Mgt 521 Week 4

Wee 4 Team Reflection
Mgt 521
July 22,2012

Ryan and Aaron are an amazing example of modern entrepreneurs. They grew their business from the ground up and did so with little capital. One key lesson apparent from the video is that they had an innovative product that there was a market need for. Email news letters is an excellent tool for a number of reasons and an obvious go to model for the future. Having a product that was an internet based product also gave them easy access to the international market.
Another lesson made clear from the video is that re-investing into your business can lead to long term profitability. At the time the video was made, Ryan and Aaron’s company was not yet profitable. They had continually re-invested into their business to obtain growth, meet market demand and increase the companies value.
Hiring practices were discussed in the video. Ryan and Aaron hire smart people, train them well and let them run with their work. Diversity is also important to them. Having a diverse staff helps them to better understand their customer base.
Most important, was the lesson of knowing when your goal as an entrepreneur has been met. Being happy, making money and helping others at the same time is an excellent way of defining happiness.

Stakeholders are all the people who stand to gain or lose by the policies and activities of a business and whose concerns the business needs to address (Nickels, W. G., McHugh, J. M., & McHugh, S. M 2010). Key stakeholders in a business organization include creditors, customers, directors, employees, government, suppliers, and the community from which the business draws its resources. iContact recognizes some of their stakeholders as their customers, which are entrepreneurs and small business owners, their employees, and the community. One form of iContacts stakeholders is the customers which are entrepreneurs and small businesses. Ryan and Aaron started iContact to provide entrepreneurs and small business owners an easier way to send out their newsletters. The goal of iContact was to help small businesses compete with larger companies by having an inexpensive way to promote online. By providing small businesses the same type of tools that large corporations use small businesses can easily promote their business and build relationships with their customers. iContact benefits their customers by offering a simple, one stop solution to allow anyone to manage online marketing and communications.
Ryan and Aaron recognize that it is important to not only be a profitable company but also value the community as an important stakeholder. iContact started with Aaron and Ryan as the only employees but the success of their business demanded growth of their sales force. The community benefited from more jobs for the local community. iContact went from two employees to providing over one hundred jobs for the people of North Carolina. iContact offers a solution to entrepreneurs and small businesses but the Ryan and Aaron also recognize the needs of the environment. Giving companies the ability to promote online they can eliminate the need for direct mail which saves on the use of paper and ink.

iContact values their employees and promotes an environment to make the employees and the company successful. They hire smart people, train them well and avoid micro management so that their employees can be empowered to work well on their own. Having a online business Ryan and Aaron have access to a diverse customer base and they feel that having diverse workforce they are better equipped to handle its customers.
Vision is considered to be the foundation of the entrepreneurship. It is good to have great ideas but the most important thing is to have a vision on where these ideas can lead. Ryan and Aaron say “Create a vision and others will follow you”. They see people as a great asset, they listened to their needs, found the ways how to fill those needs and the most important thing is that they knew how to communicate their vision to others.
College students may like to have many friends and enjoy a party lifestyle. They see education as the key to find a good job and make money for themselves while Ryan and Aaron thought beyond having a secure job. They thought of a way to use their education to make their dreams come true. They knew how to use the freedom, the resources and the opportunities the American economy offers to build a successful business. It is amazing to see how they combined their skills and their expertise, invested their time and money to achieve their goals. They proved that to make things happen you do not need to have a lot of money. Based on numbers they found out that revenues look pretty good and they did not have a lot to lose. Another impressive things is how they treat their employees. They do not tell their people what to do, they train them and let them go and follow their goals.
Did they inspire me to think about starting an entrepreneurship? They are very inspiring but I do not know yet if I can get there. I might have great ideas but do not have a vision at this point on how to put them together and create that clear picture that will make others follow me. I have had the opportunity to work with a visionary leader and would say that this has been an unforgettable experience.

Nickels, W. G., McHugh, J. M., & McHugh, S. M. (2010). Understanding business (9th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.