Original Oratory: Entrepreneurship in the Modern World

The below is a speech I wrote for Competition for this season in NCFCA.

“Jason Drummond is richer than all of the Spice Girls put together and virtually unknown. At 30 he is a relative old-timer – the youngest on the list is just 21. Many have set up companies in the past 12 months and are now millionaires. Welcome to a new generation of Young Rich Entrepreneurs” This quote, from an article written in 2000 from the Observer demonstrates a turning point in business. We have now entered an age when the individual can compete with a multi-million dollar corporation. In the midst of a dismal economy and falling job market I believe that entrepreneurship is the most viable option for the future and that it is the key to success in the modern world. The reasons for this are more than can be fit into a single speech, but I will examine some of the larger reasons why this is the case. We’re going to look at how modern technology gives the entrepreneur unprecedented opportunity, we’re going to look at how entrepreneurship promotes personal freedom, and last we’re going to look at how it’s beneficial to the overall economy, and why it is the key to success in the modern world.

Once upon a time there was a country full of patriots, a nation where everyone believed in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In this nation, virtually all of these patriots owned their own farms, shops, restaurants, stores and services. In this country, almost everyone was an entrepreneur. This country was America before the mid 1800s and the rise of industrialization.

When industrialization came this spirit of the entrepreneur, every man living his own American dream began to die out as people began to become employees instead of employers, and the middle class began to become controlled by massive companies. This trend has continued to the present day. However, recently there has been growing potential for those who do not wish to continue to work for large corporations who have a gained a monopoly on the world economy. The driving factor behind this counter trend has been the technology developed in the last twenty years.

The development of the internet has been the single most important event since the invention of the printing press. This can hardly be an understatement. The internet allows people from opposite ends of the earth to come together in real time. The effects of this are many and far reaching. To the business world, it spells the beginning of the end of massive centralized corporations and the rise of motivated individuals: the entrepreneur. The Internet has allowed for the buyer to connect to the seller – regardless of distance, language or nationality. The internet has also allowed these motivated individuals to network and develop products and services much faster than centralized corporations can. This means that the individual, the entrepreneur, can compete globally, just as well (and often better) than any large business.

It also means that an entrepreneur can order parts, look up design plans, read books and articles on business and get advice from those who have already succeeded. This last point, being able to contact successful entrepreneurs is an important one. Knowledge is power, and listening and learning from others is more valuable than investors, partnerships, or even receiving a large inheritance. Now, you might not be able to contact Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, but there are literally hundreds of successful entrepreneurs, many of who will be happy to reply to your e-mail’s. One of these men is John Robb. Mr. Robb has started several businesses growing many of them to multi-million dollar proportions in under a year. I’ve e-mailed him on several occasions and Mr. Robb has been kind enough to answer. His advice to me has been clear: “Learn how to make things…learn how to sell…be a one man company.” Mr. Robb served in Air Force special operations units along with SEAL and Commando units. He was one of the pioneers in RSS feeds and blogging software. Currently he is preparing to begin developing a software to help the growth of what he calls Resilient Communities. I have volunteered my services for the project as soon as Mr. Robb gets the project funding in order. Now Robb wouldn’t have been able to get volunteers (many of whom are much more talented than myself) without the internet. I consider him to be one of the most successful entrepreneur’s of our day, in spite of the fact relatively few people have heard of him.

So, now that we know that it is possible for these undertakers to not only compete, but compete globally, the question now is why? Entrepreneurship still means taking risks, sometimes big ones, so what are the advantages? This brings me to my second point: that Entrepreneurship promotes individual freedom. When you own your own business, you are in control of your own and your business’ destiny. You are not dependent on whether or not your company will go bankrupt because of the decisions of some far distant CEO. Instead if your company goes bankrupt, it gets to be your fault!

Another benefit of not being under the direct control of a company is the fact that it can be decidedly family friendly. Children can often become assets instead of liabilities aka slave labor, the wife becomes a senior executive and more distant family connections become marketers. This strengthens the bonds of not only your individual family, but the entire fabric of society. It utilizes the things that people have used for thousands of years and only recently forgotten about. When it comes to entrepreneurship, family becomes one of your biggest assets.

John Robb said that “One of the best ways you can prepare for the future is to train yourself to become an entrepreneur — essentially a person that makes their own economic opportunities.  It’s going to become a major differentiator between those that succeed and those that fail in a harsh global system” When your in charge, your job doesn’t get outsourced.

Now the question arises, what is the effect of such things on the economy and business world? Which are the external factors influencing one’s business. As it turns out, entrepreneurship actually is beneficial to both economy and innovation. As we saw with the big business failures in the past few years, large corporations are more of a threat, to both the job market and the overall economy. Entrepreneurship also has more potential to grow new markets and innovate faster. The prime examples of this are of course, Wal-Mart, Microsoft and Apple. Each one found a need and filled it, and grew to unimaginable sizes. Entrepreneurship is good for economy, it’s good for business.

The director of the US patent office said that everything that could be invented already had been invented. The year was 1899. Virtually everything we use today was unimaginable in 1899, and entrepreneur’s made it happen. From airplanes to I-pod’s entrepreneurs have been at the forefront of innovation, invention and industry. Without entrepreneurs an economy is inevitably doomed.

Look at all of the things we use today. The lights in this room were made possible by Thomas Edison. The cars that you drove here were made possible by Henry Ford. The computers that we use were made possible by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. These men were entrepreneurs who drove innovation and technology to places that no one ever thought possible.

So in conclusion, entrepreneurship now has greater opportunity than it has for nearly two hundred years, it’s good for the family and society, and is good for the economy. Entrepreneurship is the key to success in the modern world. If you’re willing to take a risk, you can reap the rewards. As J. Paul Getty, Former oil tycoon and once the richest man in America said, “There is only one way to make a great deal of money; and that is in a business of your own.” And this is more true now than ever before. Thank you.