Introduction
Entrepreneurs are essential to the recent economic advancement witnessed worldwide today. As Khin & Lim (2019) illustrate, an international entrepreneur is an individual who engages in business activities across national boundaries by making discoveries, enacting, evaluating, and pursuing opportunities in those areas. According to Tabares (2020), international entrepreneurship study has been based on the idea that entrepreneurial behavior has become global and seeks out, exploits, evaluates, and creates opportunities for profit generation. This idea forms the basis of the field of study known as international entrepreneurship. Because of this, an entrepreneur who operates on a global scale needs to be proactive, creative, and willing to take risks to develop organizational value that extends beyond national boundaries (Oviatt & McDougall-Covin, 2015). In a supplementary perspective of internationalization phenomena, international business (IB) and entrepreneurship fields strongly correlate with the concept of global entrepreneurship (IE). This perspective emphasizes the benefits of being outside by drawing attention to globalization’s opportunities (Russell, 2018). In this research paper, we investigate the activities of Markus Villig, a successful international entrepreneur and the Chief Executive Director of Bolt Technology OU. Markus Villig and the entrepreneurial endeavor he undertook to satisfy the requirements of an international entrepreneur mentioned above. This is because the entrepreneurial endeavors Markus Villig undertook, in addition to many others, required critical analysis, the willingness to take risks, and the enthusiasm to pursue them beyond the borders of the country where Markus Villig was born.
Background information to Markus Villig and Bolt
Personal and professional life
Markus Villig was born in Tallinn, Estonia, on December 17, 1993(Forbes, 2022). In addition to serving as the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Bolt Technology OU, known initially as Taxify, Villig is also affiliated with seven other portfolio ventures, including Yaga, Planet42, Montonio, AirlyKoos, Printify, and Outfunnel(Crunchbase, 2022). Villig made history in 2013 by taking the first step toward becoming the youngest-ever creator of a unicorn firm in Europe (Jurberg, 2021). At the time, he had just graduated from high school and was on his way to becoming the youngest-ever creator of a unicorn company. Aside from that, in 2019, when he was just 25 years old, he became the youngest CEO of a multi-billion European firm, making him the record holder for the youngest CEO of a multi-billion company. Today, Bolt is a European transport platform to streamline and speed up urban transit, and it serves globally through its technological innovativeness.
The International Entrepreneurship background
Bolt was founded in 2013, with its headquarters in Tallinn, Estonia. There are over 500 cities in 45 countries that the company is serving in Latin America, Western Asia, Africa, and Europe through its services that include vehicle-for-hire, MICR-mobility efficiency, providing car-sharing, and food delivery. Moreover, the IE boasts nine executive directors and over 1.5 million bolt drivers in the moBoltre than 500 cities it serves (Bolt, 2022). With its 2019 redesign as Bolt, the innovation has become one of the world’s fastest-growing mobility platforms, with over 100 million customers (Jurberg, 2021). Besides, over three million independent contractors (partners) use Bolt’s software to provide transportation services (ridesharing and delivery) to over one hundred million clients (DBpedia, 2022). As of December 2020, Bolt was valued at $4.3 billion after raising more than $183 million during the financial year.
Motivation and Drivers for Markus Villig
Opportunity recognition process
Markus Villig’s motivation and the driving force were necessity driven. The first stage of opportunity recognition in Villig’s pursuit of entrepreneurship involved sensing and perceiving the gap in the market. According to Kreuzer et al. (2022), one way to identify promising business prospects is through “entrepreneurial intuition,” which entails a keen awareness of the problems plaguing a community and the development of original approaches to resolving them. The entrepreneur then uses their sharp observation, analysis, and synthesis abilities to spot a potential opportunity. For Villig, it all began with a dream to unite all of Tallinn, Estonia’s cabs, into a single app. In an interview with Jurberg (2021), Villig recounts his inspiration. He says that the only prior encounter with Tallinn cabs was negative. It used to take calling at least ten taxi services before one finally arrived, and once it did, you couldn’t use a credit card to pay for the ride. That’s why he reasoned that a technological solution would be best.
In the second step of his opportunity recognition process, Villig made a discovery that could fit between the taxi market and the resources available (Hulbert et al., 2015). By the time he recognized his potential in the taxi sector, Uber had possessed excellent assets, including the capital, name recognition, and a solid customer reputation. Unfortunately, they needed to be more knowledgeable about the area. Villig took advantage of this by opening branch offices in strategic locations and adapting his service to meet the specific demands of each market. Realizing that “there are difficulties in transportation which are highly local and being close to consumers would be of great significance,” he decided to move his company closer to its clientele. As a result, he surpassed his global rivals and became the market leader in Europe while spending much less on advertising.
Lastly, Markus Villig, a high school graduate, created innovations after discovering that his hometown lacked an essential service. He gave his parents a description of his idea, and they would hand him a loan of 5000 Euros (about USD 5500) to pursue his passion project (Conboye, 2021). They had been putting money down for his college education, but his pitch deck persuaded them to put it toward something else instead. While most youngsters are into sports or video games, Villig was already planning to launch a technology company.
Villig’s Effectuation principles
One of Villig’s reasoning during the pursuit of his international entrepreneurial venture was applying the lemonade principle, which affects contingency leverages. The lemonade principle indicates that managers in large corporations frequently spend excessive time pondering “what if” questions and trying to anticipate and prepare for every possible consequence (Qrius, 2022). While in the sensing step of his opportunity recognition, he could not predict the future and that his entire business model may need to evolve in response to what they learn from customers. Therefore, he used excellent and negative surprises as opportunities to improve his strategies. Villig introduced Taxify to Estonia and Latvia in August 2013 as a “what if” trial. Besides, his older brother had a job at Skype and managed to get some of his former co-workers into investing in Taxify. Before switching to a ridesharing service like Uber, Villig collaborated with local taxi firms to offer a unified booking platform. The initial fifty Taxify drivers were all hired by him directly. The feedback was encouraging.
Another effectuation principle in Villig’s case is the pilot-in-the-plain principle which calls for the entrepreneurs’ zeal to control the future (Qrius, 2022). Successful business owners like Markus Villig don’t view the marketplace as an unstoppable wave that they must ride to shore without getting washed away. Instead, they have unwavering faith in the power of the human race to shape the future. It was apparent to everyone but Markus Villig, who saw the gap in the taxi market in Tallinn. Ever since he was ten years old, he dreamed of doing this, and all through high school, he worked for small businesses on websites in his community (Jurberg, 2021).
Villig’s entrepreneurial traits
His willingness to take risks is one of the characteristics that have been on exhibit during Villig’s business journey of developing his idea for a taxi. When he came up with the concept, Uber had already established its brands in every region of the world. And anyone who dared to compete with it would have been met with intense levels of opposition. This was a risk that an entrepreneur could afford to take (Porumboiu, 2022). To begin competing with Uber, Villig concluded that the most effective line of action would be to focus on “smaller” markets to which they had previously paid less attention. Villig found that there were significant prospects in these locations as a result of the skyrocketing usage of smartphones. Bolt prioritized Eastern and Central Europe and Africa because “they have larger issues elsewhere,” which refers to Uber’s concentration on more populous Western countries (Jurberg, 2021). It was essential for the company’s expansion to get a big head start in these countries before any of its competitors could catch up.
Being well-informed is another example of the entrepreneurial spirit that Villig shows. Starting a business in the taxi sector required pertinent information about the potential market, which not everyone in Estonia or even around the world would have seen the way Villig saw it. Villig saw it as a potentially lucrative opportunity. While speaking to the European CEO (2018), Villig admits that he conducted a quick online survey to confirm the severity of the issue and was met with a flood of emotional replies. Taxis had been a source of great dissatisfaction for them. That motivated him to attempt a solution. In addition, the success that Villig has had in Africa can be credited to the company’s extensive research on the African market from the perspective of regional economics. Uber had previously invaded a few African regions before the debut of Bolt, but its payment method was limited to credit cards only. This harms their bottom line, especially considering that as much as 97% of the population does not have access to credit. Since the outset, he has given equal consideration to traditional cash transactions and other forms of payment. After that, he would be better able to tailor the product to the market’s needs, as Villig noted.
Villig’s Motivation
Markus Villig’s motivation was their personal experience with the taxi sector in Estonia, which he describes as negative (Jurberg, 2021). The 2004 founding of Skype in Estonia served as an inspiration for him since it showed that a successful technological company “may be created from any place.” It proved to Villig that an Estonian could launch a successful worldwide technology company. Taxify was named Estonia’s finest mobile app in 2014 and a finalist for “The 2014 Innovation” for its revolutionary effect on the information of the country and its communication technologies industry (Jurberg, 2021). While at home, Villig was unrivaled in that Growth was necessary, and that is how he saw the need to start competing with Uber on the global market.
Markus Villig (Bolt) Barriers/enablers
Barriers to Villig’s entrepreneurial journey
The most significant barrier that Villig and his idea of investing in the taxi market faced was stiff competition from Uber and other transportation companies like Lyft and Grab, which had already established their brand name globally. Uber did not only create stiff competition for Bolt in transport service delivery but also in the labor market share. As Villig indicates in an interview with the European CEO (2018), the number of drivers and riders attracted to Uber is astonishing. In addition to Uber, Taxify will face competition from a wide range of ride-hailing apps like Lyft, Grab, and many more. Besides, investors would discourage him from continuing with the idea since they felt it was unnecessary for funding. However, according to Villig, Taxify’s competitors in the rapidly expanding market in which it competes shouldn’t be considered as threatening.
Bolt made a significant move to handle stiff competition from their close rival, Uber. Villig committed himself to ensuring customer and driver satisfaction by paying better wages than their competitors, who were paying low commissions at the time. He indicates that this primary goal was to please drivers, and those drivers could do their best to ensure happy customers. All the organisms in this ecosystem provide an essential function, and being thrifty from the start has allowed Bolt to offer higher wages to our drivers sustainably (European CEO, 2018). Besides, their operational cost as a percentage of revenue becomes below the industry average, giving synergy to compete globally. It’s also a deliberate action; he decided to increase driver compensation because he believed doing so would benefit the company and help beat Uber internationally.
Another barrier that almost shuttered Villig’s dream of becoming an international entrepreneur was the lack of an entrepreneurial ecosystem, especially when funding was necessary. An environment that lacks appropriate financing would pose challenges to zealous entrepreneurship, as described in the Isenberg mode (Brown & Mason, 2014). As a young man who had just graduated from high school in 201, Villig would not raise enough money to sell his idea internationally and in Estonia. The $5500 he borrowed from his parents was not significant enough to help him venture into a global market and face off against giant companies like Uber. While Uber was generating billions of dollars, Villig launched his app with only $5500 he borrowed from his parents (Tabares, 2020). Villig admits that the first six months of his app launching were the toughest he experienced in his entrepreneurship journey.
To overcome the funding barrier, Villig sought co-funding from his older brother, who had prior work expertise in technology. He became instrumental in the company’s founding, especially during the first six months. However, Markus Villig was in high school when he developed his software and had to work hard to get cab drivers in Tallinn to use it. The following winter, he had several hundred drivers and a fully operational service. A little over nine months later, he had collected €70,000 in donations (Conboye, 2021). The next €1.4m he raised was also from local investors and only took six months. With its entry into the international market, Bolt gained investment partnerships with international investors like Didi, Daimler, and BMW. In 2018, Bolt, an Estonian startup got into competition with Uber throughout Africa and Europe, just made a closure of $175 million in additional funding, bringing its valuation to $1 billion, making it the latest “unicorn” worldwide ride-hailing industry (Russell, 2018).
Enablers to Villig’s venture
Even though Villig lacked enough money to actualize his entrepreneurial idea, his strength lay primarily in his knowledge of Estonia’s transportation industry. According to Markus Villig, Taxify’s goal was to differentiate itself in the taxi service industry in several ways: through a commitment to local expertise. This was possible because he had already studied the Estonian Taxi market and identified specific gaps. For that reason, the company was dedicated to providing drivers with better terms than those offered by competitors like Uber by charging a fee of only 10–15% for every ride instead of the latter company’s standard 20%–25%. Customers have more outstanding options while using this service, including paying cash and selecting their drivers.
Moreover, the company pushed into the international market due to Villig’s commitment to providing transportation services following international and national legal procedures of their potential market. The management team at Taxify has likely learned a thing or two from Uber’s problems. Uber has had run-ins with regulators in various nations (UnicoTaxi, 2020). Taxify has avoided the controversies that have plagued its more well-known competitor by placing a premium on excellent company governance at any time and cooperating closely with regulators from the outset.
Types of internationalization
Theories used in Internationalization
Internationalization is the expansion of economic activities beyond a nation’s borders. It is divided into economic school, which views internationalization as investment patterns for markets in other countries, and behavioral school(Azuayi, 2016). International entrepreneurship utilizes theories such as the Uppsala internationalization model, the Born Global approach, and the network approach.
The Uppsala internationalization model was developed by Johanson in 1990 and valued in 1997, influenced by behavioral theory. For this model, a business that adopts internationalization increases its involvement in the international markets, and these activities tend to occur regularly, fueled by commitment and knowledge of the market (Kim, 2018). Uppsala’s model proposes that the state aspect of a firm affects its change aspect, which then increases market knowledge and stimulates commitment for subsequent market cycles. This model expands international involvement in small steps into the foreign markets where a business has opened its operations.
The network Approach is another internationalization theory that helps analyze a business’s internationalization process. It uses a process approach network as it provides the necessary framework to understand companies in the business network. The model also involves investing in new networks in the company and, in the process, penetrating available positions and increasing commitments in other companies that it is already based on (Azuayi, 2016). The relationship developed with different companies is then understood as national networks; hence, firms may decide to internationalize because their connected firms are doing the same. According to the network approach, companies establish their positions and develop them depending on their partners in the foreign market network. It is believed that firms start from the domestic markets and expand to create business relationships with other countries, international extension, penetration, and integration.
Born Global approach, also known as international entrepreneurship, views internationalization as an economic strategy and ignores factors such as individual decision-making. The course must provide a clear view of radical strategic understanding, which is essential for entrepreneurs. It is a new emerging trend for entrepreneurs and businesses.
How and why did they choose the internationalization route
Over the years, internationalization has continued to be an interest to companies. For Bolt technology businesses, internationalization was the most appropriate way to participate in the international market (Kim, 2018). As much as its domestic market was flourishing, the gap and the need to venture into new markets with potential fueled the need to choose the internationalization route. A long-term plan for penetrating their most contemporary market needed to be well outlined to ensure proper strategy in unleashing their business to the larger market. For bolt technology, despite the challenges, venturing into new markets through internationalization has been a successful activity. Internationalization has transformed the business landscape leading to a dynamic market situation (Welch, 2004). Other uber businesses receive stiff competition from Bolt, and going beyond the borders makes the company more competitive than ever (Solberg, 2017). Subsequent ventures had different routes to internationalization as there are various routes to be part of the foreign markets. The aim is always to ensure the business only experiences demands with lower risks and control levels in its activities.
Conclusion
In conclusion, International Entrepreneurship is in the phase of venturing into new markets in various potential markets in different geographical areas and ensuring they form networks to hold a high position in these networks. With the need for innovation and discoveries, many international entrepreneurs, including Markus Villig, have come into the limelight to pursue new opportunities in place. The move by Villig to pursue an opportunity he identified in his hometown and take it to the international standard was enterprising, considering that other taxi companies like Uber had already established themselves globally (Conboy, 2021). As it is, Villig and his taxi idea have made significant miles in the industry, making him one of the best IEs in Europe and globally. In addition to Bolt Technology, Villig has invested in seven other portfolios which embrace cultural sensitivity and is working towards considering the local customs to ensure their market is growing wider each day. On several occasions, Markus Villig spoke about his future expansion into other markets with untapped potential. He is also partnering with renowned automotive manufacturers globally to ensure the continuity of taxi services across the globe.
One of the lessons one can learn from Markus Villig’s entrepreneurial journey is that resilience and simplicity pay off. Villig is from a humble family that could barely support his dream. However, the 19-year-old, Villig worked through the hardship of raising funds and boiled down his ideas to achieve his target. Another vital lesson from Villig’s entrepreneurial journey to developing Bolt Technology at the international level is that one should pursue their passion. Villig has been passionate about the taxi business since he was young (Conboye, 2021). He even had to ask his parents to fund his idea instead of paying college fees for him when he already knew where his passion lay. Lastly, from Villig’s entrepreneurship journey, one can understand the importance of exploring the venture before advancing its final commitment. Villig began by exploring a local market in Tallinn, Estonia, understood the dynamics of the taxi industry, and then pulled his way into the venture, taking it globally. This is an important lesson for young and potential entrepreneurs seeking to venture into a new idea.
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