The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network was founded in 1979 by Bill Rasmussen and his son, Scott.  The company was created in the wake of unemployment.  In 1978, Bill was fired from his position as the communication manager for the hockey team the New England Whalers.  During the period immediately following his departure from the Whalers, Bill was contacted by Ed Eagan.  Ed had an idea for a monthly cable television program covering local Connecticut sports, and wanted to know if they Whalers would be interested in pursuing it.  Bill and Ed talked and despite Bill’s departure from the hockey team, the two decided to pursue the business themselves with Bill suggesting that the network could cover all local sports, not just the whalers.  The two had no knowledge of the workings of a network or television but they started the journey of learning.  With only 20% of houses at that time having cable television, creating the network was incredibly difficult.  They founded the company alongside of one of Ed’s friends who owned a video production company.  The group would Initially initialize their company under the name ESP, but would later add the letter “N” as to differentiate from other 3 letter networks such as ABC, CBS, and NBC.  After learning more and more about the television business the founders came across the brand new satellite network.  Satellite was being used in Europe but had not yet made its way to the United States.  After meeting with a representative from RVC, the group realized that if they used satellite broadcasting they could broadcast across the entire United States.  The group also realized that the price of a time slot was more expensive than buying rights to a whole 24 hour channel.  The group decided to pivot their idea from a regional sports network to a nationwide 24 hour channel.  What had started as broadcasting a minor league hockey team’s games in Connecticut had turned into a nationwide broadcasting network that relayed many sports from many different states and teams.  The group decided to hire sportscasters, vans with supplementary crews to travel to the various arenas and stadiums to report, and realized they needed to buy a headquarters.  They did all of this with the help of investors.  Investors were hard to find for such a new idea.  Satellite wasn’t even a thing in the US, not to mention a nationwide 24 hour network entirely dedicated to sports.  Nothing like this had been attempted before and investors were hard to convince.  One investor was very interested however.  Stuart Evey, a high ranking executive at Getty Oil got the Getty Oil company to fund the idea.  Unfortunately soon after signing a deal with the NCAA and finally debuting the project he had been working on for so long, Bill and his son were slowly pushed out of the company by the new Getty Oil investors.  Though it is sad that the founders of this company were pushed out, the idea and dedication for creating the company payed off as ESPN has become a hugely successful and integral part in not only the television industry, but also the homes and living rooms of American families everywhere.

Pierre Omidyar was only 28 years old when he created the multi billion dollar company eBay.  When he started it in 1995 it went by the name, “AuctionWeb”, rather than the title eBay we are all familiar with now.  Pierre Would become a billionaire by the age of 31, only 3 years after his company was founded.  He originally started the site because of a need, one his then fiance saw first hand.  Pierre’s fiance, Pam, was a collector of Pez dispensers and was struggling with expanding her collection.  Pierre talked to his wife about this and came up with the idea for an online marketplace where knick-knacks could be bought and sold.  This would give his wife a more expansive network of Pez owners to buy from.  As he watched his side project gain traction and takeoff, he saw more and more potential for a functional business.  People had a need for all kinds of uncommon or strange objects.  He quit his day job and decided to pursue his rapidly accelerating business and watched it begin to blossom.  He watched as he sold things he would normally throw away for decent prices.  He continued to invest in his business changing it from a free service to charging users a small fee for listing or buying and watched as eBay slowly but surely changed cent by cent into the multi billion dollar company it is today.

Last year, the protein bar company, “RxBar”, was acquired by Kellogg for a sum of $600 million.   At the time it was bought, the company was fairly young.  The company was founded in 2013 and was only 4 years old at the time it was sold.  CEO Peter Rahal and his co-founder Jared Smith have a dedication to quality that has driven their success.  The sheer number of protein bar brands seems overwhelming, yet RxBar was able to penetrate this market due to the organization’s unwavering commitment to quality and excellence.  The founder duo reportedly didn’t take a vacation for the four years the business was being run.  They personally tested out ingredients. created recipes, packaged, labeled, and sold their protein packed nutrition bars.  Peter Rahal went as far to fire his own mother for doing a poor job at applying the label stickers to the individual bar packaging because the stickers were too “un-centered”.  Their commitment to excellence is also exhibited in the work they put into creating the bars.  The team that created the coconut chocolate bar tested recipes until perfecting it after over 250 attempts.  The incredible commitment to the customer that drives this company is astounding.  In early stages of the company Peter Rahal’s personal phone number was printed on the back of the bars so customers could ask questions or directly report concerns.  The product would have been nothing if it wasn’t for the founders’ incredible drive and passion for quality and excellence.  I believe the bars themselves are, in fact, a wonderful product.  However, the product was only so successful because of the founders’ commitment.  The fact that I can walk in to a grocery store protein bar aisle and witness numerous well established industry powerhouses in competition with a 4 year old company started in the kitchen of one of the founder’s basement is truly inspiring and motivational.

Nolan Bushnell Founded one of the most successful and formative Video game companies to date.  He is also considered the father of electronic gaming by many.  Bushnell was born in Utah in 1943.  In 1970 he worked on the project he called “Computer space” Which would later in a round about way morph into what we fondly know as pong today.  He enrolled in the University of Utah in 1961 where he would study both engineering and business.  A large part of his success in both school and his business ventures he would attribute to his charisma and alluring persona.  His first hire would be his children’s baby sitter who he instructed to, even if she saw that he was no busy, inform callers that she would have to check whether or not “Mr Bushnell was available”.  With this confidence and showmanship he was able to entice on board workers, partners, and investors that would greatly help his company’s development.  Bushnell would start a company with partner Ted Dabney they would name “Syzergy” in 1969.  He hired Al Alcorn to create a ping pong simulator and described what he wanted to a T.  This game would later be installed at bars and arcades until it morphed into the home gaming system it did several years and a lawsuit (he sort of stole the idea for the pong game from another programming company) later.  Bushnell and Dabney would rename their corporation Atari because the name Syzergy already existed.  Atari rode off the success of Pong in the arcade format it held such high popularity in.  Atari decided that to continue this success the company should be available in a more compact, home format.  They worked with designers and friends, Steve Jobs being one of them, to design the Atari home gaming system.  They waited to release until they felt they had more games and a way to create customer interest.  While they were trying to find a way to be more appealing to audiences, Atari was contacted by Warner Brothers and would soon be bought by the company.  The Atari was released and became a huge success.  Bushnell would eventually leave the company he created over a disagreement over the company’s direction but he was happy with the decisions because he wanted to work on other projects, which he would later accomplish.

Air BnB, the company that is now competing with modern day lodging as we know it, was started by two college students: Joe Gebbia, and Brian Chesky.  They had somebody stay with them and had the idea to make a ‘designer bed and breakfast’.  They then realized that maybe others would be interested in this concept of allowing other people to stay in their homes for a fee for a certain amount of time.  They saw a need and a potential to crowd source the services they saw such a strong need for.  They presented at SXSW but they had a hard time finding investors.  Investors believed that users wouldn’t want strangers living in their home and it would be a potential safety hazard and lawsuit.  Many people had a hard time believing this idea would work.  They were trying everything they could to get capital to start their business.  They even illustrated a special limited edition Cereal box line with doodles of political candidates to try and raise capital for their business.  After cutting cards for months, they finally got enough capital to start their business with the help of some forward thinking investors.  They did end up facing the problem of customers not wanting to use the service because of fear.  They combated this PR problem by purchasing camera equipment and personally going to host homes and taking pictures for them, while also instructing host’s on how to arrange better lighting, make more appealing posts, and how to better host guests and represent the company.  Through this marketing effort they were able to start becoming more popular, and as investors saw the rising popularity more jumped on the business as investors.  Through growing capitol and more and more exposure they grew to become the household name that we know today.  I think the story of these founders really showcases the power of perseverance.  I think this is a story about entrepreneurship that truly doesn’t glamorize or hide the gritty truth.  Often entrepreneurship can be difficult and can take years and years before you see the fruits of your labor, and I think that’s a powerful message to remember.

Brian Scudamore: the 1-800-GOT-JUNK Story

In 1989, Brian Scudamore was an 18 year old college student wrestling with a problem.  a problem that most college students in 2018 are currently wrestling with:  Tuition.  Brian’s grades were poor and his father decided that, based off of his performance, Bryan should fund his own education.  Bryan was sitting in the driver’s seat of his car at a McDonald’s drive through pickup window when he noticed a beat-up old pickup truck advertising a junk hauling service.  Brian thought to himself, “I can do better then that”.  Brian proceeded to find and purchase a pickup truck for $700 and paid for flyers and ads for another $300 and began his junk hauling business.  He went door to door trying to find people who needed junk hauled.  His business grew as news of a college student taking charge in an innovative way made its way around his town, and soon he had a viable business that was far more rewarding then studying and test taking.  Brian told his father that school would always be an option but he may only get a business opportunity like this one time.  Brian dropped out of school and focused on building his business.  What started as a $1,000 spur of the moment investment in 1989 has turned into a household name with over $150 million in revenues each year.  Brian has been making bold moves with his company since it was founded.  5 years in to the business he noticed his employees weren’t a good face for the company so he fired all 11 employees, wrote down his goals for the company and what he wanted his business to look like and he did it.  1-800-got-junk is on route to becoming a billion dollar revenue business in the next few years.  Brian had a vision and he did what he needed to make that vision a reality and he has continued that mentality throughout the years.  This approach has spurred on levels of success that even the determined founder of the company admits he never could have imagined.