10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 - Business - Nairaland
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| 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 12:52pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Proof that you don't have to be a prodigy to succeed. These highly successful entrepreneurs had accomplished next to nothing before the age of 30. There’s a rumor that Paul Graham, the founder of the world’s most successful incubator, once invested in someone because he looked like Mark Zuckerberg. But being young isn’t a prerequisite for starting a successful company. Don’t believe me? Here are 10 entrepreneurs who had accomplished nothing by 30-years-old. 1 Like 2 Shares |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 12:53pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Jack Dorsey, Twitter – 30-years-old As much as he’d like you to believe he’s a sophisticated entrepreneur, Jack Dorsey was a punk skater well into his mid-20s. Dorsey’s first company (started while he was at NYU) was a cab dispatching program. When this fizzled out, Dorsey approached Ev Williams, who was running Odeo, a podcast company. He pitched him the idea of an instant messaging service. Williams loved the concept and teamed up with Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass to pursue it full time. Dorsey was appointed CEO. He was 30-years-old at the time. 1 Like 3 Shares
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| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by Nobody: 12:55pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Mark Zuckerberg |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 12:56pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Tim Westergren, Pandora – 35-years-old Tim Westergren started Pandora when he was 35. But he couldn’t pay salaries for two years. Before starting Pandora, Westergren was a failed musician, part-time composer, nanny and hippy. Although he started Pandora (his first entrepreneurial endeavor) at 35, Pandora didn’t become an online radio channel until Westergren was 37. Pandora started as a hardware company that allowed stores to play music. Pandora even went bankrupt in their first two years and Westergren somehow convinced 50 employees to work without pay – for two years. Here’s the speech he gave employees each week that convinced them to stay [https://thehustle.co/how-pandoras-founder-convinced-50-early-employees-to-work-2-years-without-pay]. After hearing this words, I’d have stayed too. 2 Likes 3 Shares
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| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 12:58pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Jan Koum, WhatsApp – 33-years-old Before creating WhatsApp, Jan Koum applied to work at Facebook. They rejected him. Koum incorporated WhatsApp on his 33rd birthday. He’s a San Jose State college dropout. After leaving school, he landed a gig at Yahoo where he met Brian Acton, his cofounder. After nine years at Yahoo, Koum applied to work at Facebook and was famously rejected, which I find pretty hilarious. 3 Likes 4 Shares
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| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 12:59pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Jack Ma, Alibaba – 35-years-old Jack Ma’s never written a line of code, and the first time he used a computer was in his 30s. Now he’s worth $22.5 billion, but until his 30s he thought himself a failure. In a Charlie Rose interview, Ma revealed he failed his college entrance exam three times. After that, he applied to over 30 different jobs, including KFC, and again, he was rejected. So, at the age of 31, Ma started his first internet company called “China Yellow Pages.” The company made around $800,000 in the three years it was in business. At 35, he founded Alibaba. Like Amazon, Alibaba didn’t make any profit in its first three years, but we know how the story ended. Interestingly, Jack Ma has never written a line of code. Perhaps he should be a speaker at Hustle Con? 3 Likes 4 Shares
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| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 1:01pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Ben Horowitz, LoudCloud – 33-years-old After starting his first company at 33, Ben Horowitz was often on the brink of bankruptcy. After graduating from UCLA in 1988 and hopping from job to job for seven years, 29-year-old Ben Horowitz joined Netscape as their first product manager. After Netscape was acquired in 1999, Horowitz and Marc Andreessen (Netscape’s founder) teamed up to to start LoudCloud. Horowitz was 33-years-old. In Horowitz’s book, The Hard Things About Hard Things, he talks about the many near death experiences that LoudCloud faced, such as being two weeks away from defaulting on payroll. Thankfully for Horowitz, Loudcloud was acquired for $1.6 billion in cash when he was 41. Beautiful. 1 Like 1 Share
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| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 1:02pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Sam Walton, WalMart – 44-years-old Before Sam Walton founded WalMart, he owned a small discount store with his father-in-law. In 1945, before starting WalMart, Sam Walton took out a $20,000 loan (about $250,000 adjusted to today) from his father-in-law and purchased a franchised Ben Franklin variety store. Three years later, Walton bought another Ben Franklin store, 220 miles away. But even though Walton was managing two stores, he still struggled to pay his employees. In 1945, when Walton was 44-years-old, and had years of business experience, he opened the first WalMart. 1 Like 1 Share
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| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 1:04pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Peter Thiel, PayPal – 30-years-old One of the world’s most successful tech investors almost went to law school. I never thought I’d say this sentence, but I’m thankful Peter Thiel followed Tucker Max’s advice. Before he was the founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel was just another lawyer who hated his life. After graduating Stanford Law in 1992, Thiel landed a gig at a Manhattan law firm, a place that, in his words, “from the outside everyone wanted to get into,” but, “on the inside … everybody wanted to leave.” After seven months Thiel left, and joined Credit Suisse as a derivatives trader. Three years later Thiel founded Paypal. He was 31-years-old. Four years later, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion, making his stake in the company worth roughly $50 million. Reed Hastings, Pure Software – 30-years-o 2 Likes 2 Shares
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| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 1:05pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Reed Hastings, Pure Software – 30-years-old Reed Hastings was in the Peace Corp in his 20s. Most people don’t realize this, but Reed Hastings was actually a successful entrepreneur before he started Netflix. In 1991, when he was 31-years-old, Hastings started Pure Software, a debugging tool for software engineers. Hastings, a trained engineer, helped the company double their revenue each year. In 1997, when Hastings was 37, Rational Software acquired Pure Software for $750 million, giving Hastings the means to start Netflix. In between college and starting Pure Software, Hasting was in the Peace Corps. He taught English in Swaziland. Whatta guy. 1 Like 1 Share
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| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 1:07pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Henry Ford, Ford Motor Company – 40-years-old Before starting Ford at the age of 40, Henry Ford’s perfectionism led to failure as he missed deadlines on making his prototypes. Although he created one of the biggest self-made fortunes in mankind history ($199 billion), Henry Ford bankrupted his first two companies before starting Ford. Ford, like Steve Jobs, was a perfectionist who cared deeply about every minor detail of his automobiles. Because of that he continually missed deadlines and failed to complete his first prototypes. After years of failure, Ford’s investors convinced him to hire James Couzen. Couzen convinced Ford to sell an “imperfect” car and to have mechanics throughout the country that were trained to fix broken automobiles. 3 Likes 2 Shares
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| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 1:09pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Mark Cuban, MicroSolutions – 32-years-old 28-year-old Mark Cuban shared a three-bedroom apartment with five people. His bedroom was in the closet. At 24, Cuban graduated from Indiana University and moved to Dallas to work as a bartender. His first gig out of school was selling computers for $18,000 a year. But he was fired for disobeying his boss. At 25-years-old he started MicroSolutions, a software consultancy company. After seven years, Cuban sold MicroSolutions, netting him $6 million… enough to start Broadcast.com, which he sold for $5.7 billion. 3 Likes 2 Shares
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| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 1:09pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by benuejosh: 1:38pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
with this, airforce1 still has hope of dropping his first album even at the age of 40. N.B. for most successful people in life, they were written off as complete failures and a shame to their generation. You failed today doesn't mean you are a failure. 3 Likes |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by hahn(m): 2:34pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
benuejosh: Make una leave airforce1 alone o He has a very hot album that he is yet to compose   1 Like 1 Share |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by benuejosh: 2:53pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
hahn:hahaha... but why na? what has airfoce1 done to you? |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by ichommy(m): 2:56pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Lovely and Informative post at OP. Thanks CC: lalasticlala |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by Nobody: 3:12pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
this is very inspiring. 1 Like |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by Funjosh(m): 3:40pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
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| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by Funjosh(m): 3:51pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
benuejosh:
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| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by nams77: 6:44pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Lalasticlala and myndd44. Una no go push this one go FP? This is what the youth needs... Motivation |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by Nobody: 8:07pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
lazeal: Thanks for sharing this. This is crucial to hear, especially as the press tends to focus more on the wunderkinds. What would have happened if these people had given up on themselves? (I've even heard some people say that "once your time to blow don pass, my brother, just forget!" ) More people need to know that they need to keep believing in themselves; you can't afford to write yourself off just because you're a certain age. Another not-so-obvious point from all these stories: mingling with the right crowd. Make no mistake about it; if you keep hanging out with people who don't flow with your vision, or if your dreams are too big to share with your friends... well, you need new friends. That's because every great idea needs a team to bring it to life. You need to start mingling with the right people today to make your dreams real. Thanks again for sharing |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by DonX001: 9:16pm On Mar 25, 2017 |
Why hasn't this thread been taken to front page?? If its snake or BBN matter, e for don dive straight to FP. Oya, shouting.... LALASTICLALA!!!! Come see SNAKE! SNAKE!! SNAKE!!! |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 10:14pm On Mar 26, 2017 |
alignacademy:You are welcome boss, thanks for the additional points made. Yeah, mingling with the right crowd does it. |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 10:15pm On Mar 26, 2017 |
DonX001: |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by Ranchhoddas: 10:53pm On Mar 26, 2017 |
benuejosh:Savage! |
| Re: 10 Amazing Entrepreneurs Who Had Accomplished Nothing By Age 30 by lazeal: 3:58pm On Apr 01, 2017 |
lalasticlala, please we need this on front page. |
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