Script 2… The recent recession and financial crisis has been more than just an economic downturn, but a tipping point between the old and the new world of work. There is no going back and different times require a different script. This week a new post each day will reveal five components of this new script. Here is number two:
Be Corporate Courageous
“Wherever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” – Peter Drucker
Great businesses are born out of the desire to take risks:
– Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard in 1975 to start Microsoft
– Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard (yes there is a trend here) and started Facebook
– Tony Hseih quit Oracle started LinkExchange which he sold to Micorsoft within 3 years for $285 million and then invested everything (and nearly lost it all) to create the billion dollar online shoe business Zappos, sold to Amazon in 2009 for $1.2 billion.
Click here to read about 10 Fortune 500 Companies That Started With Next to Nothing, including:
– Wholefoods: In 1978, twenty-five year old college dropout John Mackey and twenty-one year old Rene Lawson Hardy, saved and borrowed money from family and friends to open the doors of a small natural foods store in Austin, Texas. Within a year of opening the store, the couple was evicted from their home for using their apartment storage for the store. Homeless and with no place to go they decided to save costs by moving and living at their store full time. Since their store “Saferway” was zoned for commercial use only, there was no shower stall. According to the company’s website, the two instead bathed in the Hobart dishwasher, which had an attached water hose.
– In 1887, a 16-year-old boy form Sweden left his home for the promise of America. He arrived in New York City with only five dollars to his name, and unable to speak a word of English. This boy’s name was John W. Nordstrom.
– While attending the University of Texas in 1984, Michael Dell founded the company as PCs Limited. Initial operations of Dell’s company ran from Dell’s dorm room, until he decided to drop out of college to run his company full time. (There is a “dropout of college” theme here, isn’t there?).
– In 1962, former presidential candidate Ross Perot founded EDS with $1000. He was rejected 77 times before EDS acquired its first client.
Which reminds me of the Beatles, J K Rowling and many other best selling authors who were rejected numerous times before getting signed. Wikipedia says Rowling was rejected 12 times.
Be corporate courageous.