 On the 5th of March, 1910, a baby boy called Momofukuko, Ando, was born into a wealthy Taiwanese family in Kagi, the present-day Chiayi, Taiwan. Ando would have had an ideal childhood if not for the disaster that struck during his infant days. He was only a few months old when his parents died, leaving him in the care of his paternal grandparents. Despite the untimely demise of his parents, Ando's childhood wasn't devoid of love. His grandparents raised him in the city of Tainan, Taiwan, where he was given the love and attention that anyone raised by their parents enjoyed at the time. Ando took a liking to business early in life thanks to his grandparents' spirit of enterprise. His grandparents ran a textile business and disinfluenced his interest in the fabric business at the onset of his adulthood. Like most children who were fairly privileged in their city, Ando received high-quality education in some of the best schools around, so he learned more about the world from school but strengthened his business argument by spending time at his grandparents' store after school or during the holidays. Ando's late parents had left him a fortune of 190,000 yen. When he came of age, his grandparents remitted his money to him, and with it, he traveled to Osaka, Japan to study economics at Ritsumeiken University. He also used some of the money to start a textile company, towing the part of his grandparents. He was 22 years old at the time. The year Ando turned 29, the Second World War began and put a strain to his business but despite the challenges of the world, Ando ran his business to the best of his ability and kept his head above the water. When it seemed like Ando's life was going to remain a series of uninterrupted successes and other disasters struck him. He had used some of his proceeds from his business to provide scholarship for students. This was considered a way of evading taxes under Japanese law. He was apprehended by the authorities and sent to jail. During his jail term of two years, Ando's business did not have sufficient supervision so it crashed and he was left with nothing. By the time he got out of jail, there was nothing for him to hold on to and life seemed bleak for him. But Ando had imbibed some good business acumen from his grandparents. By the time the world war ended, most businesses had gone up in flames and there was starvation in the land. The authorities requested that people ate bread made from wheat which was supplied as a relief package by the US. Ando looked around and saw that the best business to embark on at that time was one that solved the needs of people. He taught about building a food manufacturing company since there weren't many local food manufacturers and the demand for food was high. He began to experiment with a flashy fry method. Soon he developed the first pack of instant noodles on the 25th of August 1958 and those instant noodles packets were released into the market and became an instant success. The rest, they say, is history. So here's the thing. For an entrepreneur to thrive in business, they must choose a business that ultimately solves a problem. The successful entrepreneur must be a strategic thinker. Jim Collins said, focusing solely on what you can potentially do better than any other organization is the only path of greatness. A person who hopes to thrive in business must not conform to what's already obtainable in the society. You have to think of ways in which you will stand out, either by meeting the needs of people or by meeting the needs of people in a different way than what they are already used to. General Judge S. Barton Jr. said, good tactics can save even the worst strategy but bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy. An entrepreneur who hopes to grow their business must make practical decisions and not idealistic ones. Jack Welch said, strategy is simply resource allocation. When you strip away all the noise, that's what it comes down to. Strategy means making clear-cut choices about how to compete. It cannot be everything to everybody, no matter what the size of your business or how deep it spockets. Momofuku Ando succeeded because of his strategy. He first discovered what the people needed, then outdid other manufacturers by producing something altogether new and refreshing.