The Cantankerous Mr. Wynn
When Steve Wynn enters a room, the air changes. Especially if the room is at Wynn Las Vegas, where he maintains a villa overlooking his hotel’s golf course. This is a man who seldom has an idle moment, who’s almost preternaturally on his game and expects those around him to be on theirs, too. Having […]
5 Ingredients for Startup Success
You’ve decided it’s time to start your own business, but you’re worried you don’t have the assets, capital, contacts and experience necessary to get it off the ground. Relax. Now’s your chance—with time on your side—to lay the groundwork so your new enterprise can start off at maximum advantage. Sitting at the kitchen table with […]
The American Dream Is Alive—These People Prove It
The American Dream is the heartbeat of our collective ethos. For generations it has promised that through hard work, each of us has the opportunity for success and prosperity—a social mobility brought about by our ability to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and achieve whatever our imagination holds. This spirit of self-determinism lives on […]
TOMS: Selling and Giving Just Fit
Disruptive businesses, with their innovative actions, inspire others to imitate them. TOMS, a shoe company with a buy-one give-one model, is proof of just that. When entrepreneur Blake Mycoskie created TOMS Shoes in 2006, his plan to donate shoes to impoverished countries was present at the creation. It wasn’t an altruistic addition to the business—it […]
SolarCity’s Family Business
If any company proved that blood is thicker than water, it’s SolarCity. The co-founders are brothers who serve as CEO (Lyndon Rive) and chief operating officer (Peter). And Elon Musk, one of the most intriguing business operatives on the planet, is their first cousin, a catalyst in starting the business, the initial investor and, now, […]
Four Market Disruptors
Does anybody remember the Diamond Rio PMP300? It was one of a few pre-iPod digital music players, and although innovative, the device never achieved liftoff in consumer markets—confusing interfaces, minuscule memory and lousy sound are three reasons. Beyond that, Diamond Multimedia didn’t see the full picture of what digital music players could be—nor did Sony, […]
The ELF
Although it looks something like a car, Rob Cotter is emphatic: The ELF, which he’s now producing in a North Carolina factory, is a bicycle. “I’ve been involved in human-powered transit for a long time,” he says, “and realized there was a maturing market—people would pay for a vehicle that gives them exercise and helps […]
About Face: Companies That Reinvented Themselves
The only thing we can be sure of in the current business climate is that the center won’t hold—what’s been true for decades is not necessarily true anymore. And that means that companies with huge name recognition, established markets and long-held approaches to selling their flagship products are going to have to rethink, rebrand and […]
21 SUCCESS Mavericks
THE ARTS Julianne Goldmark and Emily Matson: Board Meetings and Homework Emi-Jay is more than an amalgam of its two high school student founders’ names; it’s a growing brand that produces hair ties and accessories sold for $5 to $30 apiece at 2,000 retailers. In 2012, Emi-Jay recorded sales of $5 million. It started in […]
Dawn Lepore: Start Up Strategist
A Dow Jones research report released late last year revealed that venture-backed companies with
Self-Driving Cars
A harried executive comes running out of his hotel, pushes a button on his cellphone and within
Making it…from Scratch!
How many businesses have been inspired by a vision of college dropout Steve Jobs and his partner Steve Wozniak in that tiny garage, putting together the first Apple I computers all by themselves? They built something—a company with a market cap of $600 billion—from basically nothing, and perhaps you can, too. The idea that it […]