Business

Entrepreneurial Success: Take a Tip from the Pros

It isn't often that a trade name becomes synonymous with the service provided by the company that created it. Much like Xerox before it, the trademark "FedEx" has evolved into the generic description of the overnight express business. The man responsible for this remarkable feat is Fred Smith, the company's founder and chairman.

Born in Mississippi, he attended Yale University where he wrote a term paper which described his plan for an overnight delivery service.  Two prominent fellow students at that time were George W. Bush and John Kerry. After graduation, he served in the Vietnam War where he studied the logistics and supply systems used by the military.  In the back of his mind was his college paper which he hoped to make into a reality after he left the service as a decorated veteran.

In 1970 he bought a majority stake in an aircraft maintenance contractor and he founded Federal Express a year later.  He had the benefit of a $4 million inheritance, but that was nowhere near enough money to get his venture off the ground. He put together a business plan based on his college paper, and made the rounds of investment banks looking for private investors to provide the capital he needed.  He secured almost $100 million in equity funding for an idea that had never been tried before.  This was a significant achievement for an ex-Marine with virtually no business experience.

FedEx was the first company to successfully integrate air and ground shipments within the umbrella of an express delivery system.  He also adopted the idea of a central hub that served as a clearing center for all traffic movements inside the system's web. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Fred Smith should feel extremely flattered. There has been no shortage of other express delivery companies that have attempted to copy his term paper from long ago.

It's hard to say "Apple" without thinking of Steve Jobs. Like another early computer pioneer by the name of Gates, Jobs was a college dropout with a vision of how technology could be harnessed in ways never thought possible.  With his friend Steve Wozniak, they embarked on a mission to popularize the personal computer by recognizing and capitalizing on the commercial potential of the mouse-driven Graphical User Interface.

Much of his success can be attributed to his legendary persistence and consummate skills of persuasion and salesmanship.  Once ousted from Apple by its board and the man he hired to run the company for him, Jobs never missed a beat.  He went on to found NeXT, a company specializing in the development of high-end computer platforms for the lucrative business market.

He also bought George Lucas's computer graphics division which was renamed Pixar Animation Studios. He then contracted with Disney to produce and distribute several award-winning and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. When their contract reached its final year, Jobs and Disney CEO Michael Eisner were unable to negotiate a new deal, an event that helped precipitate Eisner's retirement from Disney.  New Disney CEO Bob Iger decided to buy Pixar, making Jobs the largest individual shareholder of Disney stock.

Apple, realizing that it had lost its charismatic founder and visionary, bought NeXT which meant the return of Jobs as the CEO of the company he had co-founded.  After years of lackluster performance during his absence, Jobs wasted no time in recharging the atmosphere at Apple and challenging its employees to innovate. What followed were a series of big commercial successes including the iMac, iPod, iTunes, and iPhone. It's unlikely that any of this would have happened without the iconic leadership of Steve Jobs, named the most powerful person in business by Fortune Magazine in November 2007.

Freelance Writing by Michael Sanibel ^SM —  Freelance Writer