13A- Reading Reflection No. 1

Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc

1.       When reading this biography, I was surprised most by the fact that McDonald’s began as a single restaurant in California by two brothers and an outsider stepped in and was able to expand the fast food restaurant to what it is today. What I admired most about Ray Kroc was his ability to make it through times of failure. In the biography he stated that his times as a salesman could be unstable and that he attempted certain things that fell through, like real estate and playing the piano at a local bar. I least liked that it took someone else’s business for Kroc’s entrepreneurial dreams to come true. It was quite impressive how he was able to grow McDonald’s, but it could’ve been even more impressive if McDonald’s was his idea to start with. It seems Ray Kroc experienced ample adversity and the way he handled it was by not giving up. He kept pushing in what he was doing, and it led him to bigger and better things. For example, the company he was selling paper cups to did not want to give him a fair deal when he introduced the Multimixer to them, he ended up sticking with the income they promised him even though it wasn’t very generous and it ended up leading him to the opportunity that arouse with the McDonald Brothers.

2.       Kroc obtained an exceptional entrepreneurial mindset. What I mean by this is that he was very good at identifying opportunities and proposing a solution to it. There are ample examples of him exercising this competency, like coming up with the idea of disposable cups and identifying that the Multimixer would be a product that sells well.

3.       I found it confusing that Ray Kroc was just a salesman and out of the blew expressed interest to help build a restaurant into a franchise. It seemed like a whole different extreme from what he was used to doing and then I got to the part in the biography where it was explained that he felt helping the McDonald’s brother expand would give him the opportunity to sell more Multimixers. The more McDonald restaurants that opened the more Multimixers that were needed; therefore, the more money Kroc would receive.

4.       -Was there anyone else that was crucial to the process of building the franchise other then the McDonald’s brothers?

-How do you go about splitting the income fairly between the franchise owners, the brothers, and you?

5.  I believe Kroc’s opinion of hard work was to not give up. I think his motto was to keep going through    the rough patches and continue in the direction you’re in, instead of choosing a new direction. I share this opinion because I believe in finishing what I started, even if it feels impossible because I feel it will lead to a discovery that can make me successful and a feeling of accomplishment.