Key growth techniques and their applications

¶ … Growth Techniques: The Entrepreneurs

Many entrepreneurs were born during this period of time and often used specific growth strategies that were key to their empires and their fortunes. None of them went about it in exactly the same way but it all came about to the same end. One of the largest entrepreneurs of the time was Gould. Most of his fortune was made in the western railroads and he also became involved with the Western Union Co., which is still around today. Although many of the enterprises he involved himself in eventually came to ruin he amassed a fortune that was over $100 million at the time of his death. The basic key growth strategy that Gould used had to do with creating great wealth for himself and not being concerned about those that he left in his wake.

Another individual that made his fortune in railroads during that time was Cornelius Vanderbilt. Originally dealing with steamboats, Vanderbilt became concerned about some of the dangers that could befall him. He turned his attention instead to railroads and used a growth strategy of buying up all of his competitors so that he would not have to worry about competition from other individuals. Vanderbilt was more concerned about other individuals than Gould had been, but he was still highly interested in making certain that his fortune continued to grow. He connected railroad lines from every point that he was able to and although he tried to buy up his largest competitor the competition avoided this by creating stock faster than he could buy it. That notwithstanding, however, Vanderbilt still managed to buy large areas of railroad and become involved with the Chicago market which was highly lucrative at the time.

Railroads were very important but manufactured goods were necessary to have something to transport and iron and steel were needed for the railroad tracks that were being laid all across the country. Two individuals who were deeply involved with the refining and manufacturing processes were Rockefeller and Carnegie. Rockefeller's growth strategy was to take over as many competitors as he could. Out of the 26 competitors that he had at the time, it took him six weeks to take over 22 of them. He also made sure that he had large amounts of cash so that he would not have to worry about banks or depend on them if a crisis occurred. In addition to this, he attempted to establish a trust so that no one else would be able to gain control over anything that he owned. Eventually, however, the trust was ruled illegal and had to be disbanded.

Carnegie thought much along the same lines as Rockefeller. He was very prominent in the steel industry, even though he did not know that much about the technical aspects of making steel. He was better at promotion and marketing than he was that actually understanding what was involved. However, he was shrewd enough to know that one could grow rapidly by always staying on the cutting edge of technology and using the latest innovations. This was what Carnegie worked diligently on to make sure that his business continued to grow rapidly.