Tom Golisano (Founder of payroll company PayChex, worth over 10 Billion) borrowed 1,500$ of a relative's money to found his company. He had a good plan, worked hard, did the right thing and look what happened.
Bill Gates got lucky, he invested 80,000 in buying a hastily put together OS to resell for a higher price. Little did he know how much that initial 80,000 would grow. Right place, right time, and alittle bit of business smarts got him where he is.
Larry Ellison created Oracle because he believed in th
Sure, it is technically possible to start from nothing, work hard, make the "correct" decisions, and make it to "the top." However, it also takes a huge amount of LUCK.
Even you say that Gates got lucky. He not only was lucky enough to find a hastily put together OS that he could buy for $80,000, but he was also lucky enough that IBM was in such a rush that they screwed up their contract with MS. If not for that, MS would probably have been just another software company that made programming languages.
A lot of people start from nothing, work hard, make sound choices, and still fail because of the various random factors surrounding them that they have absolutely no control over.
I can assure you that if I took $1,500 and started a business with it, the likely outcome (no matter how hard I worked or how wise my decisions were) would be me going out of business in a very short amount of time.
Who knows, maybe tommorrow a lightbulb will go off in your head and you'll think of a way of doing something innovative or different.
People think of that all the time. However, the chance of taking that idea and turning it into a fortune 500 company is slim.
The chances of taking an idea and turning it into a nice business is better than slim. Being stinking rich, or Fort 500, is not the only measure of a successful business. Luck plays a role in some scenrios, in others it has nothing to do with it.
"Be there. Aloha."
-- Steve McGarret, _Hawaii Five-Oh_
They did it, why can't you? (Score:2, Insightful)
Bill Gates got lucky, he invested 80,000 in buying a hastily put together OS to resell for a higher price. Little did he know how much that initial 80,000 would grow. Right place, right time, and alittle bit of business smarts got him where he is.
Larry Ellison created Oracle because he believed in th
Re:They did it, why can't you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even you say that Gates got lucky. He not only was lucky enough to find a hastily put together OS that he could buy for $80,000, but he was also lucky enough that IBM was in such a rush that they screwed up their contract with MS. If not for that, MS would probably have been just another software company that made programming languages.
A lot of people start from nothing, work hard, make sound choices, and still fail because of the various random factors surrounding them that they have absolutely no control over.
I can assure you that if I took $1,500 and started a business with it, the likely outcome (no matter how hard I worked or how wise my decisions were) would be me going out of business in a very short amount of time.
Who knows, maybe tommorrow a lightbulb will go off in your head and you'll think of a way of doing something innovative or different.
People think of that all the time. However, the chance of taking that idea and turning it into a fortune 500 company is slim.
Re:They did it, why can't you? (Score:2)