MNG91002 Entrepreneurship and Marketing
MNG91002 Entrepreneurship and Marketing
Paper Details
This assignment should be 100% free from plagiarism. Please see the attach files for this assignment. This assignment is based on GoPro case study. All questions in this assignment are based on this case tudy. Questions are divided into two parts like entrepreneurship and marketing. The answers should be based on the Case study. Please follow the all instructions which are available in the attachment files in this assignment.
MNG91002 Entrepreneurship and Marketing
Aim
The following questions are all based on the GoPro case study published in the Forbes Magazine. Basing your
arguments on the topics that you have studied throughout the unit, write a report addressing all of the
following questions. The report/questions will cover both aspects of the unit.
Assignment structure and marking allocation
Part A
Entrepreneurship (25 marks)
Question 1: Entrepreneurs have been identified as having certain traits and characteristics. Discuss the extent
to which GoPro founder Nick Woodman exemplifies these traits and characteristics. Justify your response with
reference to academic sources (e.g. academic journal articles, textbooks, etc.). (10 marks)
Question 2: Peter Drucker, a leading scholar in the fields of entrepreneurship and marketing, is cited in your
unit material numerous times. When speaking of entrepreneurship, Drucker once stated: Most of what you
hear about entrepreneurship is all wrong. Its not magic; its not mysterious; and it has nothing to do with
genes. Its a discipline and like any discipline it can be learnt.
What evidence exists in the GoPro case study that supports and/or refutes this statement? Ensure your
argument(s) are developed through direct reference to concepts, tools and techniques evident in the unit
material. (15 marks)
Part B
Marketing and Strategic Planning (60 marks)
The role of planning within the firm has been discussed at length in this unit. We introduced aspects of
entrepreneurial planning and explored how marketing planning gives direction to both corporate planning and
marketing management.
Question 1: How did GoPro gain a competitive advantage from their marketing processes? Provide a
theoretical analysis of the reasons for the achievement of this advantage. (30 marks)
Page 2 of 2
Question 2: The GoPro case study specifically identifies future threats to the companys strategy. Provide a
theoretical analysis of this threat scenario and give recommendations on how GoPro should respond to this.
(30 marks)
Academic rigour (15 marks)
This is a substantial piece of scholarly work and will require extensive engagement with both unit theory and
the case study.
Your arguments have to be based on concepts and tools discussed in the first 5 topics of this unit and must
be supported through direct reference to academic literature (academic journal articles, academic books,
etc.). Your report will be assessed based on your ability to develop and argument supported by academic
sources (please also refer to marking criteria). Therefore, newspapers, magazines, website opinion pages or
Websites like Wikipedia etc. are certainly not acceptable as foundation for your arguments. All sources
must be properly referenced.
However, you are encouraged to undertake further research on GoPro to gain a deeper understanding of
the case (e.g. financials, company vision and mission statements, investor relations, etc.). The GoPro
website and other trustworthy non-academic sources are acceptable in this context and this context only. If
you use further information for the case study, make sure you reference your sources correctly. If you are
unsure whether your sources are appropriate, seek your tutors advice.
Assignments strictly have to be within the word limit (- / + 10 %)
School extension policy
Students wanting an extension must make a request at least 24 hours before the assessment item is due and
the request must be received in writing by the unit assessor or designated academic.
Extensions within 24 hours of submission or following the submission deadline will not be granted (unless
supported by a doctors certificate or where there are exceptional circumstances this will be at unit
assessors discretion and will be considered on a case by case basis). Extensions will be for a maximum of 48
hours (longer extensions supported by a doctors certificate or exceptional circumstances to be considered on
a case by case basis).
A penalty of 10% of the total available grade will accrue for each 24 hour period that an assessment item is
submitted late. Therefore an assessment item worth 20 marks will have 2 marks deducted for every 24 hour
period and at the end of 10 days will receive 0 marks.
Extensions will NOT be approved because of problems with personal computers or storage devices. Back up
your work every day to a secure location.
The Mad Billionaire Behind GoPro: The Worlds Hottest Camera Company Forbes 22/10/2014 21:45
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2013/03/04/the-mad-billionaire-behind-gopro-the-worlds-hottest-camera-company/print/ Page 1 of 8
http://onforb.es/XEDJGn
FORBES 3/04/2013 @ 6:59AM 433,416 views
The Mad Billionaire Behind
GoPro: The Worlds Hottest
Camera Company
This story appears in the March 25, 2013 issue of Forbes.
Comment Now
GoPro founder and CEO Nick Woodman poses with his signature camera. (Photo: Eric Millette for Forbes)
Nick Woodman is 37 years old. His constantly tousled sepia hair and
permanent, mischievous half-grin make him look 27. And he acts 17, as I learn
30,000 feet above the Rocky Mountains, after Woodman packed me, his wife,
Jill, and a dozen of his favorite colleagues and buds into a chartered
Gulfstream III en route to Montanas Yellowstone Club, the most exclusive ski
hill in the U.S.
Already hopped up on Red Bull, tempered by a liter of coconut water,
Woodman darts about the cabin, occasionally breaking conversation to
unleash his trademark excited wail that friends liken to a foghorn.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEOW. A flight attendant emerges with breakfast on a
Ryan Mac Forbes Staff
I cover technology and billionaires for the rest of the 99.9999999%.
The Mad Billionaire Behind GoPro: The Worlds Hottest Camera Company Forbes 22/10/2014 21:45
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silver platter. You know what the best thing about morning ski trips are? he
asks the cabin rhetorically. McDonalds! And with that he inhales a
McGriddle in all of three bites.
The man-teen routine is more than an act: Its the recipe for how hes become
one of Americas newest and youngest billionaires. A decade ago Woodman
craved a camera he could strap to his wrist so that his buddies could see his
surfing exploits. The result is now a consumer phenomenon called GoPro,
Americas fastest-growing digital imaging company.
Go anywhere active these days, whether its the mountains of Vail or the
scuba-diving depths of Honolulus Hanauma Bay, and youre bound to see a
GoPro or 20. Kids these days dont film their wave rides or half-pipe tricks.
They GoPro them, strapping the $200 to $400 cameras to helmets,
handlebars and surfboards. The cinema-grade, panoramic point-of-view
footage that comes out of a GoPro transforms mere mortals into human
highlight reels, without blowing a huge hole in the budget. Shaun White, who
says he used to tape old cameras to his hand, used GoPros on his runs during
the Winter X Games. Hollywood directors, including Michael Bay, keep crates
of them on set. The NFL has tested them in their end zone pylons to capture
touchdown replays. The Rolling Stones deployed them on stage. Police forces
and the U.S. military have started to incorporate the cameras into training
exercises. Woodman, who calls it a life camera, proved the point by wearing
one on his chest at the deliveries of his sons. On the plane to Montana,
Woodmans GoPro crew rigged their devices in every cranny in the cabin,
including on the pilots heads, to document their journey.
GoPro sales have more than doubled every year since the first cameras debut
in 2004. In 2012 the company sold 2.3 million cameras and grossed $521
million, according to Woodman; with $100 million in sales in January alone,
that annual figure should again double this year. For the month of December
GoPro was the highest-grossing digital imaging brand at Best Buy, knocking
out Sony for the first time in the chains history. Just ten years old, GoPro was
responsible for 21.5% of digital camcorder shipments nationwide in the first
half of 2012, according to IDC data. Among pocket camcorders that figure
swells to a third.
This type of growth and niche dominance have made for a rad business
proposition, with Chinese electronics manufacturer Hon Hai Precision
Industry Co., better known as Foxconn, making a $200 million investment in
GoPro in December. That valued the San Mateo, Calif. firm at $2.25 billion
and shot Woodman, who sources say still owns about 45% of the company,
onto the FORBES World Billionaires list with a net worth of $1.3 billion.
The Mad Billionaire Behind GoPro: The Worlds Hottest Camera Company Forbes 22/10/2014 21:45
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Its a head-spinning turn of events for a 37-year-old Peter Pan running a
billion-dollar technology company. As he barrels through Yellowstones
freshly groomed powder in a pea-green helmet, its clear hes found bliss.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOW, he howls from his bloodied and chapped lips as
he GoPros his every turn.
Forbes
Worlds Billionaires 2013: Nicholas Woodman
The Worlds Billionaires The names, numbers and stories behind the 1,426 people who control
the global economy. In Pictures: The Richest People on the Planet
As the youngest of four children, Woodman has always been something of a
schemer. Growing up in Silicon Valleys prosperous Atherton (his father
brokered Pepsis purchase of Taco Bell), he was, as his teachers recall, a
supremely confident boy who wasnt afraid to challenge those in charge.
There was always a smile on his face, either a great big one or a kind of sly,
smirky thing, said Craig Schoof, Woodmans former baseball coach and
history teacher. There was the, yeah, Im happy or the yeah, Im happy, and
Im planning something. He once made a fiver by betting a biology teacher
he could run a mile under 6 minutes (he ran it in 5:40).
The Mad Billionaire Behind GoPro: The Worlds Hottest Camera Company Forbes 22/10/2014 21:45
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Woodman focused more on sports than books, maintaining a B+ average and
copping a middling SAT score. He eventually became wave-obsessed,
attending the University of California, San Diego because of its proximity to
sunshine and salt water. I remember my parents not being very supportive
of it, he says. But if I didnt follow my passion for surfing
I would have
never come up with the concept to make a wrist camera.
That concept came a few years after college after an online gaming service he
started, Funbug, went belly-up in the dot-com crash of 2000-01, taking with it
$3.9 million of investors money. Id never failed at anything before except
computer science engineering classes, he says. So it was like, Holy st,
maybe Im not capable of doing this.
To get his head straight again, Woodman lit out on a surf odyssey through
Australia and Indonesia, one last big trip before what he figured would
become a life of comfortable middle-class monotony. He brought a
contraption hed made out of a broken surfboard leash and rubber bands that
allowed him to dangle a Kodak disposable camera to his wrist for easy
operation when the perfect wave hit. Close friend and current GoPro creative
director Brad Schmidt met Woodman in Indonesia and became one of the
first to toy with the strap. One of his first observations: Woodman needed a
camera durable enough to take the wear and tear of the sea. Five months into
being a surf bum, a recharged Woodman returned to California with the seed
of an idea.
Woodman, then 27, holed up in the house he shared in Moss Beach, Calif.,
just over the hills from Silicon Valley. He checked out from his normal life,
including friends and family, locking himself in his beachside bedroom to
build his first prototypes. Deciding that he had to sell the strap, the camera
and the casing, he armed himself with a drill and his mothers sewing
machine and strapped a Camelback filled half with Gatorade and half with
water to his back (negating the 30-second walk to the kitchen) for 18-hour
work sessions. Id have a sliding door to the outside so I could just go take a
pee out on the bushes out on the side, Woodman recalls. He gave himself
four years to make it work before he would drop his idea and enter the
workforce. I was so scared that I would fail again that I was totally
committed to succeed.After he took off, he was like, I think Im going to
start this wrist strap company for surfers, says Schmidt, who was skeptical.
Says Woodman: I thought to myself, If I made a few hundred grand a year,
Im, like, in heaven.
Between sewing together old wetsuit material and drilling holes in raw plastic,
Woodman was constantly trolling online and at trade shows for a camera he
could modify and license as his own. He settled on a $3.05 35-millimeter
model made in China, sending his plastic cases and $5,000 on a prayer to an
The Mad Billionaire Behind GoPro: The Worlds Hottest Camera Company Forbes 22/10/2014 21:45
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unknown entity named Hotax. Woodman received his 3-D models and
renderings a few months later and sold his first product in September 2004 at
an action-sports trade show in San Diego.
That was the first validation for Woodman, whose friends thought their
former surfing buddy had held his breath underwater for a little too long. Neil
Dana, his roommate and first hire, recalls a work-obsessed guy constantly
fixated on success. We would be at a party, Dana recalls, and he would
come up the stairs and be like, Dude, check this out, this is how were going to
become millionaires! Woodman was only three zeroes off.
GoPro grossed $350,000 in its first full year of sales. Woodman was the allin-one
product engineer, R&D head, salesman and packaging model. He and
Dana rang up surf shops across the country hoping to get some of their
product out of Woodmans fathers home in Sausalito and into the market. In
2005 he appeared on QVC three times, running into Spanx founder and fellow
future billionaire Sara Blakely while she was building her company as well.
(If she remembers me, Ill be amazed, says Woodman. But Id love to get
word to her to give her a digital high-five on crushing it.)
Woodman eschewed venture capital as he grewa by-product of his Funbug
experience and a desire to work without suits interfering. Says Dana, He
wanted to keep it private for as long as possible so he could get a Lotus for
product testing and do things and not have to answer to a board about it. At
the outset Woodman dropped in $30,000 of his own money, as well as
$35,000 from his mother and two $100,000 investments from his father. The
company made money from that point and today boasts profit margins,
FORBES estimates, around 15%. It wasnt until May 2011 that GoPro took on
$88 million from five venture firms including Riverwood Capital, led by
former Flextronics CEO Michael Marks, and Steamboat Ventures, Disneys
venture investment arm, which allowed him, his family and some early
executives to take a good chunk of cash out.
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