Elon Musk and New Opportunities For the World

According to a recent study, almost 75% of all startups fail overall; the largest contributing factor to their downfall is lack of capital and desperate market need (Hoque, 2012). It is hard to imagine that anyone today can become a successful entrepreneur given the small probability of success. Despite this, the media showcases countless successful entrepreneurs who defied such odds and one such example is Elon Musk. The South African-born entrepreneur has been in the entrepreneurial business for over 20 years and he is no exception when it comes to creating successful startups (Davis, 2007).

The entrepreneur launched nine startups and sold two of them, Zip2 and X.com in 1999 and 2002 respectively (Davis, 2007). Elon Musk is a therefore a serial entrepreneur as he intended to sell several startups so that future ones like SpaceX and Tesla could exist. Today, the entrepreneur’s interests are predominately in the automobile/transportation and aerospace industries which he wants to significantly change. His dream is to reduce global warming and the budgets required for space exploration.

This ultimately was the direct motivation behind SpaceX and Tesla, two of his most successful companies. His largest accomplishment was indeed SpaceX since it was the first privately funded company to launch a rocket into space and its budget was 11 times less than any of NASA’s previous missions (Messier, 2011). The other focus of Elon Musk’s career was Tesla which is meant to revolutionize electric transportation and be the primary system to get around. This would fundamentally change modern-day transportation and therefore have creative destruction in the industry, but the outcome will greatly reduce pollution in the atmosphere.

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In general, Elon Musk’s entrepreneurialism is centered around changing the world and the betterment of mankind. Both SpaceX and Tesla are the two business opportunities that will be focused on.

When one ponders about modern-day entrepreneurs, inventor entrepreneurs like Elon Musk are thought of as a commodity. His earlier startup, SpaceX, demonstrates the entrepreneur’s innovation in terms of how he sets to make space exploration easier. The pressing issue for him “is the cost of access to space” which has been preventing people from making frequent trips to space (SpaceX, 2008). Elon Musk achieved this by seeking rocket engineers to build an orbital rocket that is capable of landing on the ground and being reused again in future missions (Biography, 2014). As a result, this will heavily impact the industry as rockets become more affordable cutting the cost “ultimately by a factor of ten” (SpaceX, 2008). The company launched its first successful propulsive landing rocket Flacon 9 in 2015 and reused it two years later (Amos, 2017). This accomplishment was important to him as he achieved his dream even after being told repeatedly that SpaceX will fail. His goal to achieve cheap space flights kept his determination despite criticism, especially after the Columbia disaster. In addition, the success of the Falcon 9 launch increased public interest in space exploration which was lacking in the industry for some time (Gohd, 2017). The company thereafter launched Falcon heavy which had a much higher payload capacity and is aiming to reach far into space (Biography, 2014). Musk had to overcome numerous adversities to achieve this dream; the biggest one being the failed launch of a previous iteration of Flacon 9. According to a report by the company, one of the steel pieces broke off under pressure when the rocket was accelerating causing an explosion in flight. (Grush, 2016). This sent the company back since production was paused and the entrepreneur lost support from several investors (Clark, 2015). However, this didn’t stop Musk as he took ownership to solve the problem by using resources like capital to hire senior engineers and fund better technology which is a factor from the Timmons model. He also shifted the company’s focus on improving the infrastructure and durability of steel for the subsequent Flacon 9 rockets (Clark, 2016). SpaceX’s largest competitors are Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic. It was not a huge setback for the company since SpaceX owns approximately 65% of the market share (Bennett, 2017). SpaceX is also the first to land a rocket on an ocean platform, and the first private company to send a satellite to orbit and reuse its rocket making it the current leader in innovation (Biography, 2014). It is for this reason that SpaceX demonstrates some of the entrepreneur’s innovations and the achievement of reusing space rockets that so few have accomplished.

Elon Musk also pursued other opportunities such as going into the automobile industry. He saw that there was a business opportunity particularly in electric cars because there was an unmet need, a car that performs just as well as standard vehicles and is eco-friendly. The entrepreneur uses the Timmons model by having access to needed resources like previous SpaceX employees and trusted investors to get Tesla cars to the market. Some of the new technology behind Tesla cars are the powerful lithium-ion batteries that require no fuel to work (Lawler, 2014). Newer Tesla cars also have autopilot which is the driver assistance technology that allows for cruise control, emergency brakes, auto parking, and sensors to warn nearby vehicles (Lawer, 2014). Consequently, Tesla seems to demonstrate the entrepreneur’s achievement in bringing a revolutionary eco-friendly product to the market.

The fundamental connection between the entrepreneur and his business opportunities is the desire to reduce global warming and have cheaper access to space. I believe that the key to learning here is that your motivations should drive your entrepreneurial career as opposed to money. I furthermore believe that certain strategies of the entrepreneur were effective but not always realistic. For example, it was effective for Elon Musk to sell Zip2 and X.com because they were profitable, however, it did not guarantee success for subsequent startups. There are factors other than profitability that are important such as market need and competition. I also believe that being an innovator in entrepreneurism is important but not the only means to success. Ultimately, I believe that a successful entrepreneur is someone who isn’t afraid to take risks for a large outcome they desire.