A very long time ago, our ancestors invented a hand ax, made the wheel a reality, and discovered new ways to grow crops. Much later, sails mounted on boats made seafaring trade possible. Still later, Robert Fulton’s steam engine revolutionized sea and land transportation. These were watershed events in human history, but it was 19th-century entrepreneurs who dramatically thrust the world into industrialism.
Samuel Colt. Eli Whitney and Samuel Morse Colt's were three early pioneers whose weaponry helped increase the firepower needed to expand westward; Whitney's cotton gin made an extraordinary increase in productivity for exported cotton; and Morse's telegraph revolutionized communications technology. An era of "tycoons" emerged that vaulted America into the 20th century and during this era the foundations of modern industry were laid. Andrew Carnegie founded the American steel industry. Henry Ford pioneered mass assembly of automobiles. Swift (meat packing), Vanderbilt (railroads), and Rockefeller (oil) created legendary. Empires John D. Rockefeller, for example, controlled nearly 2 percent of the entire U.S. gross national product before he was 40, but even more interesting, he was a billionaire and his oil empire was largely in place before he was 30.
The contemporary period of entrepreneurship began with innovators such as Cyrus McCormick who constructed a mechanical reaper that revolutionized agriculture. Alexander Graham Bell launched the tele-communications industry with the telephone. Bell's invention of the telephone may have been in great pan an accident. Bell had been working for years on a way to improve communications for the deaf and hearing impaired; he really wanted to create a hearing aid but his mechanical voice box gave us the telephone. Unlike McCormick and Bell, Henry Ford was not an inventor but an astute entrepreneur. When he founded Ford Motor Company, Old several other auto companies had been in production for nearly 20 years. Ford however created a matchless manufacturing process based on a system of specialization. Some of the early auto inventors that Ford eclipsed combined to become General Motors but another entrepreneur who was an organizational genius, Alfred Sloan, pulled them together.
Thomas A. Edison, the most famous individual who is credited with the light bulb. In fact the light bulb had been around for years but no one had been able to make that last long nor that used alternating current. Edison experimented with more than a thousand models before he was successful but even then the light bulb was only a gadget. Edison was ridiculed as an "eccentric tinkerer." His light bulb was of little use until it was wired to a source of power a generating station. Edison was successful only after he made the light bulb commercially viable by establishing an electric-generating industry.
These developments have one common thread: entrepreneurs were responsible for innovations that significantly improved human productivity. This pattern is repeated time and again. The bicycle mobilized the human race. McAdam gave the material for commercial highways, Ford the highly productive assembly line, Edison light and a tremendous new use for electric power and Bell gave us the means to communicate instantaneously.
This productivity pattern is obvious. For example Thomas Watson’s initial efforts established IBM who convened the clumsy mechanical typewriter into an electrically operated office machine. He marketed the electric typewriter aggressively and then spearheaded the early development of punch card accounting systems. Under the dynamic leadership of Thomas J. Watson Jr. the founder's son IBM could flourish as a corporate giant in computers.
Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak made personal computing possible with the Apple. Mitchell D. Kapor who founded Lotus in 1981, was responsible for the best-selling PC software' program ever devised, the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet. In each instance Productivity was improved by extraordinary measures. From a mechanical typewriter to the electronic model and then to the personal computer with sophisticated word processing office capabilities have quintupled'. Electronic spreadsheets made pencil- and-ledger accounting practices obsolete and the calculation power of spreadsheets used with high-speed PCs made slide rules obsolete.
Several industry giants began very modestly as entrepreneurial ventures. For example, Intel Corporation in microelectronics, Data General Corporation and Digital in business and scientific computing, Ashton-Tate in software, Sun Microsystems in electronic workstations and Wang Laboratories in office systems may be quoted as 'high-tech examples in the computer industry. "High tech" is not limited to information technology; other firms with products that seldom become household words have dynamic entrepreneurial foundations. Biopolymers (chemicals secreted naturally from microbes) are being developed for industrial use by a small but rapidly growing firm. These biopolymers allow water and oil to combine, and this ability can in turn help expedite oil extraction. The use of biopolymers could double oil field production. The bio- polymer process also creates an inexpensive new substitute for fuel oil that alone could free up nearly 2 million barrels of crude oil every day. Genetic engineering is a field only recently making its debut and led by a few entrepreneurial firms that have begun to provide commercially viable medicines and industrial chemicals. These firms have mysterious names such as Genentech and Amgen, and most product names have little meaning by themselves, such as TPA and EPO, but the ramifications of these innovations are awesome. For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved several new genetically engineered products that include therapeutic proteins, human insulin, and human growth hormones. One of these products, interferon, has promising use in cancer treatment. The product known as TPA is now in use in Europe for medical rehabilitation of patients with heart disease and EPO is being tested for its use in replacing red blood cells for kidney dialysis patients.
In each example either from early tycoons or contemporary wizards there were inspired individuals who went out on very thin limbs to create new ventures that solved problems or created new opportunities. In the evolution of modem industrial nations, the nature of entrepreneurship is best explained by the profound observation that entrepreneurs "created opportunities." It is completely immaterial whether a venture is high tech or not or whether it offers a product or a service.
Services entrepreneurs offered represented nearly 46 percent of all new businesses during the 1980s, and many of these firms were among the most dynamic in terms of increased sales and employment. For example, the tenth-ranked firm on the annual Inc. 100 list for 1987 was the Home Shopping Network. This firm created a television' 'catalog" program for shopping (mainly specialty items of interest to women), and between 1982 and 1987, HSN experienced 17,735 percent growth (annual average rate of 265%). The number of employees expanded from 150 in 1982 to more than 4,200 in 1987. Another firm that recognized an opportunity and capitalized on it was Inc.'s highest-ranked firm, Catalyst Energy Development of New York. The energy shortage coupled with deregulation and liberalized laws for co- generation of electricity led to Catalyst's formation in 1982. Since then the firm has had 212-338 percent growth in sales (more than 500% annually) and its employee ranks grew from three individuals to more than 500 in five years.
The Inc. 100 represents entrepreneurial firms that are rapidly heading for the "big" list the Fortune 500, but the list comprises more unstable firms because of the high-growth high-risk nature of most enterprises, and it also reveals a wider assortment of business interests that seldom have "mega" corporation profiles. For instance Fuddruckers (ranked 85th in 1987 and 62nd in 1989 by Inc.) is a chain of unusual and highly successful hamburger restaurants but not a likely candidate to rival IBM or General Motors. On the other hand, Apple Computers and Lotus Development Corporation began as small companies listed on Inc. 100 but both are now major players. The composite list for 1989 shows that 30 percent of the firms were in computers and microelectronics yet 16 percent of the firms were in health care and there were several top-rated enterprises in communications, entertainment, food services genetic engineering cosmetics, merchandising and parcel express services. An interesting example of how entrepreneurs embrace new opportunities is Doskocil a firm with gross annual sales in excess of a quarter billion dollar. The company's founder Larry Doskocil started out in a rented chicken hatchery making sausage in Hutchinson, Kansas. He recognized the growth in the pizza industry during the early I980s and began processing wholesale sausage and pepperoni packaged specifically for pizza restaurants. His business has grown to the point of being the pizza-topping king of the United States.
Entrepreneurs either solved a problem or saw an opportunity took the risk of a new venture, and succeeded because they gave society something of value. Successful entrepreneurs are also usually close to the problem or opportunity in terms of skill knowledge access, or resources. Most entrepreneurs do not dream up radical new ideas or merely brainstorm their way into business. Edison had been working with electricity and various forms of illumination for years. Bell had been working on audio transmission long before he conceived of the telephone. Doskocil had spent years scratching processing sausages in traditional ways before recognizing the market opportunity in pizza toppings. The founders of nearly all genetic engineering firms were research scientists with substantial qualifications. As other examples are presented it well becomes apparent that most founders had some knowledge of their markets, some product experience or a unique skill that guided them toward opportunities. In many instances they have had opportunity thrust on them, but only rarely have new ventures occurred through luck.
Samuel Colt. Eli Whitney and Samuel Morse Colt's were three early pioneers whose weaponry helped increase the firepower needed to expand westward; Whitney's cotton gin made an extraordinary increase in productivity for exported cotton; and Morse's telegraph revolutionized communications technology. An era of "tycoons" emerged that vaulted America into the 20th century and during this era the foundations of modern industry were laid. Andrew Carnegie founded the American steel industry. Henry Ford pioneered mass assembly of automobiles. Swift (meat packing), Vanderbilt (railroads), and Rockefeller (oil) created legendary. Empires John D. Rockefeller, for example, controlled nearly 2 percent of the entire U.S. gross national product before he was 40, but even more interesting, he was a billionaire and his oil empire was largely in place before he was 30.
The contemporary period of entrepreneurship began with innovators such as Cyrus McCormick who constructed a mechanical reaper that revolutionized agriculture. Alexander Graham Bell launched the tele-communications industry with the telephone. Bell's invention of the telephone may have been in great pan an accident. Bell had been working for years on a way to improve communications for the deaf and hearing impaired; he really wanted to create a hearing aid but his mechanical voice box gave us the telephone. Unlike McCormick and Bell, Henry Ford was not an inventor but an astute entrepreneur. When he founded Ford Motor Company, Old several other auto companies had been in production for nearly 20 years. Ford however created a matchless manufacturing process based on a system of specialization. Some of the early auto inventors that Ford eclipsed combined to become General Motors but another entrepreneur who was an organizational genius, Alfred Sloan, pulled them together.
Thomas A. Edison, the most famous individual who is credited with the light bulb. In fact the light bulb had been around for years but no one had been able to make that last long nor that used alternating current. Edison experimented with more than a thousand models before he was successful but even then the light bulb was only a gadget. Edison was ridiculed as an "eccentric tinkerer." His light bulb was of little use until it was wired to a source of power a generating station. Edison was successful only after he made the light bulb commercially viable by establishing an electric-generating industry.
These developments have one common thread: entrepreneurs were responsible for innovations that significantly improved human productivity. This pattern is repeated time and again. The bicycle mobilized the human race. McAdam gave the material for commercial highways, Ford the highly productive assembly line, Edison light and a tremendous new use for electric power and Bell gave us the means to communicate instantaneously.
This productivity pattern is obvious. For example Thomas Watson’s initial efforts established IBM who convened the clumsy mechanical typewriter into an electrically operated office machine. He marketed the electric typewriter aggressively and then spearheaded the early development of punch card accounting systems. Under the dynamic leadership of Thomas J. Watson Jr. the founder's son IBM could flourish as a corporate giant in computers.
Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak made personal computing possible with the Apple. Mitchell D. Kapor who founded Lotus in 1981, was responsible for the best-selling PC software' program ever devised, the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet. In each instance Productivity was improved by extraordinary measures. From a mechanical typewriter to the electronic model and then to the personal computer with sophisticated word processing office capabilities have quintupled'. Electronic spreadsheets made pencil- and-ledger accounting practices obsolete and the calculation power of spreadsheets used with high-speed PCs made slide rules obsolete.
Several industry giants began very modestly as entrepreneurial ventures. For example, Intel Corporation in microelectronics, Data General Corporation and Digital in business and scientific computing, Ashton-Tate in software, Sun Microsystems in electronic workstations and Wang Laboratories in office systems may be quoted as 'high-tech examples in the computer industry. "High tech" is not limited to information technology; other firms with products that seldom become household words have dynamic entrepreneurial foundations. Biopolymers (chemicals secreted naturally from microbes) are being developed for industrial use by a small but rapidly growing firm. These biopolymers allow water and oil to combine, and this ability can in turn help expedite oil extraction. The use of biopolymers could double oil field production. The bio- polymer process also creates an inexpensive new substitute for fuel oil that alone could free up nearly 2 million barrels of crude oil every day. Genetic engineering is a field only recently making its debut and led by a few entrepreneurial firms that have begun to provide commercially viable medicines and industrial chemicals. These firms have mysterious names such as Genentech and Amgen, and most product names have little meaning by themselves, such as TPA and EPO, but the ramifications of these innovations are awesome. For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved several new genetically engineered products that include therapeutic proteins, human insulin, and human growth hormones. One of these products, interferon, has promising use in cancer treatment. The product known as TPA is now in use in Europe for medical rehabilitation of patients with heart disease and EPO is being tested for its use in replacing red blood cells for kidney dialysis patients.
In each example either from early tycoons or contemporary wizards there were inspired individuals who went out on very thin limbs to create new ventures that solved problems or created new opportunities. In the evolution of modem industrial nations, the nature of entrepreneurship is best explained by the profound observation that entrepreneurs "created opportunities." It is completely immaterial whether a venture is high tech or not or whether it offers a product or a service.
Services entrepreneurs offered represented nearly 46 percent of all new businesses during the 1980s, and many of these firms were among the most dynamic in terms of increased sales and employment. For example, the tenth-ranked firm on the annual Inc. 100 list for 1987 was the Home Shopping Network. This firm created a television' 'catalog" program for shopping (mainly specialty items of interest to women), and between 1982 and 1987, HSN experienced 17,735 percent growth (annual average rate of 265%). The number of employees expanded from 150 in 1982 to more than 4,200 in 1987. Another firm that recognized an opportunity and capitalized on it was Inc.'s highest-ranked firm, Catalyst Energy Development of New York. The energy shortage coupled with deregulation and liberalized laws for co- generation of electricity led to Catalyst's formation in 1982. Since then the firm has had 212-338 percent growth in sales (more than 500% annually) and its employee ranks grew from three individuals to more than 500 in five years.
The Inc. 100 represents entrepreneurial firms that are rapidly heading for the "big" list the Fortune 500, but the list comprises more unstable firms because of the high-growth high-risk nature of most enterprises, and it also reveals a wider assortment of business interests that seldom have "mega" corporation profiles. For instance Fuddruckers (ranked 85th in 1987 and 62nd in 1989 by Inc.) is a chain of unusual and highly successful hamburger restaurants but not a likely candidate to rival IBM or General Motors. On the other hand, Apple Computers and Lotus Development Corporation began as small companies listed on Inc. 100 but both are now major players. The composite list for 1989 shows that 30 percent of the firms were in computers and microelectronics yet 16 percent of the firms were in health care and there were several top-rated enterprises in communications, entertainment, food services genetic engineering cosmetics, merchandising and parcel express services. An interesting example of how entrepreneurs embrace new opportunities is Doskocil a firm with gross annual sales in excess of a quarter billion dollar. The company's founder Larry Doskocil started out in a rented chicken hatchery making sausage in Hutchinson, Kansas. He recognized the growth in the pizza industry during the early I980s and began processing wholesale sausage and pepperoni packaged specifically for pizza restaurants. His business has grown to the point of being the pizza-topping king of the United States.
Entrepreneurs either solved a problem or saw an opportunity took the risk of a new venture, and succeeded because they gave society something of value. Successful entrepreneurs are also usually close to the problem or opportunity in terms of skill knowledge access, or resources. Most entrepreneurs do not dream up radical new ideas or merely brainstorm their way into business. Edison had been working with electricity and various forms of illumination for years. Bell had been working on audio transmission long before he conceived of the telephone. Doskocil had spent years scratching processing sausages in traditional ways before recognizing the market opportunity in pizza toppings. The founders of nearly all genetic engineering firms were research scientists with substantial qualifications. As other examples are presented it well becomes apparent that most founders had some knowledge of their markets, some product experience or a unique skill that guided them toward opportunities. In many instances they have had opportunity thrust on them, but only rarely have new ventures occurred through luck.
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