A historical and critical analysis of an entrepreneurial venture Essay - 1

A historical and critical analysis of an entrepreneurial venture - Essay Example Starting a business is an exciting venture; however, it involves certain steps and stages in development. Therefore, in my paper, I would like to make a historical and critical analysis of an entrepreneurial venture; I will further construct my case study based on Amazon.com and analyze how the company has started and how it has developed, including the stages of venturing that I have identified, as well as problems it has struggled with and the business model that it has used according to a specific time frame and economic context. The founder of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos, had the vision of building a place where people can find and discover anything they want to buy online at the lowest price possible. Now, before going any further into analyzing the way Jeff Bezos materialized this idea, I would like to look at one of Professor William Sahlman2’s lectures at Stanford and single out the fact that he stated that entrepreneurship is â€Å"about a way of managing that is focused on opportunity pursuit, future orientation and relentless execution regardless of the resources one actually possesses† (Academic Earth). ... Even though he did not have very extensive knowledge about the Internet, he decided to take the risk, because, as a true entrepreneur, he managed to grasp profit opportunities. This way, Jeff Bezos entered the universe of e-commerce and started his entrepreneurial venture with no previous trading experience. However, he did understand that the Internet was the one place that had the necessary means to help him accomplish his vision, since on the Internet one is able to develop a business that would be able to compete with other bigger businesses, by reaching customers which prefer the convenience of buying online. Jeff Bezos decided to start the company in Seattle because he believed that here he would find most of the technical professionals he needed. This way, Amazon.com was founded in Seattle, in 1994 and the company went online in 1995. The beginnings of the business were very humble: operating from a garage, Amazon.com benefited from a total investment of 1 million dollars, mon ey which came from Jeff Bezos’s personal funds, as well as loans from family and former co-workers. At that time, Amazon.com was selling only books online and the main strategy was to save money while honoring first orders from the customers: in order to cut operational costs, Bezos â€Å"built desks, bookcases, and other office furniture out of old doors and pieces of used lumber. To help supply electricity, he used power cables to bring electricity from the house to the garage. Once a customer placed an order, the staff would immediately request the title from one of their book suppliers. Everyone took turns packing books for shipment.† ( Encyclopedia of Business, 2nd ed.). The company struggled indeed with costs and expenses and