There is more than meets the eye about the movie Wonka. It is not just an update of a beloved classic, but this version brilliantly shows important business lessons that aspiring young entrepreneurs should note. Coming out of the theatre with my friends, I felt as if I had just watched a business movie rather than a fantasy film! This is because I myself have been through multiple startup journeys and have identified some of the challenges involved while working on a startup. The following is not a traditional movie review but rather me, a millennial trying to navigate challenging times, covering startup lessons I took away from the film.
The movie begins with Wonka on a ship approaching the port of a fictitious European city. The audience immediately sees the affection that the ship’s crew has for Wonka as they say farewell to him. The scene of a ship cleaner accidentally tossing soap water on Wonka while he is disembarking, and his forgiving her shows off two character traits that all startup founders should possess: humility and understanding. It reminded me of a story about John D. Rockefeller who kept a pulling and pushing exercise machine in the accounting department of his company Standard Oil. One day Rockefeller showed up for a workout and a junior accountant in his company, who did not recognize him, said that the machine was a nuisance and demanded that Rockefeller get rid of it. Rockefeller said “alright” and had it put away. The junior accountant found out later, to his great dismay, that it was his boss to whom he had made this demand. The accountant was never reprimanded by Rockefeller who, instead, demonstrated both the aforementioned traits. Possessing these two traits will greatly assist in establishing a solid startup team because this type of founder is capable of creating the positive work environment paramount for success. Wonka’s ability to put others at ease is shown again at the first team meeting, when his fellow laundrette prisoner, Lottie, feels comfortable enough to voice a valued opinion after staying mute for a long while.
A founder always needs to prioritize preserving the financial security of his startup by adhering to a professionally formulated budget. At the beginning of Wonka’s first day in the city, he had “12 Silver Sovereigns in his pocket”. However, by the end of the day, through careless behaviour, such as flipping up his last Silver Sovereign in the air and it falling into a drain after failing to catch it, Wonka had lost them all. On top of this, he had poured all of his money into chocolate products with no allocation of funds to other primary startup budgetary items such as marketing, team salaries, shop rent, etc. The film smartly starts off with the most fundamental element of a startup which is how to manage the fuel (money) of business. If a founder is not well versed in matters of accounting and finance, then it is best that he finds an expert to join his team and learn from him. To Wonka’s credit, he later does exactly that by hiring a seasoned bookkeeper- but only after serious losses.
A startup founder needs to be careful when choosing the country to start up a business. Conducting thorough research on a country’s regulations and reputation for adjudication is a must. One should even ask for expert advice as specific and exact knowledge is of great importance. Unnecessary red tape can impede the ease of business and the film also includes this aspect when Wonka is caught by a policeman for “breaking the law” and has to pay a fine for daydreaming about establishing a successful chocolate shop while standing in front of a shop lot for sale. The consequence was that he had all his earnings confiscated for “disturbing others’ businesses” during his later soft launch at the Gallery Gourmet (the chocolatier district). Furthermore, the primary antagonist, the established chocolatier cartel, feels threatened by Wonka’s unique chocolate products and bribes the police chief to beat up Wonka. I interpreted the attack on Wonk as representing how corruption can be a major hurdle that a founder may encounter during the startup phase. The cartel, in addition, shows that Wonka went against the maxim espoused by the entrepreneur, Peter Thiel, that “competition is for losers”. Wonka knowingly chooses a city that already had famous successful chocolatiers in business, thus making it difficult to obtain a foothold. It is true that one can get ahead of the competition by having a superior version of an already existing product but it takes longer to convince the market to shift over to your new business since the competition is already so entrenched. The fantasy element of this film is that Wonka eradicates his competition very quickly but in real life there are more pitfalls. INSEAD professors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne wrote, “Focusing on beating the competition and aiming to build competitive advantages frequently leads to imitative, not innovative approaches to the market.” It is much less of a headache to pursue the professors’ famous Blue Ocean Strategy of pursuing a new market. The cartel represents the sharks in the professors’ dreaded “red ocean” market saturation scenario.
There is another important lesson one can extrapolate from the daydreaming fine. Fantasizing is actually quite important for being successful as an entrepreneur. The movie hits the nail on the head by emphasizing Wonka’s aspiration throughout the film for wild success. A founder has to constantly daydream about success in order to achieve his grand objectives. It is helpful to also visualize the plans thhe founder may have for his product.
Wonka telegraphs to the audience that he is focused solely on his chocolate making and has horse blinders on seeing nothing else except his product. This made him oblivious to crucial social dynamics and signals. In the financial realm, he even smiles and shrugs off the alarming loss of his last Silver Sovereign. I call this type of founder a “technical founder” which I define as a founder who is the creator of the product knowing it inside out but has no experience with the social dynamics and signals (nor is he interested to learn these) in the world of business. Wonka even acknowledges that he is an inventor. The kind of businessman who excels both in inventing and establishing a successful business is very rare. This “inventor-only” kind of founder becomes a highly vulnerable target for predatory opportunists.
The film also shows the consequences of not becoming adept at identifying bad actors and scammers in the business world. Two words are particularly applicable to startup founders: The Korean word nunchi which means to square up the mood of others around you and the German word Fingerspitzengefühl which means the ability to assess the situation and respond to it deftly. Wonka has neither, proving incapable of noticing the warning signs of Bleacher and his partner in crime, Mrs. Scrubbit, for the former, says he can stay at a hotel for free and then later surprises Wonka with a ridiculously long contract to sign for staying at the hotel along with pressuring him to do so. Wonka even ignores the young girl called Noodle, who works for Mrs. Scrubbit and Bleacher, who whispers from behind a shelf to Wonka that he should read the small print before signing. Mrs. Scrubbit cuts her off by telling Wonka a bogus story about Noodle having a mental condition whereby she sees conspiracies everywhere. Not taking the time to thoroughly read an important document or contract before signing, not asking someone one trusts to read it over nor conducting proper due diligence on a party wanting to do business can lead to one of the biggest mistakes a businessman can commit. This hits home for the audience by seeing Wonka eventually being imprisoned by this dubious duo and having to pay off an obscene debt accrued by the terms of an absurd contract.
The importance of implementing multiple marketing strategies was also covered. At the soft launch, the first vital major marketing move a founder should take, Wonka makes the audience see that, although a technical founder, he is a natural frontman/salesman for his business by attracting and selling to customers. One of Wonka’s teammates suggests conducting a form of guerrilla marketing in order to counter the cartel’s crackdown on Wonka. I interpreted this approach as representing marketing professor Philip Kotler’s strategy, which is to conduct marketing that suits the local environment. Lastly, social marketing is buying a product only after someone, a trusted person, recommends it to them. This was featured during Wonka’s hiring process when Noodle tosses Wonka’s chocolate to a fellow prisoner, the sceptical accountant Abacus, who then becomes convinced to join the team.
What spoke to me in particular was how much emphasis the film put on the need to build a great team. A founder needs to focus on this most important aspect of business early on. By showing Wonka initially not deeming this important at all and instead choosing to go at it alone, we see the disastrous consequences of his decision. In the real world, one of the first actions interested investors take is to check out the team section of a startup’s website in order to gauge its potential and value. Customers also feel more comfortable and gain trust in the company when they see qualified supporting team members. A key learning moment in the film is Wonka realizing he needs a team that would allow him to focus more on product creation. He uses his charisma to convince his fellow prisoners not only to join his team then he also infects them with enthusiasm to help achieve his goals. Every technical founder should follow this thinking. Wonka, also importantly, identifies the person best suited to be his Chief Operating Officer (COO of sorts) to assist in navigating the pitfalls of the chocolate marketplace.
The biggest startup lesson of all in this film is learning to hit the reset button after a major setback in recovering the enthusiasm. This is shown in the form of Wonka becoming a victim of product sabotage, which is perpetrated by the chocolate cartel, Bleacher and Mrs. Scrubbit, resulting not only in his customers experiencing mutations upon eating his chocolate but of him also experiencing the horrifying blow of the same disgruntled customers causing the burning down of his shop. The film portrays a first-time startup founder’s realistic reaction to failure by showing Wonka’s dejection in contrast to his starting off all bright-eyed. Through the support of his team, Wonka manages to rekindle his passion for chocolate, which touchingly comes from his chocolatier mother. A failure experience is more likely to happen more than once for a startup team as according to explodingtopics. com, “Over the long run, 90% of startups fail. In other words, only one in 10 traditional businesses in the startup category ultimately survive.” To Wonka’s credit, the fact that Wonka’s team even stays together after the shop-burning disaster is a testament to Wonka’s inspired leadership.
I recommend this film for anyone thinking about either founding a startup or joining one because vital lessons can be learnt from this well-made depiction of a businessman’s journey towards achieving his dream. For us, the Millennials, Wonka being a young aspirant navigating the pitfalls involved with starting a company makes for an engaging and relatable viewing experience.
