Themogulnews

Alexandra McDaniel : Founder of Kid's Roar: A very amazing Kid

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:39:00 +0000

When she was just 9 years old Alexandra McDaniel became the founder and president of Kid’s Roar a company entirely run by kids. The reason Alexandra started the company was because she wanted a horse and her dad told her that if she really wanted one, she’d need to raise the money herself to get it. Kids Roar has five different clubs (Safari Club, Marine Club, Horse Club, Best Friends Club and the Dinosaur Club) with various products, which can be found on the site.

Creating your brand : Advice from the founders of Innocent Drinks

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:32:00 +0000

Innocent Drinks is a UK based company founded in 1999 whose primary business is producing smoothies and flavoured spring water, sold in supermarkets, coffee shops and various other outlets nationally as well as in Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Switzerland. Innocent has a 71% share of the £169m UK smoothie market and the company sells two million smoothies per week.

Innocent was founded by three Cambridge graduates - Richard Reed, Adam Balon and Jon Wright; at the time they were working in consulting and advertising. The three were friends at St John's College, Cambridge. In 1998, after spending six months working on smoothie recipes and £500 on fruit, the trio sold their drinks from a stall at a music festival in London. People were asked to put their empty bottles in a 'yes' or 'no' bin depending on whether they thought the three should quit their jobs to make smoothies. At the end of the festival the 'YES' bin was full, with only three cups in the 'NO' bin, so they went to their work the next day and resigned. After quitting their jobs, the three had a lucky break when Maurice Pinto, a wealthy American businessman, decided to invest £250,000.

On April 6, 2009, Innocent drinks announced its agreement to sell a small stake of between 10-20% to The Coca-Cola Company for £30 million. Their website was bombarded with customers and several pages on social networking sites have emerged which encourage a boycott of the company. In April 2010 Coca-Cola increased its stake in the company to 58% from 18% for about £65 million.

Innocent credit the creation of their brand identity to David Streek (aka Gravy),the design director at Deepend which also developed their early label designs and website. Prior to the name "innocent", the product was going to be called Fast Tractor. The company's HQ, Fruit Towers, is based in Shepherds Bush. On 2 December 2007 Innocent Drinks appeared at number 40 in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100, a list of the fastest growing private companies in the UK. It was the only company to have appeared in this list for the last five years consecutively.[citation needed] Each of the last four years, Innocent has more than doubled its revenues.

The Big Idea Episode : QuickSeals.com

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:23:00 +0000

QuickSeals (www.quickseals.com), a revolutionary new food baggie storage system that converts nearly any packaged food item into a resealable storage container, keeping snacks and other perishables fresh and preventing costly food waste. Designed for versatility and ease-of-use, the QuickSeals product uses a zip slider top and adhesive strips to form a seal with consumers' favorite food bags or boxes, sealing in freshness and preventing spillage. These multi-use storage bags go easily from freezer to microwave or from pantry to plate, making QuickSeals the most versatile item in the kitchen.
"With food waste counted in billions of pounds annually1, and with costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars for wasted food and landfill expenses, the time was ripe (pun intended) for a simple and affordable solution," explains Denise Bein, chief executive officer at Neese Products and co-inventor of QuickSeals. "Now people can quickly and easily preserve their favorite foods longer than ever--just by adding our self-adhesive easy-lock baggie tops. And, as an added benefit, accidental spills and leaks become a thing of the past!"

Ideal for household pantries and freezers, withQuickSeals consumers can lock in freshness without disposing of (and losing) the original product packaging which often contains valuable cooking instructions or serving and nutritional information. QuickSeals forms an airtight barrier which helps to eliminate infestation and other food spoilage, making it a must-have for travelers, backpackers, RVs, or anyone on-the-go.

The Big Idea Episode: Daymond John Founder of Fubu

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:17:00 +0000

Born c. 1969, in Brooklyn, NY; son of Margot John (a flight attendant).

Career

Founded FUBU (For Us, by Us), apparel company, 1992--.

Life's Work

Daymond John's creative vision helped revolutionize the sportswear industry in the

Publish Post

1990s. As founder, president and chief executive officer of FUBU--"For Us, By Us"--John created a distinctive line of jerseys, jeans, outerwear, and a host of other related gear and accessories with a decidedly urban style to them. FUBU's phenomenal success has made mainstream apparel companies realize the potential for fashionable sportswear that appeals not just to trendsetting urban youth, but to copycat mainstream teens as well.
John was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, but spent his childhood in the Hollis neighborhood of Queens during the 1970s. Hollis would prove a ground-zero force in hip-hop culture, not just related to John's future fashion ideas but also as home to several future urban music pioneers--Run D.M.C, Salt 'n' Pepa, and L.L. Cool J among them. An only child, John grew up in a single-parent household headed by his mother Margot, who was a flight attendant for American Airlines, but often held more than one job at a time. "I owe my success to my mom, who instilled in me the fact that I could do anything I wanted to do," John told People magazine in 1997.
A self-described entrepreneur, John began earning money in the first grade by selling pencils to his classmates. Other youthful endeavors further honed his keen sales skills. He began his own delivery company for a time while working at a Red Lobster seafood restaurant, and drove a gypsy cab at one point as well. His first foray into the apparel market came when he wanted a tie-top hat and was put off by the price. "I found one and it was like $20," John told People magazine in 1997. "For a couple of pieces of cloth? And the sewing looked so easy. I said, 'For $20, I could make 20 of these a day.'"
John asked his mother to teach him how to use a sewing machine, and he began making the distinctive wool hats in the morning, and then selling them on the streets of Queens in the evening hours. One day in 1992, he and his friend sold $800 worth of hats, and realized their ideas had definite potential. They created a distinctive logo, and began sewing the "For Us, By Us" logo on hockey jerseys, sweatshirts, and t-shirts. John lured some longtime friends into the business: Carl Brown had been a friend since kindergarten, while ties with Keith Perrin and J. Alexander Martin stretched back several years as well. The partners then recruited another old neighborhood friend, L.L. Cool J., to wear a t-shirt in a photograph for a FUBU promotional campaign in 1993. As John told Sales and Marketing Management writer Michele Marchetti, their gear was not initially an easy sell to the rapper. "The first time he didn't like them, but each time we came back with a better design."
John's mother also helped her son launch his company by mortgaging her house for the $100,000 in start-up capital. Even more amazingly, she then moved out so that the quartet could use it as a makeshift factory and office space. As a company, FUBU officially emerged in 1994, when John and his partners traveled to an industry trade show in Las Vegas. They could not afford a booth to display their wares, so they rented a room in a posh hotel and passed out invitations. This risky strategy worked. Buyers liked the distinctively cut, vibrantly colored FUBU gear, and John and his partners returned to Queens with orders for $300,000 worth of merchandise.
FUBU soon had a contract with the New York City-based department store chain Macy's, and began expanding their line to include jeans and outerwear. A deal with Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung allowed their designs to be manufactured and delivered on a massive scale. FUBU's urban style was catching on with a wider range of consumers, but the original inspiration for the designs always came from what kids on the street were wearing. "John says the company also found motivation in what the partners perceived as efforts by white-owned outdoor apparel brands like Timberland and North Face, popular with inner-city youths, to distance themselves from the customers who were making them street chic," wrote Leslie Kaufman in the New York Times. "Fubu's marketing played off a sense of shared resentment at being ignored."
Like other companies who initially began as African American-owned, African American-focused sportswear businesses--Karl Kani and Wu-Wear among them--FUBU struck a chord with mainstream teenagers across North America as well. It was fitting retribution for John, who had been told initially by more than one upscale store that "they didn't have black customers and that 'white kids wouldn't dare wear it,'" according to the Wall Street Journal's Leon W. Wynter. "With retailers ranging from Nordstrom's to small-town specialty chains, Mr. John concedes that 'Us' is a lot bigger than he once thought," remarked Wynter. Wynter and other industry analysts also noted that the appeal of such exclusive brand-name gear among teens was inversely related to the number of teens sporting the items. "The problem is that nothing destroys the urban buzz of a label quite so fast as having Westchester [an affluent suburb of New York City] clamor for it," explained the New York Times's Kaufman.
In 1996 FUBU began using L.L. Cool J. as a spokesperson, and the distinctive logo and gear was photographed on the likes of Sean "Puffy" Combs, Mariah Carey, Brandy, and Whitney Houston. One of the partners, Keith Perrin, is solely responsible for celebrity relations at the company's headquarters, which eventually moved out of Hollis and into the landmark Empire State Building. With the massive success of FUBU, John realized that expanding the company and keeping it fresh would mean a repositioning of its goals. He began dismissing the "urban" tag when it became too commonplace. "There's nothing urban about some of the other so-called urban brands out there," John told Women's Wear Daily writer Cynthia Redecker. "They might be able to hang a tag on their items, but they are sportswear lines that have decided to use 'urban' as their catchword."
John was CEO and president of a company that earned $350 million in revenues in 1998, placing it nearly in the same stratosphere as such designer sportswear labels as Donna Karan New York and Tommy Hilfiger. He signed a deal with the National Basketball Association (NBA) to make FUBU "NBA" gear, and launched a separate line of women's apparel called FUBU Ladies. Not surprisingly, he returns often to his old Queens neighborhood, and is known to personally drive a truckload of giveaway turkeys through Hollis's streets at Thanksgiving. Despite his incredible success, John remains humble. He told Sales and Marketing Management's Marchetti that the most cherished perk of financial success "is being able to eat out every night."

The Big Idea Episode: Jordan Wirsz, Helping People Gain their Millions

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:14:00 +0000

The dream of flight gave wings to Jordan Wirsz’s dream of a better life. More often than not, you hear of young millionaires that are heiresses, trust-funders or children that come from privileged backgrounds with elite educational opportunities. What makes this story different is that Jordan Wirsz is none of these. In fact, he’s far from it.

Jordan grew up with humble beginnings in Southern California, raised by his mother and never knowing his real father. They lived paycheck to paycheck, and moved frequently. A lonely, challenging childhood taught Jordan to dream of flight and a better life—a dream he would soon realize.
At the young age of 13, Jordan started his first business selling Herbalife™ products out of the front basket of his bicycle. At the age of 14, Jordan successfully brokered a helicopter on commission over the Internet for $55,000 and earned $2,500 for himself…Then lost it all investing in commodities at the age of 15. Undeterred, soon Jordan was running a burgeoning business, called Xtreme Aviation, brokering airplanes, helicopters, and pilot supplies. The success of this business helped Jordan to be able to afford flight school, while also working at the local airport washing and fueling airplanes.
At a mere 16 years old, Jordan soloed an airplane and by the age of 17, Jordan had earned his private pilot’s license. At 18 he became licensed as a commercial pilot and successfully sold his aviation company. He soon landed a job as a corporate pilot flying all over the country. His constant travel schedule and hours logged in a cockpit provided ample opportunity to reassess his dreams. He soon realized that he truly wanted to remain an entrepreneur and fly his own corporate plane.
Armed with unparalleled drive, business savvy, maturity, presence of those three times his age, and the entrepreneurial spirit, Jordan soon became the CEO and founder of a private investment firm. Jordan grew his company to multi-millions in profit by implementing the lessons he has learned throughout his early entrepreneurial years in the school of hard knocks.
With his passion for flying and the budget to match it, Jordan began living his dream as an aerobatic air-show pilot, performing at air-shows around the country in one of his two aerobatic airplanes. His most notable shows featured the highest performance aerobatic airplane in the world, the Edge 540. Rolling at over 500 degrees per second, tumbling nose over tail, upside-down just feet off the ground, and excruciating 11 G Force maneuvers at over 200 miles per hour gave spectators unparalleled thrills.
At the age of 21, he achieved self-made millionaire status, and now, at the age of 26, Jordan Wirsz is an accomplished 13-year business veteran, author and philanthropist, while continuing to lead his group of companies.
The Author & Speaker
Jordan Wirsz, a 26 year old self-made multi-millionaire and business philosopher, reveals practical steps and spiritual principles that will empower readers to achieve excellence and mastery.
These two words have driven Jordan Wirsz since he was a boy. His wealth is a direct result of hard work and ingenuity, drive, and fierce perseverance to succeed. Ultimately, Jordan Wirsz’s incredible success was created by his relentless pursuit of happiness, which unlike the world’s material possessions, can never be taken from anyone.
Now Jordan Wirsz is sharing his secrets of excellence and mastery with entrepreneurs, investors, and crowds from around the globe. As an author, he is committed to helping others achieve the financial and spiritual success that he has already realized at his young age.
Wirsz’s first book, fittingly named “The Maverick Millionaire,” is internationally syndicated and available in book stores throughout the globe. Jordan published his second book, “The Ultimate guide to Trust Deed Investing” as an educational tool for investors seeking alternative real estate investments.
Wirsz’s third book is to be released in the Summer of 2009, titled “Become Incredible.” This book is anticipated to rival even the most recognized titles in the self-help and motivational categories.
Jordan has an incredible gift for speaking and capturing the hearts and dreams of thousands. A truly awe inspiring story, Jordan's history has proven to be inspiring and spiritually energizing for all who hear him speak.

The big Idea Episode: Ryan Allis: Co-founder of iContact

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:08:00 +0000

Ryan Allis is a technology and social entrepreneur from Chapel Hill, NC. Ryan has been an entrepreneur since he started Allis Computing at age 11. Today, Ryan is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of iContact, the leading global provider of email marketing services to small and mid-sized businesses.

Ryan has built North Carolina-based iContact from its start in July 2003 to its current size of more than 210 employees, 65,000 customers, and $38 million in annual sales. iContact has raised $18.3M in investment from NC IDEA, Updata Partners, and North Atlantic Capital.
iContact has twice made the INC 500 list. In 2008, iContact was named the fastest growing software company in North Carolina by INC Magazine and in 2009 the "Software Company of the Year" by the North Carolina Technology Association.
In 2008, Ryan won "Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Carolinas" with iContact co-founder, Aaron Houghton. In 2009, Ryan received recognition as one of the "Ten Outstanding Young Americans" by the United States Junior Chamber.
Ryan is the author of Zero to One Million, published by McGraw-Hill in February 2008, which reached the Wall Street Journal Bestseller list. Ryan is now working on Dare Mighty Things for publication in 2011.
Ryan is an active angel investor in socially responsible entrepreneurs in East Africa and North Carolina.
Ryan is the Chairman of Virante, Inc., a web marketing consulting firm based in Durham, NC, and an investor in VillageEnergy, EvoApp, Unblab, Polly's, and SchoolHouse.

Ryan is currently the Board Chairman for Nourish International, a non-profit organization based in Chapel Hill, NC, which has chapters at 23 colleges across the United States. Nourish teaches entrepreneurial skills to college students and uses the net profits from student ventures to invest in social entrepreneurs and community-based organizations in the developing world focused on sustainable development and eliminating extreme poverty and hunger in our lifetime.

Ryan attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was an Economics major and a Blanchard Scholar. He is currently enrolled in the EO/MIT Entrepreneurial Masters Program (EMP).

Kevin Rose: Founder of Digg.com

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:06:00 +0000

It was June 26, 4:45 a.m., and Digg founder Kevin Rose was slugging back tea and trying to keep his eyes open as he drove his Volkswagen Golf to Digg's headquarters above the offices of the SF Bay Guardian in Potrero Hill. This was the day Rose would test everything. Two years earlier, Rose had gambled on his idea to change newsgathering, letting the masses "dig up" the most interesting stories on the Web and vote them
onto his online "front page" on Digg.com. Rose had given every last piece of himself to the project -- all his time, all his cash, and even his girlfriend, who fought with him after he poured his savings into Digg instead of a downpayment on a house. Today, Digg, Version 3, the one that would go beyond tech news to include politics, gossip, business, and videos, was going live. At 29, Rose was on his way either to a cool $60 million or to total failure.

As Rose sat in the middle of the office, managing a final countdown, a Puma cap yanked over his eyes, his posse of twenty- and thirty-something engineers sat at their desks with contingency plans and extra servers ready. They flipped the switch. Stories started trickling in. The pace picked up, and suddenly, it was a deluge. Digg staffers grew frenzied, screaming at one other to stay one step ahead of the traffic. By 4 p.m. on launch day, the site had signed up more than 13,000 new registered users, eight times the average number. Traffic was clocking in at four times the volume of the previous Monday. The news of Digg's launch was lighting up the blogosphere. An exhausted Rose collapsed for a snooze under his desk.

Digg's stature changed dramatically that day. It is now the 24th-most popular Web site in the U.S., nipping at the The New York Times' (No. 19) and easily beating Fox News (No. 62), according to industry tracker Alexa.com. More than 1 million people flock to Digg daily, reading, submitting, or "digging" some 4,000 stories. As on many Web 2.0 sites, people register and create online profiles. Then these "diggers" can upload links to stories and blogs they want to share from other news portals like Yahoo! (YHOO ) News or mainstream media sites like The Washington Post. Users can click a "digg it" button that essentially casts a vote for the content. They can also hit the "bury" button. The stories with the most "diggs" zoom to the top of the page. Of the free labor that is the "Digg Army," 94% are male; more than half are IT types in their 20s and 30s making $75,000 or more. It's a demographic advertisers lust after.

COMMUNITY FIRST, ADS LATER
That's why some smart money is on Digg to become an ad magnet à la MySpace.com. (NWS ) Some even refer to Digg as the new New York Times. News sites are discovering they can benefit too: Get a story on Digg's front page, and in comes a flood of traffic from people clicking on the link to read the story on your site. Digg gets advertising via Federated Media, the company Silicon Valley veteran John Battelle created to pair Web sites with advertisers (Digg sparingly places ads in a narrow band at the top of the Web page). So far, Digg is breaking even on an estimated $3 million annually in revenues. Nonetheless, people in the know say Digg is easily worth $200 million.

It's not as dot-com déjà vu as it sounds. YouTube, the enormously popular video site, posts similarly fledgling revenues, but some experts say it could easily fetch $500 million. What's more, Digg registered users have been doubling every three months. As such, Digg is attempting to follow the path laid out by Google Inc (GOOG ). and now being adopted by many Web 2.0 companies: focus on building a user community, and the ads will follow. "It's one of those things where we know we could put crazy ads all over the site and clutter it up, but we don't want to do that," says Rose. "We have a clear path toward becoming a profitable company, and we're fully funded. We don't have to worry about it now, as long as we keep hitting our numbers."

So far, Digg has succeeded. But success has also brought copycats and stress. A rumored $40 million offer from Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO ) surfaced in January, which Yahoo denied. Two weeks before the Digg.3 release, AOL launched a rival under the old Netscape brand. (It was headed up by former Silicon Alley superstar Jason M. Calacanis, owner of Weblogs, who early on offered Rose an investment in Digg and an option to buy it for $5 million. That deal would have left Rose with no control. Forget it.) On July 18, AOL tried to lure Digg's top 50 contributors with $1,000 a month to switch to its site, which led Rose to rant on his weekly podcast that Calacanis and AOL were trying to "squash Digg." The corporate giant's failure to gain inroads so far shows that simply copying Digg won't work. It also spells out why Old Media types are so afraid of being eaten alive by the creative destruction these young new players are delivering. The barriers to entry are now so low that all it takes is a laptop and a $50-a-month Internet hookup to make a kid the next mogul.

Rose hints that there's going to be more to Digg than just democratizing the news. In six months, he says, as he polishes off a Belgian beer at Fly Bar in San Francisco's Hayes Valley a week after the launch, the site will unveil new features he can only describe as "some really cool stuff." He's beaming as though he's talking about a new girl, and it's all he can do not to blurt out what all that cool stuff is. "Why would you sell unless you feel you've played your hand?" he asks.

The thought of selling all or even a large piece of his venture brings back some bad memories. Rose and all the other geeks know someone from the last boom who was worth millions one month, only to move into his parents' basement the next. Indeed, Valley-wide, guys like Rose, his entourage of buddies, and many others are haunted by the years when the weekly rooftop parties died, the traffic thinned, and no one needed restaurant reservations. This time around, the entrepreneurs worry that, within a moment, the money -- and their projects -- could vanish.

ROCK STAR STATUS
But for now, Rose is the "It" boy among a new wave of entrepreneurs running the hottest of the top 100 Web 2.0 companies sprinkled around the Bay Area. Together, this network of mostly Valley boys -- Six Apart Ltd. co-founder Mena Trott is a rare female among them -- fill SF bars like Anu and Wish and Cav and parties at their sparsely furnished lofts.

Rose's social stock has climbed,too. He has more than 11,000 friends on MySpace. He was a runner-up in blog ValleyWag's "Hottest Guy in the Valley" contest (think Tom Cruise's doughier little brother), and he co-hosts a hot weekly video podcast called Diggnation. It's like a techie version of the Saturday Night Live skit "Wayne's World." He and Alex Albrecht, a former TechTV co-host, sit on a couch, drink beer, say "dude" a lot, and talk about the biggest stories that week. At a party for the 50th show, Rose was mobbed by fans and even photographed signing a pretty brunette's cleavage. The snapshot was posted on Flickr the next day, prompting one viewer to comment: "When did they become rock stars?"

Clearly much has changed since 1999, and Rose and his fellow wealth punks have little in common with the sharp-talking MBAs in crisp khakis and blue button-downs who rushed the Valley as the NASDAQ climbed. In the late 1990s, entrepreneurs were the supplicants, and Sand Hill Road, dotted with venture-capital firms, was the mecca. Dot-commers relied on VCs for the millions needed to buy hardware, rent servers, hire designers, and advertise like crazy to bring in the eyeballs. For their big stakes of, say, $15 million for 20% of a company, venture capitalists received board seats, control of the management levers, and most of the equity.

Now, it's more like: Maybe we'll let you throw a few bucks our way -- if you get it. Otherwise, get lost. That's possible because the cost of jump-starting a good idea has plummeted. At the same time, the sources of money have multiplied, swirling in from new VC shops, angel investors, and strategic partners galore. The awash-in-capital environment has flipped the power dynamic. Sure, they'll take money from the "sweater vests," as Digg CEO Jay Adelson calls the VCs, but they'll do it on their own terms. "It's a good time now for the entrepreneur," says John Freeman, a professor at University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business. "There are lots of different pots of money. It gives them the ability to modify when they take it, [and] how much they take, and leaves them with more control."

Who are some of the new geek elite? Besides Rose, there's his pal and Wall Street transplant Joshua Schachter, who recently sold Del.icio.us, a Web site to exchange favorite links, to Yahoo for an estimated $31 million; gaming whiz kid Dennis Fong, a.k.a. Thresh, co-founder of gaming company Xfire, which sold to Viacom Inc (VIA ). in April for $102 million; Mark Zuckerberg, who started the social networking site Facebook in college; and Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons, co-founders of Yelp.com, a consumer review site. The elder statesmen of the group are Hot or Not founder James Hong and his best friend, Max Levchin, who sold his company PayPal to eBay Inc. (EBAY ) for $1.5 billion at 26 and is now engrossed in Slide.com, a startup that delivers images to computers in a slick slide show format.

Digg is emblematic of the ethos of Web 2.0, new consumer and media sites revolving around social networking and do-it-yourself services. Others include YouTube, which serves up some 100 million requested videos a day, rivaling the audience of NBC. Then there's Facebook, where the college crowd practically lives. The average gamer on Xfire spends an astounding 91 hours a month on the site -- it's like a part-time job. As a result, superhigh valuations are again coming out of the Valley. In a world in which Facebook turns down $600 million deals, the $580 million that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (NWS ) shelled out for MySpace.com in July, 2005, is widely considered to be a steal.

Those in the know believe that Digg could become a new kind of clearinghouse for news and that its interactive community concept could snowball. That could be a jackpot for Rose, who owns 30% to 40% of the company (he won't specify) -- a massive stake for a founder in a world in which investors routinely demand up to 20% with every outlay. But it's still only paper wealth, which he and many others have learned can evaporate. "I was here in 2000," he recalls in an instant message.

It was just two years ago that Rose was the host of an obscure cable show, The Screen Savers, on a low-rent channel called TechTV. One day, he was at lunch with Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL ) founder Steve Wozniak, a favorite interview subject. Woz was in a deep riff about the glamour of Apple's garage days, and Rose realized he was jealous of Woz's place in Valley history. This guy has actually done things, Rose remembers thinking, while I'm, like, a visual stenographer. That night, Rose returned to his five-person Santa Monica house, head down, and plopped in front of his computer. Like every other night, he explored the back caves of the Internet, scavenging for hidden gossip and unearthed news that eluded most mainstream editors. They were all so clueless, Rose was thinking. And then it occurred to him: Oh my God. I could do this SO. MUCH. BETTER.

BOTTOM-UP MEDIA
Soon, Rose was blabbing about his idea to his girlfriend, his buds, his bartenders. This would be bottom-up media. Citizen journalism. In the fall of 2004, Rose withdrew $1,000 -- nearly one-tenth of his life savings -- and paid a freelance coder $12 an hour to mock up a Web page. He got a deal on server space over the Web for $99 a month. Only one big expense was left: the domain name. He tried Dig.com. *!@#! It was owned by Disney. He offered the owners of digdig.com $500. They wouldn't sell. Ouch. Finally he settled on Digg.com and forked out $1,200 to its owners. The site launched on Dec. 5, 2004.

Today, Rose is like one of those guys he used to interview. But he and his ilk have their detractors. Some say Digg is just regurgitating news. Others accuse Web 2.0 entrepreneurs of trying to build businesses around little more than one cool feature. As always in the Valley, say critics, the froth floweth over.

Rose is listening to his gut, he says. Digg arose out of his everyday life, just as Facebook and YouTube and Xfire did for their founders. During the boom, MBAs dreamed up stuff they thought could nab money. Today, the geeks insist they're looking at ways technology can fill the gaps in their own lives. Then they build those services and share them with their friends. Once something works, they start to dribble it out to the world. But nothing too fancy that needs money to get started.

So the VCs aren't so mighty this time. There's intense competition among funders for pieces of Web 2.0. Two decades ago, nearly 300 VC firms invested in high tech. Last year, that number soared to 866 in the U.S. Meanwhile, deal sizes for Internet companies are contracting, even as valuations for those deals almost doubled from 2004 to 2005 and are rising still. That means investors are forced to take smaller stakes in Web deals, while entrepreneurs holding on to more. Money is also coming from legends like Marc Andreessen of Netscape fame, who's backing Web 2.0 projects, as are rich friends Levchin and Hong. "Until capital becomes important again, venture capitalists are screwed," says Andrew Anker, a former VC at August Capital in Menlo Park, Calif., who decamped in 2003 for blogging startup Six Apart.

Rose grew up in Las Vegas. His father is an accountant, and his mom "just chills," he says. They lived in a three-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac. Standard middle-class America. His computer love affair drew scorn from schoolkids so Rose transferred to a public vo-tech in 1993 to study computers and animation. "It was a chance to be with other nerds," he says.

In 1999 he dropped out of the University of Las Vegas to join the action in Silicon Valley, where he took coding jobs for dotcoms. That led to his gig as the TechTV host, which transferred him to Los Angeles in 2003. But Rose was bored. He hated L.A. If it hadn't been for his friendship with Adelson, he might never have pursued the Digg idea. The two met when Rose interviewed Adelson, 35, founder and chief technology officer of data center company Equinix, on TechTV in 2003. Here was another guy actually doing something. Rose and Adelson quickly hit it off. Adelson played the grown-up, a role he still relishes, saying things like, "Kevin, you're 29 now, you need to stop wearing your pants lower than your boxers" (advice Rose still ignores). But he believed in Digg from the beginning.

FORGET PORTALS
In February, 2005, Rose cashed Digg's first investor check. It was for $50,000 and came from a friend, Chris Hoar, who had founded Textamerica, a site that enables you to post cell-phone photos to your blog. When Rose was desperate for servers, Hoar cut him a check on the spot. Digg didn't even have a company bank account yet, so Adelson walked Rose through the accounting and helped him drum up the next round, which was several hundred thousand dollars in investments from angel investors, including Andreessen and Reid Hoffman, CEO of social networking site LinkedIn.com Corp.

Rose asked Adelson to sign on as chief executive. Adelson had been burned during the last boom, when his net worth dwindled from a high of $55 million, but he decided to take the job, even though it would mean commuting between New York, where his wife and three kids live, and San Francisco. There was something about Rose: He reminded Adelson of his younger, single self.

By spring 2005, the venture set had caught on that something was happening at Digg. Adelson was fielding a call per week begging for a meeting, but he kept stalling. He wanted Digg to get more traction, to wait until they really needed the money. "I don't want to be someone's ticket into a market," Adelson says. When they started talking with VCs last August, Adelson recalls, a few asked about Digg's plans to convert its site into the next Yahoo or Google. "They are still back in the 1998 belief system that it's all about portals," Adelson says, laughing. "Grow up, man."

At an obscure office complex in San Mateo in August, 2005, the reception was different. Greylock Partners is a storied VC firm with many home runs to its credit, but few dot-coms among them. Yet Greylock partner David Sze seemed to dig Digg. He himself was a member of the Digg Army. He understood Rose's of-the-people vision. "There were not a lot of in-between kind of guys," Rose says. "David got it, and most everyone else didn't."

Then Sze, 40, stunned them. Rose and Adelson were seeking only $1 million or $2 million, pocket change to most Silicon Valley firms and hardly worth their time; VC firms usually make big bets to win big stakes. What firm has the resources to keep an eye on 100 companies? Funders had been trying to persuade them to take $5 million, even $10 million, but Adelson stood firm. Sze agreed they didn't need it and got his his partnership to change the rules and green-light the small deal: $2.5 million, divided between Greylock and another firm, Omidyar Network, the venture fund of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

Digg was finally flush with enough cash to pay salaries, rent an office, and keep employees in standard startup snacks like Twizzlers and Vitamin Water. Adelson did the hiring and managed the business, while Rose worked on Version 3.0. On trips home to Las Vegas or to see friends in L.A., Rose dreamed up at least one new feature per trip, like the Digg "stack," which visually shows users how stories are being ranked in real time, and a module for tracking friends' activity on the site.

But the consumer Web is still a crapshoot. As early social networking sites like Friendster learned the hard way, audiences can be fickle. "It's kind of like the entertainment business," says Berkeley's Freeman. "If it hits, it's big."

So far, Digg's traffic just keeps growing. And Rose is picking up a bit of swagger. His shyness is fading, and his wardrobe has gotten a hipster upgrade. Girls on MySpace swarm him. But the pain of losing his girlfriend isn't gone, and he says that no matter what happens with Digg, he won't put business first again.

The tech bust notwithstanding, the Valley is still the only place on earth where geeks with good ideas can become celebrities overnight. But wannabes be warned: As nearly everyone found out six years ago, the fall from rock star to pariah can be just as quick -- and not nearly as much fun.

Matt Mullenweg : Founder of Wordpress.com

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 15:58:00 +0000

As a high school student, Matt Mullenweg worked on open-source software projects in his bedroom. Seven years later, he still does most of his work from home. Mullenweg, 25, is the founder of Automattic, the company behind the open-source blogging tool WordPress and a handful of other software projects. WordPress.com powers 12 million blogs, including those of The New York Times, which invested in
Mullenweg's company last year. Although Automattic's headquarters is within walking distance of Mullenweg's San Francisco apartment, he rarely visits the place. Instead, he spends his days either traveling the world to meet WordPress fanatics or holed up in his home office, where he often blasts Jay-Z and writes software code into the wee hours.

In the morning, I have certain aspirations. One of my goals is to avoid looking at the computer or checking e-mail for at least an hour after I wake up. I also try to avoid alarm clocks as much as possible, because it's just nice to wake up without one. I leave my shades up a bit, so I usually wake up about an hour after the sun rises. I usually don't eat breakfast, and I avoid caffeine. I've got enough stimulating things in my life already. I also avoid morning meetings: The earliest meeting I'll do is 11 a.m.

I like to read first thing in the morning. I'm addicted to the Kindle. I read a lot of business books, because I feel like I should figure out how to be a real businessman before someone figures out that I'm not one. I really enjoy reading classics as well, which I try to work in once every two months. Reading is my break. Otherwise, I go to sleep and wake up thinking about WordPress.

I travel a lot, but when I'm in San Francisco, I usually work from home. Everyone else works from home, too. We're a virtual company. We recently got an office on Pier 38, a five-minute walk from my apartment. I'll go to there once a week, usually Thursdays, and for board meetings, which happen about once every two months. We leased it so we wouldn't have to keep borrowing conference rooms from our VC partners. It's kind of sad; we have this great space right on the water -- and six days a week, it's empty. Of the 40 people working for the company, eight are in the Bay Area, but that's just a coincidence. They could be anywhere in the world.

We all communicate using P2, something we launched that allows users to publish group blogs in WordPress. It's a bit like Twitter, but the updates come in real time. With P2, we can share code and ideas instantly. There is a dedicated channel for each part of the company, and when there's a new message, it shows up in red. It may be someone talking about development or what he or she had for breakfast. I also use Skype for one-on-one and mini group chats.

In my home office, I have two large, 30-inch computer monitors -- a Mac and a PC. They share the same mouse and keyboard, so I can type or copy and paste between them. I'll typically do Web stuff on the Mac and e-mail and chat stuff on the PC. I also have a laptop, which I have with me all the time, whether I'm going overseas or to the doctor's office. I'm pretty rough on my laptops. I go through about two a year. I keep a server for my home network in the closet. I really enjoy computer networking. I sometimes do tech support for our employees who live in the Bay Area.

One of my favorite programs that we didn't make is Rescue Time. It runs in the corner of my computer and tracks how much time I spend on different things. I realized that even though I was doing e-mail only a couple of minutes at a time, it was adding up to a couple of hours a day. So I'm trying to reduce that. I have a WordPress plug-in that filters all my messages based on the sender's e-mail address -- so high-priority e-mails go into one folder and the rest go into others. Tim Ferriss, who wrote The 4-Hour Work Week, advocates checking e-mail twice a week, but that is too severe for me. Instead, I'm trying to implement Leo Babauta's approach from The Power of Less. He suggests small steps, like checking e-mail five times a day instead of 10. It's like dieting: People who binge diet gain it all back. That happens to me with e-mail.

I listen to music every day, a lot of jazz -- Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins. I also like Jay-Z and Beyoncé. I have an analog stereo that was hand built in Japan by a guy who makes a few systems a year. The aural experience is mind-blowing. Music helps me when I'm coding, which is still my priority. When you're coding, you really have to be in the zone. I'll listen to a single song, over and over on repeat, like a hundred times. And I turn off instant message and e-mail. If you are taken out of the flow, if that little toaster pops up that says you've got mail -- and you look at it, you've lost it. You're juggling variables and functions and layouts. The moment you look away, it all falls to the ground, and you spend 10 minutes getting it all back in the air again.

I also manage the support, usability, and product development people who are scattered all over the globe, from Alabama to Ireland to Bulgaria. My management strategy is to find extremely self-motivated and talented people and then let them go. There's no manager looking over your shoulder every day, so you need to be able to completely direct yourself. For every person we hire, we might get 800 applications. We always start people on a contract basis. And many of the people we've hired are contributors to the open-source project. It's what they were doing for fun at night after they'd already worked for eight hours a day, only now they'll get paid for it.

I'm also the primary person on Akismet, Automattic's anti-spam software for websites, which we created from scratch. We just added the first engineer six months ago, but for the past four years, it's been just me. I decided to do it because I was worried about my mom. She hadn't started a blog yet, but I had this crazy fear that when she did, she'd be bombarded by spam for Viagra and think that had something to do with what I did all day.

I go out for lunch whenever I can. I really enjoy lunches. There's something very personal about sharing food with someone. It's a chance to develop personal connections with folks. Often, I'll have lunch with Toni Schneider, my CEO. He and I get along superwell, which is one of the reasons I think the business has worked. He brings the gravitas because he's a digital native -- the former CEO of Oddpost, a webmail company Yahoo acquired in 2004. We'll go to lunch at 12:30 and stay until 5. If I'm in town, I'll get together with Toni as frequently as we can, because we really enjoy each other's company.

I'm very disorganized. I'm wildly late all the time and really bad at keeping a schedule. That is one of the many reasons I love Maya [Desai]. Her official title is "anti-chaos engineer," which is another way of saying office manager. She does a bunch of things for Automattic, including streamlining my schedule and arranging my travel. Last year, I was on the road for 200 days and clocked 175,000 miles. That's seven times around the globe. The bulk of my travel is to WordCamps. We did the first one in San Francisco in 2006. We invited people from the local tech community to come talk about open source. Later, we decided that, rather than having everyone come to us, we would go wherever people want to have the camp. So instead of paying thousands of dollars to go halfway across the world, it's 20 bucks to go down the street. And for that, you get a full day of great speakers, a T-shirt, lunch, and an open bar. Since then, there have been hundreds of WordCamps in countries such as Argentina, Japan, and China. We host one annually in the Bay Area, but the rest are organized by local tech communities.

Of the 45 or so WordCamps a year, I go to about half. If I went to all of them, I would be traveling practically every weekend. I open up each event with my "State of the Word" speech, which gives a broad overview of WordPress and the history of open source. I feel it's my responsibility to spread these ideas, because they have had such a profound effect on my life. The smallest gatherings have 50 participants, and the largest have about 500. In the Philippines, people treated me like I was a rock star. After the camp was over, I spent two hours taking pictures and signing autographs. People were like, "Will you sign my laptop?" "Will you sign my badge?" "Will you sign my body part?"

I use my camera when I travel to document my day. The photos are autobiographical -- because my memory's so bad, I'll often forget everything about a trip. Then, usually on planes, I process, upload, and edit those photos on my laptop and then craft a narrative of what I've seen throughout each day. It's like a visual diary. But it's hard to keep up with: I have photos from 2005 I haven't posted on my blog yet. On a trip to Vietnam last February, I took 2,000 to 3,000 photos. They say the difference between an amateur photographer and a pro is the amateur shows you everything. I'm somewhere in between. I'll post maybe a quarter of how many I took.

I used to think constantly about building an audience for my blog. But now my attitude is, If I'm not blogging for myself, it's not worth it. So I don't post once a day, only when it feels natural. Some people complain -- they say, "Write more about WordPress; we don't want to see photos of kids in Vietnam," but I don't really care. I really like posting photos of places I've been. For my 25th birthday last January, I published a list of 2009 goals on my blog. It included learning Spanish, learning how to cook, and posting 10,000 photos. The Spanish is going all right, but I'm failing the cooking one. I go out for every meal. If you open my refrigerator, you will find Girl Scout cookies and barbecue sauce. But I will reach the photo goal. By March, I'd taken about 6,000 photos and posted 2,000 of them.

People write a lot of comments on my blog, and I actually read and manually approve every comment before it gets posted. I think the broken-windows theory -- that a broken window or graffiti in a neighborhood begets more of the same -- applies online. One bad comment engenders 10 more. I'll happily approve a comment from someone who completely disagrees with everything I believe in, but if I get a positive comment with a curse word in it, I'll edit it out. My blog is like my living room. If someone was acting out in my house, I'd ask that person to leave.

I look at our numbers every day -- usually after 5 p.m. -- via an internal dashboard, where we track 500 to 600 statistics, from the number of words people are posting to how often they're logging in to WordPress.com. I wrote a lot of the software, and I'm most interested in the activity numbers -- how many people use the site every day. All the numbers update instantly.

I do my best stuff midmorning and superlate at night, from 1 to 5 in the morning. Some people don't need sleep. I actually do need sleep. I just sleep all the time. I'll catch naps in the afternoon, or I'll take a 20-minute snooze in the office -- just all the time. Our business is 24 hours. Our guys in Europe come online at midnight. Sometimes, I will go out at night, come home from the bar at 2 or 3 a.m., and then go to work.

For WordPress, we're trying to set up a community that will be around 10 to 30 years from now, that's independent from the whims of the market. I feel like the nonelected benevolent dictator: It's my responsibility to meet as many users as possible and direct the software project in a way that reflects their interests. Last year, I probably met 2,000 or 3,000 people who make their living from WordPress. We want to be like Google, eBay, Amazon -- they all enable other people to make far more money than they capture. And that's ultimately what we're trying to do. We're trying to create a movement.

My mom started a blog a couple of weeks ago. Six years into this, and we finally made it easy enough for my mom to use.

Sean Belnick : Chairs anyone? : Founder of Bizchair.com

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 15:51:00 +0000

At 20 years old, Sean Belnicks business chair website brought in $38 Million Dollars! At 14 years old Sean Locked Himself in his bedroom and 3 days later, Bizchair.com was born! He started out with just a few office chairs and eventually one employee, he now sells over 25,000 products and sold chairs to Microsoft, Google and Abercrombie and Fitch.

First question, What inspired you to create BizChair.com?

I was inspired to create BizChair.com through my fascination with selling things on the internet. Before selling office chairs, I would sell Pokemon cards and other things on eBay. Over the summer, I worked with my step-father and saw how simple the business model that he was involved in worked. I was able to capitalize that business model and use it to sell office chairs online. I started with $500 advertising and $100 for website hosting and I designed the original site myself. I was 14 at the time it was created.

You are just 20 years old and in 2006 your revenues were $24 Million. What are your ambitions for BizChair.com now?

In 2007 our revenues grew to $38 million. This year our goal is to reach $50 – $54 million in sales. We have very ambitious sales goals and are expanding our wholesale and retail programs aggressively. By maintaining our position as a market leader, we are able to focus on our growth and continue to expand our business with an excellent selection of products and customer service.

Tell me, what does a 20 year old entrepreneur spend his money on?

I like to think that I live a relatively modest lifestyle. My one splurge was a 2008 Range Rover Supercharged. Other than that, I don’t spend much money (other than for college tuition). I enjoy trading stocks with what money I have left.

You have over 75 Employees, What do your employees think about working for someone so young?

I think most employees think that it is “cool” to have a young boss. We have a more relaxed work environment and it is not as stressful. Employees are also less intimidated with a younger boss and are more likely to come to me with ideas and their true feelings which ultimately help the company.

I understand that you study business at Emory University and at present your stepfather oversees day-to-day operations – seems like a very good arrangement to me. Tell me, how does the THEORY of business compare with the practical side of business that you have experienced creating BizChair.com?

It’s a great arrangement–but don’t think that I don’t spend any time working while I’m at school! Much of the theory that I’m learning deals more with aspects that I don’t really know. For example, I never knew how to properly read and create a balance sheet or income statement or how to create pro-forma financial statements. These are all things that I’ve come across while in school those have helped me ultimately run the company better. Needless to say, I don’t think I’ll be taking the entrepreneurship class!

I first came across you on the INC.com Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 feature. I was very impressed. Tell me what has the feedback been about this feature? How did INC.com "discover" you? Has it created any new openings / opportunities for you?

This brought great publicity to the company. I had been featured on CNN about a year and a half ago, but this was a welcomed increase in publicity for the company’s sake. The publicity has been a domino effect—stemming from an article in Emory’s school newspaper. The Atlanta Journal Constitution picked up the article and then CNN saw that one. Presumably INC saw the CNN segment and so on. The increased media coverage has brought many customers as well as new business opportunities such as investments and board opportunities.

If you could go back in a time machine to the time when you were just getting started. What business related advice would you give yourself?

Wow, wouldn’t that be nice. Most likely it would be to expand our product selection faster than we did. We really stayed in the office chair market for a while before expanding into office furniture and home furniture as well as some other segments. If we had done that faster, we could have cemented a larger position as a market leader.

Do you think that entrepreneurialism is something that is in your blood? Or is it something that can be learned?

I think it’s a bit of both. You have to have the desire to succeed and take risks to get there–It’s not for everyone. I love the excitement and the future growth prospects as well as watching the company grow and prosper. You have to have ambitious goals.

Is there anyone that you look up to and model yourself on?

Instead of one person, I’d rather model myself from various, successful entrepreneurs and business people and blend them together. Some of them include the “Google Guys” (Larry and Sergey), Steve Jobs, and Warren Buffet.

What is the best advice you have ever been given?

Always have a backup plan in case something goes wrong—because it will.

What advice would you give to a Young Entrepreneuer setting up their first business?

Don’t’ be afraid to take risks. It’s your first business and you have your whole life to succeed. Make sure they are calculated and not careless risks.

What are your plans for the future? Do you believe in goals (for example anything that you want to do before age 30)?

Immediate plans are to finish college and come and work full-time at BizChair. I believe in goals, but if you were to ask me what my goals were just 7 years ago, I don’t think I would have said anything like I have now. I’m just trying to make this business the best that it can be and 10 years is a long time away!

Al pacino inspirational speech on Football : Any Given Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 18:02:00 +0000

A very inspirational speech by Al Pacino. One of my favorite actors. He’s a terrificactor, talented, and you just get glued to the screen whenever he’s on…

Enjoy this scene, because this is why people play sports. This is why we watch sports. This is why we are passionate about sports.

I don’t know what to say really.
Three minutes
to the biggest battle of our professional lives
all comes down to today.
Either
we heal
as a team
or we are going to crumble.
Inch by inch
play by play
till we’re finished.
We are in hell right now, gentlemen
believe me
and
we can stay here
and get the shit kicked out of us
or
we can fight our way
back into the light.
We can climb out of hell.
One inch, at a time.

Now I can’t do it for you.
I’m too old.
I look around and I see these young faces
and I think
I mean
I made every wrong choice a middle age man could make.
I uh….
I pissed away all my money
believe it or not.
I chased off
anyone who has ever loved me.
And lately,
I can’t even stand the face I see in the mirror.

You know when you get old in life
things get taken from you.
That’s, that’s part of life.
But,
you only learn that when you start losing stuff.
You find out that life is just a game of inches.
So is football.
Because in either game
life or football
the margin for error is so small.
I mean
one half step too late or to early
you don’t quite make it.
One half second too slow or too fast
and you don’t quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They are in ever break of the game
every minute, every second.

On this team, we fight for that inch
On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us
to pieces for that inch.
We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch.
Cause we know
when we add up all those inches
that’s going to make the fucking difference
between WINNING and LOSING
between LIVING and DYING.

I’ll tell you this
in any fight
it is the guy who is willing to die
who is going to win that inch.
And I know
if I am going to have any life anymore
it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch
because that is what LIVING is.
The six inches in front of your face.

Now I can’t make you do it.
You gotta look at the guy next to you.
Look into his eyes.
Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch with you.
You are going to see a guy
who will sacrifice himself for this team
because he knows when it comes down to it,
you are gonna do the same thing for him.

That’s a team, gentlemen
and either we heal now, as a team,
or we will die as individuals.
That’s football guys.
That’s all it is.
Now, whattaya gonna do?

Paul Potts : The Saleman who loves to Sing Opera

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:46:00 +0000

This is a terrific story from the show Britain's Got Talent. The audience has little expectation for this cell phone salesman, Paul Potts, until he brings them to their feet with an amazing performance of an extremely difficult opera song - Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma”. Within two minutes, Paul shows more emotion than all the contestants combined. I'm not into opera but even I had to watch this video a number of times.

Biography: Paul Potts was raised in Fishponds, Bristol, by his father Roland, a bus driver, and mother, Yvonne, a supermarket cashier. Paul has two brothers and one sister, and attended St. Mary Redcliffe school where he first developed his love of singing.

In the interview that was broadcast before his performance in the semi-final, Paul stated that he had trouble with being bullied in school, and that it may have had an influence on his lack of self-confidence.

Until June 19, 2007 Potts worked as a manager at the Bridgend Carphone Warehouse, a mobile phone store around 8 miles from his home town.

On June 9, 2007, Potts' audition of Simon Cowell's new search-for-a-star show Britain's Got Talent was televised on ITV in UK. The actual audition was held at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff on March 17, 2007. Paul sang a condensed version of Giacomo Puccini's "Nessun dorma", which impressed the judges and received a standing ovation from the audience of 2,000 people.

In the semi-final on June 14, 2007, Potts performed main verses of "Con te partirò" with praise from the audience and judges.

Cliff Young : One very different athlete

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:40:00 +0000

Sixty one year old Cliff Young became a household name in 1983 when he beat all of the starters and won the first Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultra Marathon. He wasn’t known before the race -- but was certainly know after that. Apart from winning the inaugural Westfield Run, Cliff also achieved many other brilliant performances in his ultra career which included several Ultra age records. He was also the “Boy from the Bush” with a larrikin wit and a heart of gold. This endeared him to many people over the years

Jack Canfield : The Cliff Young Story

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:34:00 +0000

Cliff Young, A Farmer Who Inspired a Nation - The whole nation thought he was a crazy old man to undertake an almost impossible feat. Most feared that he would die trying. But this humble old man proved all the critics wrong.

Cliff Young, at 61 years of age, participated in 1983's Sydney to Melbourne race. Considered to be the world's toughest race, with the distance of 875 kilometers and took at least 6 to 7 days to finish, Cliff Young entered the race against world-class athletes. Read how he achieved the unthinkable and inspires the whole nation.

Ravi Gehlot : Founder of One Office

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:25:00 +0000

He launched his first business in his bedroom at 15, with £100 borrowed from a friend. By the age of 17 he was earning more than his parents and at 18 he became the UK’s youngest self-made millionaire.

‘I’m very pleased,’ said Ravi, then 22, who had just bought himself a three-storey £500,000 penthouse in London Fields, near Dalston. Ravi’s first business venture was hiring a nightclub for a party.

He earned £3,000 and never looked back – despite getting regular detentions at school for making business calls on his mobile during lessons. “My economics teacher kept chucking me out,” he said. “I spent most of my time outside the classroom instead of inside it.”

He left school at 16 and headed straight for Ayia Napa, where he began promoting club nights before MTV talent spotted him and awarded him a contract to run its teenage parties.

And he has no regrets about cutting short his education. He said: ‘I left school at 16 but most people are like sheep – they go to university because their teachers advise them to, based on their own experience 30 years before.

‘But university doesn’t mean as much as it used to and huge numbers of people are dropping out now. What you need is practical experience in the workplace so we encourage people to do work experience while they are at school, then get a job.’

After returning to the UK, Ravi set up another firm, OneOffice, which offers internet office services to small and medium-sized companies.

It has built up 2,000 clients in less than a year and will open a New York office this summer. The business means that Ravi is now able to help other young entrepreneurs.

Ravi fervently believes that other young people can follow his lead.

“It’s not difficult to make a million pounds out of a business,” he said. “As long as you’re dedicated and persistent, it’s very achievable.”

Ravi takes a pragmatic view on the value of money. “It becomes meaningless,” he said. “It just becomes a by-product. Money always means much more to those who don’t have it than to those that do.”

The Secret : John Assaraf : Founder of RE/MAX : ‘The Street Kid in the world of marketing

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:16:00 +0000

John Assaraf has his roots in a humble family. John Assaraf was born to a cabdriver in 1961. John was inquisitive in nature and his father could not answer most of his questions. John wanted to know the key to achieving success in business and earn immense wealth. Soon after his teens, John left home in this quest.

John’s dream of earning huge wealth and success came through two mentors and successful entrepreneurs of real estate. These two were sub-franchisers of various real estate offices across the world. John could find answers to all his questions and soon John Assaraf was one of their partners in real estate business. John started by setting right a failing RE/MAX region in Indiana.

John Assaraf’s success as CEO was excellent with around fifteen hundred associates in real estate across the world selling more than $4 billion in a year in real estate. John gains through commissions of more than $100 million annually.

John Assaraf struggled to achieve success in business and life. He has read innumerable books, attended many seminars all over the world, and applied all that he learned from seminars and books in to his business. John has a sharp brain and couples it with his knowledge to achieve immense success. This led to his setting up Bamboo.com, which generated more than $8 million dollars monthly revenue in short time. Bamboo.com was soon on NASDAQ and merged with another equally successful firm-Ipix for better existence.

John is famous as ‘The Street Kid’ in the world of marketing. John Assaraf is famous for his vivid and touching anecdotes of his early life. John often appears on television and radio. Besides, newspapers also give huge write-ups of his conquests. Besides being a successful entrepreneur, John Assaraf is an excellent consultant and speaker in high demand in Europe and North America. John’s first book- The Street Kid’s Guide to Having it All - has been a great hit. The book has a prominent place in the best-seller lists of Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Barnes and Noble, etc. John Assaraf also devotes lot of time to young and emerging entrepreneurs to develop their inherent skills and find answers to their inquisitive questions.

Jason McElwain : The Autistic Teen of Basketball

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:24:00 +0000

A year to the day after he stunned everyone by coming off the bench to score 20 points in four minutes in a high-school basketball game, autistic teen-ager Jason McElwain says he hopes his story is still inspiring others to set goals and achieve their dreams.

"What more can you want?" the 18-year-old Rochester, N.Y.-area boy said in an interview on TODAY Thursday morning, as he recounted his year in the spotlight, which included a meeting with President Bush. "My life has changed from going to just an ordinary kid with autism to someone who is a hero."

Jason, then 17, was thrust into the spotlight when Greece Athena High School basketball coach Jim Johnson decided to send him onto the floor for a little play in the team's final regular season game against Spencerport on Feb. 16, 2006. Jason had never made the team but stayed on as team manager, and Coach Johnson thought a little playing time would be a fitting show of gratitude for his dedication.

Jason set the crowd into a frenzy when, after missing his first shot, he sank six three-pointers and a jump shot in the final four minutes. His achievement, captured on videotape, made him a national sensation.
Jason, known as "J-Mac" to friends in his upstate New York suburb, made appearances at the ESPY awards, the NCAA Final Four and the NBA finals. In addition to the president, he got to meet Oprah Winfrey, Peyton Manning and Jessica Simpson.
Letters still pour in from all over the world. People with autism write to thank Jason for serving as a beacon of hope for others.

"Can you look back at all and tell me what is has been like, Jason, to live in your shoes?" TODAY's Matt Lauer asked.
"It's been fun and amazing," said Jason.

Still playing basketball
In addition to his part-time job at a supermarket, Jason still plays in nightly pickup games at the "Y," but admits he has never been able to repeat the feat that got his name in newspapers and magazines from coast to coast.

"When you play with your buddies, do they kind of expect you to make every single shot?" Lauer asked.
"The expectations are really high, but not exactly," Jason said, laughing.

His parents, David and Debbie McElwain, who appeared on TODAY with Jason and his older brother Josh, said they still can't believe all of the attention Jason's performance has received.
"After that game when he scored 20 points, I thought, 'Gee, his name might be in the paper,' " David McElwain said.

Now there are even discussions about turning his life story into a book and movie. (Jason said that he thought Matthew McConaughey should portray him on film.)
'On a roll'

Debbie McElwain admitted that Jason sometimes can get "cocky" about his fame, but she and Josh bring him back down to Earth. She said she hopes Jason's story will encourage other families with autistic children to identify the symptoms early and get treatments designed to foster communication skills before it is too late.
"I never thought he would come this far," Debbie McElwain said of her son's disability, which was diagnosed when he was 2 1/2. "When your child is diagnosed with severe autism, you just want him to speak. Jason had most of the autistic symptoms of severe autism. It was just one hurdle after the next ... You just want him to say one word, because wants an autistic child says the first word, you are on a roll."

Jason's been on a roll ever since the big game, which his team won.

"I just hope more people are aware of autism, the disease autism," he said, "and that people know more about it and get the treatment they need with their children, early in life like my loving mother [did]."

Marked primarily by impaired social interaction and diminished communication skills, autism is a developmental disability believed to be caused by both genetic and environmental factors. Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued a report estimating that one in 150 children born in this country are autistic — much more prevalent than previously thought.

Jessica Cox : The Woman Pilot Without Arms

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 19:32:00 +0000

Filipino-American Jessica Cox is an amazing achiever who is touching many lives with her moving story of strength, courage, and sheer determination.
Born without arms, Jessica flies airplanes, drives cars, plays the piano, and lives a normal life using her feet as others use their hands.

The second daughter of a retired American music teacher and a Filipina nurse from Samar province, Jessica holds the distinction of being the first woman pilot in aviation history to fly with her feet.
“It wasn’t easy,” Jessica, 25, said of her flying lessons. “I was a little nervous at first, but then I remembered my favorite words of wisdom: Never let fear get in the way of your opportunity.”
The light plane she flies is called an Ercoupe (pronounced air-coupe) and it is one of the few airplanes to be made and certified without pedals. Without rudder pedals Jessica is free to use her feet as hands. It took her three years instead of the usual six months to complete her lightweight aircraft license. She had three flying instructors and she logged 89 hours of flying to get the license.

Supportive family
The second of three siblings, Jessica said her parents and her older brother Jason and younger sister Jackie have always been supportive of her. Her father, William Cox, is a retired music teacher; her mother, the former Inez Macabare, of Bobon, Samar is a nurse.
Jessica said she visited the Philippines in 2004 and she is planning to visit again with her parents this year to meet her mom’s folks and her brother Jason, who is studying at the Ateneo De Manila University.
“I’m really excited to be back for this coming visit,” said Jessica, who takes pride in her Filipino heritage.
According to her mom, Jessica was an active child growing up, who participated in many activities like swimming, gymnastics, and tap dancing.
Jessica was introduced to Tae Kwon-Do by her parents when she was ten to further develop her self-confidence.

At the age of 14, she earned her first black belt at the International Tae Kwon-Do Federation. In college, she resumed her interest in martial arts, joined the American Tae Kwon-Do Association and secured a second black belt. She is the first woman without arms to achieve that feat in the United States.

Media celebrity

Her many achievements did not go unnoticed in the American media. She has been featured in the popular afternoon program “Ellen” hosted by Ellen Degeneres, “Inside Edition,” and TV networks like CNN and Fox News.
Videos showing her flying a plane, demonstrating martial arts stunts and replays of her television and public speaking appearances are proliferating in YouTube and the Internet. Many of the videos and inspiring emails are posted by Filipinos who are proud of her extraordinary accomplishments.

A psychology graduate from the University of Arizona, Jessica is pursuing a career as an international motivational speaker.
Articulate and a gifted speaker, Jessica is changing people’s lives by the inspiration she brings with her key messages of creativity, persistence, and fearlessness. Recognized internationally as a motivational speaker, she has spoken before various groups such as students, teachers, and corporate audiences.
Jessica’s speeches are inspiring as they are humorous. Her keen sense of humor comes to the fore as she relates her trials and triumphs. And her critical approach and insights dealing with life’s difficulties provide her listeners an alternative view of coping with their own challenges.

Overcoming shyness

She recalls how she overcame shyness as a little girl when she was to dance before an audience for the first time as part of her dance school where she took dancing lessons.
“I used to feel shy about being different. I remember the first time I was on stage. It was my very first at our dance studio presentation,” Jessica said. “I was so scared that I asked my dance teacher I wanted to be put me in the back row. She told me there was no back row.”
To her great relief, she added, “All I heard was cheering and clapping when the dance number was done. I couldn’t wait to go out for a second time and perform. I danced for 12 years after that.”
Nurtured by a loving family and convinced that a positive outlook has a greater impact on life than physical constraints, Jessica chose to pursue a degree in psychology at the University of Arizona.
As a student at university, the gutsy young woman took notes with her feet. She typed out her papers at 20 words per minute, with a regular computer keyboard on the floor.
When first learning to drive, Jessica was encouraged to use special modifications in her car. But even after her car was modified, she decided to remove them and drive without the changes. She holds an unrestricted driver's license.
The doctors were baffled why Jessica was born without arms. Sonograms and other prenatal tests did not reveal this rare congenital condition, according to her website. From infancy her feet became her hands. Like all children, she went through the various stages of development. She learned to feed herself and write with her feet.

Lessons from flying
According to Jessica, learning to fly an airplane has had a “significant impact” on her life.
“I have never known the true meaning of determination and persistence until I started my flight training,” she said. “Due to airplane logistics, it not only took me three years to do what some people could accomplish in six months but it also required four Ercoupes, three certified flight instructors, 89 hours of flight training in three different states (Florida, California, and Arizona) to become the first person to be certified to fly an airplane with only my feet.”

Defining creativity as a person’s ingenious way of dealing with a problem, Jessica said:
“Creativity is something I use every time I step into the airplane. The first challenge of flight training was learning how to buckle my seatbelt. Through creativity and recognizing there is more than one way to do something, I figured it would be best to buckle the seatbelt first before sitting down, then loosen the straps, stand on the seat and slip into the seatbelt. Once seated, I used my right foot to pull the seatbelt tight, securing it around my hips.”

Jessica said she is thankful to God for allowing her to do the things she has accomplished.
“It feels great being told by people that my life experiences have somehow inspired them. It’s really cool, and it motivates me to keep going,” she enthused.

Book project
Her mom Inez told this writer in Filipino that Jessica is scheduled to fly to Washington DC to meet with a prospective publisher for a book Jessica is writing.
“It’s actually a work in progress,” Jessica demurred when asked what the book is about. “I’ve been working on it for sometime. Its title is ‘Disarming Prejudice.’”
According to Jessica, being different physically from other people has taught her to be strong and persistent. And in an imperfect world where many people are dealing with their own handicaps -- real or imagined -- she wants to make a difference by helping them deal with their limitations.
Said Jessica: “I want people to think, ‘Hey, if she can do so much without arms, then I can do so much more with my life.’”

T.Harv Eker : Author of the Secrets of the Millionaire Mind and SpeedWealth

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 19:25:00 +0000

From Zero To Millionaire In Only 2 1/2 Years!

Using the principles he teaches, T. Harv Eker went from zero to millionaire in only 2 1/2 years! He combines a unique brand of ’street-smarts with heart’. T. Harv Eker is the founder and president of Peak Potentials Training, the fastest growing personal development company in North America.

Eker’s high-energy, ‘cut-to-the-chase’ style keeps his audience spellbound. T. Harv Eker’s motto is “talk is cheap” and his unique ability is getting people to take “action” in the real world to produce real success.

Eker is the author of the best-selling books, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind and SpeedWealth. He has also developed several highly-acclaimed courses such as The Millionaire Mind Intensive, Life Directions, Wizard Training and Train the Trainer. He is also the producer and trainer of the world-famous Enlightened Warrior Training.

T. Harv Eker is the son of European immigrants who came to North America with only thirty dollars to their name. He grew up in Toronto, but spent most of his adult years in the United States.

Money was scarce throughout his childhood, so at thirteen, Eker began his work career. As a teen he delivered newspapers, scooped ice cream, sold novelties at fairs, and suntan lotions at the beach. After a year at York University, he decided to take time off to pursue his dream of becoming a millionaire.

During his early adult years, he lived in five different cities, including Lake Tahoe and Ft. Lauderdale. He had a variety of jobs and started more than a dozen different businesses, but regardless of what he did, or how hard he worked, he just couldn’t achieve success.

Finally after many years of frustration, Eker hit the jackpot. He opened one of the first retail fitness stores in North America and grew the business to ten stores in only two and a half years. He then sold part of the company to a Fortune 500 corporation.

With the sale, Eker reached his dream. He was finally a millionaire; however, in less than two years, the money was gone. Through a combination of poor investments and unchecked spending,

Eker was back at his original net worth … again.

It was at that point that Eker began developing his theories about people’s mental and emotional relationship to money. He realized that his “inner-money thermostat” was set for a specific amount of financial success, and that everyone else had a financial set point too. His most profound discovery was that this money blueprint could be changed. Using the principles and practices found in his book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, Eker reset his own blueprint to not only create success, but to keep it and grow it, and become a multi-millionaire.

During his years of struggle, Eker vowed that should he ever get rich, he would help others do the same. He has kept his promise. Today, he is the president of Peak Potentials Training, one of the largest and fastest-growing seminar companies in the world. He has already touched the lives of over 500,000 people, helping them move closer to their goal of true financial freedom.

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind (6 of 6)

noreply@blogger.com (The Mogul News) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 19:17:00 +0000