Biography of successful businessmen. Success stories from scratch - learn from the best businessmen

Evgeny Chichvarkin is a major businessman, one of the co-founders and ex-co-owner of Euroset, the largest network of mobile communication salons in Russia. The future entrepreneur engaged in commerce while still at school, buying cigarettes, and then reselling them to his classmates for almost one and a half times more expensive. Later, in the perestroika years, which accounted for the youth of a businessman, and natural flexibility helped him a lot.

As a student, Chichvarkin took on everything that could be bought cheaper and then sold at a higher price: chocolate bars, razor blades, clothes and shoes. In accordance with this work, his whole day was built: he got up at five in the morning to take the goods to Luzhniki and manage to sell them as quickly as possible in order to be in time for school.

After graduating from the university, Evgeny got married and went on a honeymoon trip, and upon his return he found out that his place in the market had long been occupied by someone else, so he had to go to work for his friend Timur Artemyev, who opened a mobile phone salon with another businessman. connections. Artemiev did not see eye to eye with his partner and quickly broke up. And he launched a new one already together with Chichvarkin. So at the beginning of April 1997, the first Euroset store was opened in Moscow.

To date, the Euroset network has more than five thousand salons, and the company's business has long gone beyond the limits of ordinary trade. mobile phones. Chichvarkin himself currently lives in the UK, where, in partnership with the same Artemyev, he is engaged in the wine business.

Sergei Galitsky

Sergey Galitsky - founder and owner trading network"Magnet" and the football club "Krasnodar". After graduating from school, Galitsky enters the Faculty of Economics of the Kuban State University, and already as a student shows an ability to finance and business. The article he wrote for the publication “Finance and Credit” under the heading “On the Question of Financial Liquidity”, as the entrepreneur himself later admitted, largely determined the development of his career and.

Thanks to this work, Galitsky received a small position in one of the Krasnodar commercial banks, but a year later he left financial institution while holding the position of deputy manager at that time.

A year later, Galitsky opens the TransAsia company, which specialized in the supply of cosmetics, perfumes, etc. This step was quite a big risk for Sergei, since he had to take out a loan in the amount of 30 thousand dollars to start the business, and the company at first existed literally on the verge of bankruptcy.

In 1998, the entrepreneur decides to change direction and opens the first self-service store in the city of Krasnodar. This is how the Magnit network was born, which is this moment is the main business of Galitsky. To date, the network has about 8.5 thousand stores and more than 300 hypermarkets, and the personal fortune of Galitsky himself is about $ 2.7 billion.

Today I want to tell you the stories of some of the the richest people of our planet who have been able to earn over a billion dollars thanks to their brilliant ideas, hard work and desire to get rich. What is most interesting, all these people did not inherit a huge fortune and did not win the lottery, they all started their business from scratch. Very interesting, read on.

Li Ka-shing - $26.5 billion

Li Ka-shing was born and lived in China until he left the country in 1940 and moved to Hong Kong. Due to the death of his father, he had to leave school at the age of 14 and go to work. His first job was in a plastic products trading company and he had to spend 16 hours there.
The first ten years, plus thrift, led to the opportunity to open his own business, Cheung Kong Industries. Like previous place Ka-shing's works, here they were engaged in plastics, but over time, it turned into the largest investment corporation in Hong Kong. Li Ka-shing himself is considered one of the richest Chinese.

Sheldon Adelson - $26 billion

Sheldon Adelson, the son of a taxi driver from Boston, began his entrepreneurial career at the age of 12 by selling newspapers. After that, he was a court reporter, mortgage broker, investment advisor and financial advisor. There was a period when he tried to sell toiletries and charter tours.
But the organization of the computer exhibition-fair COMDEX in 1979 became a serious success. For the next 2 decades, it was the leading exhibition in the computer field in the United States.
And in 1988, together with partners, he acquires a casino and a hotel in Las Vegas (Sands Hotel & Casino), after which he quickly begins to get rich.

Sergey Brin - $24.9 billion

This is already a new wave of billionaires who began to earn money in the age of computerization and the Internet. Sergey Brin, a 40-year-old Google owner and former Russian, was born in Moscow and then moved to the United States with his family of mathematicians. Engaged in search engines (this is how Google.com itself is called correctly) began at Stanford with classmate Larry Page. The system was tested at the university, and then they began to look for investors. The name Google is a mispronunciation of gugol, a word spoken during one of the project's presentations.
Brin and Page were included in the list of billionaires in 2004, when they were 30 years old. Today, Brin is mainly engaged in the development of new projects and directions, such as augmented reality glasses and an unmanned vehicle.

Larry Page - $24.9 billion

The co-founder and co-owner of Google has been running the company itself since 2011 and is actually responsible for it. strategic development. In addition to Google, he is actively engaged in the development of the clean energy sector, in particular, together with Brin, he invested in Tesla Motors, which produces electric cars. high level(this is a normal machine that is powered by batteries).

Roman Abramovich - $23.5 billion

A well-known personality in narrow circles, Roman Abramovich, a billionaire orphan, who was raised by his grandparents. He went into business while still a student, creating a cooperative for the production of toys and various polymers. After that, there were many other companies and cooperatives, both in production and in trade.
But, as some sharp tongues say, Abramovich's main talent is that he knows how to be at the right time in the right place - in this way he was able to gain control of Sibneft, which allowed him to become a billionaire.

Amancio Ortega - $20.2 billion

Until I read who it was, the name meant absolutely nothing to me - Amancio Ortega. If we say that this is the founder and owner of Zara, then a lot will fall into place.
He started sewing his first suits in his living room with the help of $25 and his wife. The first clothing store opened in 1975, and after a while became the owner of the popular clothing chain Zara. In addition to the Zara chain, he has chains of clothing stores for children, for young girls, lingerie stores, etc. In total, Ortega has more than 3,000 stores in 64 countries around the world.

Mark Zuckerberg - $19 billion

29-year-old Mark Zuckenberg is an icon of the modern world. Young, lazy, creative and rich. Creator of the largest social Facebook networks, who created a system for his university - Harvard - and in the end could not finish it, because. there was no time left. Helped in the creation of Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskowitz, plus Eduardo Saverin. The first major investment came from Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal.
Now Facebook is a public company, which first lost a lot in price, and then (in 2013) began to rise in price. Zuckenberg now has a 17% stake, making him the youngest billionaire in history.

Kirk Kerkorian - $16 billion

The now elderly uncle of the age of 96 left school in the 8th grade for the sake of boxing. At that time, he achieved great success and even became the welterweight champion in the Pacific Amateur Boxing Championship. After the Second World War, he left the ring and went to the airfield and began to fly the plane, but in 1944 he ended up in Las Vegas, where he got stuck for 3 years. After losing a lot of money, he nevertheless said goodbye to gambling and bought the airline company Trans International Airlines for 60 thousand dollars. After some time, he was able to sell it for $ 104 million to Transamerica.
And since 1968, he took up Hollywood - he earned at MGM, United Artists, Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox.

Elon Musk - $6.7 billion

Elon Musk is one of those new rich people who capture the market with their brains, hands and business acumen. First big deal at age 12 - wrote a program that I sold for $500 (at that age I only spent pocket money on ice cream and buns). At the age of 25, together with his brother, he created a software company for news companies, and after 4 years he was able to sell it for a price of 307 million. He invested this money in the creation of PayPal, which, in turn, he sold to eBay for $1.5 billion.
Today he is engaged in the Space X space program and has contracts from NASA. Also engaged in the aforementioned Tesla Motors.

Dustin Moskowitz - $5.2 billion

You can also say about this young man, he was at the right time in the right place. Dustin Moskowitz is Mark Zuckenberg's roommate and helped him build Facebook. At the moment, he owns 5% of the shares and this is the basis of his fortune. Facebook is not his main project now - now he is working on the Asana project. This is a web application for efficient project collaboration. Of the interesting things, he rides a bicycle to work and participates in the Giving Pledge project (a philanthropic project from Bill Gates and Warren Buffett). The essence of the project is that half of the members' fortune goes to charity.

Ken Griffin - $4.4 billion

Billions are made not only on computers. Ken Griffin is the owner of Citadel hedge funds. He got his first positive experience of playing on the stock exchange at the age of 18 and has not stopped working since then. He became one of the most famous specialists in his field. After 2008, the funds lost half their price, but are now gradually recovering.

John Arnold - $2.8 billion

Another successful stock player, John Arnold, started at Enron, now deceased. At the age of 27, he earned $1 billion for the company and received his bonus of $8 million. It was this money that he used to invest for himself and leave the annoying company.
In 2012, he surprised the whole world by announcing that he was retiring from trading after 17 years of successful experience. Now he and his wife charitable foundation with a budget of 1.4 billion dollars, and he is also a member of the Giving Pledge project, which we mentioned above.

Oprah Winfrey - $2.5 billion

Oprah Winfrey is a whole layer of American culture. This is the Cinderella of our days, who did not drop her shoe on the stairs, but plowed like a horse and used all the possibilities. The beginning of life is harsh, you can’t say anything: a strict mother, she was first abused at the age of 9, at 14 she gave birth to a child who died in infancy. But when I was in school, I first got a job at a radio station. At the age of 19, she already hosted local news, then daytime talk shows. The next major achievement is to promote a completely unpopular show so as to become a celebrity, and then, with experience and a name, create your own production company.
At 32, Oprah became a millionaire, and her show is the property of the nation. Since 1994, it has become so popular that the check for the year exceeded 9 figures. Oprah Winfrey became the first African American woman to be featured on the Forbes list.
Today, once on the air with Oprah, you can become a celebrity in 1 day. For example, this was done with Robert Kiyosaki in 1997 (of course, we will not belittle the achievements of Robert himself).

Mikey Jagtiani - $2.5 billion

Mikey Jagtiani, a Middle Eastern representative on our list of billionaires, was going to be an accountant, but his studies didn't work out. living in London was too expensive, plus the exams were also not going smoothly. To survive, I had to work as a taxi driver and a cleaner.
At the age of 21, Mikey Jagtian ends up in Bahrain alone with 6 thousand dollars (that's all the family had) and opens a children's goods store with this money. And today it is a retail chain in the list of the most profitable in the Middle East.
A corporation called Landmark includes 280 stores throughout the Middle East and brings Mike Jagtiani up to 650 million in profit per year.

Michael Rubin - $2.3 billion

Another representative of today's billionaires, Michael Rubin, CEO Kynetic. He began his career as an entrepreneur as a child and sold seeds to his neighbors. At the age of 10, he already hired 5 guys to remove snow from neighboring lawns for money. At the age of 14, this future billionaire had already opened the first store, persuading his father to sign a lease. At 23, he was already a director in a company with $50 million in sales.
But he saw his destiny in e-commerce, which was just beginning to develop. He invested about 80 million in his online store, but, despite increasing sales, he could not make this business sustainable. However, eBay came to the rescue, which bought the company from Rubin for 2.4 billion. The price is much higher than the real cost of this project, but eBay was behind in the race with Amazon, so they shelled out this money.
Today, Rubin is engaged in Fanatics clothing stores and websites of various kinds, in which he has already invested 500 million.

Eduardo Saverin - $2.2 billion

Another person who made a fortune on Facebook. Saverin was Zuckenberg's first investor and was commercial director young project. But while Saverin was in New York on practice, Zuckenberg attracted new investors and artificially lowered his equity stake from 34% to 0.03%. Eduardo sued and got his share back up to 5%.
These 5% allowed him to get into the list of billionaires. In addition, the man turned out to be reasonable and, before Facebook filed for an IPO, he renounced his US citizenship and became a citizen of Brazil, which allowed him not to pay US taxes. And although he has a Brazilian passport, he lives in Singapore and invests in online projects: an application that scans the barcode of a product and offers it at the lowest price on the Internet or online credit card payments using a webcam.

Sean Parker - $2 billion

Another co-owner of Facebook, Sean Parker, started out as a talented programmer and hacker. Already at the age of 16, he was arrested for hacking the websites of companies that were on the Forbes list. He also had a hand in creating the Napster Internet resource, through which it was possible to exchange music. It was a kind of breakthrough, albeit closed for "some" friction with the law. At 24, he meets Zuckenberg and is the president of Facebook. True, then he is removed, which, however, does not prevent him from keeping 3% of the shares and becoming a billionaire.
Today he is engaged in his startups.

Richard Desmond - $2 billion

The life of Richard Desmond also did not indulge at the beginning: his parents divorced, lived together in a small apartment, left school at the age of 14 to play drums and help his mother earn money.
His first real job was at the Thomson Newspaper, but by the age of 21 he owned two record stores. But the experience of the media also received its continuation - in 1974, Desmond became the publisher of the International Musician and Recording World magazine.

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16.02.2016

Greetings, followers of successful businessmen! Today, especially for you, I will tell you popular business success stories from scratch. After all, other people's luck is contagious. In addition, examples of effective business ideas can be very useful for you.

Billion dollar ideas

Many of the richest people in the world started from scratch, without huge cash investments, wealthy parents and winning the big lottery. They just invented an amazing business idea, knew how to work "by the sweat of their brow" and go towards their goal, no matter what! And, of course, these people were distinguished by an extraordinary mind, non-standard views on life.

I hope you are one of those people who, after reading business success stories from scratch, will reconsider their lives and take action! After all, if you just think that where are you up to such accomplishments and give up, it will not work. Therefore, read brief biographies of the world's most famous billionaires and absorb the energy of wealth.

Biographies of the richest people

So, now I turn directly to the success stories of millionaires and billionaires. By the way, learn interesting internet profession and earn your first million you can here.

Sheldon Adelson

This man was born in Boston in the family of an ordinary taxi driver. From the age of twelve he began a small entrepreneurial activity selling newspapers. After that followed various works– financial advisor, mortgage broker, court reporter, tour salesman. However, all this was only a difficult path to future success. 1979 was a landmark year for Adelson. He organized COMDEX - an exhibition-fair of computer topics, which for 20 years was the most famous event dedicated to computer technology.

9 years after the creation of the fair, Sheldon buys a hotel, a casino in the largest gaming city of Las Vegas and instantly increases his material wealth, which, according to general estimates, is $ 26 billion.

Roman Abramovich

An example of a billionaire comes from Saratov. The childhood of this famous oilman passed under the upbringing of close relatives, since the boy's parents died. In his youth, Abramovich had excellent organizational skills. 1980-90 - the year when he created a small business for the manufacture of polymers, toys.

This was followed by trading mediation, developing into an oil raider. Then, after establishing useful ties with B. Berezovsky, B. Yeltsin's family, Roman Arkadyevich noticeably improved his financial situation. They say that it was thanks to them that he took possession of Sibneft. Abramovich's further career growth is the post of deputy, governor, contributing to the expansion of the oil business. The next step to enrichment is the purchase of the Chelsea football club. The approximate amount of the entrepreneur's income is 23.5 billion dollars.

Li Ka-shing

Chinese businessman who earned about $26.5 billion. He began his career at the age of fourteen. In order to earn a living after the death of his father, the boy dropped out of school. At first he worked as a trader in plastic products. A few years later he was able to open his own business - the company Cheung Kong Industries, which later became a major investment corporation in Hong Kong, and Ka-Shing - the richest person in China.

Maxim Nogotkov

This is the youngest Russian businessman who has earned more than one billion. Nogotkov started working as a schoolboy, selling copies of PC programs. Already 2 years later, without finishing higher education, he, together with his comrades, opened his own business - the Maxus company, in order to engage in a wholesale type of trade in equipment on the radio markets. The organization then became a distributor of Siemens radiotelephones.

The beginning of trade in mobile phones did not bring success. But the purchase of mobile phone stores allowed us to reach a new horizon, as a result of which the Svyaznoy brand appeared. Today's turnover of the company is more than five hundred billion rubles.

Fred De Luca

An American entrepreneur, along with a friend, started their business by opening a regular diner. Then Fred was only 17 years old. The original plan was to open 32 eateries over a ten-year period. Thanks to further franchising, the network of stores has expanded significantly. Now outlets SUBWAY brand have become popular all over the world. Their number exceeds 21 thousand in different countries of the world, which exceeds the number of another popular fast food brand McDonald's.

These are just 5 stories of successful business from scratch. But there are actually a lot of them. Re-read the biographies of the most famous rich people in order to trace the patterns of ascent from poverty to prosperity, to be inspired by other people's successes. It will definitely work if you are determined to start your own business and think like a millionaire.

Sincerely, Ivan Balashov!

Many millionaires started their journey from scratch, hopelessness, lack of money and despair, but everyone had a small spark of hope and faith in a brighter future, and many even distinguished themselves in history.

Businessman Guy Laliberte and his business

Consider the success story of the famous businessman Guy Laliberte, president of Cirque du Soleil. At one time, Guy started from scratch. He played the accordion in the streets, then walked on stilts and was fond of swallowing fire. Begging for his show, he found others like himself and created a troupe, going to the Los Angeles Arts Festival. They were noticed and began to be invited to other cities. After earning enough money, Guy officially registered his circus troupe, and in a couple of years it turned into a company with a huge income of $ 2.5 million.

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The history of the online store "Utinet"

Without a penny for the soul, it is possible not only abroad, but also in our country. One of famous companies"Utinet" appeared in our country and at the moment has achieved great success.

The stories of successful companies are not easy, but when creating your own business, no one promises you “freebies” and quick wild success.

The founders of the Utinet online store were Mikhail Ukolov and Oleg Rybalov, who were ordinary students and started their business from scratch.

Mikhail Ukolov and Oleg Rybalov were students of the Moscow state university economics, statistics and informatics. Graduated from it in 2004. In this institution, Mikhail received an education in the specialty "programmer", and Oleg - "management of the organization".

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About how it all began

Mikhail carried out small orders for the creation of websites for online stores for customers. While working on one of the projects, Mikhail noticed a problem in which the logisticians could not cope with a large amount of order processing. Then he created a new algorithm for processing orders, which could be handled by one person instead of 10. The essence of the algorithm was as follows: the dispatcher could track the location of the goods at any time. In the future, to improve this program, Mikhail also developed the same version, only for clients.

In 2003, Mikhail and Oleg decided to try themselves on the other side of the river - to open their own online store selling equipment and succeed. Laptops were the first product, because the guys were well versed in this type of technology.

Also, the product was light in weight, which made it possible to deliver it personally by public transport, because there was no car yet. The income from the sale of one laptop was about 8% of the cost and was a very decent income. The presence of more than 500 competitors for the sale of such equipment did not frighten novice businessmen. They decided to bypass them in this way: directly from the manufacturing plant to deliver goods to buyers' apartments. Having a proper education, Mikhail created a program that analyzed all the prices for laptops in Moscow and displayed the lowest and most attractive price for the consumer.

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The financial side of the business

To understand the financial side of the business, Oleg got a job as an accountant in one of the online stores selling household appliances. The goal was achieved, he learned all the moves and loopholes e-business and his reporting.

After collecting some money, about $4,000, they finally registered the company. We bought the first most necessary things, such as cash register, the first item to order, and, of course, rented an apartment. The first product sold was Fujitsu-Siemens, which, three weeks after opening, was finally SOLD.

At first, the guys did everything themselves: Rybalov was engaged in the financial side of the business - compiling and maintaining reports, contracts and settlements with manufacturers; Injections delivered orders and led the technical side of the site - processing orders and bringing them into execution.

At that time, sites had a limited filter by product selection criteria. For ease of search, Ukolov developed a product filter by dozens of criteria: by price, screen diagonal, number of ports, hard drive size, color, manufacturer, RAM, etc. This difference from other sites attracted customers, and it began to gain popularity among consumers.

Already in 2004, the site received an annual revenue of 500 thousand dollars, and the fortune of young people went up rapidly: in 2005 - 2 million dollars, in 2006 - 5 million dollars, in 2007 - 11 million dollars. For several years, with their work, perseverance and intelligence, students turned into successful businessmen. In just 4 years, the site has taken 10% of the market for the sale of laptops.

But the world did not stand still, and online stores also developed. In addition, large chain stores like Eldorado were becoming more competitive, and profits per laptop began to drop from 8% to 5%. With an average laptop cost of $2,000, the profit was $150, but in this situation it fell to $100, which significantly affected Utinet's annual revenue.

During the global crisis, the demand for equipment fell sharply. By that time, Utinet had opened an offer to obtain a commodity loan for a period of 12 days. It was not possible to return the commodity credit of their customers through new orders. I had to come to a forced measure - to reduce the staff, which by that time already existed, and to ask for a deferment of payment on loans from banking institutions. In order to somehow raise revenue, they lowered prices - demand increased, but the business went at a loss.

Only an investor could help in this situation. But during the crisis it was almost impossible to find an investor. After conducting a predictive analysis, investor economists came to the conclusion that Utinet was 70% bankrupt and there was no profitability of investing in it.

To help his company, Ukolov, "shaking the old days", began to write programs to order, only this time he took exceptionally large orders.

In Moscow, meetings of start-up entrepreneurs began to take place under the leadership of Ulvi Kasimov, the founder of the IQ Group company, who invest in Internet projects. Injections and Rybalov presented their ideas for creating a site that sold orders for the supply of goods to other stores, which does not carry credit risks and in return allows you to get good money. Kasimov was interested in this, and he bought 51% of Utinet.

After Ukolov built a platform based on Utinet, customers began to see prices for laptops and other household and electronic equipment from other companies. For placing and receiving this order, partners paid Utinet a commission in the amount of 1-3% of the laptop price and up to 50% for accessories. The company did not have to spend a lot of time looking for companies - they found them themselves. Thus, a double savings was obtained.

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How the company "Kholodilnik.ru" was founded

Utinet were not pioneers in this field of activity, it was the company Wikimart. Wikimart is the largest Russian hypermarket. But he didn't take Utinet seriously, thinking it was just a hardware store that rented space. As a result, after launching the platform in test mode, Kholodilnik.ru decided to move from Wikimart to Utinet.

The problem in the former monopoly company was an overabundance of offers from different suppliers.

The founder of Kholodilnik.ru, Valery Kovalev, found a solution to all the problems that were encountered when working with Wikimart at Ukolov and Rybalov. With Utinet, Kovalev received 400 orders a month for $150,000, and according to predictive analysis, by the end of the year, the amount will increase to $1 million.

For large household appliances, Utinet works only with Kholodilnik.ru. Utinet is gradually building its business on the basis of the company Kholodilnik.ru, but Kovalev plans to go independent sailing in 2-3 years.

At the moment, Utinet cooperates with 10 online stores, and by the end of the year their number is planned to increase to 40. The site is being translated into English and Spanish to attract foreign partners.

This is how a business from scratch was able to achieve such success, and it was started by budding students who are now business sharks.

According to Ukolov, the profit from the new Utinet project has been kept at 3% of revenue for 2 years. Profit is not so easy to increase, as online stores spend:

• 20% for the maintenance of call centers;
• 30% for customer acquisition;
• 2/3 of the profit from each product takes the buying process from ordering customers to delivery;
• commission for third-party orders.

But still, according to financial forecasts, the development of the platform will lead them to a profit of 30% and easier work. And also with an increase in the number of partners, the situation will noticeably begin to improve in a positive direction.

It is believed that in order to develop a business, it is required to have initial capital. In reality, there are examples when successful businessmen today started their journey from the very bottom. Consider the top stories of creating a successful business from scratch.

KFC, David Sanders

KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is a famous American fast food chain. Specializes in the preparation of chicken meat. The brand was founded by David Sanders. He was born on September 9, 1890. While still a boy, he left home. At the age of 16, he went to serve in the American army, forging documents. Then began a period of vagrancy, during which he learned a lot, including cooking.

Way to success

• When David turned 40, he opened a gas station. On it, he treated visitors to fried chicken according to his own recipe, adding special spices and herbs. As a result, customers began to come to him, primarily to feast on chicken, and not just fill up the car.
• Sanders improved the recipe by pressure frying the chicken and rented a larger space. In 1950, the governor of Kentucky personally presented him with the title of Colonel. A few years later, Sanders saved up some money and began to introduce a franchise.
• When the Colonel was 74 years old, he sold the company to Kentucky businessmen for a couple of million dollars, but retained his right to Canadian franchises. By that time, the total number of restaurants was 600.

Sanders left this world in 1980 at the age of 90. He was buried in the famous white suit - the personification of the image of the founder of KFC.

Today, the menu at KFC includes many different dishes based on chicken meat. In total, several tens of thousands of restaurants are open in countries around the world, including Russia.

Whatsapp, Jan Koum

WhatsApp is a free messenger through which about 50 million messages are sent daily. The founder of the messenger is Jan Kum. He is originally from Ukraine and today is the second most influential person on Facebook after Zuckerberg, but this was not always the case.

Childhood

Jan was born into a poor family in the winter of 1976, in the town of Fastov. His father was a construction worker and his mother was a housewife. Sometimes there was not enough money even for electricity and heating. The family emigrated to the United States and received, with the help of social program a small apartment, but poverty continued to dominate their lives. Kum tried to study and work as a cleaner in a store at the same time. Later, his mother developed cancer and the family began to live on her disability allowance.

Student years

By the time he came of age, one of Jan's hobbies was programming. He studied discipline from textbooks, borrowing them . Later, Koum joined a large group of hackers who hacked into the servers of well-known companies.

As a university student, Ian met Brian Acton, who later became his co-founder via WhatsApp. Brian got Ian a job at Yahoo, seeing potential in him. To devote himself to work, Koum dropped out of the university. When Yahoo began to experience difficult times, Jan and Brian left the company and set off on a free voyage.

Idea

Yang tried to get a job at Facebook, but he was immediately rejected. After a while, he bought himself an iPhone and came up with an interesting idea - to create a mobile messenger application. It appeared in 2009 and did not arouse the slightest interest among users. Brian persuaded Ian not to abandon his idea, but to wait a bit.

When the pop-up messages feature appeared on the iPhone, the WhatsApp messenger immediately became popular. In the winter of 2014, Facebook, the company that had once upset Yang so much by denying him a job, bought the app from Yang for $16 billion.

At the moment, Jan Koum is the chief executive officer of Facebook, is on the board of directors of the company. He has a fortune of $ 9 billion, but continues to spend all his time at work.

Alibaba, Jack Ma

Jack Ma is the founder and chairman of the board of directors of Alibaba. He owns a fortune of $ 25 billion, but for a long time he was accompanied only by failure.

Jack Ma (Ma Yun - real name) was born in the fall of 1964 in the Chinese city of Hangzhou and was the third child in their poor family.

Education and job search

At school age, he worked as a guide, offering tourists a free walk around the city - so he wanted to master English. One of the tourists with whom Ma developed friendships came up with the nickname Jack for him.

Jack really wanted to break into people and on the third attempt he was able to enter the Pedagogical Institute in his city. In 1988, he received his diploma, after which the job search began.

Jack got rejected everywhere, even at KFC. Finally he got lucky and became an English teacher. At a local university, he received only $12 a month. Despite this, teaching unexpectedly came to his liking.

Idea

During a trip to the US in 1995, Jack first learned what a computer and programming are. He was an interpreter for a business delegation from China. His first search query was "Beer". Jack was surprised that beer from his country didn't show up in the search results, so he decided to start an Internet company at home.

His first ideas were not successful, but after 4 years, Jack convinced his friends to invest in his new online marketplace Alibaba. On it, suppliers could display product offers, and consumers could order products directly. In 1999, Aliaba received significant investments from telecommunications investment company SoftBank (Japan) and Goldman Cash Bank. In total, investments amounted to $25 million. In 2005, Yahoo invested $1 billion in the company, acquiring a 40% stake from the latter. Subsequently, this brought significant profits to Yahoo.

In 2013, Jack became chairman of the board of directors, transferring his duties as CEO. autumn next year Alibaba did an IPO, making Jack the richest man in all of China.

lifestyle now

Despite his huge fortune, Jack continues to lead a modest lifestyle. His hobbies are meditation, health exercises, poker, reading and writing kung fu stories. . He also advocates for the environment and highlighted cash for the creation of a natural Chinese reserve of 10,000 hectares of land.

Jack is married to Zhang Ying, whom he met while teaching, and has a son and a daughter.

Starbucks, Howard Schultz

Howard Schultz is a well-known American businessman, is the executive director of a large chain of StarBucks cafes (today it is a real symbol of modern America). Thanks to his personal qualities and perseverance, Howard became a great businessman.

Childhood

The boy was born in the summer of 1953 in Brooklyn. His parents worked constantly, but there were no excesses in their family. Mom and dad dreamed that their son would get a good education and be able to provide for his family in the future. Howard lived in a government-issued low-income home. The only entertainment for local poor kids is the basketball court.

The boy began to work from the age of 12. At first he sold newspapers, and then worked as a cashier at a local cafe. At 16, Howard was stretching hides, a job that was physically demanding and low-paid.

After receiving his bachelor's degree in 1975, Howard worked for several years in sales at Xerox, after which he moved to the Hamamaplast representative office. This Swedish company sold coffee grinders and other household appliances Starbucks and similar organizations.

How did the idea come about

Once Howard tried Starbucks coffee, and since then his life has changed. He loved the drink and the company. For a whole year, Howard pestered the director with calls asking him to hire him. . Finally, he gave up and offered the young man the position of marketing director with earnings 2 times less than he received at Hamamaplast. This was the starting point for the rapid development of Starbucks.

Thanks to Howard, Starbucks introduced new types of coffee - latte and espresso. A concept was developed to create cozy establishments where connoisseurs of good coffee would gather, and the first cafe-shop instantly gained popularity. Cafes began to appear in other cities, and then even at airports and airplanes. Later, Starbucks began to conquer the world market, after which - the Internet space.

At the moment, there are 17,000 Starbucks coffee shops around the world open in the world, and Howard's fortune is estimated at $ 1.5 billion. Schultz loves to travel with children, writes books, telling in them the story of his life and the peculiarities of doing business. Success came to Howard thanks to his business model, which takes into account the psychology of modern people.

GoPro, Nick Woodman

Nick Woodman is the founder and CEO of GoPro. He is a living example of how obsession with your favorite hobby can bring you a fortune without investment.

One day while on holiday in Australia, while watching surfers, Nick was struck by the idea: to make an inexpensive and convenient camera that would allow you to create high-quality pictures in motion. The GoPro was first introduced at the Action Sports Retailer Show in 2004. After him, Nick received an order for the manufacture of the first hundred of the same cameras. During the year of sales, Woodman became the owner of $350,000.

This was just the beginning. Nick always dreamed of becoming a race car driver and decided to develop a camera that could easily be mounted in the car. Users were also attracted by the affordable price of the camera - only two to four hundred dollars for high-quality video recording. In 2011, Nick attracted investors and received $ 88 million to develop his business. .

Today, Nick is called a crazy billionaire. Despite his busy schedule, he always finds time for his extreme pastime.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that the article discusses different types of business, their founders have several things in common:

1. lack of initial capital and influential connections;
2. original and unusual idea;
3. perseverance;
4. Believe in yourself;
5. diligence.

The experience of David Sanders, Jan Koum, Jack Ma, Howard Schultz and Nick Woodman proves that anyone can become a millionaire, the main thing is to offer people an original and elegant solution that will improve their lives.