Josh Duncan
EEE-2083
September 7, 2022
Joy Discussion paper
How I saw joy had a relationship between entrepreneurship and society was when she kept trying and trying for her idea to become something and instead of giving up after the first try, she would try something new or a different attack at it until she finally found one that worked out. How it compared to a real entrepreneur was because with becoming a successful entrepreneur you usually don’t have a first try one-hit wonder, you usually must keep trying different ideas and different tactics to sell your idea and this is exactly what joy did in the movie. She tried to sell it at the store parking lot and then went to QVC which didn’t work out the first time, so she begged for her to be able to sell it on tv, and on the second try she blew up and the phone went crazy. These signs really related to me how an entrepreneur never gives up and always tries after many attempts no matter how society reacts because after a while society will soon start to recognize you if you put in the work.
The movie Joy reflected on the things we have learned in class by showing how people valued her mop. The people at the store she was selling it outside didn’t value it any more valuable than the cheaper mops in the store that you can buy. They told her no matter what they were going to buy the one they always used however much her mop was. This showed how the customers valued the mop they have way more than the one she is trying to sell. Then on the second time around at QVC, she nailed the pitch to show people how much value it could put into people’s households. It then started to blow up with calls because people valued it way more than any other mop they had.
Another thing that we have talked about in the class and book that I noticed in the movie is when we talked about price, which was chapter 2 in the book. What happened in the movie is the company that she uses to produce her plastic pieces for the mops, was demanding to raise the price of the cost to produce each one. Therefore joy would have to raise the pricing of each mop. She realized that the price before was already the price set that people valued it and would exchange their money for and with a price raise nobody would want to buy it.
What I found interesting in this movie was how no matter what joy didn’t give up and kept fighting for her product after countless failures and flaws. This movie showed countless acts of being a successful entrepreneur like when she had to come up with a ton of designs on paper with her daughter and have her whole family buy in on it to help her make the first couple of mops to show everyone the potential. I also liked how she made the company let her present her own product because I think you should because you are the one who made it and designed the product so you know how it works and the purpose of making it for people who would need the such product. The first guy didn’t know anything about the product he was just doing his job and didn’t know how to work the mop which almost cost her everything, which shows why you should never trust a random person to sell your product to other people before they know what it is.
It also taught me to never trust society because they almost stifled her idea all the way because her lawyer also almost affected her rights and ownership of the mop. This happened because she found out that her lawyer wasn’t knowledgeable about the job she was wanting him to do, he acted like he did and everything but after she started to make a lot of money she soon realized the plastic company was trying to take over her mop and they already had their own patent for the mop under their name giving them the rights to make all the money off it. This shows to always make sure your lawyer understands what you want and is knowledgeable about the business and the rights you get when starting up a product. Joy however thought her lawyer knew all of this and got a patent on the mop, but she didn’t. luckily Joy at the end of the movie met with the head guy of the plastic company and they worked out a deal for her to get everything back and for them not to be able to get a patent on the product. Which therefore saved the mop from going to someone else and helped joy become a millionaire.
The effects of joy as an entrepreneur were crazy. She ended up inventing and getting patents on over 20 things, which means come along with a lot of jobs for many people which therefore overall increased and did good for the economy and supported the business of the products she made. How society supported this aspect of entrepreneurship by buying her product and doing this made her able to create more and grow as an entrepreneur. Society and Joy had to find a way of exchange for her good and the exchange was money which is what the people valued less than her mop. So, therefore, they had an exchange of goods happen because joy valued the money more.
The main takeaways I got from this movie from an entrepreneurial standpoint were to never give up on yourself no matter how bad people think it is and to stay resilient throughout the process, great success doesn’t come easily, and joy showed these the whole entire movie it was never easy for her, and she about gave up many of times. The next takeaway from it was to always know your regulations and rules and to be able to trust your lawyer in getting you the right things to be able to make your own product and become successful, joy however did not and she learned the hard way but she got everything worked out by the end of the movie which shows how hard entrepreneurship is against this cruel society and you have to get really lucky to become a successful one and joy showed us that.
