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Introduction

Blake Mycoskie has been named one of America’s Most Promising Entrepreneurs by
Bloomberg Business Week, made it to Fortune magazine’s 40 under 40, married to his lover,
Heather Lang. Most prominently he founded and leads TOMS, a wildly beloved shoe
company with humble origins that has gone on to become as popular as it is profitable. All
this achieved in the age of 35.
In May 2011 , that Blake Mycoskie decided to retired from the company. . Laurent
Potdevin , ex-CEO of Burton replace Blake Mycoskie as President at TOMS. Mycoskie left
Los Angeles (in which TOMS is headquartered) along with Heather Lang, packed his bags
and left to Austin.
In just a short times, he aware that he made a dreadful mistake. In his interview with
Fortune magazine earlier this year , Mycoskie confessed he had misjudged the situation and
made a wrong decision. He told Fortune , “ Society tells us ,Sell your company , hire a CEO.”
And I heartily brought into all that without truly realising the consequences. After drifted
away for 6 years, I somehow believe that I don’t have to, and shouldn’t working anymore.
This is where everything goes wrong.

For many people, admitting your own mistake can be very punishing. But it is
different for Mycoskie, it isn’t unusual for him to admitted that he had mess up something. In
his book, start Something That Matters, which unfold the story of TOMS, Mycoskie had
stern belief that making mistakes and be truthful to your mistakes is one of the most
imperative lesson in corporate. For a man of his word, when things went wrong by his hand,
Mycoskie was honest and maintain good ethics. As he told Fortune , “ I didn’t feel like the
business was mine anymore , even though is was still mine.” He was also candid about his
depression , noting that it was “ Nothing clinical… but I was probably drinking more than I
should be . I felt like I wasn’t contributing to the world anymore.”

For someone who lead a huge company that had great performance on every
quarter, that statement seems to be odds, but if is coming from Blake Mycoskie, it does not
feels merely peculiar, it feels more like absurd and contradict. For TOMS is not just a bland
and typical company, it is a company that was founded by the very concept of doing goods
and making a difference to the world.
 Mycoskie had gone back to the Los Angeles and do the things that he enthusiastic
about in year 2013. His breaks from the works had allowed Mycoskie to ponder on many
matters. It wouldn’t be the first time that Mycoskie emerged out of a “solicitude and silence
times” with an inspiring new idea that he was eager to execute it. It had occurred once before,
when he was on a trip to Argentina in years ago. This trip spark the beginning of all of it.
(Businesstoday.in, 2018)

Questions :

1. What type of start-up firm is TOMS?

Entrepreneurial firms. Entrepreneurial firms bring new products and services to market by
creating and seizing opportunities.

2. What barrier to entry has TOMS created for potential competitors ?

 TOMS shoes is an established brand .

 Variety of styles , colours and designs .
 Prices are not overly expensive
 Creator of the one-for-one movement

3. How has TOMS social mission contributed to the firm’s success?

Everyone has a need for shoes to wear to work , school , or even to the store . TOMS tries to
attract those consumers by empowering them by showing how they can be helping someone
else in the world that needs shoes . Instead of buying a pair of $100 Nikes , consumers can
buy a pair of $54 classics and also have the satisfaction of providing someone in need with a
new pair of shoes . TOMS is striving to meet the needs of the consumer while also working
to raise awareness in the customer’s mind on how they can help others while also meeting
their personal needs.

4. List 2 reasons that attracted investors in TOMS’s business idea.

 Creating awareness, reaching to large audience and geographical coverage through

social media with minimal marketing cost.
 Having an active community that acted as brand storytellers - utilising peoples' people
networks on social media.

Conclusion

While there is no definition of social entrepreneur that everyone can accept, the term
is usually applied to an individual who uses market-based ideas and practices to create
“social value,” the enhanced well-being of individuals, communities, and the
environment. Social entrepreneurs incorporate the objective of creating social value into
their founding business models, which differs from ordinary business entrepreneurs who
base their decisions solely on financial returns. Social entrepreneurship has become
progressively popular in recent years and some of the famous business schools have
created a variety of specific academic programs in the field. It is common belief that the
social entrepreneur can change the tide of the world. They have the ability to affect far-
reaching social change through innovative and inspiring solutions that will change the
existing patterns of consumption, distribution, and production. . Prominent social
entrepreneurs can be seen on magazine covers, praised at the World Economic Forum in
Davos, and awarded millions of dollars in seed money from “angel” investors, and
applauded as “harbingers of new ways of doing business.” Social entrepreneurs are thus
often perceived as game changer and heroes—But there is one things to ponder: did they
really brings positive changes to this society? Could it be actually they did steer the
society to a new direction-a worse one?

Undeniably, social entrepreneurship can arouse a incredible passionate among

customers. Blake Mycoskie, social entrepreneur and founder of TOMS Shoes, tells the
story of a young woman who greet him in an airport, pointing at her pair of TOMS while
yelling, “This is the most amazing company in the world!” Founded in 2006, TOMS
Shoes immediately sparks the trends with its innovative use of the so-called One for One
business model, in which when a customer purchase a pair of shoes from TOMS Shoes,
one of the impoverished child will get a gift of a free pair of shoes.
(Courses.lumenlearning.com, 2018)

References :
Courses.lumenlearning.com. (2018). Case Study: Social Entrepreneurship at Tom’s Shoes
| Ivy Tech Introduction to Business. [online] Available at:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ivytech-introbusiness/chapter/case-study-social-
entrepreneurship-at-toms-shoes/ [Accessed 8 Feb. 2018].

Businesstoday.in. (2018). Case Study: How TOMS Shoes made a cause the centre of its
activities. [online] Available at: http://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/lbs-case-
study/toms-shoes-shoes-for-free-cause-marketing-strategy-case-study/story/219444.html
[Accessed 8 Feb. 2018].