Ryan Crimmins
EEE 2083
Paper 1- Joy
Discussion Paper 1
The film Joy, tells the true story of a woman Joy Mangano who created the Miracle Mop that built her business empire while dealing with many ups and downs. Growing up, Joy had an entrepreneurial mindset with inventing small things out of paper, she was valedictorian of her high school and had dreams to go to college in Boston. It is very clear that Joy was a business oriented person and wanted to show her family that she was going to be successful in life unlike them. Joy’s parents were divorced and unsuccessful and Joy wanted to be the change of the family. Her grandmother believed that she would be successful and she would be able to follow her dreams one day, so she went after her dream. At the start of the film, she was in a stage of life where she felt like her life was falling apart with her family and going through a divorce with her ex-husband. During this, she thought of a business idea while cleaning her floors up after her family. In the process of cleaning she injured herself and her injury actually helped her come up with a better innovation to create a more advanced product. Immediately after she comes across her business idea she sketches out and brainstorms ideas for her new innovation: a self-wringing mop, the “Miracle Mop.” This idea is considered entrepreneurial because Joy saw a niche in the market for mops, so she created a product to make it easier for customers to use while also dealing with trial and error. Joy also realized that something like her product hadn’t been invented yet, so she thought her product would have an opportunity. So she went for it, she began the journey of starting her business and creating her product with the help of her friends and family. At the start of her entrepreneurial journey she had a difficult time with society and it took time to sell her product.
Joy’s entrepreneurial journey was a whirlwind of emotions, her journey really illustrates the struggles and hardships other entrepreneurs go through when starting a business. Joy created her product fast, but it took time to put the product to the market and create value. It is very rare to hear about entrepreneurs' failures they face to get their product on the market. We only see the aftermath of the product, we don’t see all the work to get to that point. In the film, new got to see all the failures Joy faced before getting her product on the market. It was a multiple step process for Joy before her business became successful, but that did not stop her from quitting, it actually made her push harder. Joy did everything she could to help get her product into the market, she even went to her local grocery store, K-Mart to demonstrate her mop in the parking lot where she had her product taken away from her by the police. So it was very clear that Joy took many risks and did anything to boost her product on the market. The first few attempts Joy advertised her product to her society failed, she didn’t get any attention from anyone. Some reasons that her society didn’t pay attention to her product was because her invention was new and she didn’t have much knowledge or had money struggles. Joy needed to find a way to reach out to more people, so she starred in a commercial to advertise the mop and was able to sell fifty-thousand mops after her second commercial show. The film Joy did a great job of recognizing the relationship between entrepreneurship and society, which is very important when creating a business. Entrepreneurs are the ones who bring changes to society when they create new products to improve our standard of living. Entrepreneurs are the key component of changing society because there are always new products and technology. It is clear to say that entrepreneurs need society and society needs entrepreneurs in order to survive in the market. The society is know to provide materials and resources to entrepreneurs in order for production of goods. Now that Joy successfully launched her product and is out on the market she acts like a society for other entrepreneurs going through starting their business to help benefit others. At the end of the film it shows Joy giving these new entrepreneurs money and resources to help jump start their entrepreneurial journey who helps benefit their society in return. This film showed the importance of entrepreneurship and society when it comes to an entrepreneur that wants to sell their product in the market. A key takeaway of this film is that it is very important to have connections and know the right people when starting a business or creating a product. Connections are important because it allows you to have a network of individuals who can help and support you. Without connections there is a chance that you won’t have as many opportunities than if you had connections or people to network with. Joy had many connections and a huge network of people behind her during her entrepreneurial journey. Her family supported her in every decision she made from the very beginning. Her family and friends also opened many doors for Joy, without those people Joy probably wouldn’t have ended where she did because those people played a huge role in her success.
Overall, Joy’s entrepreneurial journey is incredible from start to finish. It captures the true struggles many entrepreneurs face when starting a business that people on the outside don’t typically see. This entrepreneurial journey is very inspirational for other entrepreneurs and shows that you can end up successful no matter how you get there. There are many different entrepreneurial journey’s and every entrepreneur's journey looks different depending on their business. This film had a good story line and makes it very evident that entrepreneurs and society are very important when it comes to the economy. In the end, Joy never gave up on her dreams despite all of the obstacles she faced to get there, now to this day she is a successful.
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