8 Great Entrepreneurial Success Stories

It never ceases to amaze me how much time people
waste searching endlessly for magic shortcuts to
entrepreneurial success and fulfillment when the only
real path is staring them right in the face: real
entrepreneurs who start real businesses that employ real
people who provide real products and services to real
customers.
Yes, I know that’s hard. It's a lot of work. What can I
say, that’s life. Besides, look on the bright side: You get
to do what you want and you get to do it your way.
There’s just one catch. You’ve got to start somewhere.
Ideas and opportunities don’t just materialize out of
thin air.
The only way I know to get started is by learning a
marketable skill and getting to work. In my experience,
that’s where the ideas, opportunities, partners, and
finances always seem to come from. Sure, it also takes
an enormous amount of hard work, but that just comes
with the territory.
If you want to do entrepreneurship right, here are eight
stories you’ve probably never heard about companies
you’ve most definitely heard of.
The Pierre Omidyar way. In 1995, a computer
programmer started auctioning off stuff on his personal
website. AuctionWeb, as it was then known, was really
just a personal project, but, when the amount of web
traffic made it necessary to upgrade to a business
Internet account, Omidyar had to start charging people
fees. He actually hired his first employee to handle all
the payment checks. The site is now known as eBay.
Related: How to Be Smarter
The John Ferolito and Don Vultaggio way. Back in the
70s, a couple of Brooklyn friends started a beer
distributor out of the back of an old VW bus. Two
decades later, after seeing how well Snapple was doing
they decided to try their hand at soft drinks and
launched AriZona Green Tea. Today, AriZona teas are
#1 in America and distributed worldwide. The friends still
own the company.
The Matt Maloney and Mike Evans way. When a couple
of Chicago software developers working on lookup
searches for Apartments.com got sick of
calling restaurants in search of takeout food for dinner,
the light bulb went off: Why isn’t there a one-stop shop
for food delivery? That’s when the pair decided to start
GrubHub, which went public last April and is now valued
at more than $3 billion.
The Joe Coulombe way. After operating a small chain of
convenience stores in southern California, Joe Coulombe
had an idea: that upwardly mobile college grads might
want something better than 7-11. So he opened a
tropical-themed market in Pasadena, stocked it with
good wine and booze, hired good people, and paid them
well. He added more locations near universities, then
healthy foods, and that’s how Trader Joe’s got started.
Related: Success Does Not Follow a Time Clock
The Howard Schultz way. A trip to Milan gave a young
marketer working for a Seattle coffee bean roaster an
idea for upscale espresso cafes like they have all over
Italy. His employer had no interest in owning coffee
shops but agreed to finance Schultz’s endeavor. They
even sold him their brand name, Starbucks.
The Phil Robertson way. There was a guy who so loved
duck hunting that he chose that over playing pro football
for the NFL. He invented a duck call, started a company
called Duck Commander, eventually put his son Willy in
charge, and that spawned a media and merchandising
empire for a family of rednecks known as Duck Dynasty.
The Konosuke Matsushita way. In Japan in 1917, a 23-
year-old apprentice at the Osaka Electric Light Company
with no formal education came up with an improved light
socket. His boss wasn’t interested so young Matsushita
started making samples in his basement. He later
expanded with battery-powered bicycle lamps and other
electronic products. Matsushita Electric, as it was known
until 2008 when the company officially changed its
name to Panasonic, is now worth $66 billion.
The Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs way. While they had
been friends since high school, the two college dropouts
gained considerable exposure to the computer world
while working on game software together on the night
shift at Atari. The third Apple founder, Ron Wayne, was
also an Atari alumnus.
As I always say, the world is full of infinite possibilities
and countless opportunities, but your life and career are
finite, meaning you have limited time to find what you’re
searching for and make your mark on the world. This is
your time. It’s limited so don’t waste it. Find something
you like to do and just do it. That’s how real
entrepreneurs always start.