Innovation and Entrepreneurship: The Success Story of Elon Musk

This report explores the qualities that make Elon Musk a successful entrepreneur and innovator. It discusses his high vision, passion for innovation, and strategic decision-making. The report also highlights the challenges faced by SpaceX and evaluates Elon Musk's entrepreneurial performance in Tesla and other ventures.

INNOVATION &
ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1 Three Major Qualities of Elon Musk.....................................................................................3
Task 2 Three entrepreneurial challenges........................................................................................5
Task 3 Elon Musk Entrepreneurial performance.............................................................................6
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Innovation and entrepreneurship are two trending words for the business. It shows the
creativity to develop new idea or solution towards world. Innovation makes the process easy
which are unable to do previously. On the other hand, entrepreneurship help to bring the
innovation in real world. They develop business and propel the forward in market. Innovation
and entrepreneurship having the main real example of Elon Musk which is one of the
successful entrepreneurs and top richest person on earth. The founder of SpaceX, Tesla and
electricity venture is being founded by him. This report mentions the major three qualities that
makes Elon Musk a true entrepreneur, three challenges that are faced by SpaceX and
evaluating on major three companies invested by Elon Musk.
MAIN BODY.
Task 1 Three Major Qualities of Elon Musk.
For successful entrepreneur there are various quality needed that makes a true
successful entrepreneur and brings change in world. The major qualities that makes a true
entrepreneur and innovation is through his high vision, passion towards innovation and
technology, focus on the ultimate goal that he want to achieve (Thomas, and Maine, 2019). A
true entrepreneur always motivated towards it work and so Elon Musk who inspire many other
entrepreneurs who are working on innovation and developing new technology. Working on
new ideas of doing business, to develop new products and services are main focus he had made
in very stage of working. Elon Musk had many qualities that makes him successful entrepreneur
and few of the qualities are:
Entrepreneurship Spirit: The entrepreneur spirit is important for an entrepreneur to
become success. High spirit brings towards something to innovate something to develop a new
entity towards the world. Spirit brings Embodies commitment toward the work, focused
towards vision and calculating of risk in market with in-depth analysis. Exhibit determination to
face challenges and to overcome the obstacles. Elon Musk had learned much more from
disappointment and failure of projects majorly in SpaceX. Independent thinker and risk taker
during uncertainties is also brings important quality towards the innovation he wants to bring
forward for world. He had many failures toward the failure in his career from mechanical

failure in Tesla electric cars to rockets in SpaceX (Bilbeisi, and Kesse, 2017). These qualities
bring the success towards innovation and thinking different brings new ideas for the business
like Elon Musk invested in many other business that are working on innovation and ideas to
solve the problems in world that is being not used previously. For example: SpaceX is working
on a Prototype of SpaceX Starship Rocket for landing on Mars with people. He is working on
moving of another planet, and they invite customers to be a part for the same. PayPal was
voted as worst business concept of the year but through strategies Elon musk and
entrepreneurship spirit that he followed (Trujillo, 2017).
Passion for Innovation: Elon Musk is a true passionate towards innovation that shows
true entrepreneur as he is originator to new technology or approaches that is being developed
and adopt by him to make more innovative progress in his business. It offers more innovative
products or achievement in business that is analysed before anyone else thinks. Acknowledge
business imperative of anticipating and grip with changes occurring in market through constant
improvement in business aspects. Elon Musk also create a culture of innovation in many of new
entrepreneurs and inspire other to keep up with progress to changes in innovations for the
business and for world. Highly passionate towards the innovation is one of major reason that
Elon Musk had being a successful to bring innovation in business. For example: Tesla cars have
world's latest technology which is being makes one of the safest and one of the fastest cars in
world. Elon Musk is the reason Behind Autopilot feature in cars that is being developed by him
in Tesla with innovation and new technology used, however still working on developing
technology and innovations towards same (van Balen, 2019). But sometimes, it also involves
huge cost where Elon Musk is working for. The failure of project also create huge loss and
suffers from those losses. Elon Musk venture Tesla was failing hard before it become profitable
that affect the business and losses that are unable to cover but Elon Musk passion make
venture success at very peak point.
Strategic Decision: The true entrepreneur makes the vision into business and Elon Musk
had created his vision into a successful venture. His main vision is to know about the space and
landing on Mars with people. Further, he somewhat gets success in this vision and still working
on same to get Ultimate success. Build and rebuild the of commitment from team on project to

achieve a common goal through inspiring and motivating team of SpaceX and Tesla. The
strategic alliance with other venture is one of the main strategic prepared by Elon Musk for
achieving the goal. The strategies which are followed by him are very different and unique that
makes a great entrepreneur and innovator toward company. While sometimes strategies are
not worked properly and Elon Musk also found failures many times. For example: Elon Musk
fails in Three SpaceX rocket launches and failure in Tesla mechanical as well. Failures and
rejection from Netscape and Ousted at ZIP2 but effective strategies makes Elon Musk success of
venture through strategic decision and innovation and technology.
Task 2 Three entrepreneurial challenges
There are many challenges that are faced by Elon Musk on the recent launch of Starship
by SpaceX (Muegge, and Reid, 2019). These challenges are occurring from public and private
which had faced by Elon Musk during their Starship program. The major Three challenges are: Commercial market stagnation and civil space safety : The demands for Geo Satcom
launches has stagnated in a year of 2016 which falls after making average of 17 per year
between 2003 and 2015. Average remains at 8 launches per year which make
downwards in demand. Arianespace, SpaceX the biggest competitor in the market and
need 10 per year remain in viable. To remain in market and compete with other
competitor and to dominate the market, SpaceX offer cut rate price for placing a
communication satellites in geosynchronous orbit to remain above from a specific
points on earth surface travelling at a thousand of miles per hours as they match
rotation of the planet. Whereas, safety culture of astronauts for human space flights is
considered the most, but culture can influence the design of choice, operational
behaviour of risk and other matters considering the astronauts safety. Also, only SpaceX
is a company that proposes fuel its rocket while astronauts are on board. But face
challenges by SpaceX are according to NASA that is expecting the safety culture of their
astronauts (Nambisan,Wright and Feldman, 2019). Access to Military Market: One of the biggest challenges that is faced by Starship of
SpaceX program. The award of development contract for a new generation of launch
vehicle where four companies are participated including SpaceX and is only company

which didn't received any award. Elon Musk the biggest challenges that he faced as he is
struggle for years to get the military launch certification of SpaceX workhorse Falcon 9
Rocket. Military is disappointed with the Rocket as it offers with other plans. SpaceX can
still work for second phrase of the program, but government refuse to funding
development of a new rocket engine for SpaceX. It was previously known as the Big
Falcon Rocket, and name Super heavy Starship. It is the biggest rocket ever build which
is suitable for mission to Mars, but US Air Force seemingly looking for something
prosaic an upgraded version of Falcon 9 (Baubonienė, and et.al., 2019). Elon Musk one
of the major vision to enter the Military market access which was unable to achieve by
him and working more for the same.
 Big capital involved: Another big challenges that is faced by Elon Musk during their
Starship program is huge capital requirement for the production and function. Going to
Mars is an expensive factor which required all sort of costly equipment that are even
not exist and need to be developed for Mars program. Elon Musk fails to join the
program and unable to convince Air Force to foot the bill for developing its super Heavy
Starship which is capable to carry a hundred astronauts at once. However, SpaceX face
challenges in lack of findings and looking for necessary findings through outside or
internal sources. Further cost of 7500 small satellites in a constellation capable of
furnish internet service around the world. It might offer big revenue opportunities from
the launch area but for encourage demand for the same, involve high investment cost.
This projects carries such a huge cost that other companies are not interest to
continuous with such a project (Ashmarina, Mantulenko,and Troshina, 2019). It is
managed only when the high returns are associated with a successful tech company.
SpaceX if finding difficulties to investment plan and ability to raise necessary funds.
Task 3 Elon Musk Entrepreneurial performance
One of the biggest success and entrepreneurial performance of Elon Musk is Tesla. The
Tesla Motors is specialized in electric auto-mobile making. Tesla launches roadster, the S model
in 2009, model X and latest Tesla model 3. These cars run on Lithium battery cell. This is one of
the most publish cars due to new approaches arises by Elon Musk and motive to reduce the

cost of electric cars and maintain as a mainstream car in market. Leadership of Elon Musk has
realized profits to Tesla (idrat, and Frikha, 2018). The main objective of company is to create
zero carbon emission through electric cars which are far better than gasoline auto-mobiles and
to increase the advent of sustainable transport. They are not only working on an auto-maker,
but they are also focused on energy innovations. Tesla cars are providing high tech models cars
with luxury experience to consumers and Tesla S Model is one of the success product in market
with top ratings and score almost full in every field of aspect. The cars are of high performance
and include 0-60mph in less than 3.9 seconds and zero maintenance of cars up to 100,000
miles. They also try to make cheaper cars for that can be affordable to others which are under
$40,000. Other gasoline production car makers like BMW and Mercedes-Benz are also started
their production into electric cars. Tesla is working to minimize the carbon emission, shifting
customer expectation technology advancement. Critically, major problem is mass adoption of
electric cars in market to use and their cost that is being charged by Tesla (Zeb, and Ihsan,
2020). The future plans of Tesla is that they are not adopting the model of distribution channel
through franchise or dealers, but they are selling directly to consumers which create the
international network of company and having own showrooms in urban centres. On
contradictory on this Tesla is nearly collapsed in 2008 financial crises, Tesla needed cash to fund
to produce Model S and makes Elon musk bankrupt. Elon Musk sunk $35 million into company.
Tesla has developed the car in a manner that technician easily fix some problem from
office as Model S was having fully wireless upload data. But it also makes some difficulty to
company as they sometimes unable to find problems is there are major problems. Also,
supercharger station are established to charge their vehicle for 30 minutes free to increase the
demand of electric cars. But on the other side, at a time of high demand of electric cars Tesla is
unable to meet demand of Model S and a thousand of customers are waiting for the turn to
purchase it. It is due to their lack of production capacity and include high cost of investment.
The technology which is used by Tesla in their cars are very high tech and one of the Key
feature is autopilot feature which is an advance driver assistance system feature which have
traffic aware cruise control, self parking, lane centring, automatic lane changes and ability to
summon the car from parking spot. But some people criticize the feature that is not properly

working, Tesla had found many challenges in autopilot features that has damage their car (Li,
2017). While Tesla is working on the feature to make accurate and uncertainties can be avoided
through these features.
Tesla is being developed in other couturiers of Asia, Europe to expand the growth of
company. To increase the demand in the other market, Tesla had start investing in
infrastructure of company in countries like India where production of lithium batteries are
planned to produce by Elon Musk. But on the other hand due to different rules and
infrastructure in other countries, Tesla may or may be fit in the market segment whereas their
features which cannot be used by people due to lack of infrastructure, technology and other
factors that is necessary for Tesla working successfully.
Therefore, cost is also one of the major factor that is being unable to paid by customers
in different market. But Tesla USP is safety and luxury in their models can attract the customer
to purchase Tesla Model (Liu, and Zhang, 2018). Elon Musk had face many challenges in their
projects which are set up in new different areas, working on technology and innovation makes
one of the successful entrepreneur in the world. The entrepreneur skills and knowledge help to
get success in every venture that he had found or work on. The other major successful business
venture which is being working by Elon Musk are PayPal where online financial services and
payments are being made and hyperloop project for high speed transportation system through
tubes in minimum time and fastest manner. Other project of SpaceX the outside space station
where he is trying to land on Mars.
CONCLUSION
The report concludes that Elon Musk is one of the greatest entrepreneur which is being
working on technology and innovation. Having qualities of entrepreneur shows the successful
story of Elon Musk and qualities that help to motivate to work and develop new things on
technology and innovation. The main project of Elon Musk are producing electric cars, SpaceX,
PayPal and creating hyperloop. The major qualities make Elon Musk a great entrepreneur is
spirit if working, passion towards technology and innovation and strategic decision that is being
used in project to get success. Further, challenges that is being faced by SpaceX during their
Starship programs is being analysed where he found difficulties to convince Military and unable

to raise fund. Lastly, it shows the Elon Musk entrepreneurial performance and its shortcoming
on Tesla which is being faced by company in order to achieve its vision that is reducing zero
carbon emission by using lithium batteries instead of Gasoline.

REFERENCES
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