5 Successful Entrepreneurs who had the biggest struggle

5 Successful Entrepreneurs who had the biggest struggle to pass through

It’s funny how often you hear of new entrepreneurs that have become successful overnight, or how much an entrepreneur has made from being successful but what you don’t hear about very often is their failures along the way. Some of the greatest entrepreneurs of all-time have failed at least once on their rise to glory. Although some are very lucky and born into wealth, or perhaps inherit a large sum of money which they use to invest, the majority of us like to hear about people we can more closely relate to. People that had it bad, sometimes very bad in fact, it’s a way of keeping us motivated and inspired and we all need that little boost once in a while.

 

By looking at the success of others who failed their first, second or even third time around it not only gives us that inspiration I speak of, it also gives us a little extra hope. Now I’m not going to say that money is made by hopes and prayers it takes a lot of determination and guts as well as hard work and the odd dose of good luck. But hope can lift us up when we need it the most, perhaps your business hasn’t gone as well as you had hoped? Maybe you have a blog that you just can’t seem to monetize to any degree of success? Well, hopefully after reading this list you will be able to not only relate to the people on it, but maybe, just maybe you will see that you haven’t got it half as bad as some of these entrepreneurs.

1 Sir Richard Branson

Richard Branson, a high-school dropout (college dropout for you UK readers) started his first business in 1966 aged 16yrs, a magazine called Student, however it wasn’t without hard work and lots of studying. Richard had Dyslexia, although at the time no one knew what Dyslexia was.

He had to overcome his fears and his Dyslexia so that he could publish his magazine and sell it. There was no other choice for him, he was too highly motivated to give up and work a 9-5 job. However his battle with Dyslexia was overcome and he went on to make a great deal of revenue with his magazine.

 

Then in 1970 he decided to create a company, a mail order record retailer, the first of it’s kind in the UK. He named his business Virgin, due to him being very new to business. Shortly after starting his business, he opened a brick and mortar store in Oxford Street, London, with his business becoming a success, he built a recording studio with the profits he had made and signed his first “Virgin” musician, Mike Oldfield (of Tubular Bells fame). In 1977 the Sex Pistols joined Virgin Records. Richard went on to create a further 200 companies and today is one of the UK’s wealthiest entrepreneurs.

2 Oprah Gail Winfrey

Born into poverty in Kosciusko, Mississippi, Oprah was unaware of the great hardship that she was to face later in life, only to rise from the ashes and become the star we know her to be today. At the age of nine Oprah was the victim of a ferocious sexual attack, which she revealed to shocked viewers on her show in 1986. She was further distressed when aged 14yrs she became pregnant and later lost the child. In 1983 when she found fame with her talk-show she became a huge success, and her following rapidly grew.

 

However by 1988 although a huge national treasure with hundreds of thousands of fans and viewers, Oprah had become weary of “Just working for someone else”. That year she founded her very own production company that she named Harpo Studios (Oprah spelled backwards). The business snowballed, probably likely credited to her television career that earned her unfathomable advertisement day in, day out. The company now has over 250 employees and is growing each year. She also co-founded the company Oxygen Media, which operates a huge network for cable and attracts over 50 million viewers.

3 Henry Ford

       

One of the few men that made the car 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. He quickly became know as the young watch repair man. However clocks, and watches were not what he wanted to be involved in as a career. After his mother died in 1876 he was left distraught and told his father he did not want to be part of the family business.

 

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 not only because the vehicles produced lacked the quality and precision Ford wanted as well as being horribly expensive, but they were so expensive that the company went bankrupt! 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. Wow! The rest as they say, is history.

 

4 Ray Kroc

Ray Kroc is best known as the man behind McDonald’s. Ray, was an unsuccessful entrepreneur, and was also good friends with Walt Disney I might add. After the war ended Ray went on to try unsuccessfully a number of different career paths, a jazz musician, a pianist, he even tried to sell paper cups, but his confidence just wasn’t there anymore, he’d lost a little faith. After leaving the cups behind, he went on to sell milkshake machines, and found that he was pretty good at it. His confidence rose and he was selling them by the dozen.

 

Convinced with his new found confidence he sell a machine to every restaurant he partnered up with a couple of brothers by the name of McDonald. They were starting to franchise their own business, a fast food restaurant. The McDonalds brothers went on to build a fair amount of stores and were raking in the money, but Ray wasn’t happy, he was hungry, hungrier than ever now he’d tasted success. So he used all the money he had made ($2.7 million) to buy out the two brothers in a bid to franchise the business everywhere he could. Ray discovered that the way his business should work, should be almost like a production line, that way he could work quicker and serve more customers. He was right. His technique meant no customer would go from being served to having their order in their mouth in more than five minutes, hence the coined phrase of “Fast Food”. By the time of his death Ray Kroc had built an empire of over 10,000 restaurants globally and that has grown to a massive 31,000 today! McDonald’s currently makes $23 billion each year. What an achievement.

5.Donald Trump

Donald began working for his fathers company in the late 1960’s, The Trump Organisation working in real estate from an early point in his life. He managed to completely revamp a huge complex with only a 44% occupancy rate into a thriving complex with 100% occupancy in only a year, making his father’s company a nice $6 million in profit. Trump rose yet again into glory when he took on a massive project that the City of New York had nowhere near completed after two years and after having spent a huge $12 million on it. Trump managed to complete the entire project after taking over and used less than a third of the remaining budget.

 

However it wasn’t always great news and success for Donald. In 1989 at the beginning of a recession Trump, was left helpless against huge debts which had piled up due to the building of his new casino, the Taj, Mahal. The Taj Mahal had cost $1 billion in junk bonds and his debts increased further than anyone could have imagined. Just three years later in 1992 Donald was forced to sign a bankruptcy protection plan because he was unable to make payments towards the huge accumulating debts. He was now in personal debt of $550 million as well as the $1 billion in junk bonds. By 1994 his personal debt had totalled a disastrous $900 million! He eventually managed to restructure his bankruptcy by reducing his shares from 56% to 27% meaning the bulk of the debt would all but disappear. With the changing hands of the company shares the business changed it’s name to the Trump Entertain Resorts Holdings. Trump is currently worth an estimate $2 billion.

Originally posted here http://www.incomediary.com/15-successful-entrepreneurs-with-reasons-to-fail