(
My favorite aspect of entrepreneurship in this movie was the aspect of picking the right partner. In the beginning, Woodroof wanted nothing to do with his future partner Rayon. However, considering his life changing diagnosis, Woodroof had to forget about his prejudice and focus on getting help.
To begin, when Woodroof met Rayon they were both AIDS patients sharing a room at the hospital where they were receiving treatment. Woodroof was resistant to Rayon's friendly efforts until he came across a business opportunity selling unapproved pharmaceutical drugs. In short, he met a doctor in Mexico who was revoked of his license and had a supply of non-FDA approved drugs. After trying them himself, he recognized the value he could create by supplying other AIDS patients with the same medicines. However, once he got back to Dallas, he quickly realized how hard it was selling to this market. For one, he had an extremely strong dislike for his target market, and the drugs were not FDA approved. So, when he ran across someone very popular in that community (Rayon), he offered his new partner a 25% cut in the business. Rayon wasted no time and started showing Woodroof salesmanship tactics he had been neglecting the whole time. As the business grew, their partnership grew as well. Rayon continued the marketing efforts while managing all of the books, memberships, and bad customers. Eventually, the FDA passed a law stating that all unapproved drugs were illegal which meant the Dallas Buyer's Club would have to close shop. Still, Rayon went and visited his father to obtain funds to fight the FDA and keep the operation running. In order to do this, Rayon had to go all in and sale his life insurance policy. This was entrepreneurial because in a business, you are only as good as who you have working for you.
The interesting thing about this aspect is that Woodroof wouldn't have made it without his partner Rayon. Before they partnered up, Woodroof was just barely making a living out of his venture. He had little to no idea how to sale to the AIDS community and he had too much pride to learn. Also, Rayon was crucial in running and managing the books of the company. Instead of offering products for sale, they offered a membership which required closer attention to the balance sheet. Ultimately, when the business had run out of resources, Rayon gave his last asset to the company and donated his life insurance policy.
Lastly, picking the right partner affects society in a positive way. The reason for this is that in anything you do you should always be selective on the people you surround yourself with. In society, this is helpful because naturally productive people are going to work and collaborate with other productive people. As a result, society will benefit endogenously from more efficient and productive teams, and exogenously from successful entrepreneurs. In addition, society affects this aspect in a variety of ways. One could argue that society stifles this aspect because lazy people will choose to hang out with other lazy people. And, that there are less ambitious people than there are unmotivated ones. Referring to our movie list, this was the constant. On the other hand, I believe that as a whole society supports this aspect because productive people are not forced to interact with idle people. As a result, this interaction is directly related. Picking the right partner will always be an important aspect because we are attracted towards people of similarity. So, I believe that unless regulations are imposed that entrepreneurs must choose unproductive people to collaborate with then we will continue to have a productive market and society.