by DBedard

Created on: June 11, 2008   Last Updated: June 27, 2008

Entrepreneuring Made Fun!

"The future will be owned and operated by
the entrepreneurial- minded."
Mark Victor Hansen,
Chicken Soup for The Soul
They call this the Age of the Entrepreneur. We are living in a time when more and more people want to own their own business. Entrepreneurs and small business owners are responsible for 77 % of all the new jobs created in the past twenty years.

There is no better way to prepare yourself for running a business, generate new ideas, and derive new insight than by examining the ideas, methods and strategies of successful entrepreneurs.
So, let's take a look at three of the most enterprising men and women of our times
Unlikely Billionaires
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met while students at Stanford. Their $40+ Billion empire does not restrict them from leading fun, yet simple lives. Both drive Priuses, the hybrid gas/electric car. They each "rent" modest apartments, work in casual clothes, and often break out for a volleyball game at lunch.
Each day, they come to player, work, at the GooglePlex, where there is a masseuse, a pool table, plenty of toys, scooters and bikes. Their culture "work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun," seems to make the creatve juices of the Google team really flow.
What began as a research project in January 1996 has grown into an online force to be reckoned with. From a dominant search engine to online books, documents, Google Earth, Froogle,and more, their entrepreneurial culture has spawned enormous succuss. Though these two young men have accomplished so much in a short time, there seems to be so much more coming from this creative, innovative 21st century approach to doing busines. Just a couple of loose, fun-loving entrepreneurs changing the world.
Thanks to Larry and Sergey, when we want to know about something or someone, we simply "google it!"
EVO-Oh-so-Delish
Girl-next-door chef Rachel Ray seems to have come out of nowhere to enjoy a meteoric rise to the top. With 30 Minute Meal" on the Food Network, her own line of cooking gear, olive oil and cookbooks, she seems to have it all.
Well, it wasn't exactly overnight. Read on
Have you ever been in a store and gone by someone who is cooking up something and giving away free samples? Sure. We all have. Rachel Ray started out doing just that er, the cooking in the store part. Her in-store cooking turned into classes, which were noticed by the local television station. She was offered a weekly cooking show, which she did for free for two years. She then got promoted to $50 per show.
Rachel has taken her love of cooking and become an entrepreneur extraordinaire. From those humble beginnings, she has created a multi-million dollar empire. In typical entrepreneurial fashion, the affable Ray has used one successful venture (a cookbook) to grow a multi-faceted brand of ventures that have made her rich and famous.
She didn't do it because she went to the finest chef school in France (she didn't). Or because, she had drop-dead gorgeous, star-like looks. Rachel Ray built her success on traits typical of most successful entrepreneurs. Lucy Sisman, who was the design director of the magazine "Everyday With Rachel Ray" explains she did it "through sheer hard work, application and cheer."
So, there you have itLiving proof that you can have fun while you grow a business to great success.

Excerpt from Graduate and Grow Rich by Dave Bedard wwwgraduateandgrowrich.com

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