Discussion paper: Joy
Joy is a movie about a woman named Joy. Joy has had a mind for entrepreneurship since she was a little girl. At the film's beginning, she would spend time making new things like her own wonderland out of paper and cardboard. When she was older she Created a patent for a new dog collar but she wasn't sure how to make this idea public. Joy seems to be in a low-middle-class house with a family of nine in her house. She is the main breadwinner of the house by keeping everyone afloat.
To describe the aspect of this film we need to go back and look at some of the things that happen throughout. In the film, Joy goes with her Dad on a sailboat with the family and her father's new girlfriend. The new girlfriend Trudy said to not bring red wine on the boat Because she didn't want it to stain her teakwood floors on the sailboat but was convinced by Joy’s Ex-Husband Tony. When they went on the sailboat Judy and the family enjoyed some red wine on the boat with Trudy and while they were enjoying the wine a big wave hit the boat. Causing them the fall and spill the wine all over the teakwood floors. This in turn leads to Joy cleaning up the mess from the red wine and glass with a mop. While cleaning up the mess with a mop Joy was met with a problem. She had noticed when ringing out the mop head with her hands she noticed that the glass was cutting her palms. When she arrives home she does her best to get some sleep because she is exhausted but the next morning her idea hit her. She had an idea to make a mop that you can wring without using your hands to get them dirty or cut. She got to work and started to draw up her idea for the new mop.
This aspect of the film is showing the process an entrepreneur takes when coming up with an idea. This step is the step you take when you come up with an idea and it's time to assess your ability to take risks. The first risk she took was taking her idea to Trudy and asking for her to invest in her idea. Trudy then tells her she needs more than a few drawings to be willing to invest, Joy Proceeds to work on the prototype. When doing so she then asked help from a welder from her Fathers garage to help make her first prototype mop to bring to Trudy. This example is a good one for question three because it shows the interaction and relationship in society with Joy going to someone she knew in her father's garage to get help with her prototype after that she went to Trudy to invest in her venture. This is a positive example of how society can help benefit entrepreneurship because she used the relationships she has in her father's garage. After Talking with Trudy, Trudy decides to do a worldwide patent search and they found a manufacturer for metal and plastic molds. Joy’s relationship with Trudy is a prime example of how relationships and interaction can help push an entrepreneur forward. Also, society can hinder the process an entrepreneur will take in a number of ways. One way society can hinder the process is just by not being allured by the product altogether or just not seeing the use for the produce at the moment. Joy went through this after getting her product past the prototype phase and having a few builds ready for sale. She went around store to store to see who would put her mop up for sale with no luck. She then set up shop at her nearest K-mart and tried to sell there but was met with people blowing her off or police telling her to leave.
Society can have a negative as well as a positive interaction with entrepreneurship. Joy was met with failure multiple times she was contemplating giving up on her product but her ex-husband got her into a meeting with K-Mart’s head of the retail division Neil Walker. Walker brings Joy to a telemarketing set to show her how her product would be sold during the beginning of rolling out her product. Walker wants Joy to have fifty thousand units ready before its debut. After this, she went back to Trudy for an investment of two Hundred thousand dollars but Joy already owes her money from the prototypes that were made. Trudy wants Joy to make up half the money for the additional units and to do so she had to take out a second mortgage on their house. Her product the Miracle Mop is put on television for its debut but the person who debuted the mop didn't know how to use it. Which led the audience not to want to buy her product. Joy felt like she failed but she didn't want to end it there. Joy meets with Walker again to tell him that she wanted to unveil her mop not someone who doesn't even know how to use it. After unveiling her product herself she sold over forty-seven thousand units of the Miracle Mop. After the success of the Miracle mop, the manufacturer raises the prices of the molds making her product too expensive for her to make a profit and taking ownership of her molds forcing her to file for bankruptcy. After taking the issue to the man in charge of the patents and manufacturing she ended up getting back the patents she lost.
What makes this an entrepreneurial film, its shows how society will perceive a new idea. This film shows the ups and downs entrepreneurs will go through when starting a venture. Showing the risk that entrepreneurs take when they have an idea they believe will go somewhere and make their money. The main aspect of Joy is to show future entrepreneurs the potential hardships they will go through.
