You have to be burning with an idea or a problem or a wrong that you want to right If you’re not passionate enough from the start you’ll never stick it out Steve Jobs Making Business Digital Entrepreneurship is the process of turning an idea into a business The person at the head of this process is the entrepreneur Entrepreneurs are the driving force behind every business They believe in their idea and are willing to take risks to see it develop If the business succeeds the entrepreneur usually benefits the most They can benefit financially or achieve a personal sense of satisfaction about their accomplishment If they’re lucky they’ll achieve both Steve Jobs was passionate about his vision to get computers into the hands of everyday people That’s what drove him to co-found Apple Computers 6
University students Sergey Brin and Larry Page shared a passion for the Internet that motivated them to develop a better search engine Today their search engine Google com is so well known that google became a word in the dictionary It means to look up information online When he was 19 Michael Dell founded the Dell Computer Corporation a company that sold directly to customers instead of using retail stores Now known as Dell Inc his business sells computers via the Internet Characteristics of Entrepreneurs Successful entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and media star Oprah Winfrey share certain characteristics that make an entrepreneur successful They are creative persistent and willing to take risks They do whatever they can to turn their vision into reality All entrepreneurs are likely to experience failure at some point It’s their determination to pick themselves up and try again that often leads to success While all entrepreneurs follow similar steps in creating a business it is passion that often defines what field of entrepreneurship they will enter Passion also drives them to succeed Most modern entrepreneurs fall into one of three main fields of entrepreneurship social environmental or digital Social entrepreneurs are passionate about helping people and are driven to create products or services that improve the lives of others Environmental entrepreneurs develop new businesses that focus on helping meet environmental challenges Digital entrepreneurs have a passion for technology They work to create the next big innovation to share with the online world 7
8 Computers the Internet and the Web Digital entrepreneurs are fascinated by digital technology Their businesses make or use digital technology Some use it to sell products and ideas Others improve on older technology or make it easier to use Digital entrepreneurship depends on three things computers the Internet and the World Wide Web Computers The computer is less than 100 years old It was in 1936 that Alan Turing a British mathematician made a computing machine to break the Nazis encoding machine called Enigma The Nazis used it during World War II to scramble instructions to their military leaders Solving the code allowed the Allies to eavesdrop on Nazi communications Enigma helped win the war and marked the start of the computer’s evolution The first computers were massive A single one could take up an entire room During the 1970s innovators made computers small enough to fit on a desk and low enough in price for the ordinary person to buy In 1975 Steve Wozniak assembled one of the first personal computers PCs His buddy Steve Jobs suggested they go into business In 1976 the pair and another partner started Apple Computer Inc Today their company called simply Apple Inc is known worldwide for its innovative computers and electronic devices Physicist Tim Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web to communicate with other scientists around the world
The Internet and the Web Sharing information between computers was still a difficult process In the 1960s the United States military set up private communication networks that linked groups of computers together This was the beginning of the Internet By the late 1980s a small number of public networks were also being used A British physicist named Tim Berners-Lee wanted a fast and easy way to communicate with scientists around the world In 1989 he developed a system that made content on his computer visible on the computers of other scientists He had invented the World Wide Web The first Web page went public on August 6 1991 Rather than patent his invention and make money from it Berners Lee made it available for free so that everyone in the world could use it Soon entrepreneurs were using this new medium to make money Electronic commerce or e-commerce was born You make the call This graph shows the number of PCs in use around the world between 1975 and 1995 Imagine that you’re an entrepreneur in 1995 What arguments might you make for starting a digital business How might you argue against such a move Tim Berners-Lee used this NeXTcube computer as the world’s first Web server 9
