Author Archive for MalcolmTV22

Markus Persson “Notch”

Posted by MalcolmTV22 
· Saturday, December 3rd, 2022 
· 2 Comments

Markus Persson, or Notch, is the creator of the massive worldwide game known as Minecraft. He was born in Sweden in 1979 and quickly took an interest in game development. At age seven he was programming on his dad’s Commodore 128, a home computer module. At age eight he made his first game. His programming career would only grow from here, working on various projects over the years and even working as game developer for the company King. He left the company in 2009 and started working on something that would change his career and life: Minecraft. An early version of the game was available to play in 2009 and it quickly grew support up until its official release in 2011. The game rapidly gained popularity. The sandbox and survival elements made it very appealing to kids and teenagers. It was also very popular on YouTube, a key element to its massive growth. Due to its popularity and influence, Microsoft wanted to acquire the game. In 2014 after Mojang (Notch’s company) had sold 15 million copies of Minecraft, Microsoft made Notch an offer he couldn’t turn down: 2.5 billion dollars. Today it reigns as the number one best-selling game of all time with over 238,000,000 copies sold and on YouTube it recently surpassed 1 trillion views total. Markus Persson’s net worth is 1.4 billion thanks to Minecraft. The Swedish developer purchased a 70 million dollar luxury mansion in Beverly Hills, outbidding Jay-Z and Beyonce for the residency. While his money making days are over, he continues to develop for fun. He most likely will never create anything as huge as Minecraft ever again, but for the entrepreneurial mind it’s not so much about the success, it’s the creative and right brain drive that motivates them.

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Categories : Video Games

Kevin Plank

Posted by MalcolmTV22 
· Saturday, November 19th, 2022 
· 2 Comments

Kevin Plank became a billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist after starting the company Under Armour. Under Armour is a massive athletic wear/gear company that rivals other sportswear companies like Nike and Adidas. The origin of the company idea is a textbook example of how the entrepreneurial mind should work: Plank noticed a problem in his life and developed a solution. In the 90s he was on University of Maryland’s football team and kept getting frustrated at his typical cotton T-shirts under his uniform. The cotton material would make him the sweatiest guy on the field. He realized that there wasn’t any ideal athletic sportswear that would keep players dry while playing. He wanted a mesh/stretchy material but when he couldn’t find it, he decided to make it himself. After developing shirt with the material he desired, Under Armour officially launched in 1996. Naming the company was somewhat of a struggle for Plank; he originally wanted to call it “Heart” or “Body Armor” but he couldn’t obtain the trademark rights to either title.  The name “Under Armour” was a mistake at first – Plank’s brother mistakenly called the company “Under Armour” and the name apparently stuck from that point. The early days of the company were fairly mild; they did $17,000 in their first year. It was only when they decided to dedicate $25,000 to buying an ad in an ESPN magazine that the brand really exploded. The ad was able to generate 1 million dollars in sales for the company in the next year. In 2017 Under Armour had an annual revenue of 5 billion dollars. In 2019 Plank decided to resign; handing his position to Patrik Frisk.

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Categories : athletic wear, Athletics, Sports

Les Paul

Posted by MalcolmTV22 
· Thursday, October 20th, 2022 
· 2 Comments

Les Paul (Lester William Polsfuss) lived in the early nineteen-hundreds. Jazz music started to become increasingly popular at that time, as well as the rise of electric guitar playing. From childhood, Les Paul had taken an interest in music. Apparently, he wasn’t an instant superstar; one music teacher wrote a note to his mom and said, “Your boy, Lester, will never learn music.” This comment proved false – he was eventually playing gigs around the Midwest as a teenager. Along with music, he also loved being inventive and tinkering with things, especially his musical gear. He built a crystal radio at nine years old and at age ten he designed a system to be able to play the harmonica hands free using a coat hanger. Paul wasn’t satisfied with the current state of guitar amplification. When playing live, he wanted his guitar to be louder, so he used his inventive mind and took action. Using a phonograph needle, he wired his guitar to a radio amplifier for a louder volume. His most famous invention was the first ever prototype of a solid body electric guitar. He called it “The Log” because it was made using a solid 4×4 piece of wood that he attached strings and pickups to. In 1941 he presented this model to the guitar company Gibson. Unfortunately, the company had no interest in the product; Les Paul’s invention was ahead of its time. When guitar company Fender’s broadcaster and enquire guitar models started gaining popularity, Gibson finally saw the value in Paul’s invention. In 1952, over a decade after Les Paul presented it, “The Log” was released commercially. It wasn’t “The Log” anymore however, it was new, improved, and now called the Gibson Les Paul. The Gibson Les Paul today is one of the most legendary guitar models of all time.

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Categories : Music, Musician Entrepreneurs

The King of the Music Industry

Posted by MalcolmTV22 
· Tuesday, October 4th, 2022 
· 3 Comments

Daniel Ek (age 39) is a Swedish billionaire entrepreneur and the CEO of music streaming platform Spotify. But how did he get to where he is now? When Daniel was 13, while other kids his age were still playing with toys, he began his business career. He made websites for customers, charging $100 for the service. Realizing that he could be making substantially more for his work, his 100-dollar price jumped to $200 and eventually reached $5,000 per website. (Apparently his parents started taking notice of his success when he started bringing home large TVs.) He employed some of his piers from school to help with the operation and by 18, Daniel had a team of 25 people and was bringing in about $50,000 per month. Ek studied at KTC Royal Institute for Technology but dropped out to pursue his IT career. Before Spotify was born, Daniel was involved in a many companies and startups such as Stardoll, Tradera, Advertigo, and for a brief period was CEO of μTorrent with Ludvig Strigeus, the founder. All Ek’s business ordeals made him wealthy; wealthy enough to retire. However, after a few months into retirement he became bored. As a young entrepreneur, he was hungry for a new project. The norm for the online music industry at the time was the piracy of songs off illegal websites like Napster and Kazaa. He noticed that there was an opportunity in the music industry. With developmental help from former business partner Strigeus, he began his work on Spotify. After it’s launch in 2008, Ek quickly became “the most powerful man in the music industry” according to Billboard. Incredibly, the streaming site has over 433 million monthly users today.

3 Comments
Categories : Music

Plastic Fashion

Posted by MalcolmTV22 
· Tuesday, September 27th, 2022 
· No Comments

Some of the best entrepreneurs are simply good at addition. Robert Luo was passionate about fashion and he was passionate about reducing food waste – so what did he do? He added. By combining the two passions he formed his business, Mi Terro. Mi Terro is a company that turns waste, particularly food waste, into fashion items. His first fashion-from-waste product was a duffle bag; the company utilized natural cork and plastic garbage from the ocean to make them. People have made bags using unique materials before, but this was the first of its kind. After this endeavor Luo began to think of other ways to help further reduce waste. An idea came to him while at his uncle’s dairy farm in China. His uncle’s dairy buyer had switched to another supplier, leaving his uncle with endless buckets of spoiled milk. Where most would see a problem, Robert Luo saw an opportunity. Using biogenetics, this milk could be processed into fiber which could then be made into T-shirts. Luo could turn spoiled milk into consumable apparel, and if there were any doubts in his mind about general interest in this product, they were soon quenched when his Kickstarter fundraiser collected all the needed money in just 2 hours! People like the idea of turning waste into something usable – and not just buyers, investors are interested as well. He’s been working with many different companies that are fascinated by the product and that realize its potential. Despite his present success, Luo’s business had not begun well. He says he cold-emailed 1000 journalists and of the mere six that replied, all of them said no. It was Luo’s admirable perseverance that got his company off the ground, he suffered so many sleepless and stressful times to get where he is now.

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Categories : Enviornmental, Fashion

Gutenberg of the Blind

Posted by MalcolmTV22 
· Tuesday, September 27th, 2022 
· No Comments

Sometimes new perspectives are the best way for innovation to thrive. People who see the world differently are often most adept at changing it. In the case of Louis Braille (1809-1852), he actually didn’t see the world at all – he was blind. Sadly, at age three Braille stabbed one of his eyes with a knife and through sympathetic ophthalmia he then lost his sight completely. Fortunately he was very bright and didn’t let his unfortunate reality be a dampener on his life. He became adept at playing the organ and cello and even received a scholarship to an institution for the blind when he was ten years old. This institution was founded by a man named Valentin Hauy, who thought the blind could potentially read by feeling instead of seeing. His perspective was that of one who could see, so he simply raised written language off the page to make it feelable instead of merely seeable. This method had problems. A sixteen-year-old Louis Braille had a different perspective and found a system that worked better for the blind community. His new system consisted of six raised dots that could be combined in many different ways to form letters and words. His new method was revolutionary but not an instant success. After presenting the idea to his principal, it took twenty-five years before Hauy Institution officially adopted it. Twenty-six years after Braille’s death, it was adopted by an international congress in Paris. Usually innovations are improved over time – especially innovations from the past. In this case, 200 years later, the blind community still uses Braille’s genius system today. We call it “Braille.” Daniel J. Boorstin in his book The Discoverers, calls Louis Braille the “Gutenberg of the blind.”

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Categories : Uncategorized