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Individual Assignment

Winda Dwipattdiana
21587134

[MGMT 3342 ENTREPRENEURSHIP]


Interviewing Two Entrepreneurs in Perth: Founders of Impression Car Care and
Draw History

Table of Contents

1. Introduction. 3
2. Entrepreneur 1: Impression Car Care.. 3
2.1.
2.2.
2.3.

Impression Car Care Background.. 4


Impression Car Care Development 4
Impression Car Care Current Status 5

3. Entrepreneur 2: Draw History.. 6


3.1.
3.2.
3.3.

Draw History Background.. 6


Draw History Development 7
Draw History Current Status... 7

4. Comparison of The Entrepreneurs... 8


5. The Five Effectuation Principles. 9
5.1.
5.2.
5.3.
5.4.
5.5.

The Bird in Hand Principle: Start With Your Means. 9


The Affordable Loss Principle: Focus on The Downside Risk................................ 10
The Lemonade Principle: Leveraging Contingencies.............................................. 10
The Crazy Quilt Principle: Form Partnerships......................................................... 10
The Pilot in The Plane Principle: Control Vs. Predict.............................................. 11

6. Conclusion................................................................................................................ 11
7. Appendices............................................................................................................... 13
8. Reference List.......................................................................................................... 17

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1. Introduction
The terms of entrepreneur and entrepreneurial firms are commonly defined as firms that are
relatively small to medium size which employ fewer than 100 employees, younger than 7
years old, and they are new entrants into the market. Entrepreneurs have a very crucial and
specific function in the economy. Entrepreneurs relatively foster high levels of employment
creation, productivity growth and produce, and commercialise high-quality innovations (van
Praag &Versloot 2007).
In the research, van Praag and Versloot (2007) proposed that entrepreneurs tend to have
higher levels of job satisfaction than employees and earn higher incomes compare to wage
employees. This satisfaction and outcomes are related to entrepreneurial behavior which is
associated with numerous demands such as a need for achievement, need for affiliation, risktaking or risk-seeker, creativity, and the tendency to assume personal responsibility for
success or failure (Beuglesdijk & Noorderhaven 2005). These findings lead to the
interviewees motivations that bring them to become entrepreneurs in order to fulfill their
demands.
Semi-structured interviews had been conducted for 40 to 60 minutes each to two selected
entrepreneurs in Perth (see Appendix 1). They are Sandy Rusly, the founder of Impression
Car Care and Jeffrey Effendi, the founder of Draw History. Both of them have shared a great
understanding of being entrepreneurs in product and service innovations through their
experiences in developing their ventures.
In this paper, the analysis will be constructed by using effectuation principles and causal
approach. This is done in order to investigate differences in the process of building venture
among two entrepreneurs that are using different principles to start up their ventures.
The remainder of this paper is organised as follows: A summary of two entrepreneurs which
include the justification for selecting the entrepreneurs, background, and status of the venture,
comparison of two entrepreneurs by constructing effectuation and causal principles, and
conclusion with the basis of chosen principles.
2. Entrepreneur 1: Impression Car Care
The first entrepreneur, Sandy Rusly is selected because of his unique background and his idea
of opening Impression Car Care which is known to be uncommon service available in Perth.
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Unlike most of the entrepreneurs, Sandy Rusly, the founder of Impression Car Care, was not
an Australian citizen back then. There was no intention or reason to open up a business in
Perth as in he came from Indonesia and had his own well-operated business in Indonesia. His
life plan changed ever since he visited Perth which leaded him to create a brilliant idea to
start up new business as his brand new life plan in Perth.
2.1.

Impression Car Care Background

Sandy Rusly was just a normal guy. He did not manage to graduate with a degree from Binus
University in Jakarta, Indonesia because he chose to help his father who owned a car
dealership. His passion in cars grew from that moment. But in 2008, he founded a furniture
shop with his parents. These two businesses had given him valuable experiences for his future
entrepreneurial skill.
After spending few years developing his furniture shop in Indonesia, Sandy met Rike Lie, his
wife now, in Perth. Rike was an Australian citizen, working for the government of Western
Australia as an accountant and she lived in Perth. So when they got married, Sandy decided
to quit his business in Indonesia and moved with Rike to Perth, started up a new life in 2011.
At this stage, Sandy had to start from zero and he did not even know if there was a suitable
job for him as in he got no experience working in Australia. Then, the idea came to him when
he was amazed of how some Australians had some antique cars and well-branded cars but
they did not look well-presented. This reminded him of his passion in cars and how he helped
out his father to take care of his car dealership years ago. Sandy ended up doing some
research about car services provided in Perth in order to get more ideas of how he could turn
this into something he loved to do.
Eventually, he realised he had discovered an opportunity to provide mobile car detailing with
his own expertise in car service, a needed service to maintain customers car performance
flexibly. Plus, there were not many services that provide mobile cars detailing in the market.
2.2.

Impression Car Care Development

In 2012, Impression Car Care was created with 2 to 3 months of planning before the business
actually operated. It was a self-funded business and it took approximately $40,000 AUD to
purchase all the equipments that were needed to operate the business.

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After well-establishing the plan, Sandy was struggling at finding the customers. His first
customer was actually his friend and he did not want his business to be limited within only
his boundary. He never had any marketing experience before and he knew this is one of his
weaknesses for not being able to create marketing strategy. Without a great marketing
strategy, people would not know that Impression Car Care existed in the first place.
Learning from his fathers experience as an entrepreneur, Sandy has been able to cope the
issue. Sandy established a sophisticated website of Impression Car Care to reach larger
market as the internet became more widely adopted by everyone.
A well-presented website is one of the key to ensure that we are looking professionals and
we are not a dodgy business. This is one of the ways to show off our expertise. said Sandy
Rusly.
Ever since Impression Car Care website established, more customers were coming to use the
service and the development did not stop there. Credibility was one of his important values to
represent Impression Car Care. In result, Sandy recorded and captured every service he gave
to customers, then, he edited and posted them to public through website and social media.
As he said, We show our videos or pictures of how we do the car detailing because we want
the customers to know how we handle their precious cars. We want to build trust in new
customers. This is how we attract them.
It took a year to get a positive cash flow and up until now, the business is still growing well.
2.3.

Impression Car Care Current Status

Sandy said, At first, my goal was to make a living for my family. That is it, simple as that.
But over the years, I realise that I enjoy this job so much and how glad you are to know that
customers are happy with your service. It feels like your customers are now part of your
family too. I want my business to be big and be more successful than it is right now.
Generating customers by loyalty and perfect service was Impression Car Cares mission in
order to expect returning customers. Sandy realised that satisfied customers could bring them
a lot of positivity, besides they might come back again to use the service, they created a
positive word of mouth, kind of like self-promoting business.

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There were still a lot of weaknesses faced by Impression Car Care. The fact that this type of
service was affected by environmental factors, for example in winter, there would be less
demand of customers using the service. Also, there were some other services that Impression
Car Care did not cover yet.
Sandy goals now has changed, he is definitely looking to expand the business as in the
business is still considered as new and small in scale. However, Sandys target now is to
increase its brand awareness so he can increase the capacity of the services and increase its
capital. Then onwards, he will form a potential partnership with other and have a permanent
store in business district.
3. Entrepreneur 2: Draw History
The second entrepreneur, Jeffrey Effendi, the founder of Draw History, is selected because he
has different background with Sandy Rusly, the founder of Impression Car Care, and Jeffrey
is a graduate from University of Western Australia. He decides to become an entrepreneur is
because of his father has always been a business person and it inspires him to be ones too. He
also has an interesting value that he holds in his business and also he brings that value to
affect the customers perception. In addition, it is surprising how he can turn his hobby as his
jump start to create Draw History.
3.1.

Draw History Background

Jeffrey Effendi was doing double degree in University of Western Australia, studying law and
commerce for 6 years and graduated in 2014. His father, Jemmy Effendi had always been a
business person ever since he grew up in Perth and it inspired him to be an entrepreneur.
Jeffrey actively involved in church community with his family which made him as a person
who was standing strong in humanity side, to help people with less privilege.
Jeffrey did design when he was young as part of his hobby and in 2009, he tried to create a
website that had function that was similar to Pinterest today with his own design. But it was
not successful or completed because of monetary issue. He spent $5,000 to $6,000 AUD to
develop 10% of the website then he started to think for a long term spending that might cost
him to develop 90% of the website and maintain the website. So he stopped his first plan of
business right there.

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In 2012, the new idea came up when he was doing constitutional law exam. He started to
think of a way to earn enough money so he could give back to the community. That was his
main purpose. He was confident about what he had, his knowledge in law and business,
expertise in designing web, experience in making draft client agreement and prospectus. He
had the tools to get into the business.
Jeffrey Effendi created an opportunity to provide a creative agency that was more than just
creative agency averagely that were handing off the project once it was done. He added more
value into his creative agency not to just stop when the project was done but he wanted to
link his customers back to the community. He wanted to do positivity which resulted in many
customers were attracted to the culture he created and hired Draw History.
3.2.

Draw History Development

At the early stage, Jeffrey was just a part-time developer of Draw History as in he was still a
student, studying in University of Western Australia and he did not make a proper business
plan to create Draw History in 2012.
He said, I just do what I want to do, do something that is different and worth to be done and
this includes my passion of helping the community and hobby. So why not just jump into it
and make it happen?
Learning from his previous experience, he did not spend much capital to build Draw History.
He spent $50 AUD to develop his own website and the basis of wages for his partner from
Arizona was 50% split of the reward from a project.
His goal was, for every project that Draw History completed, he would give 10% of the
reward back to the community, for charity and donation. This is how Draw History is
different with normal creative agency. Jeffrey held this value to attract companies to work
with him, to gather companies with the same shared value to help other people by doing
good.
Draw Historys first client was a person from New York that Jeffrey and his partner knew and
they got a bad experience out of it. It was a $100 AUD worth project. They were asked to
create 3 pages of website and the client was quite fussy about the result. Lesson learned that
if they were willing to charge more, client would value the project more.

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Overtime, Jeffrey realised that he had to develop the plan, being more professional. He set
rules to develop Draw History. But afterwards, his partner went away to work with Google. It
was not hard for him to find new partners because lots of people were attracted or even
shared the same vision of helping community.
Time management was an important key for Jeffrey to manage Draw History well as in he
was still a student yet he had to do some projects for customers. There were ups and downs in
developing Draw History, the gratitude he felt when his customers were happy with the
completed projects and understood his value of helping the community and also on the other
hand, when Draw History was losing some tenders.
3.3.

Draw History Current Status

As he graduated in 2014, Jeffrey became a youth ambassador at UNICEF Australia and he


also worked as paralegal at Australian Government Solicitor. After a year, he quitted his job
as paralegal and decided to do a full-time work in Draw History.
He realised doing work in law could not satisfy him. He said, I had been doing law for 6
years and was interested in intellectual property law but instead of working in the portfolio
that I wanted, I ended up working in property law. It was so dry and I realised that I am more
a creative person.
As Draw History was growing better, Jeffrey changed his goal. He wanted to connect the
clients to the community, not just by giving 10% of the reward but actually involve in doing
action. Whether it is through sponsoring children or consulting NGOs on a pro bono basis,
Draw History aim to create social impact. He decided to do this as he got experience in
working at UNICEF Australia. He wanted to build capacity of partnerships to help the
community.
Draw History is currently supporting causes from UNICEF Australia, Compassion, Oxfam,
and World Vision. In his perception, Draw History is a good seed, a symbol of a company
that can allow other business to grow in community. Jeffrey planned to expand in social
humanitarian plans or basically CSR concept to drive growth in Draw History not just in
local market but international with larger audiences and building awareness in raising
communities.
4. Comparison of the Entrepreneurs
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There are two different approaches to start new ventures which are used by the selected
entrepreneurs. They are causation processes and effectuation processes. Causation processes
take a particular effect as given and focus on selecting between means to create the effect.
Effectuation processes take a set of means as given and focus on selecting between possible
effects that can be created with that set of means (Sarasvathy 2001).
In this case, entrepreneur 1, Sandy Rusly has used causal logic to discover the opportunity in
building the venture. Analysing the interview, entrepreneur 1 has done in-depth marker
research before he actually decided to open Impression Car Care. He also created a business
plan and raised resources completely before actually operate the business. He has the
managerial critical thinking of how marketing strategies are crucial in success of Impression
Car Care. Establishing well-presented website and high quality equipment show his attention
and focus on the choice of best means to attain the goal. In other words, entrepreneur 1 has
used the causal approach to the extent that he can predict the future and control it. He plans
everything so that his business will reach its success (see Appendix 2). But during the process
of developing the business, entrepreneur 1 realises he has to cope with the changes that he is
facing which lead him to the effectuation processes in order to survive in the business.
Entrepreneur 2, Jeffrey Effendi has used effectuation processes to actually create the
opportunity so that it exists into the market. Comparing to entrepreneur 1, entrepreneur 2 do
not have any start up plan to operate the business. He starts doing the doable with the means
that he has, such as his knowledge or education, his father as his advisor, his experience, and
his working networks. Entrepreneur 1 learned from his mistakes and be resilient in his
specific goals to the extent he can control the future without predicting it (see Appendix 3).
5. Five Effectuation Principles
The below discussion will reflect on five effectuation principles that both of entrepreneurs
applied in creating their business.
5.1.

The Bird in Hand Principle: Start With Your Means

Means are grouped into three categories: Who I am, What I know, and Who I know. Compare
to entrepreneur 2, entrepreneur 1 does not have all the means, besides his abilities and
experience. That is why it is best for Sandy Rusly to start up with causal approach.

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In this case, entrepreneur 2 has set up his means before starting up his new venture. His
means include his traits, hobby, and abilities (Who I am); his degree, education, knowledge,
and working experience (What I know); and his father as the advisor, UNICEF as
professional network, and his partners (Who I know).
5.2.

The Affordable Loss Principle: Focus on The Downside Risk

Entrepreneur 1 with causal reasoning first targets a return of what he has invested $40,000
AUD, for instance, equipments, vehicles, and website, in creating his venture. From that
stage, he slowly built up the work to minimise associated risk.
Entrepreneur 2 only spent $50 AUD to open his venture as in it is an online-based venture.
He is considered to be an effectual entrepreneur of how he estimates the downside of a
venture by examining carefully the total value of his investment in money and also he
brought his first partner on board by 50% split reward to reduce the cost.
5.3.

The Lemonade Principle: Leveraging Contingencies

From the conducted interview, both of the entrepreneurs agreed of how contingency plan is
needed in order to develop success in their businesses. Entrepreneur 1 started to realise that
some new customers (contingency) were looking for a specific service in cars detailing
(changed means). Looking at this issue, now, entrepreneur 1 is trying to build up his capital to
produce the needed service that they have not covered yet (new goals).
Different case happened to entrepreneur 2, as Jeffrey managed to get involved with UNICEF,
he knew that were a better plan to improve his culture and value of Draw History
(contingency). Instead of donating 10% of the project reward, he decided to link each
company or his customers (changed means) and build capacity for them to actually involve
and take action to help the communities (new goals).
5.4.

The Crazy Quilt Principle: Form Partnerships

Entrepreneur 1 has not yet formed any partnerships because according to the interview, Sandy
is actually looking for a partner to develop Impression Car Care at the moment but he knows
that his venture is still considered small and it also requires a lot of expertise. Entrepreneur 2
has formed partnerships with people that are sharing the same vision with Jeffrey. He knows
that he will not be able to work alone as he needs inputs and feedback on how to go about
various aspects of the venture. Jeffrey and his partners now have committed to the process of
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building the venture and achieve their goals. It is crucial for Jeffrey to select partners that
actually have to fit with the culture and value he built in.
5.5.

The Pilot in The Plane Principle: Control Vs. Predict

From the conducted interview, both of the entrepreneurs are focusing on activities within
their control instead of establishing any market forces. They believe that their actions will
result in the desired outcomes or for instance, they make their achievement to happen. From
entrepreneur 2, Jeffrey Effendi, founder of Draw History, he shared about one of his
customers that was actually doing the charity and mentoring after hiring Draw History. This
has proven of how he managed to affect other company to do his vision or goal.
6. Conclusion
Causal approach is suitable at low levels of innovativeness, whereas effectuation offers better
ways to deal with projects with high levels of innovativeness (Brettel et al. 2012).
Summarising from the entrepreneur 1 who applied causal logic, a decision making in causal
approach involves a well-structured and specific plan to achieve a given goal with a set of
alternative means and the criteria for selecting the means include the maximisation of
expected return in terms of the predetermined goal. However, for entrepreneur 2, decision
making with effectuation logic consists of a given set of means that have ends in a set of
possible outcomes that are generated through the decision process and the criteria for
selecting the effects of possible outcomes are determined within the level of affordable loss
or acceptable risk.
Effectuation does not involve in elaborate planning and prediction costs but relies, instead, on
pre-commitments to reduce uncertainties (Sarasvathy 2001). In other words, in marketing
decisions, entrepreneur with effectual logic are less likely to do market research or carefully
make a business plan and in organisational decisions, they are more likely to build strong
participatory cultures.
The process of opportunity recognition starts with the sensing of a need or a possibility for
change and action and ends with an innovative solution in which future potential economic
value is created through entrepreneurship (Mthanti & Urban 2014). It is related to what both
entrepreneurs had gone through before creating their ventures. Entrepreneur 1 needs to fulfil
his responsibility for his family, to make a living, the need for achievement and affiliation.

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Entrepreneur 2 was driven by his passion to help others and his hobby, keen to creative
freedom.
In contrast from their differences, they have some similarities where their family has a strong
influence to help them in becoming entrepreneurs as in both of them proposed that their
fathers are their role models. From the interview, experience and time also holds an important
role in their paths to be entrepreneurs.
The entrepreneurial effectuation process is not just a matter of effectuating means,
partnerships commitment, etc., it is also a process of identity and goals construction (Nielsen
& Lassen 2012). From the interview, I realised of how both of their goals were slowly
changed as their ventures growing better. In which, entrepreneur 1 started to aim for bigger
goal to expand his business and entrepreneur 2 made an improvisations of some of his goals
to build capacity which is believed to be more effective in helping the community.
Sandy Rusly, the founder of Impression Car Care said, If you have the dedication to start up
your own business then dont be afraid. There will always be someone to ask for advice, just
face the challenges and from those challenges, you will learn the lesson and then only you
can improve your business.
Jeffrey Effendi, the founder of Draw History said, If you want to start a business that you
think it is worth, just make it, be focus and also be resilient of how you response with the
challenges. And also, try to find a cheaper way to do thing when you start the business
because there will always be an unexpected cost in doing something that you cannot predict.
To conclude, each of entrepreneurs has different aspiring advices yet still they are valuable
for my learning. Everyone can be an entrepreneur but in order to be an entrepreneur, we need
to have contingency plan to cope with both success and failure that happen in the business.
Becoming an entrepreneur is one of the satisfying job because you will have your own
freedom to develop your business. You can set your own rules and culture that fit with
yourself. You get to make strategic decisions and keep all the profits generated by the
company and the challenge that you are facing is a great lesson to learn.

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Appendices
Appendix 1: Interview Questions
0. Tell me more about what your business is (Name, Service or Product, Benefits that you give to people who
use/consume it, How long has it operated)!
1. What made you decide to start this venture and When, under what circumstances, and from whom did you
become interested in entrepreneurship and learn some of the critical lessons?
2. Would you tell me about yourself, your family, your school, what you did before starting your first venture?
3. Were your parents, relatives or close friends entrepreneurial (have their own business)? How so?
4. Did you have role models that make you want to be an entrepreneurial?
5. Did you have a business or self-employment during your youth and what made you quit from your previous
business or self-employment?
6. In particular, did you have any sales or marketing experience? How important was it (for your business right
now), or a lack of it?
7. How did you spot the opportunity (in terms of the critical elements for success? Did you consider competition
or the market?)?
8. What were your goals? What were your lifestyle needs or other personal requirements? How did you fit these
together?
9. Have you achieve your goal so far and Did you have specific criteria you wanted to meet (for your business)?
10. What kind of planning did you do or did you have a startup business plan of any kind? Please tell me about
it (Help: what kind of financing did you have, how long did it take to complete the plan until the first day of
operating, what were the ups and downs,How many hours a day did you spend working on the startup business
plan?)!
11. How much capital did it take? How long did it take to reach a positive cash flow and breakeven sales
volume?
12. What did you perceive to be the strengths and weaknesses of your venture/business?
13. What was your most triumphant moment and worst moment for you? Tell me how you overcome the worst
moment.
14. Did you want to have partners or did you prefer going on your own? Why?
15. In terms of the future, do you plan to harvest, to maintain or to expand?
16. What are the impacts that you feel from your business to your family/friends/partners/hobbies/etc (example:
since you developed this business, you did not spend much time with your family, you were overwork and
exhausted)?
17. What do you learn from both success and failure?
18. Can you describe a venture that did not work out for you and how did this prepare you for your next
venture?
19. Have your goals changed or they are still the same?

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20. What do you consider your most valuable asset in the timing that enable you to make it to this point?
21. As you look back what do you believe to be the most critical concepts? Think skills, attitudes, know-how
you needed to get the company started and grown to where it is today?
22. What will be needed for the next five years / What your business will be in the next 5 years?
23. What things do you find personally rewarding and satisfying as an entrepreneur, compare to work in large
organisation as an accountant, manager, etc?
24. What advice would you give an aspiring entrepreneur?
25. Could you suggest the three most important lessons that you learnt so far?

Appendix 2: Causal logic by Entrepreneur 1


M1: Experiences
M2: Research
M3: High quality equipments

Operating Impression Care Care


(GIVEN GOAL)

M4: Marketing strategy/plan


M5: Expertise
(GIVEN MEANS)

Appendix 3: Effectual logic by Entrepreneur 2


Developing Draw History
Knowledge, experience, skilldevelopment, father as advisors,
education, networks (UNICEF),
abilities and skills, etc.
(GIVEN MEANS)

Potential Partnerships
International Expansion
Culture Impact
(IMAGINED ENDS)

Appendix 4: Business Card or Website Address

Entrepreneur 1:
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Entrepreneur 2: www.drawhistory.com
Appendix 5: Letter of Participation and Consent
Entrepreneur 1: Impression Car Care - Sandy Rusly

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Entrepreneur 2: Draw History Jeffrey Effendi

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