Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology

Running head: ENTREPRENUER BUISNESS PLANNING
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ENTREPRENUER BUISNESS PLANNING

ENTREPRENUER BUISNESS PLANNING
Executive Summary
In today’s world, leaders face complex challenges and keeps on flattering the
organization all rounds. Those who wish to become a leader can only become when there is a
combination of both intellectual as well as emotional strength as a trait in them. In this report,
one of the most renowned leaders, Naomi Simson, founder of red balloon has been taken as
an example to study what qualities and traits required becoming and entrepreneur along with
the implementation of theories of different author. Also, while carrying the research further,
orientation of a person has also been analyzed and it has been evident, how Naomi Simson’s
strategies and qualities are the real example of a true entrepreneur this world needs today and
he is nothing but a source of inspiration for others.

ENTREPRENUER BUISNESS PLANNING
Contents
Overview....................................................................................................................................4
Role in industry..........................................................................................................................4
Nature of work of entreprenuer..................................................................................................5
How she became an entrepreneur?.............................................................................................5
Traits of entrepreneurship..........................................................................................................6
Trait theory of leadership...........................................................................................................7
Motivational theory of Maslow..................................................................................................7
Contingency Theory...................................................................................................................8
Team building is essential..........................................................................................................8
Other traits of an entrepreneur as a leader..................................................................................9
Final discretion.........................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12

ENTREPRENUER BUISNESS PLANNING
Overview
Naomi Simson is an entrepreneur, born in 1964, from Australia. Along with being an
entrepreneur, she is a blogger and a businesswoman as well. She has been active in the
industry since 2001 as an entrepreneur. Before that, she has been working as a marketing and
sales officer in big shots like Apple, KPMG, IBM and Ansett. It was in 2001, that she got her
big break and became the founder of a company called Red Balloon, which was an online
experience gifting website. In the next decade, specifically in 2017, Naomi Simson co-
founded, along with Dave Anderson, a company called The Big Red Group, which became
the parent company of her existing companies (Simson, 2017).
Role in industry
In order to understand, Naomi Simson’s role in the industry, a greater understanding
of entrepreneurship is mandatory. An entrepreneur is a person that holds the ability to take
risk and bear uncertainty while executing his innovative ideas through his managerial skill
set, creative and leadership concepts, high achievement capacity, professionalism,
organization, coordination, business orientation, result orientation and the ability to recognize
potential and deploy potential in order to transform concepts into products. In the same light,
Naomi Simson can easily be classified as an entrepreneur. In 2001, she established her own
business, known as Red Balloon - an online experience gifting website, by investing her own
property for an office and a capital of twenty five thousand Australian Dollars. By putting
this much on stake, she certainly took a risk as the business was just established and it is
always uncertain if it will prosper, as it is said “Uncertainty bears risk, which can neither be
predicted nor be assured.” She not only took a risk but grew that company into a forty six
employee organization by putting in skills such as management, leadership, organization,
coordination, et cetera (Bush, Bell & Middlewood, 2019).

ENTREPRENUER BUISNESS PLANNING
Nature of work of entreprenuer
To place Naomi Simson in a specific category of entrepreneurs would be a study of
the nature of the work she does and her contributions to society. Entrepreneurs can be
classified into various groups such as Intrapreneur, a term coined by Gifford Pinchot in 1973,
which means an entrepreneur that is responsible for turning profits for an organization that he
works in; Technopreneur, an entrepreneur who works around technology to bring about a
revolution in the ways things are pursued in society already; Cultural Entrepreneur, a
business person who picks up elements of culture for greater good and makes profits out of
them; Economic/ Social/ Agriculturist Entrepreneurs, the ones who bring changes in the
lifestyle and economy related to their sector. The entrepreneur of current study, Naomi
Simson, can be classified as a Cultural Entrepreneur. Her venture, Red Balloon, picked an
element from youth culture - of gifting experiences, and made it convenient for the greater
good and in turn made profits out of it. She can also be called a Technopreneur, as she used
technology and entered technology to the world of gifting. It made gifting, specifically gifting
experiences to someone, easier and convenient with the use of technology (Thorpe, 2016).
How she became an entrepreneur?
Naomi Simson is a prime example of an entrepreneur with skills and flaws specific to
this field. Her plus points being management and leadership, while her shortcomings, as she
admits, being risk taking and anxiousness, are well discussed by critics and openly shared by
her, which then become learning opportunities for budding entrepreneurs and students of
business studies. It is so because she not only possessed skills suitable to her field but
sharpened them with time through her journey and overcame the flaws she had, instead of
dwelling upon them and making them obstacles in her path. As she writes, her biggest
shortcoming was that she often had this feeling that her business was overwhelming and as if
she was not the owner of her business but her business was the owner of her. Reasons being

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that she was constantly occupied with the never ending to-do lists and the thought that
although her team is always busy but are they doing the right work. Also, whether this
business and engagement be going to prove fruitful? All the thoughts and anxieties are
natural when you have so much at stake, so was the case with Naomi Simson (Willis, Clarke
& O'Connor, 2017). The element of uncertainty leads one to such a mental state which then
becomes shortcomings. However, Simson’s talents have always outshined her flaws, which
are obvious, looking at her full trajectory. Her talents being her beliefs “people are the center
of any business” hence entrusting them is the best decision he can make which will also help
her insecurities simultaneously. Her ability to employ peer to peer recognition and making
success celebration an everyday ritual also helped her shine as an entrepreneur (Oshagbemi,
2017).
Traits of entrepreneurship
Mindset is a very important factor when it comes to business and especially
entrepreneurship. One is surrounded by uncertain factors, all the commerce is variable inside
the organization and due to lack of recognition, there is very less support to budding
businesses. Hence, a positive outlook, enthusiasm and indefinite courage helps to sustain the
drier periods when the business is not getting any outer support, till the date it finally does
and takes on the upward trajectory (Goethals & Allison, 2016). The entrepreneur under study,
Naomi Simson, has a positive temperament with some obvious dashes of blues. Although, as
she admits in her blogs and interviews, she has been insecure and anxious about the
contributions her employees and partners were making in the initial phase of the business as
everybody was working but no productive work was being done but her plus point, her
optimism and calmness which tells her to keep faith in he people as they are the backbone
and the center of her business, helped her stay composed and wait for the day her business
hits the charts.

ENTREPRENUER BUISNESS PLANNING
Trait theory of leadership
As per the trait theory which suggests, administration is an early suspicion that
pioneers are conceived and because of this conviction, those that have the right characteristics
and qualities are more qualified to initiative. This hypothesis regularly recognizes social
attributes that are basic in pioneers. Naomi’s business orientation, or entrepreneurial
orientation, helped her attain success, as it is in any business venture, the basis of its growth
trajectory. It is the crafting of strategies to be followed while nurturing the business, keeping
in my mind to pursue something new by utilizing opportunities that others do not recognize
yet. It involves decision making, planning and following the same - the process. As per the
trait theories, Entrepreneurial Orientation is a subject to various factors like the autonomy in
the business venture, meaning the authority to make decisions; competitive aggressiveness,
meaning how further one wishes to go in order to distinguish oneself from others in the
market; Innovativeness, meaning newness; Pro activeness, meaning the ability to take actions
promptly and not letting the boat sail away; and risk taking. N. Simson’s entrepreneurial
orientation tends more towards innovation as her first project, Red Balloon, picked up a
common problem and gave an innovative solution that was ahead of its time. It also served as
an inspiration for others to pursue similar projects.
Motivational theory of Maslow
According to motivational theory of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, Needs drop down
in the chain of importance must be fulfilled before people can go to needs higher up. From
the base of the progression upwards, the necessities are: physiological, wellbeing, love and
having a place, regard, and self-realization. Amongst them motivation is the biggest factor to
pursue one's goals especially for an entrepreneur who pursues his goals usually amidst
unconventional, seldom unfavorable, and technologically and revoltingly gestating periods.
Naomi Simson also addresses the importance of motivation in her writings (Soni & Soni,

ENTREPRENUER BUISNESS PLANNING
2016). She suggests that it is mandatory for one to know the purpose of his project, the ‘why’,
as she calls it. Also, one must be ambitious about the ‘why’ and passionate enough to fulfill
that purpose in difficult times as well. The purpose, the cause, the belief, is what keeps one
driving, according to Simson. As Naomi shares in her interviews, her motivation has been
people who have done better for society than the society has done to them. Growing up, her
role models were entrepreneurs, her mother included (Johnson, 2019).
Contingency Theory
As the contingency theory suggest there must be a balance between behavior, needs
and context, the same can be reflected in work of Simson’s as she believed that one must
give back more to the society than the society has given to us is noble and portrays her
humble character. Through her business, Red Balloon, her agenda is to help small businesses
first and then secondly, to deliver gifts to consumers in their convenience. She proudly shares
that she has collaborated with two thousand small businesses through her first project, Red
Balloon and helps them thrive by bringing them clients through her website. This balance
between addressing cultural and social problems and making the lives of common people
easier and supporting the blooming industries and helping sustain while making profits for
oneself is a very noble and powerful way of playing one’s role in the society. Along with
making profits, which is a businessman’s primary goal, her motives never deviated from
doing well for the society. She is also an investor and philanthropist, and these spirits are
organically embedded in all her ventures as well, from Red Balloon to Redii (Harrison,
2018).
Team building is essential
Teamwork is another important attribute in business building. In her blogs and books,
Ready to Soar and Live What You Love, she speaks highly of teamwork and team spirit. To

ENTREPRENUER BUISNESS PLANNING
incorporate so, she suggests team building activities during work hours, which should be
inclusive of all, she stresses. One of her brain child, Redii, is all about team building and the
project focuses on peer to peer recognition. In her first workspace as well, soon after
establishing Red Balloon, she inspired everyone to celebrate small successes on a daily basis.
Even now, she suggests every business to not take out time from the working hours but
include it in the working hours to have activities that boost team morale and build team spirit
amongst colleagues. She adds, “Teams that play together, stay together”.
As much importance as Naomi Simson pays to teambuilding and to her belief that
“people are the center of a business”, in her initial phase of entrepreneurship in around 2001,
when she just began her journey, her major hurdles were around cooperating and organizing
her workforce. She relates her story to the story of Peter Hooymans, who was her friend and
the founder of Melbourne Real Estate. Peter could not sustain a workforce and his turnover
rate of employees was always more than the hiring rate. Naomi, in an interview for her show
‘Shark Tank’, shares that she has a similar story. Even her firm, Red Balloon, had a churn
rate of sixty four percent (Nawaz & Khan PhD, 2016). Nevertheless, Peter followed Naomi’s
action plan as they faced a similar situation - that was to divert attention on team building
rather than productivity and creating a friendly framework to execute a plan of action. Peter
and Simson both made the same mistake of pressuring their employees out of their own fears
of success and failure, hence ended up losing their workforce. Both of them, however,
acknowledged this problem and brought into their entrepreneurial orientation that people are
the backbone of their venture and employees is what keeps the company going (Agarwal,
2017).
Other traits of an entrepreneur as a leader
In the words of N. Simson, “great passion has energy and is infectious”. She began
her journey as a child with admiration in her eyes for other entrepreneurs, her mother

ENTREPRENUER BUISNESS PLANNING
included. She grew up to possess that energy of passion herself and infected many more
people with the same. Her channels being, TV shows like Shark tank, her books, her blogs,
interviews, et cetera. She is one of the most socially active entrepreneurs with a charming
personality. This has brought her more fame than any other male entrepreneur equally active
on social media and available in stores. Apart from being a businessperson and an
entrepreneur, she is a philanthropist as well, hence meeting people in need in person and
doing good to the society which is the best and the most organic way of networking. She gets
her popularity majorly from the TV show, Shark Tank, where she participates as a Shark and
makes investments towards budding entrepreneurs. Another way she has gained fame is
through her books, Ready to Soar and Live What You Love, and her blogs where she suggests
and shares her journey (Wildavsky, 2018).
Naomi’s journey has been an upward trajectory while she constantly pumped the
curve by releasing one after another brain child, all based on Information Technology. Her
first venture, Red Balloon - an online gifting portal which connects you to small service
vendors, was a work of latest technology. Similarly, her other project, Redii, a peer to peer
recognition software and platform was another wonder of the latest technology. Yet another
purchase made by her after performing the Big Red Group was Adrenaline, an online
Australian business, which was also ahead of its time in terms of technology but only lacked
the marketing and entrepreneurial tactics - a flaw that got covered when Naomi included it in
the Big Red Group of companies (Samaddar, 2018).
Final discretion
Naomi’s most supportive trait for her work has been her risk taking and risk bearing
attitude. Her ability to recognise potential and accept unconventional ideas by imagining
them quite realistically that how they will play once she launches them in the market is
unique. Her vision, along with the guts to take a risk, makes her stand out of the crowd. One

ENTREPRENUER BUISNESS PLANNING
such example could be Adrenaline, the Australian online business that was on the verge of
shutting down despite owning great technology and talented workforce. What Adrenaline
lacked was the vision and how to market their talent. On the other hand, these are the most
favorable traits that Simson has and she changed the game for Adrenaline after buying it and
including it in the Big Red Group of companies.
Naomi Simson is a big fish in the market and listening to her stories alone can even
motivate a child to do something. However, as a learner of the same field as this study,
Naomi Simson’s study redefines entrepreneurship and stands as an example of what an ideal
entrepreneur should be like. She checks all the points that one might study in theory but gets
to see rarely in the market. Her ethics, her practices, her values, her tacts and her passion are
remarkable but her strategies, her entrepreneurial orientation, her action plans and her
decision making are outstanding. Based on this study, an entrepreneur is someone who makes
good profits but only while moving in the direction of doing a greater good for the society.
He addresses problems from society and never creates them. If one has to draw a conclusion
from the study of Naomi Simson, a clear giveaway is that more than a person of Economics,
Commerce, or the Corporate, an entrepreneur is a person of the society (Johnson, 2019).

ENTREPRENUER BUISNESS PLANNING
References
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leadership of James MacGregor Burns. In Politics, Ethics and Change. Edward Elgar
Publishing.
Harrison, C. (2018). Leadership research and theory. In Leadership Theory and Research (pp.
15-32). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Johnson, S. L. (2019). Authentic Leadership Theory and Practical Applications in Nuclear
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Nawaz, Z. A. K. D. A., & Khan_ PhD, I. (2016). Leadership theories and styles: A literature
review. Leadership, 16(1), 1-7.
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