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It! Story

Entrepreneur Confessions
from Making It!

Entrepreneur Confessions are the untold stories of small business owner's adventures. From going bankrupt to making the business a success, these personal entrepreneur stories show what it is really all about.

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Mark Cuban: Confessions Of A Dallas Maverick

Mark Cuban, the Texas billionaire, entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, started his successful enterpreneurial streak by founding MicroSolutions, a Dallas, Texas systems integrator, in 1983. Cuban has gone on to spearhead multiple successful technology-related ventures, returned to his reseller roots at the XChange Americas conference in Dallas on August 24 to share some of the secrets of his uniquely American business philosophy in a fireside chat with Everything Channel CEO Robert Faletra. Here are some of the takeaways from 45 minutes with one of this country's most colorful and outspoken entrepreneurs. Read More: Mark Cuban

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Jeff Bezos: Lesson From A 1998 Interview

The myth goes this way: In 1994, at age 30, Jeff Bezos came across a report projecting annual Web growth at 2,300 percent. To a Princeton graduate in electrical engineering and computer science, “that was a huge wake-up call.” So, three months later he walked away from being the youngest senior vice president of D.E. Shaw, a Wall Street hedge-fund firm, and set out west in an aging Chevy Blazer...
Read More: Jeff Bezos

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Lawrence J. Ellison: Prophet of Software

In 1977, Ellison and two of his Amdahl colleagues, Robert Miner and Ed Oates, founded their own company, Software Development Labs. From the beginning, Ellison served as Chief Executive Officer. Ellison had come across a paper called "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks" by Edgar F. ("Ted") Codd, describing a concept Codd had developed at IBM. Codd's employers saw no commercial potential in the concept of a Structured Query Language (SQL), but Larry Ellison did..

Luis Irragori: From Colombian Hostage to American Success Story

The remarkable story of Luis Irragori, a Colombian refugee who escaped his kidnappers, came to the U.S. and built a thriving business from the ground up. It was on a sunny day in April 2000 that Luis Irragori realized he had to flee his native Colombia with his wife and two children—immediately. Just a few months before, Irragori, the owner of five successful franchises, as well as a manager for 150 other locations, had been freed from a six-month ordeal during which he, his two young children, and about 180 other congregants were kidnapped at gunpoint while attending church.

Fred Deluca: His Story And The Subway Franchise's Mistake

Subway's Fred Deluca comes across as an unassuming sort—quiet, funny, humble, easy to talk to—not the kind of textbook corporate chief executive you'd expect to be leading the world's largest franchise operation. And Deluca's approach to business is equally as down-to-earth: For example, have a business idea? Then just get started on that business. "The key is get going, get going somehow. Don't wait forever until you take that next step," said Deluca, who founded Subway in 1965 and has grown it into a global powerhouse based in Milford, Connecticut, with nearly 39,000 stores—each of them owned and operated by a franchisee.

Michael Dell: Turned The 30-Percent Markup Joke Into Billions

Michael Dell was 8 years old the first time he held a microchip in his hand. It was 1973, and the chip was part of a pocket calculator, which in those days was a bulky basic number-cruncher—nothing like the sleek, versatile machines of today. But young Dell was intrigued. “It was a National Semiconductor model that I paid, like, $42 for,” he recalls. “All it did was add, subtract, multiply, and divide, and it didn’t do that very well. You put in twenty-two divided by seven and it would say three—you know, come close. I used to do my math homework and then pull out my calculator when my parents weren’t looking to see if I got it right.”.

Marcus Lemonis: The Lebanese Orphan Who Became The Transformer

It wasn't just any family that adopted Marcus Lemonis from a Beirut orphanage when he was nine months old. His father and grandfather ran the largest Chevy dealerships in Miami and Tampa. After graduating from Marquette University, in Milwaukee, Lemonis returned to Florida and started selling cars at his grandfather's dealership.

Wolfgang Puck's Long, Winding Road To Success And What You Can Learn From It

"I didn't like New York," Wolfgang Puck says in his thick German accent."'It was dirty, with the smoke coming out everywhere." So when he got a job offer in Indianapolis, he was excited. "I worked in Monte Carlo, with the auto racing. So I thought with the auto racing, Indianapolis must be like Monte Carlo. The restaurant owner told me they had Limoges china, so I thought it must be a wonderful city."

Walt Disney: How The Happiest Emperor Overcomes Failures

Walt Disney is one of the most powerful companies, in one of the most powerful sectors of any economy: entertainment. Before it became a $60 billion dollar company, with interests spanning the globe, Disney was more closely associated with the vision of the man after whom it was named. It was this vision that laid the groundwork for the company to become the media giant it is today. In this article we'll look at the rise of Walt Disney, both the man and the company, and the lessons found there, for entrepreneurs today.

The Journey of Starting A Food Truck Business

Ian Thackaberry who is in the process of putting the finishing touches on his food trailer and getting the last pieces of his menu in order. Like many food entrepreneurs, Ian isn’t a classically trained chef but he’s certainly done his time in a kitchen and it was that time that inspired him to start his own food truck. Over the next few days you’ll get to know Ian and the process he went through to get his business to the starting line.

The Death of a Business

A friend of mine was over recently for brunch. It was good to touch base with him to see how he was faring because he has just suffered a loss. Not a loss of a loved one or friend but the loss of his business. Death is not just about the loss of someone you have loved. Death is a transition and occurs in many places in our lives. Many times we experience these types of deaths and don't even realize that we are walking through a grief journey over this loss.

Berry Gordy - A Man of Vision, Drive, Talent and Determination

Imagine a world without Diana Ross & the Supremes, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson & the Jackson 5, Lionel Richie & the Commodores, the Marvelettes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and you've just imagined a world without Berry Gordy, founder of Motown.

Oscar de la Hoya is as Good as Gold

Oscar de la Hoya knows that to achieve his goal outside the boxing ring, he must rely on his reputation and well-known face. De la Hoya is building an empire, using his marketability as the foundation. His Golden Boy Promotions rakes in millions annually, mostly through real estate ventures, boxing promotions and other commercial projects targeting his large Hispanic fan base. But de la Hoya wants to do more than use his fighting career as a springboard to a successful business career.

Three Brothers Bakery

Back in the early 1980s, I met a salesman who was pretty sympathetic to what I was going through in terms of trying to modernize the business. He sent me three machines worth about $40,000 just to try. They were designed to do what we had always done by hand. I had to wait until my dad went on a six-week vacation to Poland to actually pull the machines out to start to use them.

How VCs Turned My Startup Into A Nightmare

All you hear about in tech today is entrepreneurs and VCs and money changing the world. I was an entrepreneur and I met a lot of VCs and I asked for some of their money. Changing the world is not the business that you think it is.

Bitter Brew

You know that charming little cafe on New York's Lower East Side that just closed after a mere six months in business—where coffee was served on silver trays with a glass of water and a little chocolate cookie? The one that, as you calmly and correctly observed, was doomed from its inception because it was too precious and too offbeat? The one you still kind of fell for, the way one falls for a tubercular maiden? Yeah, that one was mine.

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The Story of My Father: 3 Simple Lessons for Entrepreneurs

This is the story of my father, Burt Walker, a poor kid from Brooklyn who made millions taking the company he founded public — and then lost it all when he left my mother for a younger woman. I am sharing this personal story to help entrepreneurs.

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Starting a Business is a Leap of Faith

Many entrepreneurs start their own companies after seeing potential business opportunities

from their employers. Barry Edwards, President of the Louisiana-based Creative Presentation, Inc. saw an unclaimed yet promising niche in the computer industry that his employers failed to see. Though young, inexperienced and without capital, he took the leap of faith and started his own company specializing in visual communication systems.

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Jennifer Dugan: Success in the Travel Business

In June 1996, I got the news that would change my purpose in life forever. I was pregnant with my first child . Going to work each day at my full time job, I soon realized there was no way I wanted to work and have my child in daycare. This began my journey to find out how I could be at home with my baby. I began reading every thing I could get my hands on about working at home. This was before the Internet took off so resources were limited on the subject.

Overcoming Adversities to Succeed in the Recruiting Business

As General Patton once said, success is best measured by how high you bounce after hitting rock bottom. Billie Dragoo, President and CEO of RepuStaff and RepuCare, has experienced both highs and lows, to emerge as one of the most powerful women entrepreneurs today.

An Amish Entrepreneur's Old-Fashioned Approach

Imagine trying to build a national food retailing business based on mail order, far-flung distributors, and trade shows—without using the Internet. No e-mail newsletters or Web site for taking orders and handling complaints, no Facebook fans, or Google ads, or Twitter following.

Economy Stalling Your Small Business? Shift Gears

These may not be the best of times to start or run a small business, but Christopher Hazlett’s struggle to hang tough through one crisis after another may hold lessons for the legions of entrepreneurs caught between a stumbling economy and crippling credit squeeze.

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An Inspiring Entrepreneurial Story of Starting a Business During the Recession Without Worrying About Layoffs

I heard this quote when I was driving to work this morning and listening to NPR’s Marketplace. Ms. Battishill works for a homebuilding company in the Los Angeles area. Knowing her job is not safe, she founded ScooterGirls Inc. that offers the ScooterGirls brand of mobile advertising, scooter sales and rental, tour, and the “Commuter Line” Apparel Collection. Although she had excellent credits, no bank was willing to lend her money due to the credit crunch. Determined to take control of her own destiny, Ms. Battishill borrowed 50% of her 401k account to start the business.

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Stop Thinking You Are Going To Fail Just Because Someone Says You Should

Many would be entrepreneurs don’t start their own venture because they are afraid of failure. And quite frankly, they have every right to be afraid. After all, we are constantly bombarded by vague sayings like “9 out of every 10 startups fail” or “chalk up your first startup as a learning experience”, or my favorite, “most relationships and marriages can’t survive a startup”. After you hear enough of these cliches, you soon start believing them.

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Confessions of a Tired Entrepreneur

Then something happened – something I never saw coming.

I had to stop marketing to actually do the work (which I also liked to do) – and then I had to start the process all over again… and again… and again. It was a painful cycle of ebb and flow and I got tired.

Get the work. Do the work. Get the work. Do the work.

I did this for 10 years. Fairly recently, it dawned on me that maybe I should only do one thing at a time, because I simply got too tired to care about my clients and their projects.

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Confessions of an Accidental Entrepreneur

I'm going to tell you a story about an Accidental Entrepreneur.

The accidental entrepreneur was a highly skilled intravenous nurse who thought he could do a better job administering Intravenous Therapy services than the organization he worked for.

So he borrowed $5,000 and started his own business providing intravenous services to patients in their homes. Because he took the risk of starting a business, he believed he was an "entrepreneur." And the fact that he was making money from the start, not only boosted his confidence, but it reinforced his belief that he truly was an entrepreneur.

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Entrepreneur Confession Page 2...

To share your business story confession, email it to: info@makingittv.com