Why Is Planning an Important Step in Starting a Business?

by Brian Hill

Planning helps a start-up company get on the road to success.

One of the first pieces of advice given to entrepreneurs starting a business is: You need a business plan.
It’s true that investors or lenders usually ask to read the entrepreneur’s plan before entering into
discussions about providing capital. But that’s because they want to ascertain whether the entrepreneur
has thoroughly thought out all aspects of the venture—in other words, planned the venture. The
business plan document summarizes the planning process the entrepreneur has undertaken.

Road Map

The planning process describes the steps necessary to build the company. If you view the long-term goal
of a company as the ultimate destination, such as having revenues of $10 million by the third year, then
planning involves mapping out a course to get there. The steps down this road must be in a logical
order. Planning helps the entrepreneur decide what steps must be taken first and what steps are most
important.

Goal Setting

Part of planning is establishing short- and long-range goals. The goals are in effect a description of what
the company will look like when it grows up. If the company’s long-range goal is to be the acknowledged
market leader in its niche by year three, that describes a venture that will grow quickly and establish a
robust market presence. Goals imply actions that must be taken to reach them, so the goal-setting
process leads to determining how best to use the company’s resources to reach the goals.

Resource Allocation

Most start-up companies have limited resources, particularly capital. But another limitation could be
that the management team is incomplete, lacking in certain capabilities needed to succeed with this
particular venture. Planning helps entrepreneurs determine how to best allocate the scarce resources
they do have, and how to shore up any weaknesses or limitations, which could involve adding additional
people to the team in an executive or advisory capacity.
Preparing for Contingencies

Starting a company is a stressful endeavor full of surprises—both positive and negative. Planning helps
anticipate these as much as possible, with strategic adjustments already thought out to deal with
unforeseen events. With many early-stage companies, the cost of entering the market is substantially
greater than forecast, and conversely the rate of revenue growth is slower than expected. Successful
start-up entrepreneurs are often those who have strategies in place to deal with these challenges as
they occur.

Competitive Positioning

Planning helps entrepreneurs get a clearer picture of the competitive world they are about to enter.
Ideally, from the outset the company will have significant competitive advantages compared with other
players in its market space. But the company will undoubtedly have certain disadvantages as well, not
the least of which is that it is a start-up and the other companies are established and have customers.
Planning helps the entrepreneur decide how to position the company to effectively compete, and how
to differentiate itself in the minds of potential customers. Planning crystallizes the marketing themes
that will be emphasized to get customers’ attention and achieve sales.

The Impact of Planning on Business Growth

by Brian Hill

The goal of planning is to help a business grow.

The purpose of planning is to develop a blueprint for growing a business. The management team creates
a vision for a larger, more profitable company. The heart of the planning process is envisioning the
actions that must be taken, and the expenditures that must be made, to accelerate the company’s
growth. Effective planning requires an attitude of never being satisfied with the company’s current
performance. A basic principle of planning is that a company’s future is to a great extent in its own
hands.

Discovering Opportunities

Businesses grow by uncovering opportunities to acquire additional customers and increase market
share. Planning encourages creative strategic thinking, a mindset of continually seeking out emerging
markets for the company’s existing products and services. Planning also encourages innovation, finding
new products or services that the company could offer to the marketplace.

Resource Management

Growing a business requires deploying resources in a manner that maximizes revenues. Planning
involves making decisions about the best possible uses for the company’s resources, which include
people, capital, productive capacity and brand recognition. Companies do not have unlimited resources.
Planning provides the information the management team needs to prioritize expenditures. Planning also
helps a company avoid making poor strategic choices, such as wasting resources on entering markets
where competitors have an insurmountable advantage.

Continual Improvement

During the planning process, company management makes a critical evaluation of all operational areas
of the business to determine where improvement needs to be made. No matter how successful a
company might be, there are still opportunities to increase customer satisfaction. Satisfied customers
are likely to be loyal customers and purchase more from the company, which contributes to growth.
Improving operational efficiency can also prevent lost revenues, such as orders being canceled because
the company couldn’t deliver products on time.

Coordinated Effort

A major benefit of the planning process is encouraging all members of an organization to work in
harmony toward common objectives. Goals are set for all levels of the organization and communicated
to all employees. Everyone knows what they are responsible for and what the highest priorities are. All
team members understand their best efforts are required for the company to reach its overall goals.
Planning opens lines of communication between functional areas so projects that require cooperation
can be completed on time. This coordinated effort helps the company grow because more can be
accomplished in the same amount of time.

Strategic Positioning

Rapidly growing companies are those that have identified a market need or customer problem, and
created product or services that efficiently and cost effectively solve the problem. These solutions are
significantly more beneficial for the customer than those the competition is providing. Planning helps
companies identify markets that are large and growing, which makes it easier for the company to build
revenues. Planning also helps companies gain a clear picture of the competitors they will be going up
against. They are better able to develop strategies that take advantage of competitors’ weaknesses.
Planning also helps a company create marketing messages that showcase competitive advantages to
customers.

Business Planning & Strategy

by Brian Hill

Planning shows companies the best path to take.

The planning process sets direction for the company. Companies need this direction so management
team members and employees know where to focus their efforts and what is most important for them
to accomplish over the course of the year. Developing strategies is part of the planning process.
Strategies describe the actions that will be taken so the company positions itself to acquire new
customers and build a sustainable advantage over the companies it competes against.

Significance

Short- and long-range goals are created and the resources of the company are mobilized to push toward
reaching the goals. Some companies set specific targets for revenue, such as generating cumulative sales
of $20 million over the next five years. Non-quantifiable goals are important as well. For example, a
technology venture might have a goal of building an industry leading research and development division
within five years.

Features

Effective planning and strategy development requires a collaborative effort among members of the
management team. Marketing managers and sales staff have the most comprehensive understanding of
what customers want and need. Operations people understand the company’s production and
distribution capabilities. Finance people contribute their knowledge of managing the company’s
financial resources. Planning also requires considerable research into industry trends, changes in
consumer taste, technologies being commercialized that could improve the company’s operations and
competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
Considerations

Because the economic future is unpredictable, planning is always challenging and actual results typically
vary -- sometimes considerably -- from what was forecast. Although companies should make every
effort to understand their competitors’ capabilities, it is difficult to predict what strategic moves
competitors are planning to make to create or enhance their competitive advantage. Strategic planning
involves making intelligent guesses about the most probable outcomes, but there is never 100 percent
certainty that a decision was correct until actual financial results are gathered and analyzed, which can
be months or even years later.

Benefits

Companies highly skilled at business planning and strategy development are often those that are the
first to identify fertile new markets and enter these markets ahead of competitors. Planning also helps a
company to avoid making costly mistakes with its resource allocation decisions, such as a retail chain
building more stores than the market size can support.

Time Frame

A company often starts its strategic planning process at a certain time each year, such as early autumn
for a plan that will go into effect in January. Strategic planning actually should be a process that goes on
during all 12 months of the year. The tasks include gathering information about competitors, comparing
actual results to plan and refining strategies that aren’t working, searching for new opportunities to take
advantage of, and building additional revenue streams.
 Starting a Business?
Don't Forget These Seven
Important Things
There's a reason why many small businesses fail in their
first year, and there are a lot of things that can contribute
to a business's downfall.
By Young Entrepreneur Council@yec

GETTY IMAGES
By Abhi Golhar, host of Real Estate Deal Talk and managing partner of
Summit & Crowne.
Coming up with a small business idea can be as simple as identifying a
problemin your local area and finding a solution to it. But there's a reason why
many small businesses fail in their first year, and there are a lot of things
that can contributeto a business's downfall.

I started a software consulting business in college and it failed because my

target market rejected my service offerings and pricing completely -- I hadn't
thought them through. Here are seven essential things to remember when
starting a small business to avoid going under:

Don't over-complicate your concept.

Most businesses start from a simple idea or solution to an everyday problem.

Make sure that your idea doesn't end up turning into something too
complicated. Simplicity is best. The more elaborate your idea becomes, the
more expensive it can get. Overly-complicated solutions to problems are more
difficult to both market and to implement. Start small and narrow your focus.

Find out how you can deliver a simple, high-quality product or service, and
then go from there. Simplifying your product can help cut down on costs, and
also helps with determining your minimum viable product (MVP) should you
choose to develop a software solution to scale in the future. This is exactly
what I'm doing with a passion startup of mine now: We have proven a gap in
the marketplace, gained proof of concept and used our lean business process
to identify an MVP for a web-based software solution.

Focus on the market instead of the product.

Many startups and small businesses make the mistake of relying too much on
their product to drive sales. What this means is that they fail to take into
consideration the market they're getting into.

Small businesses should focus on delivering a product that people are

actually willing to buy. You can come up with the most revolutionary product in
the world, but you won't get anywhere if there isn't a market for it. Focus on
niches. Getting a small market share is better than trying to invest in a market
that doesn't exist.

Always overestimate costs.

Give yourself some leeway when it comes to expenses. Chances are, you're
going to be overspending a lot. Prepare for the worst and overestimate your
business's costs. Give yourself room to work. Don't assume that your
expenses will always be in the green. Be prepared for emergencies.

Establish a support team.

You can't run a business on your own. Establish a team to support you from
the get-go. These people don't necessarily have to be your business partners.
They can be family, peers, friends or mentors. Having someone to fall back on
can help you in times of crisis.

Always assess your business idea.

Understanding that a market exists for your product is only the first step. Don't
neglect to assess your business idea. Market research is something that you
should definitely never skip.

Find out how the industry or niche you're getting into works. Assess the
strengths and weaknesses of your competition. Find out what drives the
interest of your audience. Look for opportunities that are just waiting to be
discovered in your niche. Don't go into things blindly.

Understand the commitment behind starting.

Before you start, determine if you're actually prepared to start a business.

Running a brand, no matter how small, takes a ton of dedication. Expect your
day-to-day life to change. Not only will you need to put down a significant
financial investment, but you'll also need to put down some emotional
investment as well.
Be prepared to lose sleep and feel stress. Be prepared to build connections.
Remember that as your business grows, you'll need to dedicate more and
more time to it. Failing to manage this aspect of running a business properly
can damage your relationships with other people.

Generate income as soon as possible.

Cash flow is important, especially for newly-established brands. Income is the

lifeblood of every business, even small ones. Your business should start
generating cash as soon as it is able. There are a ton of ways to achieve this.
Whether it's through pre-orders or deposits, make sure that your brand is
generating income as early on as possible.

Starting a small business has never been easier. That said, there are still a
ton of factors that can lead to a business crashing. Take note of these tips and
work hard to get your small business out there.

Abhi Golhar is host of the daily radio show, Real Estate Deal Talk, and
managing partner of Summit & Crowne, a real estate investment firm.
 Walt Disney Biography
(1901–1966)

UPDATED:

AUG 21, 2019

ORIGINAL:

APR 27, 2017


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Walt Disney was an American motion picture and television producer
and showman, famous as a pioneer of cartoon films, including Mickey
Mouse, and as the creator of the amusement parks Disneyland and
Disney World.
Who Was Walt Disney?

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney co-founded Walt Disney Productions with his brother Roy, which
became one of the best-known motion-picture production companies in the world. Disney was an
innovative animator and created the cartoon character Mickey Mouse. He won 22 Academy
Awards during his lifetime, and was the founder of theme parks Disneyland and Walt Disney
World.

PHOTOS: Walt Disney Building Disneyland

GALLERY

8 IMAGES

Walt Disney’s Parents and Siblings

Disney’s father was Elias Disney, an Irish-Canadian. His mother, Flora Call Disney, was
German-American. Disney was one of five children, four boys and a girl.
Walt Disney’s Childhood

Disney was born on December 5, 1901, in the Hermosa section of Chicago, Illinois. He lived
most of his childhood in Marceline, Missouri, where he began drawing, painting and selling
pictures to neighbors and family friends.

In 1911, his family moved to Kansas City, where Disney developed a love for trains. His uncle,
Mike Martin, was a train engineer who worked the route between Fort Madison, Iowa and
Marceline. Later, Disney would work a summer job with the railroad, selling snacks and
newspapers to travelers.

Disney attended McKinley High School in Chicago, where he took drawing and photography
classes and was a contributing cartoonist for the school paper. At night, he took courses at
the Art Institute of Chicago.

When Disney was 16, he dropped out of school to join the Army but was rejected for being
underage. Instead, he joined the Red Cross and was sent to France for a year to drive an
ambulance. He moved back to the U.S. in 1919.

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY'S WALT DISNEY FACT CARD

Walt Disney’s First Cartoons

In 1919, Disney moved to Kansas City to pursue a career as a newspaper artist. His brother Roy
got him a job at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio, where he met cartoonist Ubbe Eert Iwwerks,
better known as Ub Iwerks. From there, Disney worked at the Kansas City Film Ad Company,
where he made commercials based on cutout animation.

Around this time, Disney began experimenting with a camera, doing hand-drawn cel animation.
He decided to open his own animation business. From the ad company, he recruited Fred
Harman as his first employee.

Disney and Harman made a deal with a local Kansas City theater to screen their cartoons, which
they called Laugh-O-Grams. The cartoons were hugely popular, and Disney was able to acquire
his own studio, upon which he bestowed the same name.

Laugh-O-Gram hired a number of employees, including Iwerks and Harman's brother Hugh.
They did a series of seven-minute fairy tales that combined both live action and animation,
which they called Alice in Cartoonland.

By 1923, however, the studio had become burdened with debt, and Disney was forced to declare
bankruptcy.

Walt Disney Animation Studios

Disney and his brother Roy moved to Hollywood with cartoonist Ub Iwerks in 1923, and there
the three began the Disney Brothers' Cartoon Studio. The company soon changed its name to
Walt Disney Studios, at Roy’s suggestion.

The Walt Disney Studios’ first deal was with New York distributor Margaret Winkler, to
distribute their Alice cartoons. They also invented a character called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
and contracted the shorts at $1,500 each. In the late 1920s, the studios broke from their
distributors and created cartoons featuring Mickey Mouse and his friends.

In December 1939, a new campus for Walt Disney Animation Studios was opened in Burbank.
In 1941 a setback for the company occurred when Disney animators went on strike. Many of
them resigned. It would be years before the company fully recovered.

One of Disney Studio’s most popular cartoons, Flowers and Trees (1932), was the first to be
produced in color and to win an Oscar. In 1933, The Three Little Pigs and its title song "Who's
Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" became a theme for the country in the midst of the Great
Depression.
Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Other Characters

Disney’s first successful film starring Mickey Mouse was a sound-and-music-equipped animated
short called Steamboat Willie. It opened at the Colony Theater in New York November 18, 1928.
Sound had just made its way into film, and Disney was the voice of Mickey, a character he had
developed and that was drawn by his chief animator, Ub Iwerks. The cartoon was an instant
sensation.

The Disney brothers, their wives and Iwerks produced two earlier silent animated shorts starring
Mickey Mouse, Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho, out of necessity. The team had
discovered that Disney’s New York distributor, Margaret Winkler, and her husband, Charles
Mintz, had stolen the rights to the character Oswald and all of Disney’s animators except for
Iwerks. The two earliest Mickey Mouse films failed to find distribution, as sound was already
revolutionizing the movie industry.

In 1929, Disney created Silly Symphonies, featuring Mickey's newly created friends, Minnie
Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto.
 Walt Disney with a cutout of his famous cartoon, Mickey Mouse.
Photo: United Artists/Photofest
Walt Disney Movies

Disney produced more than 100 feature films. His first full-length animated film was Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs, which premiered in Los Angeles on December 21, 1937. It
produced an unimaginable $1.499 million, in spite of the Great Depression, and won eight
Oscars. This led Walt Disney Studios to complete another string of full-length animated films
over the next five years.

During the mid-1940s, Disney created "packaged features," groups of shorts strung together to
run at feature length. By 1950, he was once again focusing on animated features.

Disney's last major success that he produced himself was the motion picture Mary Poppins,
which came out in 1964 and mixed live action and animation.

A few other of Disney's most famous movies include:

 Pinocchio (1940)
 Fantasia (1940)
 Dumbo (1941)
 Bambi (1942)
 Cinderella (1950)
 Treasure Island (1950)
 Alice in Wonderland (1951)
 Peter Pan (1953)
 Lady and the Tramp (1955)
 Sleeping Beauty (1959)
 101 Dalmatians (1961)
Disney’s Television Series

Disney was also among the first people to use television as an entertainment medium.
The Zorro and Davy Crockett series were extremely popular with children, as was The Mickey
Mouse Club, a variety show featuring a cast of teenagers known as the Mouseketeers. Walt
Disney's Wonderful World of Color was a popular Sunday night show, which Disney used to
begin promoting his new theme park.

Walt Disney stands in front of the Fantasyland castle at the grand opening of Disneyland,
Anaheim, California, on July 17, 1955.
Photo: Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Walt Disney Parks

Disneyland
Disney's $17 million Disneyland theme park opened on July 17, 1955, in Anaheim, California,
on what was once an orange grove. Actor (and future U.S. president) Ronald Reaganpresided
over the activities. After a tumultuous opening day involving several mishaps (including the
distribution of thousands of counterfeit invitations), the site became known as a place where
children and their families could explore, enjoy rides and meet the Disney characters.

In a very short time, the park had increased its investment tenfold, and was entertaining tourists
from around the world.

The original site had attendance ups and downs over the years. Disneyland has expanded its rides
over time and branched out globally with Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, and parks in
Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Sister property California Adventure opened in Los
Angeles in 2001.

Walt Disney World

Within a few years of Disneyland’s 1955 opening, Disney began plans for a new theme park and
to develop Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) in Florida. It was still
under construction when Disney died in 1966. After Disney’s death, his brother Roy carried on
the plans to finish the Florida theme park, which opened in 1971 under the name Walt Disney
World.

Walt Disney’s Wife, Children and Grandchildren

In 1925, Disney hired an ink-and-paint artist named Lillian Bounds. After a brief courtship, the
couple married.

Disney and Lillian Bounds had two children. Diane Disney Miller, born in 1933, was the
couple’s only biological daughter. They adopted Sharon Disney Lund shortly after her birth in
1936.

Diane and her husband, Ronald Miller, had seven children: Christopher, Joanna, Tamara, Walter,
Jennifer, Patrick, and Ronald Miller Jr.

Sharon and her first husband, Robert Brown, adopted a daughter, Victoria Disney. Sharon’s
second husband, Bill Lund, was a real estate developer who scouted the 27,000 acres in Orlando
that became Disney World. Their twins, Brad and Michelle, were born in 1970.
Sharon’s side of the family became embroiled in a controversy after her death in 1993, when her
trust became available to her three children. The trust included a caveat that allowed her ex-
husband Bill Lund and sister Diane to withhold funds if they could show that Sharon’s children
couldn’t properly manage the money. This led to accusations of conspiracy and mental
incompetence, insinuations of incest, and an ugly two-week-long battle of a trial in December
2013.

When and How Walt Disney Died

Disney was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1966 and died on December 15, 1966, at the age of
65. Disney was cremated, and his ashes interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles,
California.

Walter Elias Disney

Image credit: Disneyland | Facebook

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Walter Elias Disney

Founder of Walt Disney Co.
Founded: 1923

"If you can dream it, you can do it."-Walter Elias Disney
Few individuals have had a greater impact on both the entertainment industry and the popular
culture of the 20th century than Walter Elias Disney. His many innovations include the first
cartoons with synchronized sound, the first full-length animated feature film and, of course, the
theme park. His most famous creation, Mickey Mouse, is a universally recognized cultural icon.
And his numerous films celebrating the triumph of the little guy and the simple charms of small-
town life captured the imaginations and fueled the dreams of six generations. But while
wholesomeness and nostalgic sentimentality were Disney's trademarks, the forces that shaped
this maverick movie mogul and his empire were much darker and more complex.

Walt Disney's childhood was anything but idyllic. His father was a strict disciplinarian who
thought nothing of taking a switch to Walt and his brother Roy to administer "corrective"
beatings that became a part of their daily routine. Young Walt found an escape from his father's
brutality through drawing. With pen and ink, he created his own little fantasy world where life
was always beautiful, people were always happy, and, most important, he was always in control.
World War I provided Disney with yet another means of escape. At the age of 16, he joined the
Red Cross Ambulance Corps and was sent to France.

After the war, Disney moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where he took a job with Film Ad Co.
The firm's principal products were animated advertisements that were shown before feature
films. Disney had found his calling. He loved bringing his drawings to life through the magic of
animation. Advertising was less than fulfilling, though, so he converted his garage into a studio
and, with borrowed equipment, began producing his own shorts, called Laugh-O-Grams. But he
found it difficult to persuade local theater owners to show them. Strapped for cash, Disney gave
up his apartment and started living out of his office, surviving on cold beans. But it was to no
avail.

It wasn't until he moved to Los Angeles in 1923 and teamed up with his shrewd and kindly older
brother, Roy, who took care of business for him, that Walt began to modestly prosper. Even so,
his first commercially successful creation, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was stolen from him.
Disney had carelessly allowed the character to be copyrighted not under his name, but under his
distributor's name. It was a mistake Disney would not repeat. In subsequent years, he would gain
a reputation for keeping close tabs on his creations and insisting on complete control.

Searching for a replacement for Oswald, Disney hit upon the idea of creating a new cartoon
character based on a mouse that had lived in his office in Kansas City. As Disney liked to tell it,
"Mice gathered in my wastebasket when I worked late at night. One of them was my particular
friend."

With the help of Roy and Ub Iwerks, an illustrator from his Film Ad days, Disney fleshed out his
new character-and Mickey Mouse was born. Disney released two Mickey Mouse cartoons, which
were met with moderate success. But the real breakthrough came in 1928 with the release of
"Steamboat Willie." The first cartoon to include a synchronized soundtrack, "Steamboat Willie"
was an instant hit. The day after its debut in Manhattan, Variety gave the cartoon a rave review,
and The New York Times called it ingenious.
Disney hired a team of artists and animators, and Mickey Mouse films rolled out of the studio.
Disney continued to embrace the latest techniques, adopting the new medium of Technicolor just
as readily as he had sound. While the Depression gripped the rest of the country, the Disney
studio flourished. Disney's cartoons offered escape at a time when Americans needed it most.
Meanwhile, as his short features raked in cash, Disney was planning a bigger project-a movie-
length cartoon in full color, with music.

Given the time-consuming nature of animation, the project was costly and risky. But when
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was released in 1937, it proved to be no risk at all. Three
years in the making, it was Hollywood's first full-length animated film. Previously, Disney's
work had been the sideshow; now it was the main event. Critics raved at this artistic
breakthrough and audiences crowded the theaters. Disney even received a special Academy
Award for his work.

"Snow White" was followed by other animated features: "Pinocchio," "Fantasia," "Dumbo" and
"Bambi." Each became a classic and contributed to the legend that was growing around its
creator. In addition, Disney began making nature documentaries and live-action films such as
"Treasure Island" and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." He was also the first Hollywood studio
head to embrace the new medium of television, with "The Mickey Mouse Club" and "Walt
Disney Presents." The latter, hosted by Disney himself, became not just a profit center for the
company, but also a promotional engine for all its works, including Disney's greatest
achievement, which was still yet to come.

Disney had long dreamed of creating an amusement park based on his characters, but had
difficulty getting financing for the project. Finally, in the early 1950s, he mortgaged his life
insurance, stock holdings, house and furniture to purchase an orange grove near Anaheim,
California, and finance the construction of a 185-acre amusement park. Opened in 1955,
Disneyland quickly became one of the world's most popular tourist attractions. Dubbed "The
Happiest Place on Earth," Disneyland became the real-life version of the fantasy world Disney
had escaped to in his youth.

By the early 1960s, Disney presided over a sprawling family entertainment empire, but,
unsatisfied, he bought 27,000 acres near Orlando, and soon a second magic kingdom, Walt
Disney World, began to rise above the Florida swamps. But Disney never saw his dream
completed. He died of lung cancer in 1966, at the age of 65.

Shortly before his death, Disney said, "I hate to see downbeat pictures.I know life isn't that way,
and I don't want anyone telling me it is." Clearly millions of his fans agreed, and their adulation
made him one of the most popular and influential figures in postwar American culture. And as
the studio he founded continues to churn out films that bear his personal signature, Disney's
magic is sure to touch the lives of many more generations to come.

Mortimer Mouse?
Originally, Walter Elias Disney wanted to name his famous mouse Mortimer. But his wife,
Lillian, thought it sounded "too sissy" and suggested the name Mickey instead. In what was
probably one of the smartest decisions of his life, Disney chose to take his wife's advice.

Merchandise Madness
One of the reasons Walter Elias Disney's legacy has endured lies in his extraordinary
management skills. Disney pioneered branding, brand stretching and merchandising. In addition
to being the first full-length animated feature, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was also the
first film to have a complete merchandising campaign in place when it was released. Walt
Disney Co. is now a merchandising machine, with nearly 25 percent of its revenue coming from
consumer products.
 What Every Entrepreneur Can Learn from
Walt Disney
We can all learn from Walt Disney, the entrepreneur.
BY DANIEL RICHARDS

Updated April 15, 2019

Walt Disney is famous for creating one of the most recognized brands in the
world, Disney, but few know as much about the man behind the Magic Kingdom, not to
mention the hundreds of animated cartoons, countless feature films and endless toys
that bear his name.

An influential innovator and entrepreneur in the mid 20th century, Walt

Disney went from sketching a rabbit (yes, a rabbit) to running a multi-billion dollar
empire.

Walt Disney's Early Years

Disney was born in 1901 in Chicago and was an avid artist from an early age. At 16, he
enlisted in the Red Cross and served in World War I, driving an ambulance that he
customized with his own cartoon drawings. Upon his return, he worked as an
advertising cartoonist in Kansas City, Mo.

Disney then decided to move to California, where he began working with his brother,
Roy. Walt handled the creative aspects of the partnership, while Roy focused on the
business and financial end. The Disney brothers borrowed a little money, set up a
studio in their uncle's garage, and made some noise with a series of black-and-white
cartoons featuring a rabbit named Oswald, which was produced for Universal Studios.
When Walt asked Universal for a raise, however, they balked. Since the studio retained
the rights to the character, Disney quit drawing Oswald after 1928, although the series
continued.
Walt Disney's Entrepreneurial Spirit

Disney went back to the drawing board, producing a silent cartoon called Plane
Crazythat featured a new character named Mickey Mouse. But the advent of sound
changed everything in Hollywood. To capitalize on the craze for "talkies," Disney
delayed Plane Crazy and instead produced a second Mickey Mouse cartoon, this one
with sound. Steamboat Willie, released in 1928, was the first animated film to feature
synchronized sound. Despite the film's international success, Walt and Roy still needed
cash, so they licensed Mickey Mouse's image for a fee of $300, to be used on a tablet
of paper aimed at children.

Disney became fixated on using the newest technology for his films. He obtained
exclusive rights to use Technicolor in animated films for two years, winning his first
Academy Award in 1932 for the animated short Flowers and Trees, which was also the
first full-color cartoon.

He would win 26 Oscars over the course of his career, the most awards given to any
individual. During the next few years, Goofy, Donald Duck, and several other
memorable characters joined Mickey. But Disney believed the future of the company
was in feature-length films and released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. It
was the first feature-length animated movie to be produced in Technicolor and cost
nearly $1.5 million to make, an unheard of amount in Depression-era America.

Growth of the Company

Disney recognized his strength was in story design, not actually animating, and by the
time the brothers built a studio in Burbank, Calif., they employed more than 1,000
people, including animators. Building on the success of Snow White, Disney
released Pinocchio and Fantasia in 1940, Dumbo in 1941, and Bambi in 1942. All
became standout hits as Disney the entrepreneur grew into his role as a business
owner.

But the late 1930s and early 1940s were tough times for American businesses. Disney
made it through the Great Depression and World War II by dedicating much of his new
studio to producing health, education, and propaganda films for the U.S. government. It
also produced short comedies aimed at boosting national morale. To raise additional
money, Disney took his operation public in 1940.

The company did not produce any new feature films during World War II, but in 1944 it
did re-release Snow White into theaters, bringing in a significant amount of revenue for
that year. This would begin a common strategy of re-releasing films about every 10
years, and later regulating the availability of Disney films on VHS and DVD. The next
big animated film came in 1950, with the release of Cinderella.

Diversification

As the company grew, Disney diversified production beyond cartoons and animated
movies. Treasure Island, released in 1950, was the studio’s first live-action film, and the
company formed Buena Vista Distribution a few years later. With its own in-house
distribution company, Disney could continue to churn out movies while significantly
saving on distribution costs. Live-action hits such as Swiss Family Robinson in 1960
and Mary Poppins in 1964 followed.

Disney's TV debut came around the same time as Treasure Island, with the special One
Hour in Wonderland. The popular Mickey Mouse Club debuted as a TV series in 1955.

But it was another TV program that began in 1954, called Disneyland, that showed Walt
Disney had even bigger plans for the company. A few years earlier, Disney established
WED Enterprises as a separate company and began drawing up plans for Disneyland, a
giant theme park. Because the park was technically part of a separate corporation,
Disney was able to develop it in secret, worrying about how shareholders would react to
knowledge of the project's details. Disneyland opened in 1955 as a theme park unlike
any other the world had seen.

Disney employed a unique strategy to make the theme park quickly successful. He
solicited several corporate sponsorships to subsidize costs and outsourced food and
merchandise within the park. Once Disneyland was earning revenue, the company
repurchased those rights and kept the revenue internally. Plans for a second park,
which ultimately became Walt Disney World, began with the acquisition of land in
Florida in the 1960s. This second park would contain Disney's vision of what the future
urban community would look like; he called it the "Experimental Prototype Community of
Tomorrow," now commonly known as Epcot Center.

The Dream Lives On

Walt Disney died in 1966, five years before Disney World opened in Orlando, Fla., and
16 years before Epcot Center opened in 1981. Time Magazine named Disney one of
the most important people of the 20th century in its Time 100. In the profile, the
magazine reveals a darker, unhappy side of the man who brought happiness to so
many people.

But it's unfair to say that Walt Disney lost perspective during his ride to entrepreneurial
success. He's cited frequently as saying, "I only hope that we never lose sight of one
thing, that it was started by a mouse."