Website: Facebook
Founder: Mark Zuckerberg
Place started the business: At his Harvard Dorm Room
The birth of Facebook is related to Zuckerberg’s appetite for hacking.
He got into limelight when he refused $1 billion offer from Yahoo. Later on he settled with $240 million dollar deal, giving Microsoft 1.6% stake in Facebook raising the valuation to $15 billion.
Website: Google
Founder: Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Place started the business: In a garage
Larry and Sergey started on a name BackRub. But Larry and Sergey decide that the BackRub search engine needs a new name. After some brainstorming, they go with Google — a play on the word “googol,” a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. The use of the term reflects their mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.
Website: Runescape
Founder: Andrew Gower
Place started the business: From a bedroom in his parents’ house in Nottingham.
He has involved in coding for games since his childhood. He had a penchant for dungeon gaming. He initially started RunEscape as a hobby, and later monetized his website and turned out to be a successful business venture.
Website: PopCap Games
Founders: John Vechey, along with Brien Fiete and Jason Kapalka
Place started the business: In his office
John Vechey, along with Brien Fiete and Jason Kapalka founded Popcap games in the year 2000. They earlier worked with internet gaming sites like flipside and pogo. Their first gaming product was Bejeweled, which became a big hit, and received numerous awards.
Website: Threadless
Founder: Jack Nickell along with Jacob Dehart
Place started the business: From a studio apartment
Jack Nickell along with Jacob Dehart ( both college dropouts ), started threadless when they were still working on their regular job. Both the partners put a modest $500 as their initial investment. Now the company has annual revenue to the extent of $50 million.
Website: Biz Chair
Founder: Sean Belnick
Place started the business: From his bedroom
He started with $500, with an initial inventory of 50 products. Now the company has 75 employees and sells more than 25000 products online. He sells office furniture, home furniture, school furniture and medical equipment in online shop. Microsoft, Google and American Idol are amongst some of his notable clients.
Business Principle #4
Timing
It’s the Best of Times, the Worst of Times…How well you do depends on which side of the trends you are on.
Going Global
Going global means you have a business that has the ability for global diversification which provides worldwide expansion. Our takes all of the financial risks when opening in a new market and our compensation plan is seemless throughout the world. Someone can buy our products in Asia and you get paid in the currency from the country you reside.
Global Economic Meltdown
In February 2009, the US Labor Department reported that unemployment reached 7.6%. 11.6 million Americans are unemployed. Many of these people are professionals who are on the wrong side of trends. They are not going to find another job, because companies in their fields are not hiring!
As you may know, the economic meltdown has caused this.
Many of these very talented people will be forced into entrepreneurship and they will be looking for businesses. Are you going to be ready to profit from this large group of people?
Technology
The World is Flat has been a best-seller in book stores. It discusses how technology has changed everything. With computer, internet, and a phone line,
people are able to run multi-million dollar business from their home. The world is flat as a computer screen meaning you can video chat, present concepts, and talk through your computer and the other person can be on the other side of the planet.
Demographics
Every 8 seconds someone turns 60 years old. This group is referred to as baby-boomers. What products do baby-boomers want?
What I recommend you do is increase your financial IQ.
Business Principle #3
Using Leverage For Wealth Creation
“I would rather earn 1% of 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts.” – John Paul Getty, Renowned Billionaire
Trading Time For Money = No Leverage
Anyone who is an employee and working for someone else is trading time and expertise for money. Most people are “stuck” in this cycle and it is not the road to wealth.
Leverage Through Employees = Headaches
If you know anyone who is a business owner, you probably have heard them mention how their employees have caused them headaches. If you have ever worked with someone who drove you crazy, imagine how the owner of the business feels.
Leverage Through Agents
In the real estate industry, you will find the broker-agent relationship. On the surface, agents look like a solution, because you get leverage from someone
who isn’t your employee. The downside is when a broker trains an agent, the possibility is that the motivated agent will take that knowledge and training and
start their own business. The broker has lost all the time put into that agent and has gained a competitor. You just trained your competition.
Another problem with leverage throught agents is that you are limited by time meaning that you can train only so many agents at once, so your income is limited by the amount of agents you can train at once.
Broker Empowers Leadership
When a broker empowers leadership, he/she gets leverage. With this type of leverage, a broker can train agents and brokers. So, a broker could create agents and other brokers allowing them to get more leverage. Now, if you trained an agent to become a broker and that broker you train works harder than you, they make more money than you.
You always earn a percentage on what that broker generates. When a broker you train can earn more than you for working harder….what is that callled?…….that is called “fair.”
The broker will not have a need to break off from you and go into competition with you, because they have the ability to earn on their effort.
Excerpt from Retiredat32
Business Principle #2
Unique, Consumable Product
Why a CONSUMABLE Product?
There’s a saying in business – “You’re only as good as your last sale.”
In normal market conditions, car salesman and realtors can make good commissions, but they are unemployed until their next sale…they have to keep selling and finding new customers to make money. Think about it from this prospective….how many cars and houses do you buy a year?
A consumable product is one that people buy, use, then then buy again. Food, gas, and personal care products are examples of consumable products. When people run out, they have to buy more product creating a repeat, automatic business.
Why a UNIQUE product?
A product that has a “special thing” about it makes it unique. If you are the company that has created that product, people have to come to you. Apple created that with the iPod and iPhone.
If you don’t have a unique product, you end up competing on price. People will spend more money and often times go out of their way to purchase unique products.
So if you end up with a product that isn’t unique, then you compete on price. Imagine trying to compete with Wal Mart…that is what will happen, if you end up competing on price.
A patent can be one way keeping a product unique. If you get a U.S. Government and/or Worldwide patent, your product remains unique, because only you can produce that product with that method.
Excerpt from Retiredat32
Business Principle #1
Huge Expanding Market
Real Estate is a HUGE market, but it’s NOT expanding. Real estate is actually shrinking or contracting.
If you are in a market that is shrinking or contracting, your way of making money could look a lot like the real estate job market as shown in this graph below.
A huge, expanding market demonstrates the importance of evaluating the industry you are in with this principle in mind, because it doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do, if you are in an industry that is dying.
A perfect example is vinyl records. Do you remember vinyl records? If you are over 40, you probably do. If you are not, you might not even know what we are talking about. That is the definition of a dead market. When a product is so dead, some of the population doesn’t even remember it.
So, if you want to know the secret to Business Principle #1, then here it is: don’t be attached to your education, your current career, or your prior experience when you chose your future income. If you had been in the vinyl record industry, you wouldn’t have had a job in very short order. This industry went from $7 billion to zero in seven years.
Coming soon the Secrets of Millionaires: Business Principle # 2. Keep visiting.
