Entrepreneur Meg Whitman Built Ebay

Entrepreneur

Meg Whitman built eBay on the strength of the idea. The idea was there before but Whitman professionalized the organization and built an effective team around that concept. Sustainable competitive advantage was achieved largely through first mover advantage that allowed eBay to build market share.

Whitman's career was middle-management prior to eBay. She clearly had been developing leadership traits prior to joining eBay and was able to use those effectively once she joined.

Most of Whitman's career was in brand management and she had some CEO experience in a small company. For the most part, her story is one of finally getting the opportunity to succeed.

Whitman was always good in academics, and earned an MBA at Harvard after earning a degree in economics. She spent nearly twenty years working her way up the corporate ladder, finally landing the top job at FTD before stepping backwards and then eventually taking the eBay job. The executive experience she gained along the way prepared her for the eBay role.

5. Whitman's organizational abilities appear to have been the most important to her success, along with her ability to envision great things for eBay.

6. John Donahoe is the CEO of eBay today. He was the former president of eBay Marketplaces.

7. Whitman had to overcome the barrier of being a female executive, one with little CEO experience at the time of her hiring. That lack of experience, aside from a short stint as CEO of FTD for a couple of years, would also have been a barrier, especially since that company was not a startup and eBay was.

8. Whitman saw potential for online auctioning. She knew that at the time the Internet was a "next big thing" that had the potential to revolutionize the channels through which commerce flowed. There was no shortage of skeptics about eBay, since early trade was mainly in collectibles, but Whitman saw the company as an intermediary rather than a retailer, and that dramatically increased the potential for revenues.

9. When Whitman joined eBay, she began assembling a new team of professionals to run the site. She reorganized the structure of the company and attracted new leaders to the organization. She also realized that in order to achieve her vision, the company needed new financing. To achieve this, she took eBay public.

10. Family life did not play a large role in Whitman's career. She had been an executive for nearly twenty years before taking over the top job at eBay. Thus, her career arc had been shaped more by her own career work than the family influences from her youth.

1. Howard Schultz took a small coffee shop in Seattle and applied an innovation he borrowed from Italy in turning the average coffee shop into a comfortable 'third place.' This concept drives the success of Starbucks for nearly twenty years and continues to be a major part of the company's success overseas. Being the first mover helped Starbucks and its brand gain sustainable competitive advantage. The company also has advantages in its systems and corporate culture that have proven difficult to emulate.

2. Schultz' success is largely based on his being a visionary -- loving the coffee business and seeing how he could apply a European model to his American company.

3. Schultz did not have any early failures. He joined Starbucks as a relatively inexperienced manager, gained experience and then led the company. It has less than 10 outlets when he started as CEO. His success derives less from hardships that from vision.

4. Schultz' background is based on work experience. He started as a salesperson for Xerox and was selling coffee equipment for a Swedish company when he came upon Starbucks and shortly thereafter joined the company. His sales skills were all he had.

5. Schultz's sales abilities were probably the key to his success. He was able to understand consumers' needs and build a company that catered to those needs. As a result, he delivered an experience that people found valuable. In addition, he had a skill with real estate that probably was not known prior to joining Starbucks but would eventually become one of the company's core competencies.

6. Schultz was rehired as CEO in 2008. He left the company for a while but it began to falter and he returned to the position.

7. For Schultz the biggest barrier to entry would have been his lack of education and experience. He does not possess an MBA and was working in sales when he joined the company. But Starbucks was very small and he was able to take on an important role immediately and rapidly expand on that.

8. Schultz immediately liked the Starbucks shop. Since he was selling coffee equipment he was aware that it was superior to others in the area. He then took a trip to Italy and noticed the cultural role that coffee shops played there, something that was not the case in the United States at the time. He felt this cultural role could be introduced successfully into the United States.

9. Schultz came back to the U.S. from Italy and set up a chain of his own. It was successful enough that he was able to obtain financing to buy Starbucks when the original owners decided to sell. He then sought additional venture capital in order to begin rapidly expanding the business before taking it to the stock market.

10. Schultz was raised in a poor family, and this might have colored his abilities as an entrepreneur. He learned about hard work, as he became a successful athlete and earned a scholarship. He also became resourceful and this helped him learn how to be creative in finding solutions to problems.

1. Michael Kittredge was able to carve out a niche by producing a product in scented candles that had more appeal than other businesses realized. He gained first-mover advantage and built a strong brand. Ultimately, there were other scented candles out there but he was the first one to consider it to be a serious business opportunity.

2. Kittredge succeeded in part because he had access to a good support network of people who helped him with the business during its formative years.

3. There were few hardships during the early days when Kittredge had access to the resources needed to get the business going. During the latter phases of the business, he received a cancer diagnosis and that more than anything convinced him to cash out of the business rather than press forward.

4. Kittredge started Yankee Candle while still in high school. At the time he really did not have any education or work experience to speak of.