Dark Side of Entrepreneurship: Traits, GoPro Case Study, and Peter Drucker's Perspective

Entrepreneurship 1
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
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Entrepreneurship 2
Report: Entrepreneurship
PART: A
Executive Summary
This paper commences with a discussion on the dark side of entrepreneurship. The negative
personality traits of entrepreneurs which may ultimately cost them fatally, are discussed, these
being depression, obsessive need to be in control and paranoia. These dysfunctional personality
traits are elaborate in this paper. This paper also validates the statement of Peter Drucker as is
manifested in the attributes of the founder of GoPro, Woodman of discipline, passion, the gritty
determination to succeed even after first failing, and dedication of a lot of time on his project are
some attributed discussed here. The paper also discusses the competitive advantage gained by
GoPro from their marketing processes. From information obtained from their website, GoPro has
invested in corporate social responsibility involving their employees, superior products and
drones. The paper lastly discusses four threats to the GoPro’s company strategy and their
solutions. These emerge from traditional manufacturers of cameras, smartphone manufacturers,
possible saturation of the US market in future, and their narrow focus on only one aspect of the
trade. Solutions to these threats are duly discussed.
Introduction
This paper discusses four aspects of entrepreneurship. The first aspect discussed here is the
major traits that constitute the dark side of entrepreneurship, whereby depression, obsessive need
to be in control / micromanagement and paranoid tendencies are discussed. References are made
to the GoPro case study in this section. The paper also discusses Peter Drucker’s statement on
entrepreneurship as it relates to the qualities of Woodman, the entrepreneur behind GoPro. The

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paper then discusses the ways in which the GoPro Company has been able to gain a competitive
advantage over their rivals on their marketing processes; with 4 different ways being discussed
here. In the last section, the paper discusses the future threats to the GoPro Company’s strategy.
Four threats to the company and possible solutions to these are discussed.
Question 1: The major traits that constitute the dark side of entrepreneurship.
Introduction
i. Depression
Depression occurs most of the time when an entrepreneur is beginning his business, or when
the business experiences great losses. Entrepreneurs are people who enjoy the good times when
their businesses are doing well and they therefore find it very difficult to cope with the bad times.
In the GoPro case, Woodman must have undergone some depression when his first company,
Funbug, went down with $3.9 million of investors’ money. This is particularly so when he had
all the hopes of making a successful business launch, only for his company to go under. This is
expressed in his words, “I’d never failed at anything before except computer science engineering
classes,” which express how disappointed he was with his first major failure in life. The
depression is further compounded by thoughts of self-doubt which he expressed himself, “...
maybe I’m not capable of doing this.” This is a typical example of how depression can set into
an entrepreneur after experiencing failure. The startup of some businesses calls for the
entrepreneur to put in a lot of resources: finance, material and time. The entrepreneur may find
himself owing every other party – family, friends, and the banks. He may have well not made a
breakthrough in the business or the business may be falling into bad times due to depressed
economic times or other external factors that may by contrary to ‘optimistic’’ projections that

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may have been set by the entrepreneur (Akpoviroro and Amos 2018). This may really send the
entrepreneur into a lot of depression and in some cultures; this may lead to mental illness or
death by suicide, particularly in cultures where failure is seen as shame. Depression is therefore,
a major dark trait that happens to engulf entrepreneurs when times are bad for their businesses.
They therefore, need to thicken their skin and stay put even when all is collapsing around them.
ii. Obsessive need to be in control
Some entrepreneurs, particularly those who start businesses by themselves and fail to involve
other parties in owning the company e.g. by sale of shares, have a tendency of wanting to be
overbearing in their control of their business. For this reason, they like to be involved in every
little decision or process that the business is involved in. much as they have the post of chief
executive officer or managing director, they fail to focus more on strategic issues for their
businesses but are instead deeply involved in the nitty-gritty of their company: why the van’s oil
was not changed, why a certain customer did not return to make business, where to procure the
next supply of stationery for the office(Arregle et al 2015).
In the case study given, despite GoPro grossing $350,000 in its first full year of sales,
Woodman did almost everything himself, with little assistance from his wife. He was, “the all-in-
one product engineer, R&D head, salesman and packaging model.” This is typical obsession with
wanting to be in control and being a micromanager on the part of the entrepreneur. He must have
undergone a lot of pressure and fatigue in that one year, making the $350,000 while performing
all the tasks of the company himself. Although it is remarkable that he was able to make the tidy
sum of $350,000 alone that year, in other circumstances he could have easily fatally broken
down. Although micromanagement or obsession with control has its downside, it also helps the