If you think that’s an overstatement, then read the 15 ways entrepreneurs are saving the world below. Prepare to be awed and inspired.

#1 Entrepreneurs Create New Jobs

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 50 million jobs have disappeared worldwide since the financial crisis of 2008. But as governments and corporations cut jobs in the name of austerity, entrepreneurs are creating new jobs.

At the very least, each entrepreneur creates one new job. But very successful entrepreneurs, like Larry Page and Steve Jobs, have helped create tens of thousands of new jobs. Today, Google employs about 33,000 people and Apple employs about 60,000.

#2 Entrepreneurs Light Up the Darkness

More than one out of every four people worldwide lack reliable access to electricity.

But Jessica O. Matthews and Julia Silverman are changing that. Their mission started at Harvard University in 2008, when they helped to invent the Soccket – a soccer ball that absorbs energy when it’s played with and then can be used as a portable power source.

It’s an ingenious invention. But it needed a company to produce and distribute it. That’s why Matthews and Silverman founded Uncharted Play in May of 2011. With every Soccket they distribute, there’s another play-powered, eco-friendly light in the world.

#3 Entrepreneurs Solve New Problems

Businesses thrive because they’re able to solve people’s problems, but old businesses are often slow to adapt to emerging problems.

That’s where entrepreneurs come in. Startups are designed from the ground up to solve today’s problems.

Here’s an example. In the last few decades we’ve seen a huge rise in digital waste. Personal computers are polluting the environment in landfills even though they contain valuable material.

Greenback Laptops is one company tackling the problem. People send Greenback their old laptops and then the company refurbishes the computers and sells them at a profit. The best part is that Greenback donates 50% of proceeds to schools and educational foundations.

#4 Entrepreneurs Provide Free Information

In 1996, Jimmy Wales co-founded Bomis, an online web portal featuring male-oriented content. In 2000, Wales leveraged the success of Bomis to launch a free online encyclopedia called Nupedia. But the volunteer-driven site was slow to produce content (only 12 articles written in its first year).

Wales and the Nupedia team brainstormed a faster way to generate content: creating a wiki encyclopedia. A user-curated encyclopedia? The idea was just so crazy, it might work.

Since its inception in 2001, Wikipedia has amassed 22 million articles in 285 languages thanks to a community of about 100,000 active contributors.

The resulting surge in free information has transformed the world and given unprecedented opportunity to billions of people without access to libraries and universities. As Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler point out in their book ‘Abundance’, if a man is, “on a smartphone with Google, he has access to more information than the President [of the United States] did just 15 years ago.”

#5 Entrepreneurs Help Topple Totalitarianism

The Arab Spring is a wave of revolutionary demonstrations and protests in the Arab world that started in December 2010 in Tunisia. To date, this largely peaceful movement has ousted authoritarian dictators in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and Tunisia.

It may not have been possible if Jack Dorsey hadn’t created Twitter in 2006. Protestors used Twitter to organize and provide real-time updates during demonstrations.

When Dorsey conceived of a social media site that only let you post 140 characters at a time, I doubt he saw it as a way of fighting political oppression. But by giving people a powerful way to communicate and connect with one another, he created a tool that has done just that.

#6 Entrepreneurs Push Science to New Frontiers

Last week on May 22^nd, the International Space Station received supplies from an American shuttle – but for the first time in history, it wasn’t a NASA shuttle.

The unmanned shuttle belongs to SpaceX, a space transport company founded in 2002 by PayPal entrepreneur Elon Musk. In a time when government debt has led to reduced spending in research and development, entrepreneurs like Musk are footing the bill and creating companies that create scientific breakthroughs.

Musk isn’t alone. Larry Page joined him in financing Tesla Motors, a company dedicated to mass producing fully electric cars at an affordable price. And while SpaceX is dedicated to transport of cargo, Richard Branson is heading up sub-orbital spaceflights to “space tourists” with Virgin Galactic.

#7 Entrepreneurs Offer Affordable Loans to Small Businesses

While volunteering to help small businesses in East Africa, Jessica Jackley began interviewing African entrepreneurs about their challenges. One of the problems was a lack of capital. But while businesses back in the United States were looking for millions of dollars in start-up capital, these businesses in East Africa needed only hundreds.

Jackley saw an opportunity to make a difference. In October 2005, she founded Kiva Microloans with Matt Flannery. Kiva connects entrepreneurs all over the world with people interested in making microloans to help their small businesses.

Though the average loan is only $392.13, Kiva has distributed over $300 million in loans in the last seven years. Since Kiva’s loans are repaid an amazing 98.94% of the time, most people decide to reinvest their money once it’s paid back. This illustrates why loaning money can be many times more powerful than giving it away.

Kiva is also helping win the fight on gender equality. About 80% of Kiva’s loans go to women – many of whom live in patriarchal societies which limit the business opportunities of women.

#8 Entrepreneurs Bring People Together

Human beings are pack animals. We instinctually crave to be with one another, to understand one another and be understood. But circumstances often pull us apart.

Luckily, there’s a cadre of entrepreneurs searching for new ways to make us feel close to one another even when we’re separated by oceans.

Leading the charge is Skype, an internet phone created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis in 2003. Not only is Skype free to use, its video and file-sharing capabilities make it a much more potent communicative tool than a traditional phone.

Every day, Skype lets grandmothers see their newborn grandchildren, business partners meet from offices in other cities, and military wives speak to their husbands while they’re abroad. In total, Skype has brought togetherness and happiness to over 663 million registered users (a figure that inspired Microsoft to acquire Skype for a whopping $8.5 billion in 2011).

#9 Entrepreneurs Start Charities and Foundations

When your companies have made you a billionaire several times over, what’s next?

For many of today’s most successful entrepreneurs, the answer is to create a charity or non-profit. It’s a way to apply their organizational experience to solving the world’s biggest problems – instead of just lining their pocketbooks further.

The best example may be Bill Gates, former CEO of Microsoft. Bill stopped selling software full-time in 2006 so he could focus on promoting global development and health as the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

#10 Entrepreneurs Help the Artist Community

There’s a reason why the “starving artist” is a stereotype. For years, artists have had to live on scraps – often while business people get rich off of their work.

Shawn Carter (aka Jay-Z) grew up watching record companies sign up-and-coming rappers only to exploit them and leave them destitute. So in 1995 he started his own record company, Roc-a-Fella. Four years later he co-founded Rocawear, an apparel company that he sold for a whopping $204 million in 2007.

Carter is part of the growing cadre of artist-entrepreneurs who are able to use their business savvy to put money in the pockets of artists. The more entrepreneurs out there helping the art community, the more it will thrive.

#11 Entrepreneurs Encourage Local Commerce

In the last century, commerce has become increasingly international. Improved transportation technologies and low trade barriers mean that products are often sold on the other side of the world from where they’re produced.

But shipping products thousands of miles is energy inefficient. There’s also a disconcerting homogeneity to walking into a Walmart or McDonald’s anywhere in the world and being met with almost the exact same experience at every location.

Entrepreneurship, however, lends itself to local commerce and culture. If you create your own product, it makes sense to sell it at local stores. If your business offers a service, it will likely be more cost-effective to provide it to people who live in your area.

This means more local culture and less fuel used in shipping.

#12 Entrepreneurs Fund Big Ideas

Kickstarter is a crowd funding website for creative projects launched in 2008.

By July 2011, Kickstarter had already been used to successfully fund over 10,000 projects in the amount of about $60,000,000. In April 2012, The Pebble E-Paper Watch became the most highly funded project on Kickstarter when it raised over $10 million through the pledges of almost 70,000 people.

But the most amazing thing about The Pebble E-Paper Watch project is that it failed to get funding from traditional startup investors. Without Kickstarter, it wouldn’t exist. With Kickstarter, it’s thriving.

While Kickstarter is just for creative projects, other companies are following its lead to support a wider range of ideas. CommunityFunded launched earlier this year and can be used to crowd-source any type of idea, be it a creative project, a non-profit organization, or a business concept.

#13 Entrepreneurs Work towards a Global Water Solution

Almost 1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water, 2.5 billion live without water for sanitation, and poor water quality is the second leading cause of infant mortality in the world.

Roundabout Outdoor is a private startup making a difference. They’re the creators of the PlayPump Water System, a water pump that’s powered by the play of children at school and in rural areas. Today, there are over 1800 PlayPump systems in sub-Saharan Africa and they provide clean drinking water to more than one million people.

Another example is ONE DROP, a non-profit dedicated to “supporting access to water and raising individual and community awareness.” It’s an initiative started by Guy Laliberté, who made his fortune as the founder of Cirque du Soleil. ONE DROP has given roughly 25,000 people access to water all across the globe.

#14 Entrepreneurs Make People Happier

When I think about making the world a better place, I think about big-picture stuff like non-profit organizations and global movements.

But one of the best ways to make the world better is simply to be the best version of you. If you’re happily and actively pursuing your best life, everybody around you feels it. By chasing your dreams, you’re implicitly giving your friends and family permission to chase theirs.

Since entrepreneurs are striving every day to realize their vision and make a positive impact on the world, they’re usually the type of person who infects everyone around them with energy, passion, and happiness.

#15 Entrepreneurs Provide Free Education

In the three years since Michael Dunlop founded Income Diary in 2009, over 300 articles have been published on the site. Each one was written to help educate visitors on how to make money online and each one is available for no cost.

As of February 2011, there were over 156 million public blogs in existence. While some of these were founded by people who just want to express themselves, millions of others are like Income Diary: regularly updated resources offering a free, in-depth education.

These types of blogs are usually founded by entrepreneurs who are leveraging their free content to earn money through product sales, advertisements, or donations. Thanks to these blogging entrepreneurs, I’ve become a better graphic designer, a better web developer, a better writer, a better musician, and a better video editor.

It’s amazing to think that generations to come will have access to the wealth of free education provided by these entrepreneurs – and that this virtual classroom is growing in size and quality every day.

Ready to Save the World?

I hope these stories have inspired you to think about the way that you and your business can make a positive impact on the planet. But if you’re wondering, “What’s in it for me?” then I recommend you consider the ways that entrepreneurs benefit from giving back.

I would also love to hear any ways entrepreneurs are saving the world that I forgot, so please speak up in the comment section below.

The post 15 Ways Entrepreneurs are Saving the World appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Are you completely successful?

By the time you get to the bottom of this page, you may be.

Success is all about having the right mindset. That’s why I’ve compiled 50 of the most powerful perspectives on success from some of history’s most successful people. Their definitions, quotations, formulas, misconceptions, and principles paint a clear picture of the mindset of a success.

We have two more awesome posts on quotes, 15 Best Quotes From 15 Of The Great Entrepreneurs and Top 30 Quotes To Inspire Entrepreneurs.

Top 10 Definitions of Success

#1 Winston Churchill:

“Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”

#2 Deepak Chopra:

“Success in life could be defined as the continued expansion of happiness and the progressive realization of worthy goals.”

#3 Jim Rohn:

“Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”

#4 Anita Roddick:

“I want to define success by redefining it. For me it isn’t that solely mythical definition – glamour, allure, power of wealth, and the privilege from care. Any definition of success should be personal because it’s so transitory. It’s about shaping my own destiny.”

#5 Richard Branson:

“It is the satisfaction of doing it for yourself and motivating others to work with you in bringing it about. It is about the fun, innovation, creativity with the rewards being far greater than purely financial.”

15 Lessons from Richard Branson

#6 Orison Swett Marden:

“When a man feels throbbing within him the power to do what he undertakes as well as it can possibly be done, this is happiness, this is success.”

#7 Zig Ziglar:

“Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.”

Here are 11 Life-Changing Business Lessons from Zig Ziglar.

#8 George Sheehan:

“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.”

#9 Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“Success:  To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.  This is to have succeeded!”

#10 Wilfred Peterson:

“Success is focusing the full power of all you are on what you have a burning desire to achieve.”

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Top 10 Quotes on Success

#1 Thomas Edison:

“Success is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

#2 Dorothea Brande:

“Act as though it is impossible to fail.”

#3 Woody Allen:

“Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.”

#4 Mark Victor Hansen:

“Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.”

#5 Yoda:

“Do or do not. There is no try.”

#6 Taryn Rose:

“Fear regret more than failure.”

#7 Edward Simmons:

“The difference between failure and success is doing a thing nearly right and doing a thing exactly right.”

#8 Abraham Lincoln:

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.”

#9 George Bernard Shaw:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

#10 Anonymous:

“God gave us two ends: one to sit on and one to think with. Success depends on which one you use. Heads you win; tails, you lose.”

Top 10 Formulas for Success

#1 Albert Einstein:

“If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut.”

#2 Thomas J. Watson:

“Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success.”

#3 Stanley Tang:

“Success comes down to hard work plus passion, over time.”

#4 Swami Vivekananda:

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life: think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.”

#5 Mark Twain:

“To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.”

#6 Napoleon Hill

“Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.”

#7 James Allen:

“For true success ask yourself these four questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now?”

#8 Unknown:

“Success = an optimist in thought + a pessimist in action.”

#9 Anonymous:

“An Unfailing Success Plan: At each day’s end write down the six most important things to do tomorrow; number them in order of importance, and then do them.”

#10 Arnold H. Glasgow:

“Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time.”

Top 10 Misconceptions about Success

#1 Success is Complicated

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Steve Jobs

You can make success as complicated as you want, but it doesn’t have to be that way. As Jobs says, making success simple isn’t necessarily easy, but it is very powerful.

Take Google for example: their home page is one of the simplest on the web and that simplicity has allowed it to become the most popular site in the world.

#2 Success is a Destination

It’s tempting to think about success as some far-off point where you’ve accomplished everything we’ve ever wanted: “I’ll be successful when I have my dream job, make a million dollars a year, and spend all my time traveling the world with my soul mate.”

This type of thinking is flawed because the accomplishment of worthy goals only leads to the possibility of accomplishing more worthy goals. A successful person doesn’t stop once they achieve something; they’re inspired to achieve something even greater. Success is an ongoing path. As Ben Sweetland said, “Success is a journey, not a destination.”

#3 Success is the Key to Happiness

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.”

Herman Cain

If you’re unhappy, don’t blame it on a lack of success. Happiness is all about perspective. If you’ve got a cheerful outlook, it doesn’t matter if you’re a success or failure.

#4 Failure is an Indicator that You Won’t Succeed

“The hardest part about being an entrepreneur is that you’ll fail ten times for every success.”

Adam Horwitz

Everybody fails. In fact, successful people fail more than failures because they take bigger chances. If you want proof, then check out the four biggest mistakes from the world’s four biggest entrepreneurs.

Failures are necessary on the path of success. Just learn from them and move on.

#5 Success Comes at the Expense of Others

Some people think that the only way you can move up in business is by stepping on people to get there.

The truth is actually the opposite: a business is successful because it provides value for people. As I’ve written about before, the more you give, the more you get.

#6 Moderate Success is Easier to Get than “Only in Your Wildest Dreams” Success

“Ninety-nine percent of people believe they can’t do great things, so they aim for mediocrity.”

Tim Ferriss

Many of us are taught from an early age to have practical goals. We shouldn’t try to be a rock star, supermodel, or astronaut because the chances of success are so slim.

But it’s time to challenge those self-imposed restraints. As Ben Nemtin, from “The Buried Life”, pointed out: “The level of competition is highest for realistic goals because most people don’t set high enough goals for themselves.”

Don’t be afraid to go for your wildest dream. It may take more effort, but you’ll also be more energized.

#7 You Need to Wait Until the Time is Right

“Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.”

Samuel Johnson

There’s no such thing as the “perfect time” to act. There will always be a problem. But successful people don’t let that deter them.

#8 Success has to be Traditional

“The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you’re playing by somebody else’s rules, while quietly playing by your own.”

Michael Konda

Don’t get caught up with how other people define success. Traditional success includes a six-figure income, a happy family, and a house with a white picket fence. But your success doesn’t have to include any of these things.

#9 Success is Easy

“Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted.”

David Bly

When people become very successful very quickly it almost looks like it just fell into their lap. But it only looks easy to us because we can’t see the whole picture. Success is earned. As the old saying goes, “The only place you’ll find success before work is in the dictionary.”

#10 Success = Money

“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business.”

Henry Ford

This is a tired point, but it’s true: money is not that important. Personally, I would rather make a modest living doing something that matters than get rich trading stocks on Wall Street.

Steve Jobs was one of the richest people in the world, but he once said “being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”

Top 10 Principles of Success

#1 Success Starts Within

Success comes from the way you act. The way you act comes from the way you think and feel. Therefore, to become more successful, you must first change something within yourself.

#2 Success is a Habit

“Excellence is not a singular act, but a habit. You are what you repeatedly do.”

Aristotle

The little things that you do every day build on top of one another. Make a little progress towards your goals every day.

#3 Success is Only Obtainable in the Now

“The present moment is the only moment available to us and it is the door to all moments.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

We can’t experience the past or the future. So the only time a person is truly able to experience success is when they’re appreciating success in the present moment. Take time to enjoy the success of the present or you’ll never know the true meaning of the word.

There’s another reason why the present is so important, as Mahatma Gandhi points out: “The future depends on what we do in the present.”

#4 Success is in Motion

“I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.”

Steve Jobs

Have a sip of success and it’s easy to get intoxicated. When you get so pleased with your success that all you want to do is reflect on it fondly, you’re guaranteeing that your success will be short-lived.

The only way to have permanent success is to always be moving forward. This anonymous quotation says it better than I can: “A successful man continues to look for work after he has found a job.”

#5 Success Requires Faith

“Leap and the net will appear.”

Zen saying

Pursuing success is challenging and risky, but your chances increase greatly when you simply believe you will succeed.

#6 Success Means Helping Others

“It’s not that successful people are givers; it is that givers are successful people.”

Patti Thor

While it’s enjoyable to help yourself, there’s nothing more satisfying than helping others. Any true definition of success involves giving back as much as you get.

#7 Success is a Choice

Your life is in your hands. So if you don’t like your situation, change it.

Each of us has the resources and the opportunity to create a better life. But we each must make the decision to do this. As an old Swedish proverb says, “God gives every bird a worm, but he does not throw it into the nest.”

#8 Perseverance is Required

Colonel Harlan Sanders made 1008 sales call before a restaurant agreed to buy his recipe for fried chicken. If Sanders hadn’t persisted through over 1000 rejections, then KFC (a restaurant franchise with that earns about a half-billion dollars in revenue per year) wouldn’t exist.

Success is a long-term game. Be ready for the long haul.

#9 Visualization is Key

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up some place else.”

Yogi Berra

When teaching my class to shoot basketball, our gym teacher told us to imagine the basketball going through the hoop. Surprisingly, the trick worked: visualizing a successful shot actually helped us achieve it.

It’s not magic. Visualization makes our goals more real and reminds us of the beauty of our dreams.

#10 Success Starts Today

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

No matter what your situation is, you can become a successful person today. You may not be able to reap the rewards yet, but you can start planting the seeds.

Read more: ‘21 Life Lessons From Steve Jobs’

The post 50 Great Thoughts on Success appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

I bet you’ve made some pretty big mistakes. But have you ever made a billion-dollar mistake?

If not, then rest easy: the world’s smartest and most successful entrepreneurs have made mistakes far greater than yours. One even made a decision that cost him $45 billion bucks.

Learn from their mistakes today so that you don’t repeat them tomorrow.

#1 Steve Jobs Giving Up Control of Apple

Today, we all know that Steve Jobs was one of the greatest CEO’s of all time. Between 1997 and 2011, Steve led Apple to soaring profits with unparalleled charisma, leadership, and eye for innovation. But in the beginning, even Steve didn’t know that he was destined to be CEO of the company that he founded.

That doubt led Jobs to give up executive control of Apple Inc. in 1977 – a decision that would result in Jobs being fired by the company he founded.

Slipping out of his Grasp

Apple was a partnership owned entirely by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak until Jobs lured Mike Markkula out of retirement in 1977. Markkula was a seasoned entrepreneur and angel investor who provided Apple with much needed capital and business expertise.

It was the beginning of Jobs losing control of his own company. By the time Markkula stepped down as CEO in 1983, Jobs wanted control back. He was ready to be CEO. The only problem was that it was no longer Steve’s decision – and the board at Apple Inc. wasn’t too keen on hiring a 28-year-old to run the fast-growing company.

Powerless, Jobs agreed to recruit John Sculley, who was currently the head of Pepsi-Cola. Sculley took the job, but a power struggle between the two strong-willed men ensued.

When the conflict reached a breaking point, Markkula sided with Sculley. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple Inc. in 1985. Sculley had this to say:

Without Steve’s unique vision, Apple soon began to falter. A string of failures in the early 90’s opened the door wide for the competition, specifically Bill Gates and Microsoft.

Lesson Learned:

Steve Jobs wasn’t the most experienced choice for CEO of Apple, but he loved and understood his company better than anyone on the planet.

If you want your startup company to grow, you have to give up some control. But be careful about how much control you give and who you give it to. You don’t want to be in Jobs position, betrayed by the very person who you put in power.

Note: If you want more on what Jobs has done right, check out this article I wrote called 21 Life Lessons from Steve Jobs.

Honorable Mention: Selling stock in Apple

When Apple went public in 1980, Steve Jobs was awarded 7.5 million in Apple shares. When he was fired from Apple, Jobs sold all but one share. (He would have sold all of his shares, but he didn’t want to stop receiving the company’s annual report.)

As of April 2012, with Apple stock trading for over $600, those 7.5 million shares would be worth over $45 billion dollars. That alone is almost as much as the April 2012 worth of the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim ($49 billion).

#2 Bill Gates Ignoring Search Engines

Gates has proved himself a visionary by founding a computer software company in 1975 (Microsoft), pioneering a graphical user interface in 1985 (Windows 1.0), and by introducing millions of Americans to the Internet in 1995 (Windows 95 came bundled with Internet Explorer).

But by 2005, it was clear that Bill had failed to predict a billion-dollar opportunity: the search engine.

Walking Past a Gold Mine

Microsoft introduced MSN Search in 1998, the same year that Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google. Google was fast, innovative, and good at delivering relevant results. MSN Search was none-of-the-above.

Microsoft hadn’t even bothered to develop a search engine of their own. They used results from Inktomi, an existing search engine. Search simply wasn’t a priority. Microsoft was more focused on defeating Netscape Navigator in a battle of the browsers.

Still Searching for Results

By 2002, it was painfully obvious to Gates that search had been a big missed opportunity. Google had earned $348 million in revenue that year. A year later, in 2003, Google almost tripled its revenue to $962 million. Finally, Microsoft started developing a search engine.

The company launched Windows Live Search in 2006 but it failed to compete with Google. In 2009, Microsoft rebranded once again and introduced Bing. Billed as the first “decision engine”, Bing has taken a small bite out of the search market, but it hasn’t been cheap. In the fiscal year ending June 2011, Bing cost Microsoft $2.5 billion more than it earned.

The Lesson:

In 1998, no company had more leverage online than Microsoft. Imagine if Gates had prioritized the development of a great search engine back then: Google would probably be the world’s second biggest search engine.

But since Gates owed all of his success to software, it isn’t surprising that he overestimated the importance of Internet Explorer. Bill said it best himself:

As long as the world is spinning, your industry will keep changing. Just because a strategy worked for your business in the past, don’t count on it being the best method today.

Note: If you want more on what Gates has done right, check out this article I wrote on 10 lessons from Bill Gates.

Honorable Mention: Playing Monopoly

Remember when I told you Bill Gates was determined to defeat Netscape Navigator? He may have been a little bit too determined: in 1998, Microsoft was slapped with a lawsuit alleging that it was in violation of anti-trust laws.

In the case of United States v. Microsoft, the plaintiffs alleged that Microsoft had unfairly restricted the market for competing web browsers by manipulating APIs and bundling Internet Explorer with Windows 95.

The judge initially ruled against Microsoft and ordered that the company be split into two divisions, but after years of litigation Microsoft won an appeal and reached a settlement that allowed the company to continue its operations.

#3 Larry Page Missing Out on Social Networking

Google has done so much right since Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded the search engine in 1998. They’ve monetized carefully, kept things simple, and expanded their services (e.g. Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail).

But just as Bill Gates failed to capitalize on an opportunity to dominate search, Page missed an equally massive opportunity to dominate a coming web revolution: social networking. The worst part is that Page saw the potential of social networks, but he simply didn’t act on it.

Friendster: The Google Network that Wasn’t

Google had offered $30,000,000 to buy the social networking site Friendster in 2003. But Friendster didn’t sell. Larry Page should have used his position as “president of products” to start developing a Google social network right then and there.

But he didn’t. Google didn’t roll out Google Buzz until February 2010. Buzz was discontinued in 2011 to make room for Google Plus, which has also struggled to make a dent in the market.

Looking back on the missed opportunity, Page has expressed regret:

Can you imagine if Google had used its team of developers, mountain of resources, and hundreds of millions of users to launch a social network back in 2004? Facebook wouldn’t have stood a chance. Instead, Google’s on the outside looking in.

Lesson Learned:

Page says that he “knew he had to do something” with social networking. But after Friendster declined to be bought out by Google, Page temporarily gave up on Google having a social network.

Don’t make the same mistake. Next time you absolutely know your business is missing out on a big opportunity, stop at nothing to capitalize on it.

Note: If you want more on what Page has done right, check out this article I wrote on the eight simple rules that Google followed on its way to being the world’s biggest website.

Honorable Mention: Google Wave

Page oversaw the development and release of this real-time collaborative editing application. Wave stumbled out of the gate because it was released before it’s time (the software was buggy).

#4 Mark Zuckerberg Deciding to be the Face of Facebook

Nobody can call Mark Zuckerberg stupid. It took great vision for Mark to imagine Facebook in 2004; it took analytical genius to program it into reality.

But nobody can call Mark charismatic either. Mark is a strong-minded individual. He tends to be very blunt and a little bit arrogant. That’s why it’s surprising Zuckerberg chose to be the public face of his company.

Missteps, Miscues, and Misunderstandings

The above sentence stirred up a small controversy when Zuckerberg posted it on his personal Facebook page in May 2011. Animal lovers found it offensive – even though Zuckerberg was only killing animals because he wanted to reinforce that “a living being has to die for you to eat meat.”

These types of misunderstandings have marred Zuckerberg’s PR career.

In interviews and presentations, Mark has been underwhelming and uninspiring. The worst example may be this interview at the D8 conference in 2010. When facing scrutiny over Facebook’s privacy policy, Zuckerberg stumbled over his words and began sweating so profusely that Forbes wrote a story about it called ‘Great Perspirations’.

Of course, Zuckerberg’s most memorable (and perhaps most damaging) portrayal in the media was in the 2010 film The Social Network. The fictionalized account of Facebook’s rise to online dominance characterized Zuckerberg as ruthless, callous, and cocky – not exactly qualities you want associated with the face of your company.

Lesson Learned:

Zuckerberg is getting better at PR. Lately, he’s been almost charismatic.

And obviously, Facebook is doing just fine with him as the face of the company. People will continue loving Facebook as long as it’s the best way for them to connect with their friends online.

But had Zuckerberg stayed in the shadows and allowed a silver-tongued “Steve Jobs type” in the spotlight, Facebook would have a clearer message and a better brand. The world’s biggest social networks would be more trusted, more loved, and – simply – cooler.

So, as your company grows, remember that you may not always be the best person for the job. Play to your strengths and, in the words of Warren Buffett, stick to your “circle of confidence.”

Note: If you want more on what Zuckerberg has done right, check out this article I wrote on nine ways Zuckerberg has been essential to Facebook’s success.

Honorable Mention: Facebook Beacon

Under Mark’s direction, Facebook has gotten into a lot of hot water for privacy issues. Their strategy seems to be invading their users’ privacy first, asking questions later, and apologizing if necessary.

Facebook Beacon is the most egregious example. Launched in November 2007, Beacon was an aggressive advertisement system that sent information from certain websites back to Facebook.

When users started seeing their online activity automatically posted on their Facebook page, they were surprised and displeased. After a storm of controversy and a class action lawsuit, Facebook shut down the service in September of 2009.

What’s the Common Thread?

Steve Job’s mistake left room for Bill Gates to dominate the personal computer industry. Gates’ mistake left room for Larry Page to dominate the search engine industry. Page’s mistake left room for Zuckerberg to dominate the social networking industry.

Before long, we’ll be talking about the entrepreneur who capitalized on Zuckerberg’s mistakes.

That entrepreneur could be you. Start keeping a close watch on the leaders in your industry with an eye for the opportunities they’re letting slip through the cracks.

If you don’t, then you’re making a big mistake.

Post image courtesy of Opensourceway (http://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/)

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Stock in Apple Inc. was trading at a ten-year low ($13 per share). The Macintosh was outdated, the Newton had flopped, and Apple’s board of directors had just ousted their second CEO in as many years.

It looked like Apple would be obsolete by the millennium.

But you know the rest of the story: Steve Jobs took the reins in 1998, unveiled the iMac, and proceeded to guide Apple through an unprecedented period of growth and profitability.

Last week, stock in Apple Inc. surpassed $500 per share for the first time – which makes it the world’s most valuable company. Below, I’ll explain four ways Apple climbed to the top of Wall Street and how you can apply the same strategies with your business.

Apple Targeted Emerging Markets

Apple has been developing products for emerging markets since they first started in 1976. Of course, back then the personal computer was still in an emerging market.

A lot has changed in the last 35 years, but Apple continues to focus its efforts on markets that are new – and therefore less competitive. Their products aren’t usually the first of their kind, but they are almost always the first to get it right.

Take the iPod. It wasn’t the first portable mp3 player, but it was the first to be intuitively designed and well-marketed.

The same could be said of the iPhone for the smart phone market and the iPad for the tablet market. Apple has come to dominate these niches that are now well-developed and very lucrative.

Pioneering New Frontiers

You don’t have $10 million to spend developing innovative technologies, so how are you going to stand a chance in an emerging market?

It’s not as hard as it sounds.

In the world of online entrepreneurship, there’s a new market emerging every week. Mobile marketing, online video production, and social media services are all growing fields that aren’t going anywhere any time soon.

Apple Cultivated Recurring Revenue

True wealth doesn’t come from launching one big product or making one big deal. It comes from tapping into streams of revenue that keep producing profits month after month. Nobody is better at this than Apple.

It started in 2001 with iTunes, a free music player with a built-in store. Ever since, Apple has been raking in hundreds of millions of dollars a year from iTunes sales of music, movies, and books.

In 2008, Apple introduced the App Store. It has been even more lucrative than iTunes, since Apple gets 30% of every app sale.

Then there’s the mobile market. Verizon and AT&T love Apple because their iPhones are great at inspiring customers to pay extra every month for a data plan.

With all of these different sources of recurring revenue, Apple wouldn’t have to launch another product and they would still be making money for years to come.

How You Can Earn Recurring Revenue

Recurring revenue isn’t just for tech industry giants.

The best example of recurring revenue online is membership sites. The concept is simple: in order to gain access to an online resource (videos, guides, and forums), users must agree to pay a recurring fee.

Another way to make a monthly income is by attracting companies to put advertisements on your website. If you take good care of your advertisers, they’ll keep paying you for space on your site for as long as you want.

If you’re like me and you offer an online service, consider offering your clients a monthly maintenance program – or just a longer contract with more deliverables.

Apple Embraced Luxury Culture

Why is it that Apple has never offered a budget laptop?

Companies like Dell and Gateway have long been “racing to the bottom,” trying to provide the best value at the lowest price.

But Apple has stayed above the fray. The cheapest Macbook ($999) is almost three times as expensive as the cheapest laptop HP has to offer.

If Apple offered a budget-priced Macbook, I’m sure it would fly off the shelves. They would make (another) boatload of cash. But they won’t be doing that any time soon.

The reason is simple: they like that their products are considered luxury purchases.

Owning an Apple product has become a social signifier. Pulling out your iAnything indicates that you’re doing well enough financially to splurge on a higher-priced gadget.

Don’t Race to the Bottom

People tend to ascribe more value to items with higher prices. So think twice about trying to have the lowest price in town.

If you’re offering a product or service, consider having one luxury option. It will make your standard prices seem low in comparison.

Better yet, you’ll likely get a few customers who actually want to shell out more money to get something luxurious.

Apple Built a Brand

We’ve all witnessed Apple-mania first hand.

The phenomenon is widespread: Fortune magazine has named Apple the world’s most admired company for the last four years (2008 to 2011).

It all comes down to their brand – which Apple has artfully developed since their inception.

Their former tagline, “Think Different,” didn’t just sell computers; it sold a counter-culture.

Apple has also built their brand through consistent design. From the iMac on, every major Apple product has had the same leading designer, Jonathon Ive. That means that there has been a unified vision behind the design of the iPod, Macbook, iPhone, iPad, and more.

Of course, a brand is so much more than a name, marketing campaign, or aesthetic. The real substance of Apple’s brand comes from the perception that their products are intuitive, reliable, and powerful.

What’s in a name?

It’s no secret that Apple has fostered their brand by using similar product names: iPod, iMac, iThis, iThat. All Apple has to do is put a lowercase ‘i’ in front of a one syllable word and they’re set.

You can use a similar tactic to create your own brand identity.  If you’re choosing a name for your company or for your next product, think about using a distinctive word that will be versatile. That way, you will be able to use variations of it in future.

Will Apple Stay on Top of the World?

According to the laws of physics, what comes up must come down.

Some doubt that Apple will continue to innovate without the guidance of Steve Jobs. Others think they will lose ground in the less affluent global markets that are increasingly purchasing consumer electronics. And lately Apple has come under fire again for its labor practices.

Apple will be facing its fair share of challenges in 2012 and beyond. But the underlying principles at the core of the company make me believe Apple will still be the world’s most valuable company this time next year.

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The 20 Best Business Books

1 – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

As you can see from the photo below, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen R. Covey, has sold more than 15 million copies since it was first published in 2004. The book presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems, but my words, compared to Covey’s, just can’t do it justice. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, service, and human dignity – principles that give us the security to adapt to change, and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates. It’s a book for life, and a book that everyone should read, not just own. For entrepreneurs, it’s important look on how to change the way we live, which will not only affect our personal life, but our businesses too. 

2 – Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t

This book is all about taking a good company and turing it into a great company. You may wonder what the difference is, and why it’s so important, but all of that is listed inside this book. Jim Collins, the author, is an expert on how businesses grow, how they attain superior performance, and how good companies can become great companies and has invested over a decade of research into the topic. For most entrepreneurs starting out, it’s almost impossible to think about how they could move their businesses into multi-million dollar organizations, or even what choices to make when they start to arrive, and this is where the book really comes into its own. It’s an in-depth look at how good companies have grown to become the great companies they are today. Well worth a read.

6 – How To Win Friends and Influence People

11 – No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs

Find out how to use it far more wisely by the man who successfully run multiple business ventures simultaneously. Dan Kennedy has been called the “Professor of Harsh Reality” because he doesn’t deal in glib, pabulum solutions and eye-rolling cliches you’ve heard incessantly on time management. He takes on the world of cell phones, PDAs, faxes, e-mails, and every other communication device that pervade our lives, suggesting when to tap it, and when to give it the heave-ho. This entrepreneur/consultant/author/speaker has a whirlwind business life, yet manages to fit everything in using a handful of home-brewed time management tools he swears by. He shows how to maximize your time with a fresh take on the mantra that “time is money.” It’s all about using disciplined productivity strategies Kennedy has devised over 30 years of managing highly-profitable businesses with only minimal help.

12 – The Magic of Thinking Big

I’m sure that most of you have heard of this book, or at least the term, but have you every wondered about the affects? Millions of people throughout the world have improved their lives using The Magic of Thinking Big. Dr. David J. Schwartz, long regarded as one of the foremost experts on motivation, will help you sell better, manage better, earn more money, and most important of all, find greater happiness and peace of mind.

The Magic of Thinking Big gives you useful methods, not empty promises. Dr. Schwartz presents a carefully designed program for getting the most out of your job, your marriage and family life, and your community. He proves that you don’t need to be an intellectual or have innate talent to attain great success and satisfaction, but you do need to learn and understand the habit of thinking and behaving in ways that will get you there. This book gives you those secrets!

13 – Think and Grow Rich

The bestselling success book of all time is updated and revised with contemporary ideas and examples, and has sold over 70 million copies to date, making it one of the top 10 bestselling books of all time. Think and Grow Rich has been called the “Granddaddy of All Motivational Literature.” It was the first book to boldly ask, “What makes a winner?” The man who asked and listened for the answer, Napoleon Hill, is now counted in the top ranks of the world’s winners himself. The most famous of all teachers of success spent “a fortune and the better part of a lifetime of effort” to produce the “Law of Success” philosophy that forms the basis of his books and that is so powerfully summarized in this one.

In the original Think and Grow Rich, published in 1937, Hill draws on stories of Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and other millionaires of his generation to illustrate his principles. In the updated version, Arthur R. Pell, Ph.D., a nationally known author, lecturer, and consultant in human resources management and an expert in applying Hill’s thought, deftly interweaves anecdotes of how contemporary millionaires and billionaires, such as Bill Gates, Mary Kay Ash, Dave Thomas, and Sir John Templeton, achieved their wealth. Outmoded or arcane terminology and examples are faithfully refreshed to preclude any stumbling blocks to a new generation of readers.

14 – Aspire: Discovering Your Purpose Through the Power of Words

Do you aspire to be something more than just average? An expert recognized for his uncovering the hidden, and often secret meaning of words, Kevin Hall now shares his wisdom with us all. In Aspire! he teaches readers to understand what words mean in their purest sense and unlock their importance as they develop a thoughtful new vocabulary. By focusing on eleven words-one per chapter–Aspire! shows how to use these words as building blocks for success and inner peace. The words, from the very familiar to the very unusual, will become touchstones in personal development and in business.

15 – The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.

16 – Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion

If you’re interested in Gary, then check out this interview we did with him.

Do you have a hobby you wish you could do all day? An obsession that keeps you up at night? Now is the perfect time to take those passions and make a living doing what you love. In CRUSH IT! Why NOW Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk shows you how to use the power of the Internet to turn your real interests into real businesses. Gary spent years building his family business from a local wine shop into a national industry leader. Then one day he turned on a video camera, and by using the secrets revealed in this book, transformed his entire life and earning potential by building his personal brand. By the end of this book, any reader will have learned how to harness the power of the Internet to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Step by step, CRUSH IT! is the ultimate driver?s manual for modern business.

17 – Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

In today’s world, yesterday’s methods just don’t work. In Getting Things Done, veteran coach and management consultant David Allen shares the breakthrough methods for stress-free performance that he has introduced to tens of thousands of people across the country. Allen’s premise is simple: our productivity is directly proportional to our ability to relax. Only when our minds are clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve effective productivity and unleash our creative potential. In Getting Things Done Allen shows how to:

* Apply the “do it, delegate it, defer it, drop it” rule to get your in-box to empty
* Reassess goals and stay focused in changing situations
* Plan projects as well as get them unstuck
* Overcome feelings of confusion, anxiety, and being overwhelmed
* Feel fine about what you’re not doing

From core principles to proven tricks, Getting Things Done can transform the way you work, showing you how to pick up the pace without wearing yourself down.

18 – The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur

“Never started a company before? Struggling with little or no cash? Have no experience, no baseline to judge your progress against? Thank God! You’ve got a shot at making this work.” So says Mike Michalowicz, author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, a business book that is so uniquely useful, so raw and entertaining, it reads like the brainchild of Steve Jobs and Chris Rock.

The founder of three multimillion-dollar companies, including Obsidian Launch, a company that partners with first-time entrepreneurs to grow their concepts into industry leaders, Mike Michalowicz knows what it really takes to spin your great idea into pure gold. Whether you’re just starting out or have been at this for years, Mike’s “get real” approach to business is a much-needed swift kick in the pants.

19 – Blue Ocean Strategy

Written by the business world’s new gurus, Blue Ocean Strategy continues to challenge everything you thought you knew about competing in today’s crowded market place. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than a hundred years and thirty industries, authors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne argue that lasting success comes from creating ‘blue oceans’: untapped new market spaces ripe from growth. And the business world has caught on – companies around the world are skipping the bloody red oceans of rivals and creating their very own blue oceans. With over one million copies sold world wide, Blue Ocean Strategy is quickly reaching “must read” status among smart business readers. Have you caught the wave?

20 – Rework

Most business books give you the same old advice: Write a business plan, study the competition, seek investors, yadda yadda. If you’re looking for a book like that, then this isn’t the book for you.

Rework shows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in business. Read it and you’ll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don’t need outside investors, and why you’re better off ignoring the competition. The truth is, you need less than you think. You don’t need to be a workaholic. You don’t need to staff up. You don’t need to waste time on paperwork or meetings. You don’t even need an office. Those are all just excuses. What you really need to do is stop talking and start working. This book shows you the way. You’ll learn how to be more productive, how to get exposure without breaking the bank, and tons more counterintuitive ideas that will inspire and provoke you.

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Richard Branson

“My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.”

There’s no doubt that Richard Branson has led a very interesting life, it’s a life that has had many success and failures (mostly the former), and earned him not millions, but billions of dollars. Richard started his company as a mail order record store, before expanding into the well known company we know it as today, which when you consider it, was quite a feat. Considering all the ways that people can make money online these days, and the fact that Mark Zuckerberg is substantially richer, yet owns what could easily be considered virtual property, it makes it even more impressive when someone makes big money in real business. When you look at a list of Richard Branson’s business ventures, the list is huge, and it makes you wonder how one man can achieve so much, but then you look at his quote above, and you start to understand why. Sir Richard Branson doesn’t set himself small goals, he goes for the big ones, and then he follows through – which is the most important part to reaching success.

Steve Jobs

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

Steve sums up my feelings about blogging, in just a couple of sentences. I got into blogging for two reasons, firstly to draw attention towards my photography, and secondly because I saw a gap in the market for good quality content. So many people want to start making money online with a website, but they don’t know how to write good content, or they simply don’t put in the necessary effort. When you become a yardstick of quality, and expect excellence from yourself, then you start to become noticed for all your hard work. I’ve recently started receiving a lot more comments from people, taking their time to tell me what a good job I’ve done, and thanked me for my help. When I started blogging, I decided to become a yardstick of quality, where only the best is good enough. In a competitive market, gimmicks and cliche posts will only get you so far – you have to be the best to become successful.

Bill Gates

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”

This is a great quote from one of the richest, and most successful people in the world; Bill Gates. We learn a lot less from our successes, than we do from our mistakes, because we’re easily tricked into thinking we’ve done everything right. Just because something hasn’t failed the first time round, it doesn’t mean it won’t fail the second time. Success also gives you the feeling that there’s not much you can do differently to improve your results, which is far from true, because all success is relative. When I started my website, I was thrilled to get 100 views in a day, but now that would be considered a massive failure. When I started receiving a steady 1000, I considered that to be a success and I didn’t think much of it, but I actually learned a lot more about how my website works when that started to dip to around 500 on a regular basis. It was this perceived failure that made me question my tactics, and work on different techniques to improve my website.

John D. Rockefeller

“A friendship founded on business is a good deal better than a business founded on friendship.”

As a Brit, John D. Rockefeller isn’t a massively famous name for most, but he’s still someone that I find to be completely fascinating. He was the world’s first billionaire, and when you consider that he reached this princely sum back in 1916, it makes it much more amazing. He made the majority of his money from Oil, which he invested in very early on, and if he had made his fortune today, he would be worth around $200 billion, which is far more than anyone else. He was clearly a man who knew business, and I think we can all agree that he raises a valid point here. Businesses founded on friendship can work, but there’s always the possibility that personal feelings can interfere with results. You can’t choose family, but you can choose your friends and business partners, so choose them wisely.

Thomas Edison

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Thomas Edison was an amazing man, he was a man who held over 1000 different patents, and invented some incredible technology throughout his lifetime, from the light bulb to the film projector. For every success, there were many more failures, or so it may have seemed. You see, Thomas Edison didn’t see these as failures, he saw them as learning curves, which provided him with information on how to improve. The important message here is that so long as you learn from your mistakes, then they’re not failures at all. If you don’t consider giving up to be an option, no matter how hard something is, then it’s only a matter of time before you’re successful. This is similar to what Bill Gates said about success being a lousy teacher, because it doesn’t push you to make improvements where some may be needed. I think we would all be better off if we thought a little bit more like Thomas Edison.

Ray Kroc

“Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.”

Ray is famous all over the world, for one particular brand; McDonald’s. There’s not much more American than a hamburger and fries, and McDonalds is the king of all fast food restaurants. He bought McDonald’s from the McDonald brothers for $2.7 million, because he had grown frustrated that they had only opened a handful of stores. He then spread out the company across the whole of America, and implemented systems that ensured that a Big Mac would taste the same in California, as it would in New York. When he took on the company from the brothers, there were lots of roadblocks that were uncovered, largely due to the nature of their handshake contract, but that simply meant that Ray worked even harder to get to where he is today. That leads us to his quote, stated above. He’s simply saying that it’s not luck that makes the difference, it’s the hard work and sweat. The more you sweat, the more ‘luck’ you’re going to have in business.

Henry Ford

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.”

Henry Ford’s name is synonymous with the motor car, and as the father of the production line, and the Ford Model T, it’s well deserved. Henry Ford is no doubt one of the most successful business men in the world, as it takes a lot more to start producing physical, original products, than it does to create a website. His quote is all about mindset, and how you think about different tasks and life in general. Without wanting to sound too Disney, he’s saying that if you think that you can, then you can, but if you think that you can’t, then you can’t. So long as you believe in yourself and what you’re doing, then all you have to do is follow through. If you don’t believe that you can complete what you set out to do, then it’s no wonder when you can’t.

Sam Walton

“High expectations are the key to everything.”

Sam Walton is the founder of Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club, and a true American businessman. He created a Wal-Mart, which by the time he died, had 1,960 stores, and such wealth, that it’s been passed on through the generations – the Walton family even held five spots in the top ten richest people in the United States until 2005. Walton clearly knew what he was talking about when it came to business, and he makes a very interesting point about expectations. Whether it’s expectations you set yourself, or what you expect of others, it helps to provide better results as higher targets must be reached. If someone knows that you expect a lot out of them, then the worry that they will disappoint you, will yield better results and work ethic. When it comes to expecting higher results from yourself, you’re setting yourself a standard that you have to live up to, if you want to be successful. This brushes upon Steve Jobs’ quote from above, only Sam’s saying that if you want to be the best, you have set yourself the highest expectations.

Jeff Bezos

“Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.”

If there’s one person who knows what they’re talking about when it comes to branding, it’s Jeff Bezos, as his company Amazon.com was named the most trusted brand in America in 2010. People buy from his website time and time again, because they know that Amazon is a safe place to shop, with reliable results. His understanding of brands, as quoted above, have lead him to create one of the best websites in the world, and made him one of the richest internet entrepreneurs. Keeping a strong brand identity is all about having a good reputation, and as Jeff says, that’s all to do with what people say about you when you’re not there. If you work on your website well enough, and produce a lot of good quality content, then the brand will speak for itself over time. Sometimes I browse commenters websites and can see all too easily where they’re going wrong, and what I’m thinking is effectively what people are saying when they’re not in the room.

Larry Ellison

“When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts.”

It’s always been hard to be the person who comes up with new ideas, because when someone doesn’t understand something, then it’s hard to get them on board, but so long as you’re sure that you’re right about something, then you can do no wrong. Some ideas we have, whether it’s about photography, making money online, or even cooking dinner, every time we have a new idea, there will always be someone there to tell you it can’t be done. I’m not saying that everyone innovates to the same extent that Larry Ellison, the 5th richest person in the world does, but we all do things in our own way. Self belief is an important factor to your own success, and relating back to what Henny Ford said, if you think you can, then you can.

Carlos Slim Helu

“When you live for others’ opinions, you are dead. I don’t want to live thinking about how I’ll be remembered.”

Carlos is currently the richest man in the world, and is believed to be worth a cool $63.3 billion. As well as owning a telecoms company, he also owns a stake in over 200 different companies, from Saks retail to The New York Times. I personally can’t say what it takes to become the richest man in the world, but Carlos has his own views, and when someone’s worth that much money, it’s usually a good idea to pay attention to what they’re saying. The point he’s making is a very valid point, particularly in this day of age, where people can anonymously put someone down over the internet. How many of you have submitted something to a website like Reddit, or commented on a website and received a negative response from someone you don’t even know? This can put you off promoting your own content, when you shouldn’t let it. So long as you believe in what you’re doing, then carry on doing it. You’ll never be able to please everyone, and if you live to satisfy what other people think about you, then you’ll never become a success. People are always going to be jealous of other people’s success.

Donald Trump

“Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.”

Donald Trump has gone through his fair share of ups and downs in business, and I’m sure that for him, he’s leaned a lot from his mistakes. In a way, his quote is similar to Thomas Edison’s, in that every failure has taught him a new way to succeed, or spawned a new idea, which ends up being worth a lot more. Entrepreneurship breeds ideas, and I don’t know about you, but I for one can say that I’ve come up with a lot more ideas for websites and businesses since I started my first website. When you fail at something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not going to succeed, it may just mean that you’re going to take a different route to get there.

Mary Kay Ash

“Those who are blessed with the most talent don’t necessarily outperform everyone else. It’s the people with follow-through who excel.”

If you’re from America, then you’ll likely be familiar with the name Mary Kay Ash, who’s an American businesswoman who started her own cosmetics firm. It started out as a book, which became a business plan, before becoming a way to help women to make their own way in business in a male orientated world. Mary outlines in her quote, that to be the best in business, it’s not enough to simply have an idea, you have to actually follow it through. The greatest idea in the world is worth nothing if you don’t do something with it. You hear about people complaining all the time that someone else has stolen their idea, and while I’m not in a position to say whether a particular person did or not, it’s worth noting that on the majority of occasions, it wouldn’t have happened if that particular person had followed through with the idea themselves. If you take your own idea and follow through, you have a business, and that can’t be stolen, only duplicated.

Walt Disney

“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”

Walt Disney was a pioneer of entertainment and cartoons, and headed new technologies which were used to create animations. If you met a man on the street, who said he was going to take some doodles of cartoon characters and use them to make one of the most successful entertainment businesses, which was going to be popular for decades to come, you would have laughed and walked away. A lot of the technology, and business ideas that Walt used, had never been tried before, so in a way, he was doing the impossible. Sure it was a challenge, but it was a fun challenge, and one that he knew he could take on. Taking on the impossible has obviously paid off for him too, because his name is now synonymous with cartoons and animations, as well as toys, shops, theme parks and more.

Warren Buffett

“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked”

This is one of my favourite quotes on the list, because it sums up the making money online industry really well. There’s plenty of imitators, people who have learned from sites like this, who then want to go and create their own. There’s nothing wrong with being an imitator if there’s something new that you can bring to the table, but if you’re just regurgitating the same old content, then there’s no need for that blog to exist. There are websites that rip off the content that’s written on this site all the time, in fact, I could find one now if I cared to Google, and they know who they are, and they’ll never be as successful. There are even blatant copies of the PopUp Domination software, but we can rest assured that the tide will go out for these people. As soon as someone finds both sets of content, the quality will become clear, and the tide will go out for your competitor. It’s only a matter of time.

The post 15 Best Quotes From 15 Of The Greatest Entrepreneurs appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

But before he was a legend, he was a person.

We can’t all be Steve Jobs, but we can all learn from his extraordinary life.

Life Advice From Steve Jobs

#1 Skate to Where the Puck is Going to Be

In 2007, Steve Jobs said, “There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.’ And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very, very beginning. And we always will.”

Steve’s ability to anticipate future trends helped Apple dominate now-burgeoning markets like digital music sales (through the iPod and iTunes Store).

#2 Accentuate the Positive

Steve started life out on the wrong foot. He was given up for adoption at birth.

Tough break? Young Jobs didn’t think so: he was thankful for his loving adoptive parents — who happened to live in Palo Alto, California (which would eventually become Silicon Valley).

#3 Learn from Others

In high school, Jobs attended lectures at a small computer technology company called Hewlett-Packard. Before turning 21, Steve had worked for both HP and Atari. He saw what these companies were doing and learned what he wanted to do differently with Apple.

#4 Start Early

Because Steve was still a sponge-brained teenager when he started working with computers, he learned quickly.

It also helps that he started Apple in his early 20’s: when he was still full of energy, fresh ideas, and not yet restrained by a family or career.

#5 College is Important…

At its best, higher education challenges us to make connections and solve problems.

Jobs credits a college calligraphy course for part of the Macintosh’s development:

“If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.”

#6 …But it’s Not Necessary

Reed University was expensive and Jobs didn’t want to drain his parents’ savings. If Jobs hadn’t dropped out, he would have been a junior in 1975. He co-founded Apple Computer that year instead.

#7 Travel the World

The year before he founded Apple, Jobs journeyed to India. Travel has a way of broadening a person’s perspective and expanding their sense of what’s possible – good traits in an entrepreneur.

#8 Surround Yourself with Good People

Steve Jobs wasn’t a great computer engineer. Apple would have had no chance if Jobs was the only one building the computers. That’s why he recruited Steve Wozniak.

Through the years, Jobs’ companies have blossomed thanks to the brilliant people he’s brought on board – like Apple CEO Tim Cook and Pixar CCO (Chief Creative Officer) John Lasseter.

#9 Expect Greatness

People tend to rise to expectations.

#10 Fake it Before You Make it

In Apple’s early days, Steve recognized that Palo Alto, California was the epicenter of innovative computer technology. Steve wanted his company to be associated with this place – but Apple was still headquartered out of a garage in nearby Los Altos.

Jobs’ solution was to set up a PO Box in Palo Alto and hire a voice answering service. A potential client would get the impression that Apple was a big company in the heart of Silicon Valley – even though the truth was that it was still just two sweaty guys in a garage across town.

#11 Obstacles are meant to be Overcome

The post 21 Life Lessons from Steve Jobs appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

At some point, most entrepreneurs have said to themselves they want to be like one of people in this list, “I want to be the next Richard Branson”. We define them as success and role models for who we want to be, this post is to give credit to these amazing entrepreneurs. One thing that most of these people have in common is the fact that they all worked really hard and in the end, they were really well rewarded for that. The list is in no particular order, we all have our own opinions on who should be top dog, such as Richard Branson who inspired me the most to start my business.

=> Recommended Reading: 21 Ways Successful Entrepreneurs Think Differently

#1 Matthew Boulton

Age: 80yrs (Died: 17^th August 1809)

Birth Place: Birmingham, West Midlands UK

Industry: Entrepreneurial Manufacturer

Influence: Pioneered many manufacturing processes.

Net Worth: Unknown

Website:www.matthewboulton2009.org

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Why they made the list…

Matthew Boulton was a pioneer in manufacturing, he was far from wealthy; his father was a toy maker at the time of his birth. Matthew attended a  local school and upon leaving; he  joined his father’s business. At the age of 21yrs Matthew married Mary Robinson the daughter of a wealthy Mercer (Mercer; a silk, linen and fustian textile merchant). Eventually he took charge of his fathers business  (1757) When his father died, he later gained interest in  precious metals; leaving behind the toy trade altogether. With a new trade under his belt Matthew then travelled throughout the United Kingdom, selling his goods wherever he could. After a short period of time he negotiated with a highly regarded friend to present a sword to Prince Edward as a gift, however it was Prince Edward’s older brother; Prince George III, the heir to the throne of England and later the King of England; that was truly interested in the gift.

In 1761 after using the majority of his wealth which had accumulated from his two marriages, and the inheritance he received from his father, he bought a larger property for his growing business. He purchased Soho House a very large premises in Staffordshire, West Midlands. He began production at Soho and introduced modern production methods as well as a “pioneering insurance scheme” for his workers. He soon became widely known for his perfectionist characteristics as well as his many technological advancements within manufacturing processes. Soho House soon became a must see to the rich and powerful and he regularly had people of royal stature coming to stay with him so they could see and learn more about his work and techniques. Later in life Matthew became infatuated with science and and astronomy, and became well known for his work. He was also named as the Sheriff of Staffordshire before his death in 1809. By the time he died Matthew had become one of the wealthiest and most pioneering manufacturers and entrepreneurs in the UK.

#2 Andrew Carnegie

Age: 83yrs (Died: 11^th August 1919)

Birth Place: Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, UK

Industry: Steel Tycoon

Influence: Pioneered many manufacturing processes.

Net Worth: £298.3 billion

Website: www.carnegiescience.edu

Why they made the list…

Andrew Carnegie was born into a typical lower-class family in Scotland, and lived in a weavers cottage; a very small house. The main room served not only as the living quarters but also the dining room as well as the bedroom for the family. His family were suffering from near starvation and poverty when William; his father, emigrated the family to Allegheny, Pennsylvania in the USA. The area in which they lived was very poor but better than their previous community in Fife. The first job he had was that of a bobbin boy where he helped change spools for 12hrs each day. Feeling this wasn’t the career for him he went on to become a telegraph messenger for $2.50 per week; his job came with a couple of perks too, such as gaining free entry to the local theatre. He soon progressed to $4.00 per week at the age of 18yrs and through hard work and rapid development Andrew climbed swiftly the ranks. Eventually he became an investor, investing the money he had saved over the years into Adams Express Company a messenger service.

Carnegie later received shares in a car business after helping to safeguard the shares of another business for a friend; he used this to his advantage and reinvested all his money into the railway industry. During the civil war Carnegie made a fortune through investments he had made; one of which had him investing $40,000 of his own money into Story Farm; a creek rich in oil. By the end of the year the investment had paid of in dividends to the tidy sum of $1 million, as well as more profits coming in from the petrol and oil goods. After the civil war had finished Carnegie gave $40,000 to help build a library in his native Dunfermline, he also gave $50,000 of his money to a hospital college to help teach more nurses and save more lives. Now an investor in both oil and steel Carnegie was becoming very wealthy, and decided to write his first book which sold over 40,000 copies. His writing style and intelligence helped Carnegie become known as a great author and journalist which helped him earn another hefty fortune in doing so. By 1898 Carnegie was worth more than $20 million and famously offered $20,000,000 to buy the Philippines from Spain in a bid to allow them independence. By the time of his death in 1919, Carnegie had become famous for his investments, his oil his writings and of course his entrepreneurial streak. With the money he made from all his investments he died a very wealthy man his net worth being $350,695,653, today that figure would be nearly $300 billion.

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#3 Henry Ford

Age: 83yrs (Died April 7^th 1947)

Birth Place: Greenfield Township, Dearborn, Michighan, USA

Industry: Auto-motive manufacturer

Influence: Pioneer of Transport

Net Worth: $1.1 billion

Website: www.thehenryford.org

Why they made the list…

Henry Ford,  One of the few men that made mainstream automobiles become a reality. He was born into a family of farmers who originated from England and Ireland. Not the wealthiest of families but certainly not poverty stricken. In his teenage years, his father had given him a timepiece, which he later took to pieces just to see if he could piece it together again successfully, which he did. He then started to do the same with other peoples timepieces and eventually he started to repair them too. Henry was also a sufferer of Dyslexia, and although this was a hurdle it was by no means a reason to give up.

He went on to complete an apprenticeship with James F. Flower & Bros, and also with the Detroit Dry Dock Company. In 1891 he met with Thomas Edison who liked his concept of an auto-mobile, so he allowed him to use his warehouses to manufacturer two vehicles. Ford was grateful but later went on to build his own company so he could build the cars on his own terms backed by William H. Murphy he founded the Detroit Automobile Company (1899). This was short lived however, as the vehicles produced lacked the quality and precision Ford wanted as well as being horribly expensive. The business went under but it didn’t stop him. Ford went on to build the Cadillac Automobile company. After almost failing a second time due to lack of sales and high debts more partners came into the business and the name was changed to the Ford Motor Company. Current sales for the Ford group are now a massive $190 billion.

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#4 Thomas Alva Edison

Age: 84yrs

Birth Place: Milan, Ohio, USA

Industry: Science

Influence: His Inventions Changed the World

Net worth: $12,000,000

Website: www.thomasedison.com

Why they made the list…

I felt obligated to add Thomas Edison to this list due to his motivation and persistence which makes him a true entrepreneur, even after thousands of failures. Now although Thomas didn’t have a terrible upbringing in terms of the money sense, he was a very poorly child. Ill a lot of his early life, he suffered from a severe ear infection that rendered him deaf in one of his ears although it has been said he was deaf in both. He also developed scarlet fever as a boy nearly dying because of it, but it didn’t stop him. After becoming a minor celebrity for saving a toddler from being hit by a train, Thomas was offered a job as telegraph operator.

Thomas went on to create thousands of inventions and patents, failing a lot more times than succeeding. However his first taste of glory came when he developed the tin foil phonograph, after working as a telegraph operator he wanted to create a way of making a telegraph transmitter to work in a more efficient way. He did this by realising that it sounded very similar to spoken words when the tape from the machine was played at a fast pace. Developing his idea further he went on to record a message through this means creating his first successful invention that lead the way for many more. Thomas Edison was a very patient and passionate man, motivated by success he went on to try and fail thousands of times before getting some of his inventions to work. Some of his inventions we still use today, and most of them are historical for changing the world.

#5 Oprah Gail Winfrey

Age: 56yrs

Birth Place: Kosciusko, Mississippi, USA

Industry: Media and Entertainment

Influence: Empowering People, Female Media Pioneer

Net Worth: $2.7 billion

Website: www.Oprah.com

Why they made the list…

Oprah Winfrey, this is not the first time I have spoken about her and it probably won’t be the last time either;  it seems she’s coming up in quite a few places. The reasons why Oprah is such an influential entrepreneurs is because of the fact that she’s been through so much and yet accomplished so much more. After being the subject of vicious sexual attack at the age of nine; she later became pregnant, losing the child at birth she was only 14 years of age at the time.In 1986 she famously revealed this to her shocked viewers on her live show. Her fame came to fruition in 1983, when her seductive character and genuine love of people gained her the job of her dreams; as a talk-show host.

The following exposure was explosive and she soon became one of the most famous, most well loved, and most professional people in the entertainment industry. However; she did not want to stop there as she felt there was another side to her, a side of which she wanted to pursue, her entrepreneurial side. In 1988 following her instincts she founded the company Harpo Studios, which for those of you not realised is simply Oprah spelt backwards. The business went on in leaps and bounds most likely due to her television career which gave her a massive amount of advertising is each and every day. The company now has over 250 employees and is currently growing every year. She also co-founded oxygen media which helps attract over 50 million viewers. Because of all of the skills she possesses, and her entrepreneurial side she’s managed to create a personal wealth $2.7 billion pretty tidy sum if you ask me.

#6 William “Bill” Gates

Age: 54yrs

Birth Place: Seattle, Washington, USA

Industry: Information Technology, Computer Science

Influence: Changed the Personal Computer Forever

Net Worth: $53 billion

Website: www.gatesfoundation.org

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Why they made the list…

Bill Gates; The second richest man on the planet, one of the most recognized names in the world, as much a celebrity as the pop stars and movie stars due to his highly public profile. Bill has always been in the lime-light since he began his career way back aged 13yrs the age of the personal computer was far from near and Bill, Paul Allen and some others from high-school started using the computers of the time, the DEC PDP-10 was one of them. Bill, Allen and their friends studied the inner workings and making notes of coding language and tried to decipher it to understand how a computer worked. They were eventually banned from the DEC PDP-10 after they were caught exploiting code “bugs” which allowed them to extend the amount of time they had been allocated on the machine. In 1973 after completing high-school with a 1600 (top score) in his SAT’s, he enrolled at the University of Harvard. While studying at Harvard Bill made a new friend in Steve Ballmer, they have continued to be friends to this day and Ballmer took over as CEO of Microsoft upon Gate’s early retirement. After spending much of his study time at the helm of the University’s computer systems Bill decided to leave Harvard in order to start his own business, this was partly due to the launch of the Altair 8800 which used Intel’s new cpu 8080 which had gotten bill excited by the prospects of what he could do with the technology.

Many people call Bill Gates a college drop-out, or that he failed college, this simply is not true at all; it was a decision he made himself, he did not fail or give in he saw an opportunity the same as many entrepreneurs and he took a huge leap of faith that eventually paid off. Having gained interest from MIT’s director Bill and Allen, created an emulator that ran on a microcomputer to simulate a computer they had no access to (but had said they had) to show to Ed Roberts (MIT). They received a deal from MIT and began working on their new business in 1975 with the company name “Micro-Soft” although in 1976 they changed it to Microsoft, dropping the hyphen. Throughout the years Bill and Allen made some amazing advancements in computer technology and partnered with some massive businesses in order to gain the capital they needed to start the manufacturing of their own products and software. IBM approached Microsoft in 1980 asking for them to develop code for their BASIC (computer language) computer the IBM PC, MS DOS was created and this made Microsoft a very big player in the industry over night. In 1985 a decade after beginning their business They launched the first ever copy of MS Windows. As we know Microsoft became the standard in computer technology and has now become the largest computer information and technology business in the world. Microsoft currently stands at $62.4 billion (2010) with Bill Gates have a personal fortune of around $53 million which he uses to help very worthy causes and charities; including his own, the Gates Foundation.

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#7 Larry Page

Age: 37yrs

Birth Place: East Lansing, Michigan, USA

Industry: I.T entrepreneur, Computer Science

Influence: Revolutionized Online Searching and Media

Net Worth: $15 billion

Website: www.google.com/larry_page

Why they made the list…

Co-Founder of one of the most recognized search engines in the world, Google. It’s no wonder why Larry became interested and later an entrepreneur within the computer science industry; his parents were both computer science professors at the University of Michigan. Being of quite a wealthy background Larry was a very lucky person. He attended the Montessori Radmoor School (formerly the Okemos Montessori School), and later completed a degree in the science of computer engineering (BA Honors Degree) as well as completing a Masters Degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. In 1995 Larry met Sergey Brin, who was also a fellow Stanford student. They became close friends and eventually went into business together in 1996, forming the company Google Incorporated. Larry alongside his partner Brin ran Google Inc. as co-presidents of the company, until hiring the CEO Eric Schmidt.

Larry and Brin got their first financial backing from Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems, with the sum of $100,000. It was here that Page’s “Web Crawler” was soon to become the search engine we know today. Starting from his own Stanford University home page the web crawler began to search the internet for web pages, with the home page being the only starting point. To assess the importance of the information which the Web Crawler had found; Page and Brin created a complex algorithm which the late named PageRank. In 1999 just three years since they went into business, Larry and Brin found themselves becoming hounded by investors, and they finally accepted $25 million from Kliener Perkins Caufield and Sequoia Capital. By 2001 Google, now global; was producing profits of over $100 million, and by 2003 had raised those profits to $960 million a massive amount growth in just two years! Google as of today is now worth $172,399,800,300 or there about.

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#8 Sergey Brin

Age: 37yrs

Birth Place: Moscow, Russia

Industry: I.T , Computer Science

Influence: Revolutionized Online Searching and Media

Net Worth: $15 billion

Website:www.google.com/sergey_brin

Why they made the list…

As you’ll already know (at least if you read about Larry Page, above) Sergey Brin is one of the co-founders of Google Inc. Brin immigrated to the United States of America with his family aged just 6yrs old, and although he is both Russian in terms of ethnicity and background, he is a citizen of America, with his nationality set as American. His grandfather and his father both had studied mathematics in the past and Sergey was also keen on the topic, more than likely after seeing his father and grandfather work on various equations and projects as a child. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in mathematics and computer science, he then left and began studying at Stanford University, for a PH.D in computer science, a topic Sergey was keen to explore further, here at Stanford Sergey met Larry Page, another student of computer science.

Sergey and Larry decided to work together and with their mediocre computer systems they frantically worked at developing new search engine designs and algorithms. They started doing this basically because they wanted to cause disruption to the Stanford online website infrastructure, but in doing so, they had masterfully created a search engine with massive potential, and all completely by accident. They upped their game and the inner workings of the code further and further; perfecting the algorithms and creating the unique PageRank system. The pair suspended their studies and went on to co-found the company Google Inc. the very same Google which we love and hate today.

#9 Steve Jobs

Age: 55 yrs

birth Place: San Francisco, California, USA

Industry: computer technology, computer science

Influence: Advancement in Computers and Media Devices

Net Worth: $6.1 billion

Website: www.apple.com

Why they made the list…

Steve jobs, you either love him or hate him but there’s one thing that is certain; you will definitely know who is. One thing that you might not know him about him is that he’s actually adopted, but that hasn’t stopped him becoming one the most successful people in the world and why should it. Jobs graduated from high school in 1972, one of Steve jobs, first jobs was actually as a technician the computer company Atari. Which was possibly a big turning point for Steve at the time In 1974 the same year jobs first worked with Atari, jobs went into business with his old friend Steve Wozniak. Jobs had managed to convince Steve Wozniak that it would be a good idea to start assembling computers and selling them on for a profit. It seemed to quite decent idea as they soon started making a profit from the computers they were making, and on April 1, 1976 Apple Computer company was founded as a partnership with Steven jobs and Steve Wozniak as the co-founders.

Within just 4 years; the Apple Computer Company being founded Apple became a publicly traded corporation, and in 1983 jobs managed to lure John Scully away from the Pepsi-Cola company. Jobs went on in leaps and bounds and in 1984 on January 26th jobs introduced the first Apple Macintosh. It wasn’t all pleasantries though;  in May 1985, following an internal power struggle between the board of directors; jobs lost control of the Apple computer company and was forced out; although he did still have shares in the business. He then went on to form another company NeXT computers which did amazingly well sobering fact that in 1986 he bought “The Graphics Group” which was later named Pixar Animation, the $10 million. Some time later; in 1996 Apple computers company decided to buy the NeXT company for approximately $429 million, bringing Steve jobs back to Apple as the company’s interim CEO. In 2000 Apple announced publicly that Steve jobs was to become the permanent CEO of the company. In 2007 Apple changed its name to Apple Inc. On a side note In January 2006 jobs announced the Disney had purchased Pixar in an-all stock transaction;worth approximately $7.4 billion, so as you can see Steve jobs has done pretty well for himself.

#10 Sir Richard Branson

Age: 60 yrs

Birth Place: Blackheath, London, England, UK

Industry: British industrialist

Influence:

Net Worth: £2.97 billion ($474.6 billion)

Website: www.virgin.co.uk

Why they made the list…

Richard Branson is a well-known British industrialist probably best known for his company the Virgin Group, which holds in itself over 360 different companies. Branson started his education at scaitcliffe school, in 1963 continued by his attendance at Stowe School in 1965. In 1966 Branson started his first successful business venture Student Magazine. In 1967 Branson went on to opens first charity “The Student Advisory Centre”which was a great success. In 1970, Branson decided to create another company; which was a retail business based on mail-order deals. Its first success came when Mike Oldfield signed the virgin group and had a record which went platinum very quickly. Following the success of Mike Oldfield more bands began to sign with the virgin group The Sex Pistols being one of the biggest.

In 1984 Richard Branson formed the Virgin Atlantic Airways company, or as we know today, virgin Airways; which has been a great success just like many of his previous companies before it. Probably one of Branson’s most notorious business ventures to date, is his newest venture the Virgin Galactic, where is aiming to take passengers into space which he calls space tourism. The virgin Galactic company according to rumour will be licensing the technology behind the so-called spaceship one which is being funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen as well as Burt Rutan who is an American engineer well-known for his aeronautical work. Sir Richard Branson is without doubt one of the greatest entrepreneurs the UK has and possibly ever will have in its history, without him a lot of things wouldn’t be how they today, such as the music we listen to, the charities we support, and quite possibly in the near future space travel.

#11 Mark Zuckerberg

Age: 26yrs

Birth Place: White Plains, New York, USA

Industry: Social Media Mogul

Influence: Revolutionized Online Social Media and Networking

Net Worth: $6.9 billion

Website: www.Facebook.com

Why they made the list…

Mark Zuckerberg, is possibly one of the most spoken about individuals of the past year, not only is he one of the richest men on the planet, he’s just had a story portrayed by the Hollywood giants in a new movie entitled the Social Network. Zuckerberg first launched his website Facebook whilst attending Harvard University, the website was launched from his dormitory room, on 4 February 2004. It has been rumoured, but the inspiration for Facebook actually came from his former high school the Phillips Exeter Academy which had its own student directory known as”The Photo Address Book” which according to rumour, the students nicknamed the Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg was joined by fellow Harvard university students Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes as he wanted to evolve the Facebook website.

To begin with Facebook wasn’t available to everybody and due to this competitors such as; MySpace and Bebo seemed to be the clear winners, in terms of social networking. However that soon changed when Zuckerberg and the co-founders of Facebook dropped out of the Harvard University in a bid to make Facebook success, which they knew was possible, due to the amount of support it had received at the University. By then the 2004 Facebook had received over 1 million users for the website. Then in 2005 capital venture firm Accel partners, invested $12.7 million into the business to help them evolve its further. Soon Facebook was being approached by massive brands and companies who wants to buy out Zuckerberg and co-tutor is obvious trendsetting capabilities and the possible revenue to be made from it. However we know that Zuckerberg didn’t actually sell Facebook and he still is CEO of it although his partners have left now, and today according to Forbes magazine Zuckerberg is worth approximately $6.9 billion. Not bad for a college dropout.

# 12 Ariana Huffington

Age: 60yrs

Birth Place: Athens, Greece

Industry: Blogging Columnist and Author

Influence: A Pioneer in Blogging and Online News

Net Worth: $115million

Website: www.HuffingtonPost.com

Why they made the list…

Ariana Huffington, born in 1950 in Athens has got to be the most influential and professional as well as successful female within the blogging industry. Some of you may not know that she is also an author of the off-line variety, writing a biography of Maria Callas in 1981 she also wrote a biography on public Picasso eight years later in 1989. To became well known in the early 90s due to her relentless support for conservative causes during her ex-husband’s unsuccessful bid for the Senate in (1994). She later founded the Huffington is which is now liberal American news websites which he co-founded with Ken Lerer and Jonah Peretti.

The website itself of some mass of valuable information regarding politics, business, lifestyle, and environmental causes as well as media and entertainment news. They decided that the website could do with some localisation, so that loyal supporters of the Huffington Post could read detailed news for the area, due to this in 2000 they launched their very first local version of the Huffington post called HuffPost Chicago, very soon after came New York and Denver as well as Los Angeles. As well as writing articles for the blog herself she also has the help from many of her famous supporters such as Rosie O’Donnell and Harry Shearer. She has also won many awards through the Huffington post; such as winning the People’s Voice Award in the 2010 webby awards, she also won the 2006 and 2007 webby award for best politics blog and in 2009 the blog was named second in the best 25 blogs of 2009 in Time magazine.

#13 Peter Jones

Age: 44yrs

Birth Place: Maidenhead, Berks, United Kingdom

Industry: Telecommunications

Influence: Investing in young entrepreneurs

Net Worth: £220 million

Website: www.peterjones.tv

Why they made the list…

Peter (CBE) is probably best known by the public for his role on Dragon’s Den, a British television programme which is broadcast on the BBC network. He is a British entrepreneur whose main dealings are within the mobile telecommunication, media and leisure industries. He is also named America for his television programme the American Inventor, on which he judges businesses in an almost X-factor style show for business. His first business venture to earn him money was a tennis academy which he set up at the age of 16. His second and also successful business venture was completely different in that it was a technological company based on computers where he manufactured his own PCs however the business went bankrupt after failing to receive payment from his customers.

This led to him having to give up his three-bedroom house as well as his cars, forcing him to move back in with his parents. He then joined the company Siemens Nixdorf, and it 20 years of age he became the youngest ever head of the business unit in United Kingdom. After leaving Siemens Nixdorf he started to work within the telecommunications industry and after a year of hard saving he managed to set up his next business venture which was Phones International Group. Times were obviously hard in the beginning as he has stated he had to sleep on the office floor until his business grew enough for him to find somewhere suitable to live. His business became amazingly successful and is revenue totalled nearly £14 million by the end of his first year which more than doubled in his second year when it nearly reached £45 million. Peter James undoubtedly brought telecommunications to new heights and new levels within United Kingdom, and in doing so has made brave leaps of faith within business proving years true entrepreneur. Since starting his second business venture he has been part of many other investments through the Dragon’s Den programme on the BBC with most notable ones probably being; Reggae Reggae, Visual Talent, and more recently Worthenshaws.

#14 Michael Newton

Age: 50yrs

Birth Place: Cheshire, UK

Industry: CCTV, Retail

Influence: Brought Revolutionary CCTV to the UK

Net Worth: $504.25 million

Why they made the list…

Michael Newton may not be someone most of you have heard of and you may even think he is not a historical figure, but he most definitely is in the UK. Michael changed the UK in big ways back in 1982 when he started with a CCTV system that basically monitored how long a person was at a table (in a bar). He soon introduced a line of multi-channel systems able to view across a broad range of areas all at once and not just in a singular location. He continued to add new systems to his arsenal and introduced them all to the UK. Today using Michael’s CCTV systems, over 7 million images are recorded a second!

If it wasn’t for his ingenuity and passion for what he did, it may not have been another few years until the introduction of a similar CCTV device, Not only did he make a fortune through his business; he also helped to make the UK a more secure and safe place to be. In 1994 due to his enthusiastic interest within aviation he began to learn how to fly; and soon passed his pilots license, not long after passing his pilots exam, he decided to go into the aviation industry to try his hand at a new sector. In 1998 he made the move into the commercial airline sector of the industry, which eventually led to the AD Aviation company he is now the CEO of.

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#15 Charles Kemmons Wilson

Age: 90yrs (Died debris talks 2003)

Birth Place: Osceola, Kansas, USA

Industry: Hotelier

Net Worth: $100 million

Website: www.holidayinn.com

Why they made the list…

Charles kemmons Wilson, is best known for his outstanding commitment and passion the hotelier business. Rumour has it that Charles came up for his idea of his business venture after a road trip brought to his attention the fact that many of the roadside motels, were definitely not up to scratch in both quality and consistency for that era. He decided to become a hotelier, he wanted to make hotels and motels; more friendly, consistent, of a higher quality, and be somewhere that people really enjoy coming back to again and again. He and his business partner Wallace E. Johnson named the business Holiday Inn of America, rumoured to have come from one of his architects as a joke referring to the Bing Crosby movie. They went on to create for Motorola’s in the Memphis area and it was a great success, in 1957 Wilson franchised chain and it grew dramatically. By 1958 Wilson and Johnson had managed to create 50 different Holiday Inns, all across the country, by the following year that had double to 100, and within five years the number of Holiday Inns, had reached a level of 500 (1964). Remarkably Wilson had managed to reach the magic number 1000 different Holiday Inn’s across the country by 1968, just over a decade from starting a business from scratch.

Wilson created some innovative ways to leveraged the market, which puts a lot of pressure financially, on traditional hotels as well as its bigger competitors such as Howard Johnson’s, Best Western, and even the Ramada Inn Company. There were 1400 holiday Inn hotels across the world by 1972, which funnily enough was the same year that Charles Wilson was on the cover of Time magazine. In 1979 Charles Wilson decided to retire from the hotelier business, and in doing so retire from the Holiday Inn, although this broke his heart he knew it was the right thing to do. The Holiday Inn Corporation (Holiday Corporation), was taken over by the UK-based company Bass PLC. However it wasn’t until 1990 when Charles Wilson sold the remainder of his shares to Bass PLC that the company gained full control, the company that was known worldwide. As a side note about also out that Charles Wilson also created many different businesses related to the Holiday Inn.

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#16 Simon Nixon

Age: 42yrs

Birth Place: Chester, Wales, UK

Industry: Financial

Influence: Revolutionized Online Financial Systems

Net Worth: $570 million

Website: www.moneysupermarket.com

Why they made the list…

Simon Nixon is one of those entrepreneurs that likes to keep his cards close to his chest, and his personal life private because of this up until 2008 there really wasn’t much information on Simon Nixon. If you don’t already know who he is Simon Nixon is best known as the man who founded Money Supermarket He establish the business in 1993 while still a student at the Nottingham University in the United Kingdom. Everytime he was backed by Duncan Cameron he was an off-line mortgage adviser and decided to invest a little in Simon Nixon’s idea. In 1999 Nixon took the business online providing online mortgage information as well as expanding to provide services within the credit card and personal loans sector.

With his usual excess, and his brilliant and refreshing customer service his business grew beyond his wildest dreams and in 2003 he opened up another website under the money supermarket brand called insuresupermarket.com, he also opened up travelsupermarket.com in 2004 to expand his business futher. The business was growing and Nixon wanted more of the pie, which was great seeing as in 2007 Duncan Cameron had decided to sell his share of 47% under the presumption that there was soon to be a very sharp downturn in business for them. Duncan Cameron couldn’t have been more wrong, Simon Nixon bought Duncan’s shares from approximate figure of £162 million. The company became listed on the London stock exchange in the same year, and in late 2009 Nixon managed to get the comedian Omid Djalili to star in some of his commercials.

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#17 Anita Roddick

Age: 64 yrs (Died September 10, 2007)

Birth Place: Littlehampton, UK

Industry: cosmetics

Influence: Green Product Pioneer.

Net Worth: $1.03 billion

Why they made the list…

Dame Anita Roddick created The Body Shop in 1976 with just 15 products that she had sourced herself from around the world. Anita had traveled extensively before opening up her business and with her husband and two girls in tow she set off to create something special.Faced with a massive task of getting the shoppers in the UK to part with their money for “Greener” products, but with a motivation, a dollop of passion and a pinch of luck Anita managed to succeed. Luckily for Anita just as she was halfway through her first year the UK shoppers had a change of heart and started shopping for these “Green” products she was selling.

She opened another store and another, and another, they just seemed to grow and grow. Anita had managed to build her empire to a whopping 1,980 The Body Shop stores, totaling in more than 75 million customers worldwide in 50 different countries by 2003 and was then bought out in a very controversial deal with L’Oreal it was controversial due to The Body Shop not using ANY products tested on animals, as opposed to L’Oreals company that did. The deal made her £652.3 million ($1.03 billion) better off which was more than well deserved for her fierce years of service. I hope Dame Anita managed to enjoy that money for the remainder of her life.

#18 Donald Trump

Age: 64yrs

Birth Place: New York City, New York, USA

Industry: Real Estate

Influence: Pioneer in Real Estate, Empowering Entrepreneur

Net Worth: $2 billion

Website: www.trump.com

Why they made the list…

We all know Donald Trump, and I have spoken about him in previous posts, not just because of his amount of success but also because of his amount of failure in which he overcame again and again. Donald began working for his father in the late 1960s, it was here that he truly shined and began to show the world just where was headed in the future. He started his career by successfully revamping a failing complex than appalling occupancy percentage, turning it into a fantastic complex with a 100% occupancy percentage. Succeeded again when a few years later he took on a massive project which the city of New York had failed to complete, he was given a very small budget, but most complete set and used less than a third of the remaining budget.

Donald Trump as we know has not been just a successful businessman, he’s had his ups and downs, and he’s been to a point where most entrepreneurs would have given up. In 1992 Trump was forced to sign a bankruptcy plan due to the fact that he could not make payments towards his debts which were accumulating at quite a speed. The most that his personal debt, note I said personal and not just business debt, was an incredible $900 million! Can you seriously imagine being in debt by that much money? However not want to disappoint; trump managed to not only get out of his debt and get his business out of debt, but he also managed to climb straight back up that ladder and become a multi-billionaire. It has been estimated that Donald Trump is worth approximately $2 billion.

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#19 Jeff Bezos

Age: 46yrs

Birth Place: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Industry: online retail

Influence: Revolutionized E-Commerce

Net Worth: $8.7 billion

Website: www.Amazon.com

Why they made the list…

Jeff Bezos was born in 1964 and is the founder of the president and the chief executive officer as well as the Chairman of the board for one of the most popular and well-known websites/e-commerce sites in the world, Amazon.com. Jeff Bezos mother was just a teenage girl when he was born in Albuquerque New Mexico, she married his father which lasted only one year in total, and when Jeff was just five years old she remarried the man he recalls his father Miguel Bezos. They moved to Texas and Miguel became an engineer for Exxon. Jeff Bezos was very interested in scientific projects at an early age and got into a lot of trouble by reading up small electric alarms to keep his siblings out of his bedroom. He managed to persuade his parents to convert their garage into his own personal laboratory, which suited him just fine.

He went on to be very highly awarded through his school and college years and he was awarded an honorary doctorate in science and technology from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008. After finally graduating from Princeton University, Jeff Bezos decided he wanted to work in computer science field and began working on Wall Street. In 1994 after a bright idea whilst on a cross-country trip from New York to Seattle Jeff Bezos came up with a business plan for what he called, is on. He managed to get some backing and started Internet business that very year and as we know it is now one of the most successful e-commerce sites in the world. Amazon.com currently has a revenue of around $25 billion not bad the saying he came up with the idea in the back of a car on a road trip.

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#20 Steve Case

Age: 52yrs

Birth Place: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

Industry: Internet Services

Influence: Helped Pioneer Online Services

Net Worth: $1.0 billion

Website: www.aol.com

Why they made the list…

you may or you may not know Steve Case, he’s one of those rich and successful entrepreneurs, with a gigantic company who likes his privacy, kept private. He was born and he grew up in Honolulu in Hawaii and graduated in 1976 from a private school. In 1980 he left the Williams College in Williamstown Massachusetts, with a degree in political science. In 1982 after having worked as an assistant brand manager at Procter and Gamble, he joined the Pizza Hut incorporation in Kansas, and served as one of the pizza marketing managers. In 1983 he met Bill Von Meister, who was a contact of his older brother. His company was creating a marketing service to the Atari game console which basically allowed the users to download certain games using only a phone line and a modem. This was seen as an amazing advancement in technology. Later in the same year Von Meister hired case to become a marketing consultant for a business, which at the time was almost going bankrupt.

1985 case co-founded business called Quantum Computer Services, case was soon promoted to vice president of marketing and due to his good work, entrepreneurial character, and his passion for the company he was soon promoted yet again becoming the Chairman and CEO of the company in 1991 and 1995 respectively. In 1988 his business began working with Apple as well as PC link, helping create online services for both. Later in 1991 case changed the company’s name to America online, and later that same year decided to integrate the Apple and PC services under the name AOL. Over the following years case personally made many innovative online games with his team most of them being very successful. After 10 years with amazing growth throughout the business AOL and Time Warner decided to do a merger. The mergers was worth approximately $164 billion and it was completed in year 2000. Over the course of the next five years the business seemed to take a very sudden downturn due to the recession of the dot-com boom. In 2005 case decided to leave AOL and Time Warner so that he could spend more time on his own business Revolution LLC which is a company he created in 2005.

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#21 George Eastman

Age: 77yrs (Died March 14, 1932)

Birth Place: Waterville, New York, USA

Industry: photographic

Influence: A Pioneer inPhotography

Net Worth: $100 million

Website: www.Kodak.com

Why they made the list…

Many of you will know the company Kodak, and many of you have probably used some of their products whether it be a digital camera, 35mm film, or even their processing services. What you may not know or rather who you may not know is the man he made it all happen. George Eastman was a self educated man born in Waterville, New York, and is most notable legacy alongside his massive generosity, donating literally millions of dollars of his own personal wealth to charities and hospitals, is that of the roll film. He played a massively leading role in transforming photography as a form bringing it from a very expensive hobby into the public domain so that anybody could take photographs and keep their memories forever.

The Kodak company was founded in 1884, and although Eastman had founded the business he was more intrigued with the inventions within the photography industry rather than actually running the business. Due to this he hired Henry Strong as the president of Eastman Kodak. In 1885 Eastman invented the roll film which was used worldwide for over 100 years it was also the basis for the motion picture camera film which early filmmakers such as Thomas Ava Edison used. In 1888 Eastman decided to register Kodak as an official trademark he also came up with the “phrase You Press the Button and We Do the Rest”. Easement died in 1932 but not before donating masses of his personal fortune to numerous causes, such as the University of Rochester and the Royal Free Hospital.*

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#22 Simon Fuller

Age: 50yrs

Birth Place: Dhekelia, Cyprus

Industry: Music

Influence: Television and Music Pioneer

Net Worth: $2.7 billion $4.1 million

Website: www.19entertainment.com

Why they made the list…

Simon Fuller, although born in Cyprus, is a British artist manager, he’s also the television producer and the founding creator of the pop Idol franchise. Pop Idol as you may know first appeared in the UK and has continued over 100 different versions including American Idol and Australian Idol to name just a few. Is also being a manager of many very great performers his most notable ones being Annie Lennox, the Spice Girls, and S club 7. He was the chief executive in 19 Entertainment, which is based in the three major cities of London, LA, and New York. He founded the business in 1985 after leaving the company Chrysalis Ltd and working with some of the most profound names in the music industry such as Madonna. In 1985 aged only 25 years old, he signed the musician Paul Hardcastle his first song went to number one in both the UK and the US charts with his Vietnam song,”19”.

In 1999 he got his first taste of working in television after he had auditioned over 10,000 different people to form a new band, the band was called S club 7. The band later became one of the most popular pop bands of the era taking many number one places in the UK and the US charts. Fuller later came up with the idea of Pop Idol after taking his time and thinking about how S club 7, was such a success and how the process was such a fun way to decide which musicians and singers to have within a band. As many of you will know, and as stated above, pop Idol went on to become huge success and later went over the waters to America where it was just as successful. Fuller had managed to get some of the best presenters and judges in the entertainment industry to appear on a show. This only created more of a hype and just made the program or that more successful.

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# 23 Carlos Slim Helu

Age: 70yrs

Birth Place: Mexico City, Mexico

Industry: Telecommunication

Influence: Investments and Telecommunications

Net Worth: $53.5 billion

Website: www.carlosslim.com

Why they made the list…

Carlos Slim Helu, best known as slim, is a well-known entrepreneur who is currently the richest man alive.  Carlos started in business at the age of eight when his father asked him to help with the family store. He graduated with a degree in civil engineering from the University of Mexico, however his personal wealth began when he inherited a large amount of real estate from his parents. Using his capital from the real estate to make some very explosive acquisitions. In the 1970s some of his assets became part of a group called Grupo Galas S. A, which was later renamed Grupo, Carso. This business had many different departments such as restaurants, real estate, mining, tobacco, railways, and also department stores. Later in the 1980s after more than 30 different companies joined his group some of them very well known and well respected, slim took control of the majority of shares of Cigtam, a tobacco business.

Cigatam, for those of you that don’t know the manufacturers of Marlboro cigarettes as well as many other brands of cigarettes. Still within the 80s Slim decides to sell a massive 50% of his shares just as the market was at its peak, making him a massive fortune overnight. He used the money to purchase a business chain called Sanborns, which again included restaurants music stores and bookshops to name a few. In the 1990s he managed to get Sears one of the country’s largest department stores to join his group, however it wasn’t until his monopolisation of the telecommunication industry in Mexico when he won a bid for the privatisation of Teléfonos de México, also known as Telmex. With Telmex he incorporated a partnership with France Telecom as well as Bella Canada which brought him great success. His business now controls 90% of all landlines within Mexico. With his fortune he has been an amazing example of what an investor should be, investing in companies such as Apple Computer Inc, MSN, as well as red Uno and Coca-Cola. It is here with his investments as well as his large share of the telecommunication business where he is made the majority of his fortune.

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# 24 Penny Streeter

Age: 43yrs

Birth Place: Zimbabwe

Industry: Recruitment

Influence: Creating Employment Opportunities

Net Worth: $117.80 million

Website: www.a24group.com

Why they made the list…

Penny Streeter is somewhat of an unknown to most of you over in the USA, and quite possibly to a lot of us here in the UK too. She was born in 1967, in Zimbabwe, and later attended the Alberton High school in Johannesburg until she graduated in 1983. She decided to leave South Africa and set her sights upon the UK. In 1989 after launching her in recruitment business she was left penniless and homeless after the business failed and she went through a divorce leaving her with nothing. Six years later in 1995 after managing to get out of the terrible situation she was in previously, she decided to set up business again, confident that she could be successful. With her confidence and passion were in the right place and a she launched the new venture funded by working evenings as a party entertainer, the business Ambition 24hours was established.

Ambition 24Hours was a business which recruited temporary staff to fulfill the need in many different sectors such as nursing, social workers, teachers, lecturers and also carers. In 2004 the company expanded into South Africa which was located there is a kind of back-office the UK as well as the South African markets. In 2004 she launched an £11 million investment plan in South Africa to initialise a South African nursing agency. Just two years later in 2006 the company made its first noticeable acquisition; the nursing services of South Africa, this was the largest agency the temporary staffing of nursing personnel. She now has a multi-million dollar recruitment agency and is currently expanding in the UK as well as South Africa to this day

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# 25 Emma Harrison

Age: 41yrs

Birth Place: Clacton on Sea, UK

Industry: Business Services

Influence: Creating Schemes to Help Employment

Net Worth: $157 million

Website: www.mya4e.com

Why they made the list…

Emma Harrison is not only a British entrepreneur, she is also the chairman owner and also the co-founder of action for employment also known as A4e. She only has a degree in engineering, but she also has two honorary doctorates from the University of Derby and the University of Bradford respectively. Her company Action for Employment has grown massively since its founding in 1991. She currently has over 4000 members of staff across a total of 250 different business centres worldwide. Action for employment is one of the prime contractors to various governments helping with services such as the Flexible New Deal and social care.

Emma’s business expertise and confidence has brought her much success and she is also high demand as a mentor or from many different small businesses and groups throughout the world. She currently serves on a number of boards and is also the chairman of Andromeda which is an events company. She also works within the People’s health plc, as well as having a role in the Bank of England regional consultations on behalf the monetary policy committee. In layman’s terms Emma is one of the most successful entrepreneurs that the UK has ever seen she is chairman of many different companies and is many different boards for other businesses, departments and industry sectors worldwide. A mentor that we can all look up to.

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#26 Linda Bennett

Age: 46yrs

Birth Place: Somerset, UK

Industry: Clothing and Retail

Influence: Inspiring Fashion and Entrepreneurs

Net Worth: $235.6 million

Website: www.lkbennett.com

Why they made the list…

Linda Bennett is truly a remarkable entrepreneur not only has she made it in a very saturated industry but she has made it by working her way from the bottom to the top. Her passion is in the clothing industry. She founded the luxury womenswear brand LK Bennett in the United Kingdom in 1990. The reason she named LK Bennett was because her middle name is Kristin and she thought it would make for a more professional sounding business name. Bennett trained at Hackney’s cordwainer’s College as well as at Reading University where she studied land management also. To this day Bennett still likes to design many of her brand items and is constantly creating new shoes for her brand.

Aged 26 she opened an accessories shop in Wimbledon with just £13,000 worth of savings and a £15,000 bank loan. She managed to turn this into one of the most stylistic and high end brands within the clothing industry creating shoes for the likes of the Duchess of Cornwall, which she wore for her wedding in 2005 to Prince Charles. With an entrepreneurial streak Bennett has managed to place all of the stores in very prime locations, just in reach of her ideal customer base. In 2004 she decided to sell the business and asked for £75 million ($117.8 million) however the asking price was never met and she kept hold of the business. Just four years on she managed to sell the business to a private equity firm called Phoenix Equity partners and Sirius Equity, the deal was for a rumoured £70 million ($110 million). However that was on top of the wealth that she had already accumulated throughout the life of the business.

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# 27 Madame C. J. Walker

Age: 51yrs (Died May 25, 1919)

Birth Place: Delta, Louisiana, USA

Industry: Haircare

Influence: Hair Care Pioneer, Empowered Female Entrepreneurs

Net Worth: $600,000

Why they made the list…

Madame CJ Walker is somebody that you may very well and not know that you’d be forgiven for not doing as well but she died over 90 years ago. Although her fortune of $600,000 may not seem much the reason why she such inspirational person to have on this list is because she made herself an empire, through hard work and determination, she was also an inspiration to all other female would-be entrepreneurs. Walker, born Sarah Breedlove, is known best for being America’s first African-American entrepreneur, as well as being one of the most wealthiest women of her era. A lot of the women in her era experienced hair loss for some reason. It’s thought that this was due to a lacking of indoor plumbing and electricity, making it hard for them to bathe each and every day. Walker had experienced this also (hair loss) and so she experimented with some of own home-made remedies. They work so well that she decided that it was worth investing in and creating a business out of so she did.

The products were an instant hit and soon stores all across the country were selling them, in 1908 she opened a College to train hair care trainees, and in 1910 she moved to Indianapolis and established a factory which he used as her main headquarters. Later in her life she went on to teach and lecture female entrepreneurs to help them build their own businesses and to gain their own freedom and independence. This in itself made quite a name for her and she later joined the National Association of the advancement of coloured people also known as the NAACP. She joined them in an effort to stop hate crimes and to ban lynching, making it a federal crime. She died in 1919 because of apparent kidney failure leaving behind her fortune and the manufacturing business to her daughter A’Lelia Walker. Today the business continues although not as successful as in its heyday.

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# 28 Coco Chanel

Age: 87 yrs (Died January 10, 1971)

Birth Place: Samur, France

Industry: Fashion

Influence: Fashion and  Perfume Pioneer

Net Worth: $160 million

Website: www.Chanel.com

Why they made the list…

Coco Chanel, it kind of slips of the tongue doesn’t it, it’s one of those names that we all know and probably one of those names that we associate with the world of fashion and her perfumery. Known worldwide Coco Chanel was one of the most creative and successful entrepreneurs of her era. Her first chosen career was that of a singer, although she couldn’t get the work whether that was because she had a poor voice or because there was such excellent singers at the time I’m not quite sure. However it spurred her into becoming the entrepreneur that we know her are as today. In 1910 she became a hat maker and opened up her own beauty in the Paris, France. The business was a success and in 1913 she opened a boutique in Deauville, where she began introducing a luxury line of casual clothing which were apparently suitable for leisure or sport.

In 1921 after concocting a perfume for herself, she found other people enjoyed it so much that she decided to introduce it to her boutique she called it Chanel No. 5. It is thought that this perfume was the first of its kind, by that I mean that it was the first perfume that was ever sold worldwide and not just within a singular state or country. In 1939 at the beginning of World War II, Chanel decided to close her, now many, boutiques as she believed it to be the wrong time to sell fashion. However after four years without working she decided it was time to renew her passion. 1945 after moving back to Paris (she had previously moved to Switzerland), she continued with their collections of luxury clothing and perfumes, and although her new collections at first did not have much success with the Parisians at the time, she was very successful with the British and American customers. Today her legacy, Chanel, is worth an estimated $4.5 billion.

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# 29 Martha Stewart

Age: 69yrs

Birth Place: Jersey City, New Jersey, USA

Industry: Television, magazine publisher

Influence: Health, Entertainment, Advice

Net Worth: $913 million

Website: www.MarthaStewart.com

Why they made the list…

Martha Stewart may not be very well-known to our British readers; although you probably have heard her name before. Martha Stewart, is an American television host who also has published magazines in the past. She managed to create amazing success for herself through a plethora of business ventures such as publishing, merchandising, presenting and also broadcasting. Perhaps the most recognizable thing that many of you will think of when you think of Martha Stewart is prison, or rather her prison time. In 2004 she was convicted of lying to an investigator, regarding a stock sale and served only five months in prison. Just so the British readers understand, lying to an investigator in the US, is a federal offense which is punishable by up to 5 years in prison.

Many people thought that inside the prison she would deteriorate, and possibly have a mental breakdown however that did not happen and on her return from prison she bounced back massively and became even more successful than before. In 2005 she released a book which was highly publicized due to her comeback, this was received very well by her funds and became a very good seller. To them back into television with the Martha Stewart show and also appeared on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. Today with all of her merchandise which is in many stores around the US, her lucrative television deals and her many books and magazines have earned her an accumulated total approximately $913 million.

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# 30 Walt Disney

Age: 65 yrs (Died December 15, 1966)

Birth Place: Samur, France

Industry: Entertainment

Influence: Pioneered Entertainment

Net Worth: $1.1 billion

Website: www.Disney.go.com

Why they made the list…

I’m 100% certain every reader today, reading this will know Walt Disney, and he is a great example of a successful entrepreneur. His first break in entertainment came when he was hired by the Kansas City film Ad Company, where he learned to make animations from cut-outs. He was then given a massive inspiration after reading the book by Edwin G. Lutz; Animated Cartoons: how they are made. Upon reading it and getting quite excited about the prospects of becoming a professional animator he left Kansas City Film Ad Company. Laugh-O-Grams his second business went bankrupt; which was mainly down to the studio costs, staff costs and and lack of business to bring in revenue to pay for them. Which meant he wasn’t a bad businessman, he was just bad with money.

Having really learned his lesson from failing so miserably, Walt and his brother Roy went to Hollywood where they managed to secure a distributor deal to help with the business. Things grew more and more successful and the business started to go from strength to strength. His unique characters and his ability to bring animation to life really brought the fans to the cinemas and theatres. Walt Disney received an Academy award in 1932 for his efforts in animation, thanks to his new found fans who were demanding more cartoons featuring Mickey Mouse. Walt Disney continues his success for another 34 years before his death they left behind a legacy which is now called the Walt Disney Co. Today the Walt Disney business is currently worth $35 billion.

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