Networked

Mark Zuckerberg
 

Networked is one of the entrepreneurial traits that is strongly required and practiced for the entrepreneurs to run the business. It is the process of developing and maintaining connections with people. For this entrepreneur trait, we have selected Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook in the business perspective as the representative of networked entrepreneur.

Zuckerberg began his networked trait during the time when he created computer games for kids with a bunch of friends who are artists to draw for the game. (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 2016). While Mark Zuckerberg is studying in Harvard University, with his friends’ help, Mark has started operation of Facebook in his hostel room. Zuckerberg’s friends then promoted Facebook to other universities and Facebook users increased dramatically since then. (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 2016) From this, we can see that Mark Zuckerberg always makes use of the personal network he has to build his business.

In 2004, Zuckerberg and his team moved to California and hooking up with PayPal co-founder, Peter Thiel, who later invested in the company. With the investment from this well-built business network, they acquired their first office in 2004. (Entrepreneur Media, Inc. , 2008)

In April 2009, Zuckerberg listened to the financing strategies by former Netscape Chief Financial Officer, Peter Currie. In an interview of Zuckerberg, he mentioned about the advise from Steve Jobs towards creating an executive team that is "as high quality and good things as you are". We can conclude that Zuckerberg has always tried to manage his business network to gain more experience about other factors affecting an organization performance. (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 2016) Business leaders cannot run a company all by themselves; they need to make use of their network, either investors, management team or partnerships. Great leaders need partnering with the right people in to achieve success. (Walter, 2014)