Entrepreneurial Analysis of GoPro: Marketing, Traits & Future Risks

This case study explores GoPro's entrepreneurial journey, focusing on Nick Woodman's strategies and the company's marketing approach. It examines the traits associated with entrepreneurship, both positive and negative, and justifies Peter Drucker's assertion that entrepreneurship is a discipline to be learned. The analysis delves into GoPro's marketing strategies for achieving a competitive advantage, highlighting the use of athletes and live presentations. Furthermore, the study identifies potential threats to GoPro's future, such as financial crises and sustainability challenges, and provides recommendations for mitigating these risks. The case study concludes that while Woodman's adventurous spirit contributed to GoPro's success, maintaining discipline and addressing potential threats are crucial for long-term sustainability. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and study tools for students.

ENTRETRENEURSHIP

Executive Summary
The writing would explore the GoPro business regressively and would acknowledge the
working and the strategies of the business which has provided the success to the concerned
business. Nick Woodman has been the founder and the creator of the business and the case
study would represent his working and dealing strategies. The entrepreneurship business
would be explored through GoPro exploration and this would provide a wide and
understanding view of the concept. The traits which represents the darker side of the
entrepreneurship would be stated followed by the justification to the statement of Peter
Drucker that entrepreneurship is a discipline to be learnt and not an in born talent. These facts
would be followed by the exploration of Gopro marketing strategy and the threats that the
business could face in the near future.

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Three major traits associated with the dark side of Entrepreneurship.......................................4
Entrepreneurship is a discipline Act or not. Justify...................................................................5
Journey of GoPro for achieving Competitive Advantage through its marketing processes......6
Identification of Threats for GoPro in future and recommendations for mitigating it...............7
Conclusion/Recommendations...................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................9

Introduction
Entrepreneurship has been one of the most attractive and practiced type of business which has
gained popularity and fame but working as an entrepreneur requires high rate of dedication
and motivation. As an entrepreneur is the sole creator and planner of the business, the
percentage of responsibility is high in this category and thus the accuracy of decision making
and the problem solving skill along with the management skill is required for sustaining and
growing as an entrepreneur. On exploring the various famous entrepreneur’s cases and
journey, it would be easy to understand the exact and the correct path that the entrepreneur
follows. The traits of entrepreneurship concerning the darker side of it would help in
understanding the struggle and the issues or challenges that an entrepreneur goes through
(Kirzner, 2015). The analysis of the words of Peter Drucker concerning entrepreneurship
would help in justifying the fact that entrepreneurship is more of a discipline that one needs
to learn regressively or it is an in born talent. GoPro has been one of the businesses which
could be explored in order to gain the facts about the path that entrepreneurship needs to
follow and it would also help in acknowledging the loopholes that existed in the concerned
business and its impact on the life span of the business would also be recognised (Dees,
2017). The strategies taken up by GoPro for creating the competitive advantage would help in
understanding the accuracy of an entrepreneurship that is required.
Three major traits associated with the dark side of Entrepreneurship
The entrepreneurship demands a person to be multi-talented and should have the capability of
handling absurd situations in the simplest manner. Though the requirement of entrepreneur
personality demands multiple features, there exist some darker side of the same. As in case of
Nick Goodman, who developed an idea of cinema grade mini camera which was rare still he
struggled for four years and yet he did not succeed in establishing his business well (Kuratko,
2016). This could have been because of the dark side of the entrepreneurship or the traits
which are associated with the darker side of the entrepreneurship existed in his personality or
working style. The three major traits which could be the cause of the failure of
entrepreneurship or are associated with the darker side of the entrepreneurship are as follows:
 The foremost trait is the “desire for applause”, this trait conveys that the entrepreneur
has been expecting others just to appreciate his work and was not prepared for the
dislikes from the customers or clients. This attitude where the entrepreneur walks
towards the arrogance attitude and builds up the concept that his product or business
idea s perfect in every sense, is the situation where the space of future growth or

transformations gets limited (Burns, 2016). An entrepreneur should carry a flexible
attitude which helps in building up an impression. Though he should be confident
about his idea of business or product he is providing but if the client or the customer
is demanding some changes he should consider it.
 One of the most experienced and in action trait is the “sense of distrust”, which
reflects that the entrepreneur carries the attitude of not trusting any one. Being
sceptical, could lead to the downfall of the entire business and this could lead to the
failure of the idea (Zahra and George, 2017). Though it is necessary to assess the
people closely and accurately but if the entrepreneur would not trust the people then
he could never begin his business. As trust is important for building up relationship
with the customers as well as with the employees.
 The third trait associated with the darker side of entrepreneurship is the “need of
control”, this reflects that the entrepreneur wants to control each and every action as
that takes place in the business. This could be applicable in the small sized businesses
but as the business grows, this could lead to severe circumstances. No person would
desire to be controlled be dominated, smooth and trustworthy relationship needs to be
developed.
Entrepreneurship is a discipline Act or not. Justify
As stated by peter Drucker, that entrepreneurship is not a magic or an in born talent, but is a
discipline which needs to be learnt. On acknowledging the case of GoPro, it has been
observed that Nick Woodman, the entrepreneur and the founder of GoPro cameras, has been
carrying a personality of positive attitude who loves experiments and challenges. This reflects
that Woodman’s success or his journey in GoPro has been of immense importance, though he
has been of jolly nature and loves to experiment but he always maintained a discipline in his
thoughts and the way he carried out his business tasks (Hitt et al. 2017). The idea of the
GoPro cameras though was initiated through an experiment which he took seriously and
made it his dream and he achieved the dream through accurately channelizing his path
(Eproxymaterials.com, 2019). Though, Woodman has been carrying a positive attitude in
front of the world, he has been planning for the betterment of the company at the back of his
mind and reflects the discipline he has been maintaining in his work. He has been facing
financial crisis in the year 2008, he regained his position in the year 2014 which has been the
consequence of his discipline (Cooper and Folta, 2017). Woodman has been presenting
himself as a jolly person but his aggression has always been accompanied by discipline and

focused work which provided him with sheer success. Though sustaining the success was
tough and the business lapsed in 2008, but he didn’t gave up and believed himself.
Journey of GoPro for achieving Competitive Advantage through its marketing
processes
Nick Woodman has always taken up the route of attracting the people at large through his
friendly and gel up personality which he also utilised in his business promotions and other
activities. The marketing activity that he took up has been completely different from his
competitors which actually presented the business and its product in a manner that reflects its
popularity in its users. The case provided explains that after about 72 hours of ski trip to Big
Sky country, the media team of Gopro were present about half a mile off the coast of Half
Moon Bay, Calif in the watercraft which is generally utilised by the Navy Seals (Klotz and
Neubaum, 2016). It was noticed that about two hundred yards away, the best surfers around
the globe hurtle down the famed mavericks surf break armed with longboards, hubris and
GoPros. This helped in reflecting the use of the GoPro cameras by the best surfers of the
world which created an impression on the people at large and the media present there
presented this in favour of the business. Almost all the athletes favouring the product of
GoPro has been of national and international level which also created an impression on the
media and thus, the marketing of the business was done accurately (Boudreaux et al. 2019).
These considerations helped in creating the brand image of the camera and along with the
live presentation of the use of cameras by the athletes helped in creating the competitive
advantage. It has been mentioned that Sony sale was lesser than GoPro in the year 2014
December (Gopro.com, 2019).This reflected the marketing and the competitive advantage
that the business has been enjoying. GoPro being the first mount company which sourced to
cameras. Thus, these facts represents the path through which GoPro gained the competitive
advantage in the market and the marketing strategy that helped the business in achieving this
advantage has been quite different and realistic. Nick’s personality and his positive yet
challenging attitude has been the main reason for this growth of the business and the
marketing strategies has been quite trendy and out of box which attracted the attention of
people and thus, the business gained through it. Marketing strategy is an important part of the
business and it is even said that a business could grow and expand if its marketing is done
appropriately (Investor.gopro.com, 2019). It’s not about the usage of the product that is
important, marketing strategy should be such that it creates the usage of the product need for
the customers.

Identification of Threats for GoPro in future and recommendations for mitigating it
The path that has been followed by the GoPro business and till date, it has been considering
one motto and that is serving the people with the best and some new useful cameras. This
concept of the business has been gained through the attitude of Nick which represents the
adventurous and challenging nature of life and taking on something new and different every
time brings on some new concepts and results which lead to success. Though Nick has been
known for his extra ordinary foundations but there has been many wrong decisions taken by
him in his business too which has not been given importance to. The debt that he owes to
himself was of $30000, $35000 to his mother, and $200000 to his father (Investor.gopro.com,
2019). This reflects the failures of Nick. As the company has been facing financial crisis in
the year 2008, though the business regained them, there still exist multiple threats to the
business in the near future.
 The foremost threat is the threat of financial crisis which could take place in the
business due to the avoidance of risk that exist in the competitive scenario. The debts
and the loans that the company owes should be paid back initially so that in future the
debt do not create pressure on the company and the intense competition needs to be
met through creating a sustainability scenario.
 Sustainability is the second threat that the business would face in future as on
reaching the highest point of success, the next step is to decline or to sustain. The
sustainability could be achieved through maintaining a balance in the financial flow of
the business.
The threats has been acknowledged through understanding the past experiences and actions
of the business which also reflects the crisis of 2008 and thus, it is expected that through the
stated recommendations, the GoPro business could sustain its success and thus be among the
top companies of camera (Annualreports.com, 2019). There exist multiple other threats too
but those could be mitigated through mitigating the above two most impacting threats. The
threats mentioned above carry intense and negative consequences which could even dissolve
the company.
Conclusion/Recommendations
On assessing the different aspects of entrepreneurship and the traits that need to be followed
and the ones which should not be followed, has helped in understanding the accuracy and the
sensitivity that needs to be maintained in the entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurship
businesses. The words of Peter Druker has rightly been acknowledged and has been proved

correct through presenting the case of GoPro and the way Nick Woodman has maintained the
discipline in his work has provided him with fruitful results. Entrepreneurship is a sensitive
business and a small or a single mistake in any of the situations could lead to downfall of the
company. GoPro has been one of the business of entrepreneur nature which has gained
success through its entrepreneurs’ positive and disciplined nature. The thought process has
been quite different which has been reflected in the marketing strategy of the business.
Though the entrepreneurship is a sensitive and accuracy seeking business, it is recommended
that the entrepreneur business should bring along with it a leading capability to an
entrepreneur. Nick Woodman has been carrying a leading attitude but with a positive aspect.

References
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