Kennedy Butler
EEE 2083
28 September 2022
Discussion Paper 4- The Founder
What do you think of when you think of a mom and pop type of drive-in? Do you think the biggest fast food chain in the world? What if I told you that’s how it started. The film, The Founder, tells the true story of Richard and Maurice McDonald, or Dick and Mac, and how their local family drive-in restaurant became the biggest fast food franchise in the industry, due to the help of Ray Kroc. Ray sells multiple machines to a drive-in in California, and when he drives out to see it, he is impressed with their service, disposable packaging and being family friendly. This is entrepreneurial because Ray saw potential in the McDoanld brothers, despite their differences, he had ideas of how to franchise and they all took big risks which ultimately paid off big time. Each is a great example of the entrepreneurial mindset.
Something that I found interesting was first, Ray Kroc was rather unsuccessful in previous business endeavors. He was not quite successful in his sales career of milkshake mixers, but still built an empire. Personally, I think he had a lot of drive and passion that led him to see potential in the McDonalds drive-in and he was full of ideas of how to make their business run better and franchise it. Why is this interesting? It further proves that success doesn’t necessarily have to come from some big CEO, business crazy man, but it is about the drive and how one implements an idea.
The interaction and relationship between entrepreneurship and society in this film really takes shape through the frontier for franchising. Before Ray Kroc and McDonald’s this type of global and mass franchising hadn’t really been done before. They saw an opportunity that opened a door, which society probably had to adjust to, not seeing anything quite like it before. Whether positive or negative, it was a different way to do your average drive-in burger. In my last paper when we watched Tucker, I talked about disruptive innovation and in a way, this was kind of the same thing. There was push back and differences in opinions between Kroc and the McDonalds brothers, maybe even uncertainty if this was even a good idea. This affected society because up until this point, “corporations” didn’t really seem to be made out of restaurants yet. It really was a new frontier. Maybe even the death of the local drive-in? In addition, these types of big ideas from Kroc in entrepreneurship were stifled because of what I would argue was the fear of failure. The interaction between this aspect of entrepreneurship and society is simple. Reinvention and modernizing the way things have always been done. Is it a bad thing? Not necessarily. I doubt anyone would ever call McDonalds unsuccessful. But did society or even the McDonald brothers love this process of franchising at the moment? Maybe, maybe not. It is all about the big picture and what could be. My biggest takeaway from this film: if you see all the pieces fitting together with an opportunity, lean in.
- https://giphy.com/explore/burgers
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(https://giphy.com/explore/burgers)