Successful stories of an Entrepreneur

Warren Edward Buffett

Warren Buffett from his childhood he was

interested in business, investment and share

marketing. He loved business from the

beginning and for him learning economics

and business studies was pretty fun for him.

Presently he is among the famous and

richest people in the world. Warren Buffett is

not only a businessman and an investor but

he is also a great motivator and

Philanthropist.

His work is very great and has become an inspiration for millions of people. His

most of the wealth goes to charity. This man is also called as the magician of the

share market and “ Wizard Of Omaha”. By his hard work and dedication towards a

dream, he showed anything is possible with passion.

His success started when he and his friend invested an amount of 25$ on a pinball

machine and installed that machine at a barbershop. Gradually this plan of pinball

machine worked very well and later they installed and got more machines in other

barber shops. His saving started in the beginning and at the age of 20, he saved

around 9000$ through his investment on the first share.

After saving this money Warren Buffet rushed to Graham, to work for him without

getting any salary.T he job he asked for was not given to him and from there he left

to Omaha and married a lady Susan in 1952. And after his marriage, they together

bought a house for approximately $31500 where he is currently living.

After that, he soon purchased a gas station but it did not go well for him and he got

lost in it. After his many business partnerships and with his money making skill he

became the millionaire and merged all his partnership into one company and

named that company as Berkshire Hathaway.

In 1999, he earned and was honored with the title of Top Money Manager Of
Twentieth century and in 2008 he became the richest man in the world and
Philanthropist by donating most of his wealth in charity. He is still among the
richest people in the world and among the biggest business tycoons.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If
you think about that, you’ll do things differently”

-Warren Buffett
 Successful stories of an Entrepreneur

Steve Paul Jobs

Who was born on February 24, 1955
in San Francisco, California whom we
now call “Steve Jobs” — the co-founder
of Apple Computers with Steve Wozniak.
Jobs, the inventor of the series of iPhone
and iPad and the only idea in his head
was “computers in the hands of
everyday people”.

Who among us doesn’t know about

Apple and its products which magnified
the technology like anything? And the
mastermind behind this technology evolution is none other than “Steve Jobs”
as we all know. So I am very sure, those who love Apple products and the Jobs
admirers would love to know about his story and the path he walked to reach the
level where we found him. In this article you will go through the journey of Jobs.

After schooling, Jobs got admission at Reed College,Portland,Oregon. But he lost

interest and dropped college right after 6 months. For the next 18 months he
joined a course of calligraphy. In 1974, Jobs visited Atari where he got a job as
video game designer in a firm. But suddenly he left that firm as he found himself
into spiritual enlightenment in India. He was in continuous touch with Wozniak
however and hence when he was 21, they started Apple Computers in the year of
1976. They financed their entrepreneurship through the family garage Jobs had
and selling the scientific calculator Wozniak had.

And the journey started – they started making machines which were smaller,
cheaper, user-friendly and innovative. At that time they sold their personal
computers for $666.66 each and earned a profit of around $774.00. The company
started growing and then Apple Computers had its market value of $1.2 billion by
the end of 4 years from the start of the company. Jobs at that time was handling
the marketing department of Apple but then he became the CEO and handed over
the marketing department to John Sculley who was the marketing expert
of Pepsi-cola.
By the passage of time, Apple invented MacBook Air, iPod, and iPhone which set
fire on the evolution of technology. Apple simply caught eyes of all the consumers
and using Apple’s products in today’s world in kind of sophistication.

In 2008, iTunes and iPad sales were the biggest in America and Apple acquired no.
1 position in fortune magazine’s list of America.

And then came October 5, 2011, when the largest shareholder, co-founder, and
CEO of Apple – Steve Jobs passed away at the age of 56 .

He gave a huge contribution to technology. He is no more but his contribution and

quotes are still here with us.

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it

works.” - Steve Jobs

 Successful stories of an Entrepreneur
Henry Sy, Sr.

a Chinese-Filipino business
magnate, successful investor, and
philanthropist. He started out his
career with a simple but
friendly sari-sari store
(neighborhood variety store),
before going on to make a shoe
retail store. He is now the chairman
of SM Prime Holdings Inc., the
holding corporation for all his
interests within his dominant
empire.

After the end of World War II in 1945, Henry Sy went into the shoe retail
business. His business grew quickly, opening more stores with his friends as
business partners. After his success with the branches, Henry decided to open
the first air-conditioned branded shoe store and called it Shoe Mart (SM).
That store was also very successful and he decided to open up even more
branches. Then another trial—the suppliers did not listen to Henry. They did
not follow his instructions and gave him only a limited stock supply. But it was
thanks to this limitation that he decided to diversify his merchandise. He went
on to sell apparel and—later on, with the help of his mother—he sold other
goods.

He was constantly learning from the people around him. They had given him
enough confidence to eventually expand to a department store chain. It was at
this point the biggest adversities in his life came into play.
When they opened their first department store in 1972, it was during the
Martial Law era. Despite this time of civil unrest, they continued to open up
more stores. Eventually things got harder with the economy going down,
especially with the Philippine’s debt coming into play as well as the
assassination of Ninoy Acquino. Added to this the fact that his father came
back out of nowhere, and many experts had come to believe that they would
fail.
Henry Sy, however, was unaffected by all criticism. He was ready to face all the
naysayers with confidence and optimism at his side. It wasn’t just these two
weapons that kept him going, though—his employees, friends, family, and
even his customers fueled him to use and hone those weapons. While they
were building their megamalls they encountered delays in construction, and
then there was the 1997 Asian crisis. They had no choice but to delay, and
opened up other malls. They were growing in terms of numbers if not store
size, as well as expanding their business beyond retail. On November 8, 1985,
he established the first of many SM Supermalls, SM City North EDSA.

He then went on to try his luck in banking. He had helped reorganize and
strengthen bank organizations, especially their main bank, Banco De Oro,
which was mid-sized back in the day. The Sy group is currently the operator of
Banco de Oro and is the owner of Chinabank. In 2006, Henry bought out PCI
Bank, and in 2007 merged it with Banco De Oro, which was at the time the
Philippines' third largest lender. He also dabbled in the food and beverage
business by acquiring 11% of San Miguel’s stock, but he sold it in 2005 for
$680 million USD.

“There is no such thing as overnight success or easy money. If you fail,

do not be discouraged; try again. When you do well, do not change your
ways. Success is not just good luck: it is a combination of hard work,
good credit standing, opportunity, readiness and timing. Success will
not last if you do not take care of it.”

-Henry Sy, Sr.

 Successful stories of an Entrepreneur

Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala II

Jaime was born on March 6, 1959 in

Manila, Philippines. His
father, Jaime Zobel de Ayala I, was
the former president and chairman
or Ayala Corporation and his mother
was Beatriz Miranda. His brother
is Fernando Zóbel de Ayala, who is
currently the president and chief
operating officer of Ayala
Corporation.

Jaime studied at the Ateneo de Manila University from 1966 to 1968, Ladycross
School from 1968 to 1971, and Worth School from 1972 1976 before earning a
B.A. degree in economics, in which he was honored as cum laude, from Harvard
College in 1981, and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1987.

After graduating, Jaime and his brother were prepared for the challenges that
they were about to face due to their legacy. The two went seperate ways by
working in different companies after graduation. Jaime went on to train for a
year in 1981 and then went on to join Purefoods, which was part of the
Ayala Group at the time. They would later rejoin each other in 1982.

In 1995, his father had to step down from his position of Chief Executive
Officer due to company laws requiring him to do so, and Jaime took over as
the new CEO. Under his tenure, and with his brother Fernando by his side
serving as president and COO, Ayala went on to make huge ventures,
including Globe Telecom, which was one of the riskiest investments of Ayala.
It took a while to take off due to the huge capital investments that were
involved and the growing pains that the fledging telecommunications industry
was going through at the time. Had Globe not turn profits, the Ayala
Group would have negative earnings overall and would have incurred large
debts.
Under its 8th generation, the Group also had their fair share of failings such
as Azalea, an internet company, and Burger King, a hamburger chain. They
were both phased out since they did not do so well. Despite some of their
business ventures failing, the group persevered and it paid off. The Ayala
Corporation is still a powerful magnet that has local and foreign investors
together with the Ayala brother duo, Jaime and Fernando Zobel de Ayala, and
their team of competent managers. They are preparing for the Group's next
big leap forward into the future.
 Successful stories of an Entrepreneur

John Gokongwei
John Gokongwei, born on a
Chinese-Filipino family, shared his story
beginning when he was a child. He lived a
lavish life as his father owned a chain of
movie houses, including the first
air-conditioned movies house outside of
Manila. He is the eldest of six children and
lived in Cebu where John would be driven
by a chauffeur to school every day, and
he topped his classes, and he would have
lots of friends and bring them to the
movies for free.
But even at 15, he could earn 20 pesos in profit which was more than enough to
feed his siblings who were studying in China. He would keep the extra money to
invest in the business he has today. With this experience, he thought to himself, “If
I can compete with people so much older than me, if I can support my whole family
at 15, I can do anything.”

When he was 20 years old, together with his brother, he put up Amasia Trading
and imports various goods from the United States like used clothing, onions, old
newspapers and magazines, fruits and flour.

They were able to get back his siblings from China in 1948 who also helped in the
business. Their home was then converted to an office and warehouse. When he
was 31 years old, he started corn-starch manufacturing where he competed with
huge companies at that time in Cebu. But to be able to do this, he had to borrow
money to finance his business.

According to him, “The first bank I approached made me wait for two hours, only
to refuse my loan. The second one, China Bank, approved a ₱500,000 peso clean
loan for me. Years later, the banker who extended that loan, Dr. Albino Sycip said
that he saw something special in me. Today, I still wonder what that was, but I still
thank Dr. Sycip to this day.”

The cornstarch that they started before was the foundation of JG Summit Holdings
now stands. The funny thing was when the battle for the lowest price started, the
third cornstarch company was forced to close down, and one of their chemists was
Lucio Tan. According to Gokongwei, “Lucio Tan, who always kids me that I caused
him to lose his job. I always reply that if it were not for me, he would not be one of
the richest men in the Philippines today.”

1. The first one was the airline company.

The famous Airline at that time was Philippine Airline, and with its high price, not
every Filipino could fly. So together with his son, Lance, they envisioned a
budget-friendly airline. So they decided to remove the unnecessary things a
regular airline offers and finally they were able to make that vision come true. They
continue to develop using their philosophy, “low cost, great value.” And as they
continue to offer low fares, by 2012, they aim to fly more than 1 out of 12 Filipinos
in a year.
2. Their battle in the telecom business.
They started to establish Digitel Mobile Philippines, Inc. in 2003 and they
established a network called, “Sun Cellular”. But before this, they were already on
the move to buy PLDT shares. At first, it was hard for them since they were a new
player in the telecom industry and have been eight years late. But according to
Gokongwei, “But being a late player had its advantages. We could now build our
platform from a broader perspective. We worked with more advanced technologies
and intelligent systems not available ten years ago. Being a johnny-come-lately
allowed us to create and launch more innovative products more quickly.”

Their concept was to offer unlimited calls and text for a fixed amount but only if
they call or text a fellow Sun Cellular user. In no time, they have over 4 million
subscribers and over 2000 cell sites. Gokongwei said, “In the end, it is all about
making life better for the consumer by giving them choices.”

3. Their entry into the beverage industry.

According to Gokongwei, “It all began when I was in China in 2003 and noticed the
immense popularity of bottled iced tea. I thought this product would have huge
potential here. We knew that the Philippines was not a traditional tea-drinking
country since more familiar consumers were colas in returnable glass bottles. But
precisely, this made the market ready for a different kind of beverage. One that
refreshes yet gives health benefits of green tea. We positioned it as “spa” in a
bottle. A drink that cools and cleans – thus C2 was born.”

The C2 beverage drink was a huge success as now a lot of Filipinos drink iced tea.
Together with Cebu Pacific, Sun Cellular and C2, they were empire Gokongwei
started and under JG Summit’s control. But this did not stop Gokongwei to envision
Filipino products. He now expresses his thoughts on making the nation excel
globally by promoting Filipino products most of all.