers in the community to develop the economy, because of entrepreneur because he has the ability to think and act productively. Bolton and Thompson (2000) have defined an entrepreneur as “a person who habitually creates and innovates to build something of recognized value around perceived opportunities”. From the entire expert above, it can be concluded that entrepreneur is a person, who arranges and manages any business to exploit the market through opportunity that comes, the decision maker for the business to decide what to do, with great initiative, creative and innovative mind and risk to be success, and take benefit of every opportunity that come (York, Jeffrey G., and S. Venkataraman, 2010).
The concept of entrepreneur is, basically a person who responsible for creating and building a new business, the entrepreneur has to be innovative, and smart to be able to gain achievement for the new start up business (Burns, Paul, 2010). The entrepreneur also responsible with opening many employment and opportunities for another people, as entrepreneur making new start up business, it means entrepreneur also responsible with the employer, as if the entrepreneur not smart and innovative enough, the business might be fail, and more people will be jobless because have to quit from the entrepreneur start up business.
One of the keys that make entrepreneur success is, how entrepreneur is being creative, and innovative through the startup, where do the creative and innovativeness come from? It comes from entrepreneur’s thought (Torres-Coronas, Teresa, and María-Arántzazu Vidal-Blasco, 2015). This section is going to be about how do entrepreneur thinking, it is called “Effectual Reasoning” it is a way of thinking that makes entrepreneurs to think of what could be done in this opportunity, or what can the entrepreneur make to be success. Effectual reasoning first introduced by Saras Sarasvathy in 2001, Saras have research what a successful entrepreneur brain different from average person, she research 45 different entrepreneur with all have at least more than 15 years experience at business, and have feel both success and failed in their life. After combining the data, Saras concluded that what makes entrepreneur different than average person is, entrepreneur rely on their effectual reasoning, which define goals based on the means and choices that entrepreneur have, moreover entrepreneur also use brilliant improvisers in the business or startup, and never give up on the business (Farmer, Steven M., Xin Yao, and Kate Kung‐Mcintyre, 2011).
There are two entrepreneurs that the writer wants to discuss about story of the journey of entrepreneur life and how the entrepreneur overcome the environment and become success entrepreneur. The first story is about Jack Ma, He is the founder and the executive chairman of Alibaba group, one of the biggest and successful Internet business based in China. Jack Ma was born on October 15, 1964, in Hangzhou, with Ma Yun name, Ma family is a China communist which was isolated from western, that makes Ma and his family didn’t have much money to have a good life. As a teenager, Ma get interested on learning English, then Ma offering visitors a tour in exchange to learn English, ‘Jack’ also is the nickname given by a tourist to Ma, in his young age, Ma was such a failure, Ma failed twice in the university exam entrance and success in the third exam, and Ma decided to make a money for the university fee, Ma applied 30 jobs and got rejected by all, then Ma decided to applied a job at KFC, there are 24 people also applied a job, 23 was accepted except Ma, Ma finally was hired as an English teacher at local university. After graduated from university Ma, with all the money he collected from the part-time job, Ma start to make his own business, it is a translation business but the business did not last long, it only last for 1 year, then one day Ma learn about Internet, then Ma really interested on it, and believed that one day Internet can make him a lot of money. After that Ma and his friend started to make a website in the Internet, 5 hours after publishing their website relating to China, there were so many Chinese contacting them regarding the website this is where Ma certainly sure that Internet had something great to offer, so Jack Ma start again with website-maker business then it also did not last longer then the past business. After learning more about Internet, Jack Ma gathers 18 friends in his house to convince them to invest in his new start up business, the idea of the new business is to make an Internet business based website, so Ma made a website that an exporter can post the product list so the customer could buy it directly, Ma dream of making global company that’s why the name of the company is Alibaba, because it is easy to spell and everyone know about it. After one-year operation, the service started to attract members from all over the world, because the growth of economy in China so fast, making all of people want to invest there. The key of Alibaba success is Ma always keep maintain the fun in his company, when the company gain the very first profit, Ma gave a can of silly string to every employee in the business, when the company start to make a new division as a eBay competitor, Ma asked all of his employee to do headstand during break to keep their concentration and energy up. Year by year gone, Alibaba slowly breaking into the top of the Internet-based business website, and finally Yahoo decided to invest $1 U.S billion dollar in Alibaba for exchange of 40% stake of the company, it was a huge win for Alibaba, and since Yahoo invested money, Alibaba continues to grow until what it became now (Greeven, Mark J,2014).
The second entrepreneur story is about Sir Richard Charles Nicolas Robinson also known as Richard Branson, he is best known as the founder of Virgin group, which have 400 companies all over the world. Branson was born in Surrey, England, on July 18, 1950, Branson had struggled with school since he was young because of his disease dyslexia, then finally he decided to drop out from high school at 16 years old, did not know what to do after quit school, Branson decided to make a money, he then made a magazine, with youth-culture style which named ‘Student’, which made by students, and sold for student. Branson strategy was to advertise ‘Student’ so it can be famous, at first it was a success, but one time he struggled to keep the advertisement fee, so Branson thought of some ideas, in the area where he lived, was surrounded by British music, and that time Branson got an idea to make a recording company called Virgin, to support the fund of his magazine, surprisingly the Virgin performed amazingly and surpassed ‘Student’ magazine profit, with the success of the Virgin, Branson knew that he have to keep investing money on this business and built a recording studio in Oxfordshire, England 1972. Year by year passed, and Virgin consistently performed better and better, helping them to be one of the top recording companies in the world, and Branson think Virgin could still be bigger and bigger, so Branson expanded Virgin to travel companies the Voyager group in 1980, the airline Virgin antlantic, and Virgin megastories, but Branson success seems like stopped because of the expansion, Virgin suddenly struggling to stay financially fit, and then Branson sold the company for 1$ Billion to Thorn Emi. Desperate because his loss, did not make Branson lose his passion in recording, he made a new Virgin radio station, and several years later he found V2, a second company under Virgin radio station, after that Branson keep expanding Virgin until now when Virgin have 400 companies all over the world in a train company, luxury game preserve, mobile phone company, and space tourism company, Virgin galactic.
Entrepreneur have been a good influence for many people in the world, entrepreneur inspired other people with their life experience that many people can take as a lesson (Jayawarna, Dilani, Julia Rouse, and John Kitching, 2013). From Jack Ma, he teach other how to overcome the circumstances, how to look opportunity from how he see internet far back then when nobody will predict it will become as big as today, there is also a quote from Jack Ma “If you are not rich by 35 years old, you have wasted your youth” (Farhoomand, A., and R. Lai. 2010). Sir Richard Branson is also another entrepreneur figure for many people, as he teach so many lesson from his life experience, Branson teach other even with disorder Branson can still be successful, disability is not a reason not to work hard, Branson also teach lesson about in business there is a time that everyone will make a mistake, so don’t ever give up, and always try to look for opportunity, even with his failure in investing in the travel companies, Branson still be able to re-build Virgin company until what it is now, Branson also inspire other with how he want to make a better world, like in his quote “Never go into business, purely to make money, if that is your motive, you are better off with nothing” (Butler, Richard W, 2010).
Reference:
Burns, Paul. Entrepreneurship and Small Business: Start-up. Growth and Maturity. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Butler, Richard W. "1 0 Richard Branson." Giants of Tourism (2010): 136.
Farhoomand, A., and R. Lai. "Alibaba’s Jack Ma: Rise of the New Chinese Entrepreneur." Asia Case Research Centre (2010).
Farmer, Steven M., Xin Yao, and Kate Kung‐Mcintyre. "The behavioral impact of entrepreneur identity aspiration and prior entrepreneurial experience." Entrepreneurship Theory and practice 35.2 (2011): 245-273.
Greeven, Mark J. "The Alibaba Group and Jack Ma." Handbook of East Asian Entrepreneurship (2014): 380.
Jayawarna, Dilani, Julia Rouse, and John Kitching. "Entrepreneur motivations and life course." International Small Business Journal 31.1 (2013): 34-56.
Torres-Coronas, Teresa, and María-Arántzazu Vidal-Blasco. "Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur through Emotional Intelligence Development." Handbook of Research on Learning Outcomes and Opportunities in the Digital Age (2015): 198.
York, Jeffrey G., and S. Venkataraman. "The entrepreneur–environment nexus: Uncertainty, innovation, and allocation." Journal of Business Venturing 25.5 (2010): 449-463.