Michelle Phan is a YouTuber and entrepreneur who turned her passion for beauty into a business. Every week, she posts new content about makeup, hair, and beauty. She started off, much like this website, with blogging about things in which she cared about. As time went on, she amassed more and more followers.

She became famous when she put out a makeup tutorial to show people how to look like Lady Gaga. Michelle became an instant hit. The time leading up to that moment is proof that if you want something, you have to start working towards it. Even though it seems like she became an internet personality overnight, it was really lots of work behind the scenes to make it happen.

When it comes to entrepreneurship, it can be really easy from the outside to point at someone and say “well, they were just lucky.” The thing is, if you want to be a great entrepreneur, you have to accept that it is never just luck. Serendipity, sure. Luck? No. Luck should never be an excuse for not working harder yourself. Michelle combined her talent for makeup and her networking skills to get her work seen. Even if you have the best product, if it isn’t seen, nobody is going to care. Be seen.

https://www.youtube.com/user/MichellePhan

Have you ever seen this guy?

If you couldn’t guess from the background, he invented Facebook. Some take the internet for granted. When I think about all of the companies that are around today, one thing is noticeably strange to me- there was a time when they did not exist. The statement is obvious as it should be, but there was a time when there was no Facebook. It is odd to me because I grew up with it (whether or not my Mom allowed me to have a Facebook account is an entirely different matter).

How did it come to be? The way all good things come to be- an entrepreneur took initiative. Mark Zuckerberg was a student at Harvard when he and his friends came up with an idea for a website in which people could compare other people to each other. In some respects, it is like some dating apps in which you can view someone’s profile picture and determine if they are attractive or not. At first, this website was limited to those who went to Harvard, but eventually, it spread out to just about anyone above the age of 13.

Mark realized that people like connecting with other people. At the time, there were other “social” sites in which people could view other people’s virtual profile (such as myspace), but Facebook was simply better at delivering what people want over its competitors. In order to be a good entrepreneur, you have to see opportunities and take action. While the story of Facebook’s creation is relatively well known, what is less known, but has become more known recently, is that others who were at Harvard with Mark claim that he stole their idea of Facebook. Whether or not this is the case (which it very well could be) at least he did not sit on those ideas- he went and did something. This is not advocating stealing intellectual property in the pursuit of entrepreneurial endeavors, but I think that far too often “would be” entrepreneurs spend too much time talking about what they are going to do versus what they are actually doing. Mark took action- and that’s what makes him a great entrepreneur.