They say that if you want to know where to go, it is always a good idea to look over your shoulder. History is full of inspiring and exciting success stories, which could well give us that clarity of vision necessary when projecting our business.
In this post we introduce you to three of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time: three entrepreneurs who knew how to give shape and continuity to their dreams , and who today we remember with that nostalgia with which we look at true heroes.
Henry ford The Ford surname has a special place in the history of global entrepreneurship. Henry Ford is considered the founder of the automobile company that bears his name and the inventor of the modern production lines that enabled mass industrialization.
With only an elementary education in tow, this American born in Dearborn in 1863 and died in 1947, began his working days as a machinist in Detroit. His lucidity of thought and entrepreneurial spirit allowed him to see, from an early age, the hidden potential in the first cars of Daimler and Benz, German businessmen whose first models appeared in 1885. From then on the young Ford began to take an interest in the automotive industry and to plan their own models, which later revolutionized the field of engines, like the famous Ford T.
The Ford Motor Company obtained around 161 patents registered in the US alone , which made its sole owner Henry one of the richest people in the world. The secret of its success was in the vision, but not only of more powerful and economical models than those that appeared on the market , but of the massive production strategies that allowed it to manufacture its cars in series and literally flood the market.
This system consisted of the acquisition and use of highly specialized machinery and a huge workforce of workers with a salary level well above that offered in the market . That and his inventiveness, put at the service of lowering the chain's mechanical costs , ensured him a privileged place in the competition and in history.
This work system, called Fordism , allowed him to always have consumerism as a north and strategy, until he announced franchises of his company in each province of the United States and Canada, as well as in the main cities of the five continents.
Walt disney
Is there anyone who has not heard of Walter Elías Disney today? Entrepreneur of the American film industry born in Chicago, Illinois in 1901 and died in 1966, is famous not only for the absolute triumph of his animated creatures such as Mickey Mouse and other Disneyland characters , but also for having played a prominent role in the imaginary American interwar period , spanning the film and comic industries with equal resounding success.
His efforts to perfect the cartoon technique not only paid off financially for the nascent entertainment company, but integrated into his vision of cinema as an industry with a bright future, he created a veritable emporium that led his comics to conquer the markets around the world . Disney knew how to read the need for reconciliation and hope in a time marked by violence and enormous Western tragedies, such as World War II and the bombing of Hiroshima, or the tensions of the subsequent Cold War, and more importantly, he knew how to satisfy it in an original, novel and profitable way.
Mark Zuckerberg
The enfant terrible on the list, born in 1984 in White Plains, USA, became the founder of the largest social network in the world at the age of 28: Facebook. A brutally profitable company that not only has not stopped its expansion, but also revolutionized the way of doing business through the Internet and proposed a new investment model compared, by many, to the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.
What in its beginnings was nothing but university software for social interaction and creating networks of contacts, managed to become, thanks to the Digital Revolution of the early 21st century, the owner of the different virtual spaces of the common citizen , integrating computers with Internet connection, digital phones, tablets, etc.
In 2006 Facebook was a global success, with 64 million registered users in English-speaking countries alone , and in 2008 it was launched in other languages to crown its conquest of the so-called life 2.0.
There are many more examples of inspiration, evidence that you can succeed in the business world based on what we do best and what we like the most . Share these three with your contacts and friends, and let's embrace an inspiring, tenacious and innovative company culture.
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