Most stories on successful entrepreneurs mainly focus on what the entrepreneur has achieved and not on the challenges,
failures and recovery measures the entrepreneur took. This article focuses on the stories of 6 successful entrepreneurs who against odds proved themselves right and are celebrated for their success.
1. J. K. Rowling (Female, Author)
I was as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless. But rock bottom became a solid foundation on which my life was built. -J. K. Rowling
Rowling first came up with the idea of a boy discovering he was a wizard on a delayed train to Manchester. But it would be seven years before that idea would become a book.
After her mother's death, Rowling left for Portugal to become a teacher and married a Portuguese TV journalist. They were only married for eleven months, and Rowling was fired from her teacher job for day-dreaming. She was now an unemployed and single parent. She admits to having lived in a mice-infested flat, struggling to raise her daughter on a welfare check of £70 a week. Unable to spend money on heating, she regularly warmed up in cafés, where she revisited the idea of Harry Potter.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was initially rejected 12 times. But the rest is history; today, Rowling is author of the best-selling book series in history.
2. Henry Ford (Male, Ford Motor Company)
Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward. -Henry Ford
In his early days, Henry Ford demonstrated some of the characteristics that would make him successful, powerful, and famous. He organized other boys to build rudimentary water wheels and steam engines. He learned about full-sized steam engines by becoming friends with the men who ran them. He taught himself to fix watches, and used the watches as textbooks to learn the rudiments of machine design. Thus, young Ford demonstrated mechanical ability, a facility for leadership, and a preference for learning by trial-and-error. These characteristics would become the foundation of his whole career.
Ford could have followed in his father’s footsteps and become a farmer. But young Henry was fascinated by machines and was willing to take risks to pursue that fascination. He left the farm to become an apprentice at the Michigan Car Company, a manufacturer of railroad cars in Detroit. Over the next two-and-one-half years he held several similar jobs, sometimes moving when he thought he could learn more somewhere else.
You probably know about Ford's achievements in automobile production, but...
- As a child, he was inspired by his mother, who encouraged his interest in tinkering.
- His father was a farmer. He encouraged Henry’s interest in the use of machines on the farm.
- He was fired from his first job.
- Henry built his first gasoline engine at home and tested it in the kitchen. He mounted it on the kitchen sink.
- Thomas Edison was Henry Ford’s role model and later his close friend.
- He built and drove race cars early in his career to demonstrate that his engineering designs produced reliable vehicles.
- He failed with his first two companies before he succeeded with Ford Motor Company.
3. Bill Gates (Male, Microsoft)
It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. -Bill Gates
Bill showed early signs of competitiveness when he coordinated family athletic games at their summer house on Puget Sound. He also relished in playing board games (Risk was his favorite) and excelled at Monopoly. Bill was a voracious reader as a child, spending many hours pouring over reference books such as the encyclopedia. At the age of 15, Bill Gates went into business with his pal, Paul Allen (17). They developed "Traf-o-Data," a computer program that monitored traffic patterns in Seattle, and netted $20,000 for their efforts.
IBM was looking for software that would operate their upcoming personal computer (PC) and approached Microsoft. Gates convinced them that he and his company could meet their needs. The only problem was that Microsoft had not developed the basic operating system that would run IBM's new computers. Not to be stopped, Gates bought an operating system that was developed to run on computers similar to IBM's PC. He made a deal with the software's developer, making Microsoft the exclusive licensing agent and later full owner of the software but not telling them of the IBM deal. The company later sued Microsoft and Gates for withholding important information. Microsoft settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, but neither Gates nor Microsoft admitted to any wrong doing. Gates delivered it for a $50,000 fee, the same price he had paid for the software in its original form. IBM wanted to buy the source code, which would have given them the information to the operating system. Gates refused, instead proposing that IBM pay a licensing fee for copies of the software sold with their computers. Doing this allowed Microsoft to license the software they called MS-DOS to any other PC manufacturer, should other computer companies clone the IBM PC, which they soon did. Microsoft also released software called Softcard, which allowed Microsoft BASIC to operate on Apple II machines.
4. Indra Nooyi (Female, PepsiCo)
You need to start off saying that you have got to work twice as hard as your male, or any, counterparts. -Indra Nooyi
Although Nooyi did not grow up in the poorest conditions, her story is one of humble origins, set in middle-class India.
Nooyi moved to the US in pursuit of a management degree with barely any money. She worked as a receptionist from midnight to sunrise to earn enough to buy her first suit for a job interview and to pay for her college fees. All her hard work paid off, however, when she landed positions at Johnson and Johnson and Motorola upon graduation.
After six years of directing international corporate strategy projects at Boston Consulting Group and another four years as vice-president at Asea Brown Boveri, Nooyi joined PepsiCo as CEO.
5. Oprah Winfrey ( Female, Media proprietor)
Whatever happens to us, happens for a reason. Everyone of us, surely in my case, gets through the tough times because somebody is there, standing in the gap to close it for us. -Oprah Winfrey
When she was a baby, Winfrey's parents separated and left their daughter to live with her grandparents. For the first six years of her life, Winfrey wore dresses made out of potato sacks. When she turned six, her mother came to get her. Winfrey was abused by her mother's relatives until she was sent to live with her father at the age of 14.
He was strict and would not accept anything less than what he thought was the best for her. This change of environment turned her life around. She became an honour student, won a scholarship and became the first African American woman to become a news anchor, all at the age of 19.
She later became the host for an early morning talk show named AM Chicago, which was later renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show.
6. Samuel Walton (Male, Walmart)
If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you - like a fever. -Sam Walton
This American entrepreneur who built a small grocery store into the giant Walmart supermarket chain, amassing a fortune of over $23 billion, grew up during the Great Depression.
He had numerous chores to help make financial ends meet for his family as was common at the time. He milked the family cow, bottled the surplus, and drove it to customers. Afterwards, he would deliver Columbia Daily Tribune newspapers on a paper route. In addition, he also sold magazine subscriptions. During his college, he worked various odd jobs, including waiting tables in exchange for meals. After graduation, he joined the US Army during the World War II. After the war, he left the military and started managing a variety store at the age of 26.
He took a loan to buy his first store, and thanks to simple innovations in business, he soon bought his second store. Within 3 years, his sales volume grew to $225,000. The first true Wal-Mart opened on July 2, 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas. The rest is history. Forbes ranked Sam Walton as the richest person in the United States from 1982 to 1988. At the time of his death in 1992, he had 1,960 Wal-Mart stores, employed 380,000 people and clocked annual sales of about $50 billion.
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