Reflection paper

Entrepreneurship (GEST–421)
Professor Dr. Judith Behrens
Solvay Brussels School Economics & Management

Movies:
1.The social network
2.The founder
3. Jobs

Romain Gillis
000522063

Université libre de Bruxelles, 2020-2021

 1) The social network, David FINCHER.

Learnings topics: trusted people, passion, ideas, enemies and risks

The first thing we can learn in terms of entrepreneurship is that when we have an innovative idea,
we should make sure to talk about it to people we trust. Indeed, in the film we can observe that three
young men file a complaint against Mark Zuckerberg, because they admit that Facebook was first their
idea. If they had never told him about it, maybe Facebook would not have been created by Mark
Zuckerberg or just never launched.

In addition, another learning from this film, and which is related to what we studied in the
entrepreneurship course, is that passion is the key to success. As the real Mark Zuckerberg said: “If
you just work on stuff that you like and you’re passionate about, you don’t have to have a master plan
with how things will play out.”. You can clearly see in the film that the main character is passionate
about coding and computers. At first, he did not even think about the financial side of his project, he
did it out of passion. This is also the reason for the arguments between him and his best friend
Eduardo, who already wanted to earn money from the start, which was not the most important for
Mark Zuckerberg at the beginning. It was clearly his passion that made his project so successful.

Also, about the ideas for creating a project, we saw in class that having several ideas in mind was
a positive point. As Linus Pauling put it, "The way to have big ideas is to have lots of ideas!" In the
film, Zuckerberg begins at the beginning by putting together a site where you can compare the
different girls of the university. He then took inspiration from the idea of the two brothers who
practice rowing to create Facebook. He discusses his ideas a lot with his friends. At one moment in the
film, a boy asks him if he knows about the love situation of a girl of the campus. He was inspired by
this question to innovate his Facebook site, by setting the love situation of people on their Facebook
profiles.

Another entrepreneurial lesson that can be learned from this film is that when you are successful
you often have a lot of enemies. Indeed, from the beginning of the film, we see that Mark Zuckerberg
is being sued by several people. Being very successful and earning a lot of money attracts the jealousy
of other people who want to be in the same situation as you. Even his best friend Eduardo, with whom
he started the Facebook project, eventually sued him because he felt his part was unfair. As the project
grew, Zuckerberg and Eduardo did not think the same way. It's also proofs that starting a business with
friends can be a bad idea. You have to be sure that the whole team has the same thoughts and shares
the same values as you.

Finally, the last point is that it is important to dare to take risks. If Mark Zuckerberg had never
taken the risks he took, he might never have enjoyed the success he has now. At several times we can
see that the founder of Facebook is taking risks such as hacking the Harvard computer system or
leaving the prestigious university to devote himself to his project. It turns out that his risks have paid
off. We should not be afraid to do things that are out of the ordinary.
 2) The Founder, John Lee Hancock.

Learnings topics: Perseverance and determination, people with ambition, customers problems,
past mistakes and marketing

The first point to develop is undoubtedly the most important learning in this film: perseverance
and determination. Ray Kroc was only successful at 52. Before that, he struggled to sell milkshake
machines. All his life he has refused to give up despite the many setbacks he has experienced. His
persistence and determination got him to the top when many others would have given up. This film is
a real source of motivation and inspiration for everyone. In everyday life, we all experience a lot of
failure, but it is important to stay focused on our goals. This is the mindset that all entrepreneurs
should have.

The second point is somewhat linked with the first. Indeed, to be successful in life, it is important
to surround yourself with people who have the same ambitions as you. In the film, Ray Kroc's wife
rarely encourages her husband because she does not believe in his success and thinks that every
project will be another failure. "The founder" will file for a divorce later when his business starts to
take off and falls in love with a woman who has the same thoughts as him. Indeed, she believes, like
him, that to become rich you have to know how to take risks and get out of your comfort zone. They
share the same entrepreneurial values and both get rich at the end.

Then, about the McDonald's restaurants, we can relate to what we learned during the
entrepreneurship course. It is about understanding consumer problems and finding concrete solutions.
We see at the beginning of the film that when Ray Kroc orders in a drive-in (not McDonald's), he is
not satisfied with his order which arrived very late. McDonald's "fast food" system has revolutionized
the food industry. Indeed, consumers are served very quickly, no longer need cutlery and can eat their
meals wherever they want, with a family atmosphere. We can see that the actor is surprised to receive
his order so quickly on his first visit to MacDonald’s.

The first point explains that the film insists on never giving up. Another lesson you can learn is to
learn from your past mistakes. The McDonald brothers had, before their fast-food system, launched a
few snacks that had never really been successful. They learned from their mistakes by producing the
foods they used to sell the most (burgers) and replaced things like the cigarette machine that attracted
bad customers with garbage cans. They also trained their employees to optimize production as much
as possible. They therefore draw lessons from their failures. Every entrepreneur who fails and start a
new business must try again to not make the same mistakes as before.

The last entrepreneurial learning we can find in this film is the importance of the marketing aspect.
The McDonald's logo, made up of yellow arches, is not without significance. Indeed, in every
American city, there is a church and a court of justice with the American flag. Ray Kroc therefore
associates the logo of the restaurant chain as a symbol that protects American families thanks to the
yellow arches that surround the restaurants. In addition, the name "McDonald's", which is the last
name of the two brothers who created the first restaurant of its kind, is a name that typically represents
America.
 3) Jobs, Joshua Michael Stern. (2013)

Learnings topics: leadership, creativity, patience, recruitment and negotiations

The first lesson of this film is the importance of having to be a leader as an entrepreneur.
Throughout the film, Steve Jobs demonstrates incredible leadership and project management. He has
this ability to manage a team as can be seen in the film when he leads the Macintosh project. Although
he could appear arrogant at times, he was respected by his collaborators. He has the gift of instilling
confidence in the people around him and conveying his vision to them. The charismatic leadership of
Steve Jobs was instrumental in the success of the Apple business.

Another important element that characterizes Steve Jobs is creativity. We have seen during the
entrepreneurship course that creativity is the basis of creating a new product. The founder of Apple
shows incredible creativity with which he adds innovation, which has allowed him to found Apple and
achieve such success. Indeed, today's iPhones and other Apple devices are all at the cutting edge of
technology and increasingly innovative. It is therefore important to use this creativity to find a solution
to consumer problems and to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Steve Jobs gives us a real lesson through this film. Indeed, before achieving success, the founder
of Apple also experienced setbacks. But he always continued to believe in his dreams. At the end of
the film, he quotes "those of us who are crazy enough to believe that they are going to change the
world, are the ones who do." Every entrepreneur should be inspired by this phrase and this mindset of
never giving up on goals and dreams. You have to learn from your mistakes and be persistent in order
to be successful.

Another important point that this film teaches us concerns recruitment. Apple recruited ex-CEO of
Pepsi Cola John Sculley in 1983. However, Sculley and Steve Jobs disagree on various points but
especially in terms of marketing and the prices of the company's products. Sculley even decides to fire
Jobs afterwards. It is therefore important, when we recruit a new member to the company, to choose
someone who truly adheres to the culture and values of the company.

A final point that can be learned from this film is the importance of negotiations, a topic seen in
the class of entrepreneurship. Great negotiation skills are a real asset for an entrepreneur. Indeed, to
attract investors, you have to be able to persuade people who are interested in your project, which is
not easy when your product is not yet known. At the start of the film, Steve Jobs can be seen
successfully negotiating with an investor who ends up agreeing to help his start-up financially. Even
when Apple was a well-known company, negotiating with shareholders was important as these were
decisions that were critical to the future of the company, such as when the general meeting decided to
fire Steve Jobs.
Links with the course of Entrepreneurship

Some links to the course have already been made above when describing the learnings from
the 3 films. But in general, we can list 3 main links to the entrepreneurship course. Let's discover
them.

First, we studied the personality of entrepreneurs. We have seen that they are people who dare
to take risks, who are passionate about entrepreneurship or who need autonomy. The 3 heroes of the 3
movies have exactly this personality. Indeed, they dared to take a lot of risk by launching their concept
and they are passionate about what they do. Mark Zuckerberg and his passion for coding and computer
science is the best example to demonstrate this argument. They all took huge risks to dedicate
themselves to their project like Steve Jobs and Zuckerberg who left their universities or Ray Kroc who
mortgaged his house to invest in new MacDonald's restaurants. They all have strong personalities that
allowed them to reach their goals.

Secondly, we can also relate these films to the notion of prototype. The films do not
specifically present the prototypes of the invented products but we can see the evolution of the
products or inventions throughout the film. We see the beginnings of the products, their characteristics
and their improvement with time. In the film Social network, Zuckerberg first imagines a site that
serves as a way to grade girls on campus with few specifics. Later, with other ideas from his entourage
and especially from two Winklevoss brothers, he develops the site that later becomes a very elaborate
network site: Facebook. In the movie The Founder, we can also see the beginnings of MacDonald's
restaurants and their improvement thanks to Ray Krok's ideas. In the movie Jobs, we also see the
evolution of his products. We have seen in the entrepreneurship course that the prototype evolves with
time by discovering new ideas. This evolution is thus visible in the 3 films.

Finally, perhaps the most important thing we can learn from these films is how the main
characters deal with failure. We learned during the course that the path to success is a difficult one and
with many moments where you can think of stopping everything. The important thing is to learn from
your failures, deal with your negative emotions and not make the same mistakes in the future. As said
in the first paragraph, Zuckerberg, Jobs and Krok have a strong personality, which allowed them to
never give up when they failed. The creator of Apple was fired from his own company but was able to
prove his detractors wrong. But the story that is the most inspiring among the 3 films is the one of the
founder of the MacDonald's restaurant chain. Indeed, he had many failures before he became
successful only at the age of 52. Even his wife didn't believe in him anymore when he told her about
these projects. Many people would have given up from the beginning, but his ability to deal with
failure and never give up led him to success. This film gave me a real motivation for my future
professional life.