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Regular People Who Quit Their Jobs and Made Millions: Shep and Ian Murray, Vineyard Vines
Michelle Fox from CNBC went and researched those people like you and me who had regular jobs but one day decided to go on their own journey and became tremendously successful.
Like she said in her post, success is by no means guaranteed, but for the lucky ones the decision to say “I quit” has been handsomely rewarded. With hard work and determination, they’ve been able to turn their ideas into booming businesses.
The following people quit their jobs and went on to make millions, whether it was creating personal wealth or revenue for their company.
Photo: Vineyard Vines
Brothers Shep and Ian Murray were miserable sitting behind desks at their corporate jobs in Manhattan. So in 1998, Shep Murray, an advertising account executive, and Ian Murray, who worked at a small public relations firm, quit their jobs within 10 minutes of each other. They took cash advances on their credit cards and, despite being told how “dumb” their idea was, started Vineyard Vines — a tie company based on Martha’s Vineyard. Or, as the brothers like to say, they decided to trade in their business suits for bathing suits by selling ties so they wouldn’t have to wear them.
At first they sold their ties one at a time out of their backpacks, on the beach, on boats and in bars. They sold out of 800 ties within the first week. They quickly re-ordered, paid off their debt and moved into their first office. More than a decade later, the business is now an entire clothing line.
There are now 18 freestanding Vineyard Vine retail stores around the country, and the line can be found in about 500 stores. The company is projecting about $100 million in sales for 2011.
Stay tuned for the next success story of those regular people who quit their jobs to make millions. For the meantime feel free to share and like the post.
Four Tips When You’re Ready To Sell Your Business
For a number of small business owners who may be ready to sell their companies, the past few years have been a time to cut unnecessary expenses, make ends meet and to patiently wait for the market to rebound. There simply was no use in trying to sell the business when company revenues and profits were down. Low purchase-price valuations only made matters worse.
But 2010 saw a slight improvement in the business-for-sale market and many experts expect that 2011 will be a turning point for the industry. Financing options are improving for buyers and banks are putting a new focus on lending.
So, if you’re thinking of selling your business this year, here are four tips to maximize your profit.
Plan Ahead
Like they do for any big purchase, business buyers will do their research before signing on the dotted line. That means it’s important for sellers to be ready to demonstrate their business is worth the asking price. Make sure your financial records are in order. Keep a minimum of three years of documents, including tax returns and expense records. These are essential to establish buyer trust in the economic history of the business. Also, be sure to resolve any outstanding business issues. These can include short-term lease agreements, over-reliance on one or a few key customers and any outstanding legal issues.
Don’t forget the physical elements of the business as well. Take care of any building improvements such as painting the storefront, cleaning up the distribution facility or re-decorating the interior. The physical appearance is often the first impression a buyer gets, so make sure it’s a positive one.
Understand the Market
To set your asking price accurately, you need to know where your business stands in the market compared to other businesses for sale. Overestimating your value can lead to a long and difficult sale process, while underestimating will leave money on the table. Expect an improved selling environment in 2011, but don’t make the mistake of asking for pre-recessionary prices.
To determine the right price, find out what similar businesses have sold for or listed for recently. Websites like BizBuySell.com and BizQuest.com allow you to search for similar listings based on factors such as industry, size and location. You can also purchase a valuation report to see detailed information on recent local sales.
Take a look at your own financials as well. If your business’ revenue and cash flow have declined, take that into consideration. Buyers will. Don’t be fooled into thinking they’ll pay you based on business results prior to the downturn. The goal is to set a price that will attract the greatest number of serious buyers and enable you to close a deal at the highest possible price.
Get the Word Out
One way to get a leg up on the competition and ensure the best possible outcome is to hire an accomplished business broker. Check broker references carefully and see if you can find additional references they don’t provide themselves.
If you choose to sell on your own then market aggressively. Put together a full marketing plan, including but not limited to getting your listings posted online, in the local newspapers and appropriate trade publications, and networking through friends and family.
Be Prepared To Offer Financing
In today’s market, seller financing is essential. While lending from local and national banks will continue to loosen based on the economic stimulus and the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, banks are still almost universally requiring that seller financing is part of any deal they fund.
That means you’ll be required to take a minimum of 20 percent of the sale price in the form of a buyer note that the buyer will pay back over time, with interest. This also means that you’ll have an investment in the business even after the sale. The buyer and lender will expect you to participate in a successful transition with the new owner and to help get them off to a strong start
An article by MIKE HANDELSMAN
Mike Handelsman is Group General Manager of BizBuySell.com–located in San Francisco–andBizQuest.com, two business-for-sale marketplaces. Both sites feature business valuation tools that draw from the largest databases of sales comparables for recently sold small businesses, and two of the industry’s leading franchise directories.
The Top 10 Business Plan Mistakes
It’s been nearly seven years since Tim Berry posted Top 10 Business Plan Mistakes on this site. Looking back and reading the post again today, I think the list holds up very well. Here is the revised version for 2012, incorporating what he wrote back then that still holds true.
1. Misunderstanding the purpose: It’s the planning that matters, not just the document. You engage in planning your businessbecause planning becomes management. Planning is a process of setting goals and establishing specific measures of progress, then tracking your progress and following up with course corrections. The plan itself is just the first step; it is reviewed and revised often. Don’t even printit unless you absolutely have to. Leave it on a digital network instead.
2. Doing it in one big push; do it in pieces and steps. The plan is a set of connected modules, like blocks. Start anywhere and get going. Do the part that interests you most, or the part that provides the most immediate benefit. That might be strategy, concepts, target markets, business offerings, projections, mantra, vision, whatever. . . just get going.
3. Finishing your plan. If your plan is done, then your business is done. That most recent version is just a snapshot of what the plan was then. It should always be alive and changing to reflect changing assumptions.
4. Hiding your plan from your team. It’s a management tool. Use common sense about what you share with everybody on your team, keeping some information, such as individual salaries, confidential. But do share the goals and measurements, using the planning to build team spirit and peer collaboration. That doesn’t mean sharing the plan with outsiders, except when you have to, such as when you’re seeking capital.
5. Confusing cash with profits. There’s a huge difference between the two. Waiting for customers to pay can cripple your financial situation without affecting your profits. Loading your inventory absorbs money without changing profits. Profits are an accounting concept; cash is money in the bank. You don’t pay your bills with profits.
6. Diluting your priorities. A plan that stresses three or four priorities is a plan with focus and power. People can understand three or four main points. A plan that lists 20 priorities doesn’t really have any.
7. Overvaluing the business idea. What gives an idea value isn’t the idea itself but the business that’s built on it. It takes employees showing up every morning, phone calls being answered, products being built, ordered and shipped, services being rendered, and customers paying their bills to make an idea a business. Either write a business plan that shows you building a business around that great idea, or forget it. An idea alone does not a great business make.
8. Fudging the details in the first 12 months. By details, I mean your financials, milestones, responsibilities and deadlines. Cash flow is most important, but you also need lots of details when it comes to assigning tasks to people, setting dates, and specifying what’s supposed to happen and who’s supposed to make it happen. These details really matter. A business plan is wasted without them.
9. Sweating the details for the later years. This is about planning, not accounting. As important as monthly details are in the beginning, they become a waste of time later on. How can you project monthly cash flow three years from now when your sales forecast is so uncertain? Sure, you can plan in five, 10 or even 20-year horizons in the major conceptual text, but you can’t plan in monthly detail past the first year. Nobody expects it, and nobody believes it.
10. Making absurd forecasts. Nobody believes absurdly high “hockey stick” sales projections. And forecasting unusually high profitability usually means you don’t have a realistic understanding of expenses.
7 Entrepreneurs Whose Perseverance Will Inspire You
Everyone knows that perseverance is important. You’ve probably heard the quote “If at first you don’t succeed, try again” or seen the commercial that talks about falling down 7 times and standing up 8. The lesson, of course, is that few people achieve anything great without first overcoming a few obstacles.
Preaching about the importance of perseverance is easy. Actually experiencing failure and continuing on undeterred; now that’s tough. But the 7 stories below prove that it can be done.These famous entrepreneurs exemplified perseverance. Maybe one of them will inspire you to overcome whatever obstacle is currently standing in your way.
Milton Hershey
Milton Hershey had a long path to the top of the chocolate industry. Hershey dropped out of school in the 4th grade and took an apprenticeship with a printer, only to be fired. He then became an apprentice to a candy-maker inLancaster, PA. After studying the business for 4 years, Hershey started three unsuccessful candy companies in Philadelphia, Chicago and New York.
Hershey was not about to give up, so he moved back to Lancaster and began the Lancaster Caramel Company. His unique caramel recipe, which he had come across during his earlier travels, was a huge success. Hershey, who was always looking ahead, believed that chocolate products had a much greater future than caramel. He sold the Lancaster Caramel Company for $1 million in 1900 (nearly $25 million in 2008 dollars) and started the Hershey Company, which brought milk chocolate — previously a Swiss delicacy — to the masses.
Not only did Hershey overcome failure and accomplish his goals, but he also managed to do it close to home. Hershey created hundreds of jobs for Pennsylvanians. He also used some of his money to build houses, churches, and schools, cementing his status as a legend in the Keystone State.
Persistence is key. But it also helps if you have a solid business plan from the beginning. If you need assistance with your business plan, contact a Growthinkbusiness plan writer today.
Steve Jobs
You always hear about a “long road to the top,” but perseverance isn’t limited to the early stages of a person’s career. Oftentimes, failure can occur after a long period of success.
Steve Jobs achieved great success at a young age. When he was 20 years old, Jobs started Apple in his parents’ garage, and within a decade the company blossomed into a $2 billion empire. However, at age 30, Apple’s Board of Directors decided to take the business in a different direction, and Jobs was fired from the company he created. Jobs found himself unemployed, but treated it as a freedom rather than a curse. In fact, he later said that getting fired from Apple was the best thing to ever happen to him, because it allowed him to think more creatively and re-experience the joys of starting a company.
Jobs went on to found NeXT, a software company, and Pixar, the company that produces animated movies such as Finding Nemo. NeXT was subsequently purchased by Apple. Not only did Jobs go back to his former company, but he helped launch Apple’s current resurgence in popularity. Jobs claims that his career success and his strong relationship with his family are both results of his termination from Apple.
Are you building the next Pixar or Apple? Get expert business planning advice from a Growthink business plan consultant.
Simon Cowell
Nowadays, Simon Cowell is a pop icon and a very wealthy man. But early in life, Cowell faced his fair share of struggles. At age 15, Cowell dropped out of school and bounced around jobs. He eventually landed a job in the mail room of EMI Music Publishing. Cowell worked his way up to the A&R department, and then went on to form his own publishing company, E&S Music.
Unfortunately, E&S folded in its first year. Cowell ended up with a lot of debt, and was forced to move back in with his parents. But he never gave up on his dream of working in the music industry, and eventually landed a job with a small company called Fanfare Records. He worked there for 8 years and helped the company become a very successful label. From there, Cowell spent years signing talent and working behind-the-scenes before launching the “American Idol” and “X-Factor” franchises that made him famous.
Even though he is rich and successful, Cowell continues to work on new projects. This kind of dedication no doubt helped him overcome his early roadblocks.
Thomas Edison
When he was a young boy, Thomas Edison’s parents pulled him out of school after teachers called him “stupid” and “unteachable.” Edison spent his teenage years working and being fired from various jobs, culminating in his termination from a telegraph company at age 21. Despite these setbacks, Edison never deterred from his true passion, inventing. Throughout his career, Edisonobtained 1,093 patents. And while many of these inventions — such as the light bulb, stock printer, phonograph and alkaline battery — were groundbreaking, even more of them were unsuccessful. Edison is famous for saying that genius is “1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”
One of Edison’s greatest stories of perseverance occurred after he was already wildly successful. After inventing the light bulb, Edison began a quest to find an inexpensive light bulb filament. At the time, ore was mined in the Midwest, and shipping costs were incredibly high. To combat this, Edison opened his own ore-mining plant in Ogdensburg, New Jersey. For roughly a decade, Edison devoted all his time and money to the plant. He also obtained 47 patents for inventions designed to make the plant run more smoothly. And after all of that, Edison’s project still failed thanks to the low quality ore on the East Coast.
But as it turned out, one of the aforementioned 47 inventions (a newly-designed crushing machine) revolutionized the cement industry and earned Edison back nearly all of the money he lost. In addition, Henry Ford would later credit Edison’s Ogdensburg project as the main inspiration for his Model T Ford assembly line, and many believe that Edison paved the way for modern-day industrial laboratories. Edison’s foray into ore-mining proves that dedication and commitment can pay off even in a losing venture.
Are you starting a new business? Get expert strategic advice from Growthink’s professional business plan consultants.
George Steinbrenner
Before “The Boss” assumed ownership of the New York Yankees, he owned a basketball franchise called the Cleveland Pipers. The Pipers were part of the American Basketball League, and in 1960, under Steinbrenner’s helm, the franchise went bankrupt.
When he eventually took over the Yankees, Steinbrenner’s struggles didn’t end.Most baseball fans will remember the team’s drought in the 1980s and early 1990s. As the team suffered, Steinbrenner was often criticized for his executive decisions, which included questionable trades and frequent changes to the Manager position. Though his methods were controversial, Steinbrenner stuck to his guns, and it paid off. The Yankees made an impressive six World Series appearances from 1996-2003, and remain Major League Baseball’s most profitable team year after year.
Steinbrenner is known for his shrewd business tactics, but he’s also not afraid to put his money where his mouth is. The Yankees have the highest payroll in baseball, and they’ve been in contention every year since the mid-90s. Even when the Cleveland Pipers went bankrupt, Steinbrenner offered to pay back the team’s investors, a promise he eventually made good on.
Steinbrenner has been quoted as saying, “I never wanted anybody to say ‘I went down a path with George Steinbrenner and lost money.’”
J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, is currently the second-richest female entertainer on the planet, behind Oprah. However, when Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book in 1995, it was rejected by twelve different publishers.Even Bloomsbury, the small publishing house that finally purchased Rowling’s manuscript, told the author to “get a day job.”
At the time when Rowling was writing the original Harry Potter book, her life was a self-described mess. She was going through a divorce and living in a tiny flat with her daughter. Rowling was surviving on government subsidies, and her mother had just passed away from multiple sclerosis. J.K. turned these negatives into a positive by devoting most of her free time to the Harry Potterseries. She also drew from her bad personal experiences when writing. The result is a brand name currently worth nearly $15 billion.
What about you? Are you starting a new business? If you need help with your business plan, contact Growthink’s professional business plan writers.
Walt Disney
As a young man, Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star Newspaper because his boss thought he lacked creativity. He went on to form an animation company called Laugh-O-Gram Films in 1921. Using his natural salesmanship abilities, Disney was able to raise $15,000 for the company ($181,000 in 2008 dollars). However, he made a deal with a New York distributor, and when the distributor went out of business, Disney was forced to shut Laugh-O-Gram down. He could barely pay his rent and even resorted to eating dog food.
Broke but not defeated, Disney spent his last few dollars on a train ticket toHollywood. Unfortunately his troubles were not over. In 1926, Disney created a cartoon character named Oswald the Rabbit. When he attempted to negotiate a better deal with Universal Studios — the cartoon’s distributor — Disney discovered that Universal had secretly patented the Oswald character. Universal then hired Disney’s artists away from him, and continued the cartoon without Disney’s input (and without paying him).
As if that wasn’t enough, Disney also struggled to release some of his now-classic films. He was told Mickey Mouse would fail because the mouse would “terrify women.” Distributors rejected The Three Little Pigs, saying it needed more characters. Pinocchio was shut down during production and Disney had to rewrite the entire storyline. Other films, like Bambi, Pollyanna and Fantasia, were misunderstood by audiences at the time of their release, only to become favorites later on.
Disney’s greatest example of perseverance occurred when he tried to make the book Mary Poppins into a film. In 1944, at the suggestion of his daughter, Disney decided to adapt the Pamela Travers novel into a screenplay. However, Travers had absolutely no interest in selling Mary Poppins to Hollywood. To win her over, Disney visited Travers at her England home repeatedly for the next 16 years. After more than a decade-and-a-half of persuasion, Travers was overcome by Disney’s charm and vision for the film, and finally gave him permission to bring Mary Poppins to the big screen. The result is a timeless classic.
In a fitting twist of fate, The Disney Company went on to purchase ABC in 1996.At the time, ABC was owner of the Kansas City Star, meaning the newspaper that once fired Disney had become part of the empire he created. And all thanks to his creativity (and a lot of perseverance).
What’s an Entrepreneur? The Best Answer Ever from Eric Schurenberg
As an entrepreneur, you surely have an elevator pitch, the pithy 15-second synopsis of what your company does and why, and you can all but repeat it in your sleep. But until recently, I’d never seen a good elevator pitch for entrepreneurship itself—that is, what you do that all entrepreneurs do?
Now I’ve seen it, and it comes from Harvard Business School, of all places. It was conceived 37 years ago by HBS professor Howard Stevenson. I came across it in the book Breakthrough Entrepreneurship (which I highly recommend) by entrepreneur and teacher Jon Burgstone and writer Bill Murphy, Jr. Of Stevenson’s definition, Burgstone says, “people often need to say it out loud 50 or 100 times before they really understand what it means.” Here it is:
Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.
I talked to Stevenson about his classic definition this weekend. Back in 1983, he told me, people tended to define entrepreneurship almost as a personality disorder, a kind of risk addiction. “But that didn’t fit the entrepreneurs I knew,” he said. “I never met an entrepreneur who got up in the morning saying ‘Where’s the most risk in today’s economy, and how can I get some? Most entrepreneurs I know are looking to lay risk off—on investors, partners, lenders, and anyone else.” As for personality, he said, “The entrepreneurs I know are all different types. They’re as likely to be wallflowers as to be the wild man of Borneo.”
By focusing on entrepreneurship as a process, his definition opened the term to all kinds of people. Plus, it matched the one demographic fact HBS researchers already knew about entrepreneurs—they were more likely to start out poor than rich. “They see an opportunity and don’t feel constrained from pursuing it because they lack resources,” says Stevenson. “They’re used to making do without resources.”
The perception of opportunity in the absence of resources helps explain much of what differentiates entrepreneurial leadership from that of corporate administrators: the emphasis on team rather than hierarchy, fast decisions rather than deliberation, and equity rather than cash compensation.
What would you expect, asks Stevenson: When you don’t have the cash to boss people around, like in a corporation, you have to create a more horizontal organization. “You hire people who want what you have and not what you don’t have,” Stevenson says. In other words, entrepreneurs offer their team members a larger share of a vision for a future payoff, rather than a smaller share of the meager resources at hand. Opportunity is the only real resource you have.
Or, as Burgstone puts it:
Every time you want to make any important decision, there are two possible courses of action. You can look at the array of choices that present themselves, pick the best available option and try to make it fit. Or, you can do what the true entrepreneur does: Figure out the best conceivable option and then make it available.
And that, folks, is what makes entrepreneurship so friggin’ hard. And so friggin’ necessary.
An article by Eric Schurenberg.
Eric Schurenberg is the editor of Inc.com. Before joining Inc, Eric was the editor-in-chief of CBS MoneyWatch.com and BNET.com and managing editor of Money Magazine. As a writer, he is a winner of a Loeb Award and a National Magazine Award. He is a regular commentator on Nightly Business Report on PBS
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