Todd McFarlane
The video features a discussion with
Todd McFarlane, CEO of McFarlane
Companies in Tempe, Arizona.
This global company spans comics,
sports, monsters, and toys. In fact, it
is the world's largest and most successful
toy company. McFarlane is a very successful
entrepreneur who started as a college baseball
player looking to break into the major leagues. Unfortunately,
this venture was not successful. Instead, he
fell back on his self-taught ability to draw comics.
After 300 rejections from various companies, Marvel
Comics hired him. In 1990, Todd was the highest paid
comic cartoonist in the industry.
He still wasn't satisfied, however. He left the company
at the peak of his career and took 6 of the leading
artists with him and formed his own company.
Success came fairly quickly with the publication of
the comic book Spawn which sold 1.7 million copies.
This success was despite the predictions by industry
insiders that Todd McFarlane wouldn't last a year on
his own.
McFarlane knows that the two most important
elements to successfully generate wealth are entrepreneurship
and knowledge. Both of which he possesses
in large measure. In a dynamic business environment,
there are several areas that need to be
addressed in order to be successful. (1) Economic
environment -- in McFarlane's case it is focused in the
area of intellectual property laws; (2) technological
environment -- McFarlane sees technology as a tool to
push the creative environment; (3) competitive environment -- he sees the opportunity to earn less per
unit profit by taking advantage of the opportunities
to produce a higher quality product; (4) social environment -- he keys in on his target demographic; (5)
global environment -- which affects all the other areas.
Discussion Questions
From Todd McFarlane's perspective, what is the
key element of his business model?
What are the four main productive factors in
business organizations?
What influences people to buy or not buy a
product such as the comic book Spawn created by
McFarlane?
