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World’s greatest entrepreneurs started small, too
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By now, most people know that one of Steve Jobs’ key insights in launching Apple came from wanting to build a computer that could replicate the artistic typefaces he learned about in a calligraphy class after dropping out of Reed College in the early 1970s.
Perhaps less well known is that John Mackey started Whole Foods out of an old Victorian house in Austin in 1978. His goal was not to make money per se — he leaned toward socialism at the time — but to help vegetarians sustain their healthy lifestyle.
Or take Fred Smith. The real impetus for launching FedEx came after serving as a Marine platoon leader — and later as an air controller — in Vietnam between 1967 and 1969. He saw how the military had perfected a ground-and-air logistics system that moved massive amounts of items large and small in a remarkably efficient way and decided to replicate the model for the private sector.
Late fees spark Netflix
One of the best startup tales of recent vintage has to be that of Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix. In 1997, he misplaced the Tom Hanks film Apollo 13, and when he finally found the videocassette six weeks later, he owed Blockbuster $40 in late fees. He was so embarrassed that he lied to his wife for the first time in their marriage.
He also was so angry that he obsessed over creating a business model that avoided video-rental late fees, coming up with the idea for Netflix. To confirm the concept’s feasibility, Hastings bought a few CDs from his local Tower Records and mailed them to himself to make sure they arrived intact.
Clearly, I’m a sucker for this type of inspirational, great-ideas-come-from-anywhere trivia. That’s why I so thoroughly enjoyed John A. Byrne’s new book, World Changers: 25 Entrepreneurs Who Changed Business as We Knew It.
The former editor of Business Week and Fast Company (where I worked for him), and the author of nine books, Byrne has literally had a front-row view of American business for the past three decades. He puts his Rolodex and research skills to productive use in this series of profiles, which includes everyone from Michael Dell to Mark Zuckerberg.
Recently, I asked him about some of the key lessons he learned from these world-changing entrepreneurs while immersed in launching his first and only startup venture. Here’s what he had to say:
Lesson 1: Learn to pivot
The original idea that you have for your business will never end up being the idea you actually execute. Some people can get hung up on that and think it means that they’re not successful.
Not true.
Every single entrepreneur who has been a huge success pivots, and pivots hundreds or thousands of times. Look at Jeff Bezos from Amazon. All he wanted to do was sell books online — he never thought he would do anything else. But with Kindle, he’s launched a revolution in the way we read.
He could never have imagined Amazon having a cloud-computing component. And he never thought it would sell literally everything under the sun. The trick is that you have to work on some idea to discover that it doesn’t work. Yet only by being immersed in the problem will you find something that does work.
Lesson 2: Develop an opportunistic mindset
Great entrepreneurs are on the lookout for new ideas constantly. Everything they see and almost everything they think, they ask what the business potential is.
Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, had already seen a big payday as an executive at PayPal. After working hard for years, he decided to take a sabbatical in Australia for a year. But he didn’t last more than two months because he saw so much happening as social media was just getting started. And once he came up with the idea for LinkedIn, everybody said he was crazy because he would have to get a million users to sign up before any kind of meaningful network effect took hold.
But he knew the opportunity would be big. And LinkedIn has gone on to become an unbelievable success.
Lesson 3: Seek capital at own risk
This isn’t true in all cases, but it is in many of them, particularly if you’re working on an Internet startup: You do not need investment capital from other people.
You can fund your growth out of cash flow — or personal savings — while keeping total and complete control of your business. Outside investors are only looking for a liquidity moment when they can exit. And when things go wrong, they jump on the founders and get rid of them.
What Byrne says he found with his own company is that it’s easy to get caught up knocking on doors talking about a business plan rather than working on your idea. Chasing capital investors can be a real waste of time.
Lesson 4: Accept risk
Most people want stable jobs with a steady income, health benefits and a reasonable work-life balance. These are not entrepreneurs, and they’re certainly not the entrepreneurs that have created massive value and changed the world we live in. These people love risk — but calculated risk, never simply recklessness.
Reid Hoffman distinguishes between mortal risk, where you bet the company — you don’t want to do that — and the smaller risks you face every single day. You need to make these decisions quickly, without agonizing over them. But you need to do so using data, or if you’re going on your gut, you need a lot of experience.
Ryan Underwood is an editor at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. His column, which appears every other Thursday, covers the startup culture in Nashville.…More at World’s greatest entrepreneurs started small, too – The Tennessean
Searching For Fantastic Online Business Opportunities in Australia?
Article by Searching For Fantastic Online Business Opportunities in Australia?Dan Walker
More people than ever before are looking to escape their current jobs to aim for a work from home position which provides a better work life balance. Previous generations did not have the level of choice we have now and in a variety of cases people worked for the same corporation for their whole working career.. An other would have not at any time ever been considered.
Our current time period in history, via internet and social influences, is greatly skeptical of the idea that we have to work for somebody else the rest of our working lives and progressively looking added forms of income.
In Australia there are a variety of people that already work from home and are enjoying the benefits that a home-based position can provide, including flexible working hours. The potential to take time off when required and in some cases the control over the level of income supplied.
Work from home opportunities have been encircled by a lot of adverse publicity and there have been endless high-profile scams unfortunately They supply deceptive schemes targeted at those searching to create work from home style of living. Nonetheless there are many of certified opportunities for those to build an income from home.
Every now and then people’s current company will establish adaptable work pratices or even a consultancy type of composition that leaves them able to strive for other work through other companies. There are even conventional salaried jobs that are now 100 percent home-based.
Other than this there are opportunities for those to do secretarial and personal assistant roles from home as well as typing jobs.
There is also a require for outsourced services like writing, marketing, website design and search engine optimisation that has been driven by the increase in people gathering a living from the internet. Despite a variety of of the people offering these services at the lowest cost are positioned in India, the Philippines and added developing countries, there are even opportunities for those in Australia to work from home completing these sorts of assignments. In particular if they can present a greater quality of service.
The network marketing industry and party planning are related work from home opportunities. Increasingly companies are offering people the option to evolve into an independent Associate and promote the organisation’s merchandise in return for a share of a profit of some kind.
Finally, many those in Australia have set-up online businesses where they are selling merchandise they have made themselves or bought from a dealer. Another technique to bring in bankroll from home is selling on Ebay.
As you can notice there are so many work from home opportunities possible today it is no wonder that many Australian people are selecting to evacuate their jobs to desire a home based business or job that provides a flexible working environment. It is attainable to find a job that will let you to acquire your financial and style of living goals as long as you examinate each opportunity carefully.
Drop over the work from home Australiacatalogue to find out more about the opportunities at present available. If you are fascinated in learning more about home based business, Magnetic Sponsoring provides seven free informational videos.
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THE NEW DORK – Entrepreneur State of Mind (Jay-Z ft Alicia Keys Spoof) | grasshopper.com
grasshopper.com – This is a Pantless Knights tribute to our favorite entrepreneurs (who are all "new dorks"). Its a spoof of Jay-Z and Alicia Keys "Empire State of Mind," from the guys behind Grasshopper.com (thank you!). We made it because theres a new type of dork that is cooler than ever. Look at tech entrepreneurs, hipsters, Computer Science Barbie – theyre all super popular new dorks! Dont forget to rate, comment and subscribe! Get the FREE SONG in mp3 here seedwell.com or the Jerkin Remix in mp3 here: seedwell.com -beau, peter and david the pantless knights CREDITS: Created by Pantless Knights Seedwell.com Produced by Beau Lewis & Peter Furia Camera by Peter Furia Line Produced by Kimi Milo Lyrics by Beau Lewis and Peter Furia Vocals by Paavo Steinkamp & Jacqueline Becker – youtube.com Starring Paavo Steinkamp & Alison Mei Lan Instrumental and Song Mix by Jeff Kite Special guest – TGIF Crew – youtube.com LYRICS: Now Im in the blogosphere, Now Im in the twitterverse Fans get so immersed, But Im a nerd forever Im the new Zuckerberg, And since my website I been cookin dough like a chef servin killa-bytes Used to be the basement, Back at my moms place Buildin web traffic so that we could sell an ad space Make way for the, One man businesses Bail outs finished with, White collar criminals New sega genesis, Entrepreneur time Makin big plans, To dominate the online Yeah, Im on YouTube, this is one man Sharin google revenue, With songs on my webcam Science is …
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