individual assignment [7-10]
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1.1 Entrepreneur
The concept of an entrepreneur is further refined when principles and terms from a business,
managerial, and personal perspective are considered. In particular, the concept of entrepreneurship
from a personal perspective has been thoroughly explored in this century. Third exploration is
reflected in the following three definitions of an entrepreneur:
In almost all of the definitions of entrepreneurship, there is agreement that we are talking
about a kind of behavior that includes: (1) initiative taking, (2) the organizing and
reorganizing of social and economic mechanisms to turn resources and situations to practical
account, (3) the acceptance of risk or failure.
To an economist, an entrepreneur is one who brings resources, labor, materials, and other
assets into combinations that make their value greater than before, and also one who
introduces changes, innovations, and a new order. To a psychologist, such a person is
typically driven by certain forces the needs to obtain or attain something, to experiment, to
accomplish, or perhaps to escape the authority of others. To one businessman, an entrepreneur
appears as a threat, an aggressive competitor, whereas to another businessman the same
entrepreneur may be an ally, a source of supply, a customer, or someone who creates wealth
for others, as well as finds better ways to utilize resources, reduce waste, and produce jobs
others are glad to get.
Entrepreneurship is the dynamic process of creating incremental wealth. The wealth is created
by individuals who assume the major risks in terms of equity, time and/or career commitment or
provide value for some product or service. The product or service may or may not be new or
unique, but value must somehow be infused by the entrepreneur by receiving and locating the
necessary skills and resources.
Although each of these definitions views entrepreneurs from a slightly different perspective, they all
contain similar notions, such as newness, organizing, creating, wealth, and risk taking. Yet each
definition is somewhat restrictive, since entrepreneurs are found in all professions- education,
medicine, research, law, architecture, engineering, social work, distribution and government.
Entrepreneurship is the process of creating something new with value by devoting the
necessary time and effort, assuming the accompanying financial, psychic, and social risks,
and receiving the resulting rewards of monetary and personal satisfaction and independence.
For the person who actually starts his or her own business, the experience is filled with enthusiasm,
frustration, anxiety, and hard work. There is a high failure rate due to such things as poor sales,
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intense competition, lack of capital, or lack of managerial ability. The financial and emotional risk
can also be very high. What, then, causes a person to make this difficult decision? The question
can be best explored by looking at the decision process involved in becoming an entrepreneur.
1.2 What makes an entrepreneur successful
While entrepreneurs have in common certain characteristics and skills, there is a wide range of
individuality among them. In sports, some athletes do well because they love a sport and are trained
to play it. They have developed their skills. Others are full of natural talent and require much less
special training. Still others simply find their own successful approach to playing a sport even though
they may not have been trained.
While there is no recipe for be- coming a successful entrepreneur, certain characteristics are
associated with entrepreneurial success. Here are several important ones.
Passion:According to research, one of the most important qualities associated with successful
entrepreneurship is passion. When people feel commit- ted to what they are doing and when they
care deeply about it, they stand the best chance of being successful at it. The heart must become an
ally of the mind. Think about this popular business saying:
If your mind can conceive it,
and your heart can believe it,
then you can achieve it!
Entrepreneurs typically care more about what they are doing than how much money they might
make. They must earn an income, of course, or they cannot continue to be entrepreneurs; however,
the amount they earn often is secondary to achieving their goals.
Posit iv e mental att i tude:This is arguably the most important of all the characteristics. You will
never be a successful entrepreneur without a positive attitude. The one thing you can be sure of is
that you will experience difficult times. Your success or failure will be determined at these times. If
you maintain your confidence, persevere and continue to stay positive, you will be successful.Conversely, if you allow doubt and uncertainty to prevail, you will probably fail.
Enjoy being around p eople:Being a successful entrepreneur means you will continuously interact
with a diverse array of people such as customers, potential customers, colleagues, competitors,
suppliers, lawyers, accountants and coaches. It really helps if you enjoy being around these people.
Excel lent comm unicat ion ski l ls :Communication can be defined as the accurate exchange of
information between two or more parties. This is important because you will have many
conversations. You need to be able to accurately exchange information in a fast-moving world using
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a variety of communication methods (e.g., interpersonal, electronic). Of particular importance is the
ability to listen and truly understand where another person is coming from.
Have a need to achieve: Successful entrepreneurs are achievement-oriented. They value
accomplishment and the intrinsic rewards that go along with achieving difficult goals. It is a strong
motivator for most business owners.
Resourcefu l :Most new businesses have limited resources such as money, information
and time. Successful entrepreneurs figure out how to get the most out of these resources. They are
masters at stretching a dollar and making a few resources go a long way.
Objective:It is not easy to be objective about your business because you are passionate about
making it successful. However, you do need to be impartial and dispassionate when it comes to
making business decisions because emotion, bias and sentiment can result in poor choices.
Commit ted:Building a successful business requires an absolute commitment. It takes a lot of work
and there will be times when you become discouraged. It is during these times that you must be
steadfast, faithful and committed to your vision.
Dependable:This should go without saying but I will say it anyway. There is a strong positive
relationship between your perceived level of reliability and the success of your business. No matter
what type of business you have, your customers expect you to be dependable.
Proactive and not reactive: Successful entrepreneurs anticipate problems in advance and deal
with them before they occur. If you simply react to problems and issues as they arise, you may get
overwhelmed.
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2.1 Michael Furdyk
Co-founder of Talking ITGlobal, BuyBuddy.com
28 years old
Net worth 25 million
Some people are just successful at one business and they stick to it but for this Successful Young
Entrepreneur, hes own is not once, not twice but three different times, I think it is Wonderful and he
opened the first two before graduating from High School. He became millionaire at the young age of
17years old.
Michael Furdyk co-founded MyDesktop.com with Michael Hayman in 1997, a help site that help on
windows problem and information on games and some other topics, the site became very successful
in a short while drawing over a million hits per month. Two years after, the site (MyDesktop.com) was
sold to Internet.com for $1million in May 1999 and later, Michael furdyk founded BuyBuddy.com
which is a shopping assistant site, it raised $4.5million of venture capital.
He also co-founded TalkingITGlobal.com (TIG) with Jennifer Corriero which was officially launched in
2000. The Idea sprung from their deep desire to share their leadership and business experience with
fellow youth around the world, because they realized that some young people may not have the
support of family, friends, schools for their ideas and ambition like they did.
Furdyk serve as the Director of Technology while Jennifer is the Executive Director for
TalkingITGlobal.com. The site is a global online community for young people. It runs on 11 servers
having over 250,000 active members from about 261 countries across the world, and over two
million hits per day.
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Their Mission is to provide opportunities for learning, capacity-building, cross-cultural awareness,
and self-development through the use of Information and Communication Technologies. To me, their
site helps a lot in decision-making, it helps to inspire fellow youth to take charge. They are bridging
the gap between learning and action
The site is Unique in that it is a Social Community Site that helps to Motivate Young People achieve
their DreamsWell the site continue to grow with their passion to make positive changes in the
worldwide. Michael is involved with the TIGed education program, and has spoken to over 50,000
educators about the importance of engaging students and integrating technology and global
perspectives into the classroom
He was named as one of 10 Tech Revolutionaries Redefining the Power and Face of Philanthropy
by Contribute Magazine (2007), Honorary Top 20 Under 20 Award (2006), CANARIE IWAY Award
for Community Service (2003), Teen Peoples 20 Teens That Will Change the World (2001), Hilton
Distinguished Entrepreneur Award (2001), Selected as one of Converge Magazines Shapers of Our
Future (2000)
He has made numerous media appearances including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Time Magazine,
Fast Company, BusinessWeek, CNN, MSNBC, and USA Today. He is a board member and advisor
to numerous groups including Microsoft, Pollution Probe, and the Anytime, Anywhere Learning
Foundation, and several other national and global organizations.
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2.2 Yoshikazu Tanaka
32years old
Website Gee.jp
Net Worth $1.6 billion
Yoshikazu Tanaka holds the title as the youngest billionaire in Asia, the worlds second-youngest
self-made billionaire after 26 year old Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg. Ranked as the 18th richest
person in Japan, Tanaka assets reached 1.6 billion worth of U.S. dollars after the site became
popular and the stock price soared high. Almost twice as compared with 850 million U.S. dollars that
he had years ago in 2009.
Tanaka acquired his wealth after Gree, a social networking site that became popular and his stock
price soared.
He started Gree.jp a social networking site as a Hobby, while still working on Rakuten, Shopping
sites owned by Hiroshi Mikitani, the sixth richest man in Japan. He left in 2004 to face his social
networking site (Gree.jp) of which he owns 51%. Named his conference rooms Sunnyvale and
Mountain View, after the locations of Yahoos and Googles headquarters. The name of the site was
inspired by American social psychologist Stanley Milgrams concept of six degrees of separation.
The site which now has 15 million users (up from 8 million last year) was transformed into mobile
gaming to better compete against rivals. Gree.jp was listed in December. Users can change the
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game avatars and accessories by purchasing clothes and accessories for it. Which cost $2. 80% of
the sites income is earned from the sale of this virtual item. With the selling of virtual goods Gree.jp
is able to earn more than its local competitor.
Tanaka forges alliances with internet service providers, telecom companies e.g KDDI owns 7 % of
the site and allow users to access Grees website from the home page of KDDIs mobile phones.
90% of Gree subscribers play games on their mobile phones Gree.jp is Japans second most popular
social networking site. Tanaka is the only self-made billionaire in Asia who is under 35.
2.3 Tyler Dikman
Age 25 years old
Originally from Tampa, Florida
president and CEO of CoolTronics.com
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Tyler Dikman started his company at the age of 15 (January 2000 ). Cooltronics a site that sells,
delivers and sets up computers. Tylers father Bob Dikman is a real estate agent and his mother a
homemaker Jane Hardin. Tyler Dikman started his success story in business at the age of 5 while
making $20/hr through a lemonade stands to lawn mowing then babysitting, by the age of 10 our
young entrepreneur was charging $25 for 30-minute birthday party magic shows
He got his first computer from his Dad at the age of 10 which was an old Gateway, and as a young
boy he got interested in how the works, he took it apart studied it in and out, form there he started
developing interest in computer, by eight grade teachers were requesting for Tyler to fix their
computers. Tyler realized he could earn from it, at first $15 an hour. He latter got a babysitting job for
Malcolm Taaffe, then the vice president at Merrill Lynch which led to a nonpaying, summer
internship.
After two weeks, 14-year-old Tyler was on the payroll. Tyler took charge of computer acquisition,
setup, training and troubleshooting. By January 2000 our young successful entrepreneur in the
middle of his 10th grade started CoolTronics at the age of fifteen He said It started as a hobby and
fun thing that turned into a whole lot more,
Long hours are all part of the necessary process, but you only live once, and I know that Ill only be
successful if I seize the opportunities presented to me.
His parent help out by adding a room to the house made it up to his mom by paying his employees
to walk the dog and water the plants and mow the lawn and also clean his room. His employees then
were his friends which he was paying more than mini jobs that were around then. By the time he
reached 17years old, he has crossed a million dollars in sales for his business. Businessweek has
named Tyler as one of the top 25 entrepreneurs under the age of 25. Currently Tylers company is
doing millions of sales per year.
In December, 2006 Tyler Dikman with cofounders Max Crane, David McIntosh, and Darian Shirazi
started a social networking company -Redux. The company raised $1.65 million in venture funding
for their FlickIM software, an application that allows their users to aggregate chat accounts and
watch TV and listen to music within the same window. FlickIM, which competes with Meebo, uses a
collaborative filter and proprietary technology.
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2.4 Catherine cook
Born in 1989
Website MyYearbook.com
Worth Over $10 Million
She is a young successful entrepreneur, 21 years old the founder of MyYearbook.com with her
brother David Cook 22. They came up with the Idea, six years ago when Catherine and David were
flicking through their yearbook during their freshmen year, they saw the picture of a girl in David
class that he liked and he was trying to show Catherine who she was, once they finally get to the
picture, he realized that the picture did not resemble the girl. Realizing that the yearbook photo was
a year old, they were able to come up with the idea of an online yearbook which will allow people to
update their own pictures.
They merged with Zenhex.com a quiz site which is ad-supported where users post their home made
quiz. But problems arise when potential investors wanted to move the companys headquarters to
New York but the Cooks wanted to stay and so on.
They came up with MyYearBook.com after telling their older brother (Geof Cook a serial
entrepreneur who sold hes first two sites Essayedge.com and Resumeedge.com for almost $10
million) about their idea, He saw the big picture of the idea and helped his younger siblings with it.
He offered $250,000 to get the project off ground, they got a webserver to host it and programming
team in Mumbai, India to turn it into a website for less than $25,000. Thus myYearbook.com was
born. .and it was marketing all the way firstly by wearing a T-shirts bearing the name of their site to
school then they started offering users a free T-shirt for every five person they introduced and within
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nine months they have nothing less than 950,000 members. Also in 2006 they signed a contract with
CliffsNotes to begin providing study guide aids free for all members.
Now they claim that the site have over 16 million members and their site coming third best social-
networking site after Facebook and Myspace
I can imagine them coming up into a market that is already saturated with over hundreds social-
networking site but yet they still believe in the possibility of their dream and they carry on with their
idea, at the same time combining full time education with running full time business, we all know
cant be an easy task but they were ready to dare and take the risk.
2.5 Adam Hildreth
Date of birth 25 March 1985 (age25)
Net worth 25 million (US$50 million)
Born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
CEO (Crisp thinking)
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Adam Hildreth was born in West Yorkshire and attended a number of schools because of his fathers
job took him around the country and was forced to leave Nottinghamshire because of his bad
reputation as a troublemaker with an attitude. Though his life got a boost when he join Harrogate
school where he was introduced to Young Enterprise, a business and enterprise charity that
encourages young people to start their own business.
Adam Hildreth started his first company when he was 14 years old, in the year 1999 Dubit limited
(Dubitllimited.com) with 7 friends, making the Guinness Book of Records for being the youngest
group of directors in the U.K.
Dubit Limited launched an online payment card for teenagers and consulted on marketing to the
teenage market. The website was a hit and he has is time to pay for it to the extent of leaving
classroom to answer phone calls sometimes frustrating his teachers.
He left school at age of 16 to face Dubit limited full time. Dubit limited is one of the biggest Teenage
website in UK, which now markets itself as a Youth Marketing Agency, advising major brands on
how to market their products to young people.
In almost four years he led Dubit, as the managing director to become the most visited teen Website
in the UK.
By the year 2005 Adam Hildreth establish another business which he called Crisp Thinking an anti-
grooming software which develops online child protection technology, claims the product is effective
in identifying adults online with a sexual motivation.. The company claims to work closely with both
Internet Service Providers and child protection organizations to develop solutions that protect
children and teenagers from online grooming.
Crisp Thinking has been judged to be 98.4% effective, according to a recent University of Cambridge
study. He got the idea of crisp thinking while still at Dubit when they realize that adult male
groomers are trying to lure the young people online to either meet with them or take part in
pornography.
We have 99.9% spam protection and virus protection, but no one was doing anything to stop online
child abuse. I understand how groomers work, and the tactics they use, so I sat down with experts to
develop AGEand Crisp was born.
In 2003 Adam won an Achievement in Information Technology at the Yorkshire Young Achievers
Awards
In 2004, the British Broadcasting Corp. named Hildreth, then 19, one of the U.K.s 20 richest teens,
with an estimated net worth of 2 million pounds, or approximately $3.7 million.
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3. Conclusion
After all the research on young entrepreneurs, I can conclude that the main factor among all these
successful entrepreneurs was the willingness or ability to take risk. All of them gave their time and
effort behind it. Majority of them started small and worked their way up to be big and successful
entrepreneur.
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