Kennedy Butler
EEE 2083
Paper 1- Joy
Discussion Paper 1
What do you think of when you hear the word “entrepreneur”? What about a “million dollar idea?” Where do million dollar ideas come from? For some its this big huge moment that changes their lives, maybe a life event or some sort of big idea that has been in the works for a long time, maybe even a couple years perhaps. However, some of these big, world changing innovative entrepreneurial ideas come from small, everyday moments. Moments that, at first seem all too ordinary, moments that seem so small that you could not even recall, but it is these that can produce some of the best “big ideas” of better ways to do things and better ways to live life. This film gives us an insight into one of those stories and how it happened with a mop of all things.
This film tells the story of Joy Mangano, the ups and downs of her personal life and how she became a successful entrepreneur. She is in a stage of life where she seems stuck, living with her two kids and her ex-husband in her basement, all the while trying to smooth things over with her divorced parents, who definitely don’t make her life easier. It is through all of this, that she becomes a successful entrepreneur through her idea for a self straining type of mop, called the miracle mop. This is entrepreneurial because Joy, through getting an injury actually, came up with an innovation and better way to create the mop, through her product the “miracle mop”.
Personally, I think this film is interesting because a lot of times, I think the media portrays entrepreneurs as these big and fancy business people that have all this experience and prior knowledge. Joy however, kind of challenges the status quo with this as she didn’t have this entrepreneurial background at all. She took her real life and real world experience and was able to turn it into her way out, a way to make a living and a better way to do something, all because of an idea. Now, she has become a well known entrepreneur with a net worth of over $70 million. Not to say however, that having some big entrepreneurial, bet the farm ideas, don’t start off as failures of a sort. Joy struggled a bit in the beginning with getting the idea off the ground. Though the timeframe in the movie isn't super specific of how long these sort of things took, we can infer that it was quite a while. On the flip side however, Joy was very proactive and was not scared to make her voice heard on things she was passionate about. I think this is a good thing to be aware of and that entrepreneurs should be careful in ever side stepping the conversations about failure that might be faced, especially in the beginning. Maybe it’s to push us? Maybe its to allow us to uncover hidden potential and passion? Whatever the reason, failure is vital at times and it brought Joy to success.
What I think is interesting about this film is that it outlines the importance of selling, media and swaying public opinion in entrepreneurship. If the customer does not see the value in the product, in this case, if the need for the miracle mop wouldn’t have been seen or valued, Joy would have never been successful in the slightest. The opinion of society is vital to the success of the entrepreneur. I remember reading this quote once from Malcolm Gladwell and The Tipping Point, and it said “The Tipping Point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire” (Gladwell). I think this quote is definitely applicable here in this film, as Joy was bold in having her idea “cross the threshold” if you will, by making her voice heard and badging into board meetings. Furthermore, Joy demonstrates the importance of societal opinion in her conversation when she states “who showed you the mop?…. Who convinced you it was great after you thought it was worthless?” (Joy). Does the relationship between entrepreneurship and society all come down to convincing someone that your idea is good? Possibly. Maybe it is putting something in front of society’s face for them to see it is good for themselves. But what if the success of an entrepreneur comes down to opinion? What if comes down to the public having the “right” opinion, that your product is worthwhile, it is one of a kind, the kind of product they need to purchase right now. It could very well depend on the entrepreneur or the idea. However, in the case of this film and of this mop, it was convincing people that it was great and not worthless. Is the mop great? Could be the matter of opinion. Personally, I think it is, but maybe society was convinced because of Joy? Or maybe its just a dang good mop. From the perspective of the film however, it seems that society saw it as great because they were told to.
This film shows the relationship between entrepreneurs and society in the way that, while there are plenty of ideas out there that make the world a better place and innovation flourish, society will still often come down and say that an idea is “worthless” or maybe stupid or mediocre at best. I feel like we see this so often with many stories of entrepreneurs, in addition to Joy, that are shot down by society for their ideas that those same people would later call revolutionary, brilliant and one in a million (think Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk etc.). Joy endured and eventually overcame this to pay off her debt, something that once might have seemed impossible. The last takeaway I had from this film is this: sometimes society needs to be challenged and all it takes sometimes is just one idea.
Sources
Gladwell, M. (2013). The tipping point. Abacus.
Joy. (2015).