Find a popular business idea that will benefit people. The list includes seven stories of Russian entrepreneurs who succeeded: Pavel Durov, Evgeny Demin, Tatyana Bakalchuk, Petr Osipov, Vsevolod Strakh, Dmitry Khrapov, Maxim Nogotkov.
Is it easy to start your own business without experience and initial capital? The answer is easy to open. But to make it successful is much more difficult. We have prepared stories of the ups and downs of young Russians who not only know how to start a business from scratch, but have managed to succeed and earn a lot of money.
The list does not include the children of oligarchs and government officials who inherited fortunes, as well as those who made money on the privatization of state property.
| Age at which the first business was opened | Starting a business | First business | Current (in 2017) business |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pavel Durov | ||||
| Evgeny Demin | Firm "Conversion" for the sale of bioadditives | "Splat-Cosmetics", toothpastes, cosmetics, household chemicals |
||
| Tatyana Bakalchuk | Wildberries online store | Wildberries, clothes, shoes accessories |
||
| Petr Osipov | "Business Youth", the largest community of entrepreneurs | "Business youth" |
||
| Vsevolod Fear | "Sotmarket", online store selling data cables | Goldprice.ru, online jewelry service |
||
| Dmitry Khrapov | Tutu.ru, ticket booking service | |||
| Maxim Nogotkov | "Maxus", "Svyaznoy" | Moved to USA in 2015 |
Pavel Durov (Vkontakte, Telegram)
Pavel Durov - creator social network"In contact with". This person is called "Russian Zuckerberg". From childhood, Pavel was fond of programming and from his school years he was distinguished by eccentric behavior. He was denied access to computers, but he cracked any passwords.
While studying at the university, Durov created several non-commercial Internet projects. These were the forum of the university and the library of abstracts. These projects were not particularly successful, as users were hiding behind fictitious names.
From his friend, who returned from America, Pavel learned about the Facebook social network, he decided to implement something similar in Russia. This is how the Student.ru project appeared, the name of which was later changed to Vkontakte. Durov, together with his brother Nikolai, founded Vkontakte LLC and launched a social network in October 2006.
Already in 2008 the number of users exceeded 20 million people. In 2011, the fortune of Pavel Durov was estimated at 7.9 billion rubles, and in the list of "The Richest Russian Billionaires" Durov ranked 350th.
In 2014, Durov resigned as CEO of Vkontakte, now the social network belongs to Alisher Usmanov's holding Mail.Ru Group. Durov new project- cross-platform messenger Telegram.
In 2016, Tatyana ranked 3rd in the ranking of the 25 richest women in Russia according to the Forbes online magazine (with a fortune of $ 500 million), and her clothing, footwear and accessories store Wildberries.ru is one of the largest online stores in Russia.
How did the success come about? Tatyana - former teacher in English, sitting on maternity leave - in 2004, she began to order clothes from the Otto and Quelle catalogs. The goods warehouse was located in the apartment where Tatyana lived with her husband Vyacheslav. She picked up the parcels from the post office herself, getting to public transport. The money was enough only for the development of the site.
A banner for 1,500 rubles was placed as an advertisement. per month on one of the women's sites. Orders started arriving on the very first day. A year later, the apartment turned out to be too small to be used as a warehouse, and Tatyana and her husband rented a small office and warehouse space. We hired couriers and operators.
For being small home business has grown into an online retail giant and the most recognizable online store, contributed to several innovations that were introduced by its founder:
- the first significant decision, in addition to selling clothes, was the start of selling shoes via the Internet, although then no one was doing this and many were skeptical of such an idea;
- the second starting point in the successful building of a business is a free fitting at the points of issue of orders;
- and the third factor is free shipping.
Tatyana does not take pictures and does not communicate with the press. Only once did she give an interview to the online commerce publication Shopolog. Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is as follows:
“Don't be afraid to start. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Take risks, contrary to the opinion of the majority, if you know that it is necessary for clients. To have close people nearby, able to support.
Petr Osipov ("Business Youth")
Young entrepreneur Petr Osipov and his high-profile project "Business Youth" (molodost.bz) also made our list.
Peter was born and raised in Cheboksary. It was also there that he gained his first experience of working in election campaigns and holding public speeches. After school he moved to Moscow. He studied, worked as an assistant to a deputy, conducted trainings on oratory.
In 2010, Osipov and his friend Mikhail Dashkevich organized the Business Youth (BM) project. Its essence is to help young novice entrepreneurs (and not only beginners) to increase their income and the efficiency of their business.
As Peter Osipov tells in one of his videos, the impetus for opening his own company was the training of Radislav Gandapas, which Peter attended for 25 thousand rubles.
The project is positioned as the most grandiose community of entrepreneurs in Russia. The training is carried out in several programs: intensive "Business Start", in-depth program "Workshop", programs "Billion for a Million", "Real Direct", "Real Email Marketing", "Million for a Hundred", "Real Marketing", "From unpacking to packaging" and others. Participants are given tasks and step by step instructions achieving success.
There are representative offices of BM in more than 200 cities of Russia and neighboring countries. Annual revenue is more than 900 million rubles. The project causes heated debate: someone calls BM a sect, someone really helps training. But in this article we will not understand the essence of the project itself. Below are links to the company's website, Petr Osipov's personal blog and Vkontakte profile.
Vsevolod Fear (Sotmarket, Goldprice.ru)
Vsevolod Fear is one of the youngest members of our list. He set up his business in 2005 when he was 17 years old and in 11th grade. The initial investment in the business amounted to 20 thousand rubles. This amount was accumulated over three years from the money that my parents gave.
Vsevolod ordered data-cables through a familiar shuttle that transported goods from China (devices that are used to transfer data between digital devices).
Created a website with the uncomplicated name sotmarket.ru. He sent the first orders to clients personally, paying the postal workers ten rubles for each package.
Start-up capital in the amount of 20 thousand rubles ended in a month and a half and the newly-made entrepreneur, already, fell into despair, but unexpectedly received the first proceeds in the amount of 27 thousand rubles, which Vsevolod invested in the goods.
By the time he entered the institute, Fear rented a small room for an office, a warehouse and hired an employee. He studied at the Faculty of Business Informatics and wrote the inventory program for his company himself. In addition to data cables, Sotmarket now sold a lot of additional products: from mobile accessories to garden tools. Sotmarket's revenue in 2012 amounted to 4.15 billion rubles and became the third online electronics retailer in the country in this indicator.
However, due to the fact that Vsevolod took a lot of loans to expand his business, the company did not bring profit and a 51% stake was sold to the IQ One fund. Since the fall of 2015, Fear has worked as the director of e-commerce mobile operator Tele 2.
Since the beginning of spring 2017, according to the RBC Internet portal, Vsevolod Strakh has become the CEO of the online jewelry service Goldprice.ru.
Watch the video from the series "Business Secrets": Oleg Tinkov asks Vsevolod Strakh questions about the beginning, formation and development of a business:
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 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 precisely in our country and on this moment 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 financial side 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" of electronic business and its reporting.
After collecting some money, about $4,000, they finally registered the company. We bought the first most necessary things, such as cash machine, 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 the convenience of searching, Injections developed a product filter by dozens of criteria: by price, screen diagonal, number of ports, hard disk capacity, color, manufacturer, volume random access memory 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 deferral 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 website 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 by financial projections 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.
7 youngest successful people in business history. Real examples from the history of business of the success of young millionaires who achieved everything by their own efforts. All of these successful young businessmen made their first million in their 20s. Each business was invested with an idea, the success of which no one suspected before. Most of these ideas can be repeated and improved upon. 7 stories of successful young businessmen who became millionaires in their 20s.
5 examples of successful businesses in the history of people who did not immediately achieve great success. Life examples show that it is never too late to do business for self-realization. For some businessmen, success comes only at retirement age, but this does not upset them. After all, they managed to fulfill themselves in their lives and find their purpose in order to bring great benefits to the world. To pass on to their children and grandchildren invaluable experience, knowledge, which is more precious than any material assets. 5 short stories about how businessmen became millionaires only at retirement age and do not regret anything.
The Lego constructor is not the very first toy constructor. Moreover, its creator had never been involved in the production of toys before. The first Lego bricks were made of wood, but a big setback forced the manufacturers to switch to a more successful material. Features of the approach to the perception of buyers of Lego constructors allow you to maintain your position in the TOP among competitors. The story of how Kirk and Gottfried Christiansen, the creators of the most popular constructor, came up with a successful idea.
The Barbie doll is distinguished by its style, which positions it as a game of a happy girl. While other dolls used to be positioned as a game of happy mother and housewife. A new creative approach to creating a Barbie doll with a whole world quickly gained popularity among children and parents. The secrets of the great popularity and successful sales of the Barbie doll. What inspired Ruth Handler to create the best-selling doll?
Robert Kiyosaki became a millionaire at 48. Until that time, he had suffered many entrepreneurial failures and fiascos. But paradoxically, it was business training that made Robert successful person. He became a millionaire by teaching others how to become millionaires. His books are printed all over the world in different languages. Most of them are bestsellers. The story of how Robert Kiyosaki's entrepreneurial failures led him to successfully train business with a custom curriculum. Robert's experience is written in books that have made him and many others successful.
Sabon is engaged in the production of natural soap from three components: patchouli-lavender-vanilla. This mixture is therapeutic and has an amazing aroma. This successful recipe and well-planned marketing made it possible to successfully sell natural soap all over the world. An excellent example of business development with minimum investment. The company that conquered the whole world with its soap. Three medicinal and fragrant soap making ingredients and effective marketing have made Sabon a success.
Creating a successful business is possible even with 3 summer child. And to become a millionaire is an 8-year-old. This fact was proved by Ryan Ross, who has been earning in the business field since the age of three. And at the age of 8 he earned his first million on his own. As a child, the little businessman went from owning a backyard chicken farm to investing in real estate. A unique business prodigy who has been successfully running his first business since the age of 3, and at the age of 8 he earned his first million.
The McDonald's fast food restaurant chain has a unique history from which there are many lessons to be learned for managing and growing a business. Ray Kroc, the founder of the company, invested all his many years of experience drawn from various fields of activity, which allowed him to quickly develop the company to a global scale. Ray Kroc realized himself only after 50, but how much he managed to do thanks to his ideas and experience. The history of the creation of the worldwide McDonald's chain of fast food restaurants contains many valuable business lessons.
The success story of ZARA brand stores is woven from the efforts, efforts, knowledge and experience of its creator Amancio. His work experience led to the perfect idea for making affordable clothing out of expensive materials. But it was possible to realize the business idea only after many years of work. As a result, a world-famous ZARA company was created, in which the main emphasis is on the efficiency of the use of resources and consumables. Knowledge, work and experience gave birth successful idea to produce affordable clothing from the most expensive materials for sale in ZARA stores.
The author of the Harry Potter series of bestsellers, J.K. Rowling, has achieved success through her creative hobby. After worldwide recognition, the hobby became the main activity of the writer. Her life has completely changed and gained new meaning when she began to do her favorite thing and develop in her own direction. Love for work is the key to success. The unusual story of the author of the Harry Potter series of books, which has achieved worldwide recognition for its work.
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 almost nothing. 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 Ka-shing's previous job, it was a plastics business, but over time, it has grown into Hong Kong's largest investment corporation. 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 high-level electric cars (this is a normal car 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 being able to be at the right time in the right place - thus 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 modern world. Young, lazy, creative and rich. The creator of the largest social network Facebook, who created a system for his university - Harvard - but 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. First big 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 the age of 12, he wrote a program that he 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 company dealing with software for news companies, and 4 years later 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 is Zuckenberg's first investor and was the commercial director of the 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 with 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.
In contact with
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 - from English "fried chicken from Kentucky") - a famous American chain fast food. 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
IN school age he moonlighted 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. Alibaba went public with an IPO the following fall, 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 environment and singled out 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 network 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. The concept of creating cozy establishments where connoisseurs of good coffee would gather was developed, 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. First camera gopro was presented 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:
- lack of initial capital and influential connections;
- original and unusual idea;
- perseverance;
- Believe in yourself;
- 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.
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