The Entrepreneur: Sir Richard Branson, 57
Background: At 16, British-born Branson launched his first business: a magazine called Student. He then established a mail-order record business that turned into a chain of music shops and eventually became the Virgin Megastores.
The Company: Since his first venture, Branson's Virgin Group has grown to include some 200 companies, including airlines and mobile phones, with an estimated $20 billion in revenue. On Aug. 8, Branson plans to launch Virgin America, a stateside domestic air service.
Making a Difference: The very essence of an entrepreneur; competitive, flamboyant, and always ready to take a risk, Branson was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of England in 1999 for his "services to entrepreneurship." Now he is hoping to help spearhead a movement to use entrepreneurship to alleviate a number of global problems.
Last week, business leaders celebrated record highs on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones industrial average rising nearly 300 points (see BusinessWeek.com, 7/20/07, "Dow 14,000"). While consumption and profits are growing, far less enviable statistics are also escalating: A staggering half the planet lives on less than $2 per day. Some one billion people lack access to clean water. In Africa alone, 40 billion working hours are lost each year to time spent carrying water long distances. A quarter of a billion people live in overcrowded urban squatter settlements without adequate shelter. And, tragically, 16,000 people die every day from preventable, treatable diseases like AIDS, TB, and malaria.
Every time I travel to Africa, I am impressed by the tremendous entrepreneurial spirit of its people. But I am also saddened by the destructiveness of poverty and health crises like AIDS. It's not unusual in a place like South Africa to see hundreds of signs for funeral services in townships and rural areas in the place of the signs for small businesses that were once a symbol of hope for a future free from poverty.
There are many efforts underway aimed at solving these global issues. But we must do more, and I believe that as entrepreneurs we have a unique role to play. Having spent the last 30 years launching businesses in everything from music to airlines, financial services to health clubs, telecommunications to commercial space travel, I'm a firm believer in the power of entrepreneurship to transform the global marketplace. As entrepreneurs, we are trained to spot possibilities where others see only obstacles and to never mind the bollocks driven by bureaucracy and red tape.
Never Mind the Theories
Entrepreneurs just tend to get on with making things happen. The same unconventional approaches that enabled icons like Steve Jobs to revolutionize personal computing, or Pierre Omidyarand Jeff Skoll to develop an ingenious online marketplace, can be leveraged to alleviate the tremendous suffering that persists in the world.
There is a debate raging about whether activities in the area of driving such change should be for profit or not for profit (see BusinessWeek.com, 7/9/07, "Microfinance Draws Mega Players"). To be honest, the issues in the world are too big to be debating about the methods of delivery—it's like fiddling about with a plug when the whole pipe just burst. It's not that black and white; we need to look at all kinds of solutions ranging from philanthropic to profit-making. The focus should be on the number of people we can give choices to in life—not on theoretical structures.
The good news is that this is beginning to happen—there is a fascinating shift bringing the public and private sectors together that has the potential to finally break the cycle of poverty and create solutions for crises such as climate change and the AIDS epidemic.
One Man's Waste…
As Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus wisely points out, "Many of the problems in the world remain unresolved because we continue to interpret capitalism too narrowly." It's true that capitalism has traditionally concentrated vast wealth in the hands of a select few. But more and more, entrepreneurs are leveraging the power of markets to address imbalances.
Entrepreneurs can instigate change in the social sector in the same way that they do in the business world, but they must not lose the characteristics that made their businesses successful when they step into the social and environmental sectors. As I've mentioned, entrepreneurs turn problems into opportunities. But what does this mean when it comes to problems like poverty or climate change?
Consider Dhaka, Bangladesh. Its 6.5 million residents produce between 3,000 and 3,500 metric tons of solid waste daily, less than half of which is collected. The rest is literally left to rot in the streets, resulting in serious health risks and pollution. But entrepreneurs like Iftekhar Enayetullah and Maqsood Sinha see value where others see garbage. Their organization, Waste Concern, started community-based composting plants for local residents to turn household waste into high-quality fertilizer sold for a profit. This network has created jobs and meets the great demand by farmers for organic fertilizer.
Similarly, climate change can seem like an overwhelming problem, but there are opportunities here as well for business approaches to arrive at solutions. We've launched Virgin Fuels, which will invest up to $400 million in the renewable-energy and resource efficiency sectors in the U.S. and Europe to fuel expansion and growth of promising products and technologies. It's part of our commitment to using up to $3 billion of the Virgin Group's future proceeds from all transportation interests over the next 10 years to tackle global warming.
Crisis Becomes Opportunity
With the right business model, social entrepreneurs can also leap-frog barriers. Take Aravind Eye Hospital in India. Aimed at eradicating blindness, Aravind focuses on principles of high volume, low cost, and operational efficiencies such as local manufacturing of medical supplies and use of telemedicine. An Aravind doctor typically performs 2,000 surgeries a year, 10 times the national average. The model allows hospitals to provide 70% of their services free or at highly discounted rates. Over 270,000 cataract surgeries were completed in 2006. Home to nearly one-quarter of the world's blind, this five-hospital system in India turned a national crisis into a massive business opportunity.
Simple ideas go a long way. Social businesses like KickStart and the Sustainable Healthcare Foundation (SHEF) have built franchise systems to help grassroots entrepreneurs get started. In Africa, KickStart has helped create 50,000 businesses through small-scale enterprise opportunities with new technologies such as its micro-irrigation foot pump and oil press. Kenya-based SHEF has developed 64 community-owned and -operated clinics in areas where there was previously no access to health care.
One of the key characteristics of an entrepreneur is to think big—and to never accept no for an answer. This has got me, and probably you, into trouble many times in our lives, but it's also created incredible businesses around the world that have changed how we live.
Peter Gabriel and I started a journey with Nelson Mandela several years back when we felt the world was rapidly becoming a global village, yet we had no advisers who were driven by what's best for humanity rather than what's best for the military, the economy, or a political group. You can only imagine the feedback we got when we first started to try and get people on board to help us bring this dream to life—people thought we had lost our minds! But we truly believe that there must be a new way to approach global issues and a need for fresh, independent thinking.
Elders For a Global Village
In July of this year, we launched the Elders, a remarkable group of leaders to tackle the world's problems, including: Mandela, Graca Machel, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson, Kofi Annan, former President Jimmy Carter, Yunus, Ela Bhatt, Li Xhaoxing, and Gro Harlem Brundtland.
We hope this group will become the elders of our global village and play a role in alleviating human suffering. As Mandela put it, "This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken. Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict and inspire hope where there is despair."
Thinking big and coming up with ideas that might seem ludicrous at the start are all going to be important if we want to radically change the path the world is headed toward to make sure that we build a far healthier, more equitable and peaceful planet for our children.
Inspiration From Nora
To help the Virgin Group do our bit, Virgin Unite was started in 2004. The charitable group uses our staff and customers to works on a range of projects, including launching a new school for entrepreneurship, creating a rural transport network, setting up a small- to medium-size, business-venture fund in South Africa, and helping set up the Elders.
Thinking big doesn't mean forgetting about the smaller gems that can be scaled up. I am constantly motivated by a woman named Nora I met in South Africa on a trip with Virgin Unite. Nora has dedicated her whole life to using entrepreneurial ways to support hundreds of children in South Africa who have been orphaned by AIDS. If she can feed over 200 children every single day out of a one-room, tin shack, imagine what she could do if she had resources behind her.
As entrepreneurs, we have a wonderful opportunity and responsibility to give Nora and others like her a chance to expand their work and help make it sustainable so that everyone has the right to a life free from the shackles of poverty.
(as told to Stacy Perman)
Saturday, August 4, 2007
He Made Millions With Bike Rental Idea
The day starts at 7:30 a.m. for Wayne du Pied, when he arrives at his Salt Lake City EagleRiderlocation. The first order of business is inspecting his Harley-Davidsons, ATVs, snowmobiles and boats to make sure they're ready for renters.
When du Pied took over the franchise in 2006, he decided to move closer to the airport to make it easier for him to pick up his customers. After transporting them from the airport to EagleRider, he rents them their bikes and they go on their way--whether for just a few hours or a few weeks.
Then the real work begins. Du Pied, 40, gets calls about flat tires, breakdowns and bikes that customers have mistakenly filled up with diesel instead of gasoline. But all the mishaps seem worth it when the customers return at the end of the day. "It's the type of business that puts smiles on people's faces," du Pied says. "They come back and say, 'We had the best ride!'"
As an EagleRider franchisee, du Pied also offers tours, and customers who want to take a spin on their own can drop bikes off at any EagleRider location instead of returning them to his store. But the benefits of the franchise don't stop at his customers: Du Pied earned revenue of $250,000 in 2006 and projects a $100,000 increase this year. "The learning curve's a lot shorter," he says, "when you've got people [behind you] who've done it for years."
More at:http://eaglerider.com/
When du Pied took over the franchise in 2006, he decided to move closer to the airport to make it easier for him to pick up his customers. After transporting them from the airport to EagleRider, he rents them their bikes and they go on their way--whether for just a few hours or a few weeks.
Then the real work begins. Du Pied, 40, gets calls about flat tires, breakdowns and bikes that customers have mistakenly filled up with diesel instead of gasoline. But all the mishaps seem worth it when the customers return at the end of the day. "It's the type of business that puts smiles on people's faces," du Pied says. "They come back and say, 'We had the best ride!'"
As an EagleRider franchisee, du Pied also offers tours, and customers who want to take a spin on their own can drop bikes off at any EagleRider location instead of returning them to his store. But the benefits of the franchise don't stop at his customers: Du Pied earned revenue of $250,000 in 2006 and projects a $100,000 increase this year. "The learning curve's a lot shorter," he says, "when you've got people [behind you] who've done it for years."
More at:http://eaglerider.com/
For Kidpreneurs
ING's Postbank is encouraging children to find their inner entrepreneurs and learn how earn, save and deal with money. This week, the bank opened a Bizznizz Lounge in Habbo Hotel, the online community that welcomes 7 million unique tween and teen visitors to its virtual rooms every month.
The Bizznizz lounge will be open to Habbo users who want to chat with other kidpreneurs about money, exchanging tips on how to run a part-time lawn mowing business, or the best way to advertise a dog walking service. Postbank will also be organizing fun and educational activities in the Bizznizz Lounge over the next few months. The bank sees Habbo as a natural fit for its Bizznizz activities, since Habbo players already actively participate in their own barter economy, trading furniture and other items with other players. Fun example of creating a relevant presence in a virtual community, targeting a specific audience in its natural habitat.
Website: http://bizznizz.postbank.nl and www.habbo.nl/entertainment/postbank
Via-Springwise
The Bizznizz lounge will be open to Habbo users who want to chat with other kidpreneurs about money, exchanging tips on how to run a part-time lawn mowing business, or the best way to advertise a dog walking service. Postbank will also be organizing fun and educational activities in the Bizznizz Lounge over the next few months. The bank sees Habbo as a natural fit for its Bizznizz activities, since Habbo players already actively participate in their own barter economy, trading furniture and other items with other players. Fun example of creating a relevant presence in a virtual community, targeting a specific audience in its natural habitat.
Website: http://bizznizz.postbank.nl and www.habbo.nl/entertainment/postbank
Via-Springwise
CafeScribe is a new service that lets you download electronic copies of your textbook, in an effort to save students money
CafeScribe is a new service that lets you download electronic copies of your textbook, in an effort to save students money and help save some trees, too.
The text books are offered at about half the price as you’ll find at the bookstore. Access and organize your electronic books in the same way you file music on your computer. There are some other useful features included in CafeScribe, like note annotation and highlighting functions. You can indicate what type of note you’re leaving, such as “important” or “ask?” These tools will help you keep track of what you’re studying–they can be tagged, and searched simultaneously across CafeScribe, Google and your desktop.
There are a couple of social networking features in CafeScribe as well, such as the ability to add friends, publish your notes and share them with others. Start or join a group to find study buddies, too. While you can sell the book back to CafeScribe, you can’t sell them to other students. There’s a limit to the amount of content you can print or copy and paste–the limit is set at 30%. It would be helpful to be able to export notes to a Word file, or even a Facebook application.
More at:http://www.cafescribe.com/
via-mash
The text books are offered at about half the price as you’ll find at the bookstore. Access and organize your electronic books in the same way you file music on your computer. There are some other useful features included in CafeScribe, like note annotation and highlighting functions. You can indicate what type of note you’re leaving, such as “important” or “ask?” These tools will help you keep track of what you’re studying–they can be tagged, and searched simultaneously across CafeScribe, Google and your desktop.
There are a couple of social networking features in CafeScribe as well, such as the ability to add friends, publish your notes and share them with others. Start or join a group to find study buddies, too. While you can sell the book back to CafeScribe, you can’t sell them to other students. There’s a limit to the amount of content you can print or copy and paste–the limit is set at 30%. It would be helpful to be able to export notes to a Word file, or even a Facebook application.
More at:http://www.cafescribe.com/
via-mash
BookSwim.com is an online book rental library club
BookSwim is the first online "BOOK RENTAL LIBRARY CLUB" lending you paperbacks and hardcovers directly to your house without the need of purchase. Whether it's New Releases, Bestsellers, or Classics, we've got 150,000 titles to choose from, with free shipping both ways. Read your books as long as you want. -- no late fees Even choose to purchase and keep the titles you love.
BookSwim.com is an online book rental library club. A common bestselller would cost around $20 dollars. But with bookswim.com you can rent the books, read them and then change them for others!!! So users can read many books and pay far mor less. Another very cool feature of this website is that users end up reading books of unknown authors, so it gives them a chance to know new authors, that they couldn't afford to because books are simply too expensive! BookSwim.com has over 150,000 books so it is a very cool place to rent books.
More at:http://www.bookswim.com/
BookSwim.com is an online book rental library club. A common bestselller would cost around $20 dollars. But with bookswim.com you can rent the books, read them and then change them for others!!! So users can read many books and pay far mor less. Another very cool feature of this website is that users end up reading books of unknown authors, so it gives them a chance to know new authors, that they couldn't afford to because books are simply too expensive! BookSwim.com has over 150,000 books so it is a very cool place to rent books.
More at:http://www.bookswim.com/
Zenrec.net is a business to business recruitment solution
Zenrec.net is a business to business recruitment solution. It saves employers time having to call around recruitment agencies to source quality candidates to interview. Employers submit their job vacancies to zenrec.net for free. Zenrec.net instantly notifies all the recruitment consultants who operate in the specific location and sectors of the employer. The recruitment consultants can then submit candidate profiles to the employer via a private online account. The recruitment consultants are charged a small fee every time we connect them with an employer who wants to interview one or more of their candidates. Zenrec.net saves employers time and brings them a wider pool of quality candidates and does not cost employers a penny.They want to help you succeed and find the best candidates to take your business forward. Zenrec.net is committed to creating a win/win situation for all our users. They want to provide an excellent service alongside a simple and easy to use internet experience.
Detail at;http://www.zenrec.net/
Detail at;http://www.zenrec.net/
SocialXperience takes a new approach to the social networking / web 2.0 blog by inviting those in the industry to be the authors
SocialXperience takes a new approach to the social networking / web 2.0 blog by inviting those in the industry to be the authors. No one knows more about the inner workings of the web 2.0 industry than the companies themselves. This means that all reports of newly launched social networks, acquisition announcements, company updates, or general social web industry news will be authentic insider information directly from the teams at your favorite web 2.0 companies.
SXP is completely customizable so you can change the look, add the content you want, and arrange your news sources all courtesy of some clever widgets. The site doubles as a social network—it’s got all the usual stuff: photo sharing, video, mobile, plus some extras like professional tools, bookmarks, chat and email as well as start pages.
More at:http://ww.socialxperience.com/
SXP is completely customizable so you can change the look, add the content you want, and arrange your news sources all courtesy of some clever widgets. The site doubles as a social network—it’s got all the usual stuff: photo sharing, video, mobile, plus some extras like professional tools, bookmarks, chat and email as well as start pages.
More at:http://ww.socialxperience.com/
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