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Richard Branson
Essay
Date
1307 words
Students Name
University
The main purpose of the paper is to study and analyze the story of success of one of the most outstanding entrepreneurs of our times Richard Branson. This person represents the highest interest as the founder of the Virgin Atlantic Airlines, Virgin Mobiles, Virgin Cola and the series of other Virgin products. Richard Branson is now one of the richest people who have got to the top of the world business sphere with no formal education or professional training, no real experience, financial resources or something that can be used as the explanation of his success, but despite that he became a billionaire at the age of 39. He is also a brilliant example of how people can learn from their mistakes on their way to success as he gained his experience on his way to success on his own and that is one of the key factors that made him the person he is now. However, the most important stage in life of the individual is the early years and exactly this period of life of Richard Branson represents special interest as it was the base for the later achievements that made him the example of the real success in the entrepreneurship.
Richard Branson was born in England in 1950 and he was the entrepreneur since his childhood. By the age of fifteen, he has already had the experience in entrepreneurship, although it has not been successful – he tried to sell Christmas trees and budgerigars. Unlike the majority of the contemporary successful entrepreneurs that succeeded at school, Richard Branson has had the opposite situation. As a result of afterwards diagnosed dyslexia, Richard Branson had serious problems with studying, which he compensated with the series of sports activities. He excelled in different kinds of sport and this is supported by the fact that he was the captain of soccer and cricket teams of his school. It is important to mention that sport was not his only interest as Branson has always been interested in everything connected with the business sphere. His problems with studying because of dyslexia made it impossible for Richard Branson to successfully continue his education. At the age of sixteen Branson dropped out of school. Just after that Branson deiced to set up his own business and he has started his own magazine called Student that aimed to meet the needs of the students. As Branson has just got out of the institution, he knew the needs of the students and all their demands have been met by Student that has been run by students as well. That was the first success of the young entrepreneur that has also defined him as the successful businessman. The first edition of the magazine has been distributed for free. These costs Branson has covered with the help of the advertising as he has earned more than $8,000 on the adverts within the publication.
Soon afterwards, when the magazine began to lose the rates in 1960s, Branson has founded the Virgin Mail Order Records. He has chosen this name for the company as he considered himself to be an extremely inexperienced businessman. As it can be seen, this specific feature has gone through his entire success story as he made his weak side his advantage. The first target of the young entrepreneur was to raise funds and that resulted in the opening of the first discount record store in the beginning of the 1970s. This company has quickly gained its popularity, soon becoming the most popular record label of punk and new wave styles. In addition to this business sphere, Branson became the majority backer of the airline that he has named Virgin Atlantic Airways. Despite the harsh competition that was present within the sphere and the boundaries the newly formed company has faced, Branson succeeded and in the beginning of the 1990s he has sold virgin Records in order to invest money in the Virgin Atlantic. In the 1990s, Virgin conglomerate became one of the largest private companies of the Untied Kingdom and it has comprised more than a hundred new businesses that made it more influential and strong. In 2004 Branson has founded Virgin Galactic, the company that concentrated on the space tourism, and just after that he has decided to launch Virgin Mobile, the company that has been specializing on the wireless phone services, which has been soon renamed in the Virgin Media. Together with that he has formed the companies within the entertainment sphere, the Virgin Comics LLC and Virgin Animation Private Limited. As it can be seen, the unsuccessful student was perfect at predicting the future success of the new products and he has been the perfect businessman as he knew how to earn money, to cope with the strong competitive struggle and what people really want and need.
I understand business not as the suit and tie, but as the power to be true to yourself and your ideas together with the ability to follow your dreams despite all the boundaries and be able to achieve the goal by any means. Richard Branson is an extremely active and full of energy person who has never been standing still and who is always in a search for another opportunity to develop. His power is in his mind, in his talent to be highly professional manager, as well as in his self-efficacy that has always helped him to make the right choices and not give up if they have appeared to be wrong. He is the one of the excited entrepreneurs who just likes to have fun and truly take everything from life. His active life position together with the constant interest to everything around him is the major moving force of his business. In his eyes it is easy to see the young person who is willing to get any new experience that life has, and who is never getting bored or tired from the extremely high life tempos. He is driven by challenges and adventures, and he sees the opportunities everywhere he looks. His strong desire not to stick to some rules is also his specific feature that makes him different from all the other businessmen and that gives the power of uniqueness to his huge business company.
The specific features of his character have been developing through all his life, but his confidence that he would become the successful entrepreneur has always been strong, as Branson has always been interested in business sphere and everything connected with the entrepreneurship. Together with his active lifestyle, inner power and constant interest to everything in his life, he gained the final success. It is important to mention that his early years have been really different from the childhood of other outstanding businessmen of our times, such as Steve Jobs or Larry Ellison who have been quite successful at sciences, although both of them also were not good students and had a series of problems with their tutors. It can also be underlined that all three of them dropped their studies and that was not the boundary on their way to success.
The final outcome of these stories of success is that to become the successful entrepreneur the one does not need the outstanding studying grades or the recognition of the other people. It is important to do what you enjoy to do, to make everything for your dreams and never give up. Richard Branson has always followed his targets and has been using all his potential and all the opportunities has had to make his dreams come true. As well as the other outstanding businessmen, he has not been a successful student, but finally he became the successful businessman because he has been always doing things that he enjoyed and his anxiety has finally brought him to the top of the business world.