If a world full of entrepreneurs is imagined, then a throne would have been reserved for the greatness of Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company. Henry’s birth can be considered as the birth of Achilles in the fields of Demeter. Born in July 30,1863, to a poor family who had a farm in now-called Springwells Township in Michigan, the backstory of the Ford family comprises that all of the Fords used to work in a local farm, harvesting different types of crops. But Henry didn’t like to work there as he was interested and talented in machinery. He dropped out from his school at an early age as he liked to learn things on his own. After his mother’s tragic death, Henry Ford decided to leave his home in search for better opportunities in life. So he sailed his journey to the town of Detroit.
His early career was harsh as he couldn’t find any job. After working hard for years in a horologist’s shop and doing other side-jobs, Henry Ford came back to the farm after marrying Clara Bryant. He became an expert machinist after working and building various engines and mechanical parts. For that he gained quite a good reputation, hence earning him a well-paid job to look after a steam engine in Edison Illuminating Company.
Henry always wanted to create a horseless car with an engine. After doing multiple experiments and spending hours of time and loads of money, Henry finally launched his ‘Quadricycle’, which was basically two cycles attached with a chassis and an engine. The prototype became quite famous and he started to make more by selling them for 200$. As time went on, he started to do more research and founded a company named ‘Detroit Automotive Company’ to build more such prototypes. But this company didn’t last long due to the lower quality of the cars and issues related to transportation.
After multiple companies’ set-up failures and feuds with investors’, Henry Ford changed his focus onto making race cars. He felt that making race cars would mean perfection in this automotive scenario. So he started to design a better prototype with Tom Cooper and finally made the ‘Ford 999’ in 1901. This car broke all racing records till date, recording a top speed of 56 miles per hour. Soon after that, Henry decided to mass produce such race cars, so he formed ‘Ford Motor Company’.
To produce more cars, he started to take investors’ help, but.they wanted him to make more civil and average cars. But Henry had a soft corner for race cars so he insisted on doing so. But Henry learned from his previous entrepreneurial mistakes and started to plan for more regular cars as he saw that middle-class people cannot buy such cars as they are too expensive for them. So he quoted ‘I will build a motor car for the greater multitude’. Hence he designed the legendary ‘Model T’, which skyrocketed in the automotive industry. It became the most sold car and almost all the American cars on the road were of Ford. Business was booming and Henry Ford got what he wanted. Having no prior academic education and entrepreneurship experience, Henry Ford did the impossible.
He also made other fascinating contributions to the automotive industry. Henry always believed in waging the laborers properly. He raised their wages to attract more people to work for his company. He also termed ‘Fordism’ which means mass production for the mass people. He believed that a company can be the most successful when its business directly merges with the daily lives of the common people. He was also the pioneer of the ‘Assembly Line’ production, which he had the idea from cog workers in a cog factory. He also revolutionized the ‘V8 Engine’ in his prototypes.
During his business days, he and his son Edsel Ford founded ‘Ford Foundation’ for the Ford family. He had set this up to help the common people’s businesses. Henry Ford never got made when he got rejected in his life periods and got backed off every time he tried to set up a new automotive company. Rather he learnt from those mistakes and came back stronger and wiser. He always tried to do business so that the general people could benefit. He quoted ‘The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money to do more for the betterment of life’. Henry had a skill which made him different from other entrepreneurs, which is solving complex and critical problems. With his empowering talent and hard-working mentality, he sets up the true definition of what a visionary entrepreneur should have in his lot.
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Writer :
Abrar Mahir
Intern
Content Writing Department,
YSSE