Engineering Entrepreneurship: Success Stories of Mike Cannon-Brookes and Sachin Bansal

This report discusses the success stories of two entrepreneurs from engineering background, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Sachin Bansal, who started their own businesses. It covers their characteristics, traits, and business approaches that helped them succeed. Mike Cannon-Brookes co-founded Atlassian, a software company that changed the world of software industry. Sachin Bansal started Flipkart, an e-commerce site that made the lifestyle of millions of people easy. Both faced many hardships but they undertook a wide range of activities so that they could sustain in the competitive world.

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Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................1
Background............................................................................................................................................1
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Every entrepreneur is unique in their way and they use different approaches to
become recognised by the people and work towards goals by offering new opportunities. The
success is unpredictable in their life but they are ready to take high risks. In this report,
discussion is carried upon the characteristics trait of two entrepreneurs that is Mike Cannon-
Brookes and Sachin Bansal. They both belong to an engineering background but have worked
in their life to start up their own business idea. They faced many hardships but they
undertook wide range of activities so that they can sustain in the competitive world.

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Background
Entrepreneur from Australia- Mike Cannon Brookes
The Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes was an engineer and he was awarded
as a youngest entrepreneur of the year. They have changed the world of software industry by
beating up all the traditional software vendors. Mike Cannon-Brookes have innovated a
software by making it easy for the customers so that it could be configured easily. They have
also added transparency in all the areas from pricing issues to resolving all the bugs related to
licencing. He identified all the bugs that were faced by the customers, successful entrepreneur
is the one who supports their customers by offering legendary services. The company
Atlassian was introduced years back, which is now one of the world most popular bug and
issue tracker organisations (Nabi, Liñán, Fayolle, Krueger and Walmsley, 2017). Mike
Cannon-Brookes is an IT expert who offered most advances technologies to the companies
by offering affordable and light weighted software. The business was started by taking a huge
risk like it would grow successfully or not (Kearney and Hisrich, 2014). In present date it is
expanded in more than 60 countries.
The reason behind this success story is his determination to work on the business idea
he thought and then nailing it. He built the company along with his university mates while
studying and the products were so successful in the next five years that he could generate a
profit margin of around $US250 millions. He was successful as he identified the market and
analysing the success of apple developers he tried to get success by offering advanced
features (Buntat, Roslan, Nurmira, Ibrahim and Salleh, 2016). He targeted lager number of
audience by developing a platform that could be used by all the app developers. Apart from
that, Mike Cannon-Brookes is successful as they expanded their business in other fields like
they invested in energy finance start-up along with workplace safety start-up. The skill of
entrepreneurs to be successful is to grow tremendously and open up new opportunities for
people (Othman and Nasrudin, 2016). The reason for their success is bringing up new
innovative ideas and looking at the strategies that are followed by the competitors.
Mike Cannon-Brookes has become successful as he worked on bringing advancement
in technology. The firm generated about more than one per cent of world gross domestic
product which helped them to improve wealth and prosperity of Australia. He analysed the
market and found that there is a massive job disruption (Heikkinen and Stevenson, 2015).

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Thus, the business approach that was followed by Mike Cannon-Brookes was communicating
the benefits towards the audience so that they can capture a wider market (Durkin and Gunn,
2016).
The success story behind Mike Cannon Brookes started from being a professor at the
university to CEO of Australian Company Atlassian. The reason this success is his passion
from early childhood, he was desperately a computer lover (Sani, and Shika, 2017). When he
was 11 years old he could resist himself to get involved in compute operations. He had a clear
vision but due to poor financial support he could not grow at that stage. Later, he started to
spend a lot of time on Microsoft DOS he tried to complete the task but was unsuccessful at
every time. Thus, the main characteristic due to he became successful entrepreneur was his
determination to fulfil his dreams. He started his part time while he was perusing his degree.
He thought of raising the business by taking small amount of money from family members
and friends. He rented a space in Australia and then built a technological park (Aziz, 2018).
The starting up of this business venture was a high risk as he borrowed money from the
market (Michael, Inyang and Ojeka, 2016). If in case business does not succeed it might be a
huge loss. It is the key characteristics that should be adopted by every entrepreneur. Even in
case of, Mike cannon Brookes it can be found that he was a high risk taker as he came up
with new idea without seeing the future outcomes. The business approach and motive of
Mike Cannon Brookes was not to earn money but to complete the idea of what he thought to
achieve. Before coming up in the market, Mike cannon Brookes had detailed study about the
market so that he could get support about the market analyses. The company had a poor cash
flow at a time which made the situation difficult and hard to handle. He overcomes this
situation by being patient and building strategies. The reason for his success was good
leadership skills. He guided his colleagues so that they can overcome from the difficult
situation. Entrepreneurs do not work for profit margin. Similarly in case of Mike cannon
Brookes he demoted some amount of the profit margins in the charity donation. He started
the business while donating the charity and changed the technological innovation in the
society. The success of Atlassian was a game changer innovation as it helped all the start-ups
of Australia. The business approach that was used was to offer opportunities to people and
other companies in the society (Khatiwada and Juma, 2016). Being an entrepreneur he
worked on the idea of hiring people from overseas so that organisation could grow in the
global market.

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The strategy that was followed by Mike cannon Brookes was not only delivering great
product but his aim was to deliver something inspiring in the country (Maddi, et. al, 2016). At
time of starting the business he did not worry about money and worked to explore the
business globally. The personality trait that helped Mike cannon Brookes to be successful so
being patient and self-disciplined. He first understood the integrity in the market and then
designed technologies according to the demand. The other trait that helped Mike cannon
Brookes to be successful was having a clear direction in which business need to be moulded.
He understood that the world is becoming digital. Thus, he delivered services and products
accordingly. It was his passion from childhood that made him achieve success as he being a
person from engineering background; he had knowledge about software and other tools.
Entrepreneur from India- Sachin Bansal
The other success story that could be discussed is about Sachin Bansal. He has
completed his engineering in computer science department but he was more into innovating
new ideas rather than grabbing theoretical knowledge. He was an average student at the
school timing, he is not a topper but he has a brief knowledge regarding the practical
applications (Jagannatharao, Bansal, Lisa and Nagendra, 2017). From the childhood, he was
the only who use to keep himself busy in all the electronic things. He joined amazon in 2007,
and then he got an idea of starting up his own e–commerce site. It was his interest that made
him so successful. When he was small he used to say that I will open up my new business and
will make things easier and flexible. He joined Amazon initially but later started to work
upon his own business idea. He took a break after leaving Amazon, analysed the market
demand and came up with a new idea. He started an online business of but the success was
highly unpredictable as starting up new business in the market. He started the business by
taking some funds from the relatives and friends. It helped him to work upon his dreams. It is
true that for every entrepreneur when starting up a new business they need to face risk. He
didn’t start the business venture in the motive to earn money but the only reason was to offer
opportunities to others and bring up a new innovative idea in the market. It was beneficial as
it made the lifestyle of millions of people easy as now they did not need to go to some
traditional offline stores for shopping (Tangri, et. al, 2014). They can directly click on the
application can and get their services delivered at their doorstep.
He is an IIT graduate but still he was inspired to start up a new business. Thus, for an
entrepreneur to be successful it is important to have a determination and a clear vision. There

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were many other companies who were operating in the same domain but he believed that
offering of quality of service can help him set his venture. The reason of success was offering
quality services and lagging the competitors behind. There were various issues that were
faced by Flipkart still Scahin bansal handled it my ensuring that target audience is captured
(Bansal, Sheth and Bailkeri, 2017). He studied the market of competitors by finding out the
strategies so that they can gain market. The business approach that was used by Scahin
Bansal was starting up with a small beginning but aiming to achieve bigger. He started with
delivering book services across the world but there were other competitors who were offering
user-friendly services. Thus, it is necessary for an entrepreneur to be successful is adapt to
changes. Flipkart then expanded their business by not only delivering a book store but also
offering other products and services over e-commerce business. He faced many milestones
and failures like online payment gateway method. This issue was resolved by designing a
new strategy that is cash on delivery (Conner, et. all, 2015). The second issue that was faced
is due to poor supplying system. The success of Flipkart depends upon changing the
strategies and policies according to the demands. He introduced his own supply chain
management system. Thus, it can be clearly stated that it was not an easy road for Sachin
bansal as he faced a poor response on the e-commerce network. The trait that helped Sachin
to be successful was having an idea and then growing on it steadily (Leigh and Triggs, 2016).
He innovated new things in the business like bringing up a feature of add to cart which was
not available in the other start-ups. He faced the issue of gaining trust of the customers but he
tackled all the issues as entrepreneurs are the one who think about the future goals and work
on overcoming the shortcomings. The success rate depends upon how fast to capture to
change and bringing new platforms so that business could grow. He came up with a strategic
plan regarding the goals so that he can attract more customers. He came with new innovative
and creative ideas which are currently not present in the market. The modification in the
working style helped me to gain more clients. For every entrepreneur to be successful, it is
necessary to have a detailed knowledge about the market. The services delivered by Amazon
was analysed so that new action plans could be designed accordingly. By using all these
tactics, an entrepreneur tries to capture audience by offering better quality services at nominal
price. He used a business approach of remaining close to customers and retaining them with
the business. He offered new offers and vouchers so that a strong compatibility could be built
with customers. The sale can be decreased that could be a loss for the business but Sachin
being an entrepreneur kept patience and survived in all the loopholes (Moolenburgh, 2017).
The reason of success is keeping the business environment different from the existing one.

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Maintaining a good brand image and offering opportunities to people is their key motive.
They don’t work for earning or making money but they aim is to offer true benefits. There
were many downfalls that were faced by flip kart and Sachin but he didn’t give up from his
failure and worked hard to achieve his goals and vision. They think in an innovative manner
are have the potential to take high risk. They make plans to bring out the best outcomes for
the society. The characteristics of life of an entrepreneur are unpredictable but they do not
leave hope to attain their actions. They work for a long journey but wait for a worthy
outcome. He started a new venture with the motive of delivering the services at his door step.
Sachin Bansal helped people to change their living style by fulfilling all the challenges faced
by Indian society. He found out the issues that were faced by the people and came out with
new ideas that could help him in delivering products at the door step (Zaheer, Breyer Dumay
and Enjeti, 2018). The venture proved to be beneficial but initially they sold only books.
Later, he expanded the business by delivering products of the entire sector. The life of every
entrepreneur is different some come up with the new idea while others work on modifying
the existing plan. The common characteristics that are seen in every entrepreneur are high
risk takers, offering opportunities in the market, innovators and work on fulfilling their
dreams and vision. They might have poor technical skills but have a clear vision so that they
can work to achieve it. They work hard to bring up new venture in the market by offering
additional opportunities so that life of people can become easy. They are the one who are
always ready to accept to changes and bring up new business operations (Safadi, 2014). They
may fail in some cases due to poor management or adaptability skills which causes loss of
customers in the business. They are the one who contributes to the economy of the country.

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Conclusion
From this report it can be concluded that every entrepreneur faces failure but they are
the one who are ready to take high risks. They bring up new innovative ideas in the market.
In this report, the life of Australian entrepreneur Mike Cannon Brookes is discussed and also
about Indian entrepreneur Sachin bansal is analysed. This report covers the characteristics
traits that are adopted by both these entrepreneurs. They both worked hard to achieve their
vision and used their skills to come up from all the failures. Scahin Bansal worked on the idea
that was used by Amazon on the other hand Mike Cannon Brookes came up with his own
innovative idea. They are the one who undertakes innovations, finance and business acumen
in the effort of transforming innovations into economic goods. They are the one who
undertakes innovations, finance and business acumen in the effort of transforming
innovations into economic goods.

Engineering entrepreneurship 9
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Engineering entrepreneurship 10
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