Thomas Edison: My Model Entrepreneur

Tell us about your model entrepreneur and you consider them as your role model.

The model Entrepreneur I have selected is Thomas Edison.

Thomas Alva Edison was born in February 11, 1847, and lived to become recognised as one of the world’s greatest inventor that ever existed. Edison was a passionate innovator from a young age and dedicated his life towards building inventions and occupying ideas. He was recorded of having 1,093 patents and some of his renown inventions were the phonograph, motion picture projector and the electric light bulb. (Brendan, 2020) Not only was Thomas Edison naturally gifted with his creative mindset and the desire to experiment and build things, he was extremely hard-working and able to use those great ideas to test and create life changing inventions. However, a significant reason why I dedicate Thomas Edison as my model entrepreneur was his determination and perseverance to achieve his goals despite the hardships he had faced along the way. Thomas Edison was not raised in a wealthy family or receivable of sufficient support throughout his career but tragically instead from a young age Edison had developed hearing problems which had impacted his schooling; having difficulty learning as well as hearing on just day to day basis. As his hearing became worse, Edison had troubled learning at school and instead dedicated a lot of his time towards reading after receiving books from his parents. For me this showcases that nothing stopped Thomas Edison and despite his difficulties he never gave up and always looked for alternative ways when barriers appeared, ultimately achieving revolutionary outcomes.

What entrepreneurial traits and characteristics do you draw from them?

I think the aptitude Thomas Edison had was truly inspiring and though his background circumstances cannot be attributed to his entrepreneurial traits he still proved to become a very successful man. Moreover, when he worked on an invention and things did not work out the way he expected, he did not show signs of giving up; constantly trying to identify errors in his experiments and find alternative ways to fix issues and improve methodologies that would help his inventions come to light.

In essence, we can learn from this as Edison clearly proved that it does not matter what kind of background we come from, debunking the myth that entrepreneurs are born, and they are naturally gifted or have family background to achieve entrepreneurial success. Edison physically exemplified and was the epitome of showing us that what matters and should be prioritized is effort an individual should put and the perseverance they should have to turn a dream into reality.

Furthermore, Thomas Edison’s ability to pay great attention to detail was a huge factor that can be linked to the success of his inventions. Despite, Edison not actually discovering the electric bulb he is largely credited for it because he was able to identify and pick up on mistakes or issues other inventors had earlier projected. After going through many painful and obsessive attempts of trying to create a practical light source that could be used in household, Thomas Edison’s breakthrough came when he tested and found the right material, the carbonized cotton thread in the light bulb.

How do you think you will be able to adapt and adopt these of entrepreneurial traits and characteristics into your future entrepreneurial strategies?

Thomas Edison’s inventions were a huge success and not only was it a profitable idea it also had a huge impact socially bringing us to the world we live in today with high tech digital innovations and entertainments, ultimately laying out the modern foundation. I think it is really important to realise that in today’s age it’s difficult to come up with purely original innovations and that we will constantly improvise or use ideas that already exist and just improve upon them to fit each business or individuals motivation as Thomas Edison also did with the electric light bulb.

One significant difference between Thomas Edison and todays people including myself is the drastically different world we are living in. Thomas Edison’s inventions were mostly worked alone as it was common in those times, however in the modern era it is all about teamwork and collaboration which brings to the point that things need to be done in accordance with team principles and one cannot persist or show selfishness within the team. However, when working in a team environment knowing that there will always be failure like Thomas Edison constantly faced and always learning from the mistakes and improving will definitely be a huge asset when working in a group environment.