ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Name: Amaad Ahmed Khan

Enroll No: 01-322182-002

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ASSIGNMENT - 6

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VANDARBUILT

History:

Cornelius Vanderbilt was a self-made multi-millionaire. At 16 he buys small

boat from $100 loan. He transformed his one ship into fleet of ships, which used to
carry passengers and goods to different parts of the country. He built of the largest
shipping empire in the world. He sees the opportunity in railroads, as they provide
cheap and efficient transportation to the every part of the country, and sells his fleet
of ships to invest in railroads.

Beliefs In Their Business Attitudes:

He gained a reputation for being fiercely competitive and ruthless. As he was

cut throat businessman willing to use any means to achieve his goals. He was a man
of vision and sees what others didn’t see, just by blocking a single track he acquired
the majority of railroad tracks shares. His belief was always to win the game; he wins
games against competitors and climbed to the top.
 His vision made him to see the bigger opportunities and take the bigger risks.
Selling the fleet and investing in railroads was bigger risk but he believed in himself
and eventually turned out to be successful.

He was always innovative and searching for new opportunities. He always

calculate the demands of new growing opportunities, he realizes that rail roads
construction is not be growing in demand. So he sees the new opportunity of
carrying oil over his railroads business to keep his trains full. This gives him
advantage not only to keep his railroad business but also to look for game in oil
business.

Forecast And Validate Their Business Models:

After the end of civil war, Vanderbilt sees the opportunity in rail road business and he
sells the fleets and invested his money in railroads business. His vision was that ships take more
time for transportation and cost more as compared to rails, as they move faster and are cheap
mode of transportation of both people and goods. He knew that railroads construction has a
large building cost, as it involves lot of steel and large workforce but he also knows that this will
be one time cost. Once the structure is laid, the future will be bright, as transportation will be
cheap and many people and goods will start moving on rails on daily basis.

As time goes, Vanderbilt realizes that there is still lot of space that goes empty regularly
during travels as passengers were not enough to fill the complete train daily. He starts thinking
again of filling his complete rails. Light was problem in those days at nights and lamps were
used for lights which require oil. Vanderbilt sees the opportunity and created two spaces in his
trains, one space for humans and second space for transportation of oil. Just by little
adjustments he used in complete rails and dominated rails industry and had shares in oil market
as well.
 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER

History :

John D. Rockefeller became one of the world’s wealthiest men and a major
philanthropist. His work ethics and intuition made him believe in himself. He came from a
humble background but he was an ambitious person and wanted to be the leader of petroleum
industry. He missed his death and after that his way of looking at his life changed, he realizes
that he escaped death because he has to do something big. He made a good deal with
Vanderbilt, to fill his all trains with petroleum. He then found a way to turn petroleum waste
from refinery into kerosene oil. That turned out to be another way for him to make money and
expand, because kerosene oil usage increases in lamps. He made a refinery for this process and
created company “Standard Oil” to become the largest supplier of refined kerosene oil in
country. He bought the other big refineries and made deals with oil producers and crushed the
competition. His revolutionizing idea that he transformed him as well as the entire industry was
to carry oil through pipelines over long distances from refineries. This idea made him leader of
petroleum industry until his death.

Beliefs In Their Business Attitudes:

He gained a reputation for being fiercely competitive and ruthless. As he was

cut throat businessman willing to use any means to achieve his goals. He bought his
competitors to eliminate competition. He shut down some of his refineries to reduce
the supply and use it against his competitors, which were also his buyer, to eliminate
competition.

He was always innovative and searching for new opportunities. He used his
researchers to create refined oil from crude oil. He believed in turning waste into
something productive. He turned the transportation of oil from pipes within industry
to pipelines out of industry on long routes.
 He was a man of vision and very high risk taker. Pipeline idea of transporting
oil over long distances was very big risk, because it involved lot of cost. But he knew
once he done this, he will eliminate his competition completely and completely
revolutionize the future.

He waited for the right opportunity. He knows opportunity of buying comes in

bad times. He bought his competitors during recession, when shares prices were
dropped to very low.

Forecast And Validate Their Business Models:

Oil industries were making lot of oil but they neglected that lot of oil is still
wasted during the process. Rockefeller used his researchers and had idea to refine
oil, which is wasted during process, and sell it. He knew that to be on the top he had
to innovative and utilize the waste. He knew that waste can be productive. He used
his resources to create refined oil, which common people started using in lamps.

Oil was used to carry over rail roads. Rockefeller realizes that his is facing
challenges from railroad owners. He came across idea from his refinery of
transporting oil within refinery from pipes. He transformed that idea to be used over
long distance. He knew that it will cover lot of construction cost, but once the project
is completed he cannot be further blackmailed by railroad industry. With this
visionary idea, he not only eliminated the competition but revolutionize the long
term needs.