Big Fish from Nothing

[quote=“Mother Theresa”]A few good, honest, back-to-earthers from New England and Colorad0 who hit it big:
Roxanne Quimby, founder of Burt’s Bees[/quote]

Sorry…I have to chime in here on dear Roxanne. She is nothing more than a cheap opportunist who swindled Burt out of a fortune.
Burt, is a true gentle soul who founded the company and had a true vision of using a natural system, bee stuff, of healing to better the human condition.
He originated Burts Bees from the ground up. Honestly, he was not in it for the money. He is one of the few people I’ve met who really did not care if he was living in a hut or a hotel. He had Burts Bees well established before Roxy came along. She is NOT the founder of the company. She saw him and saw a target for conquer. She ingratiated herself into his business. He literally picked her up hitch-hiking on the road. When she found out who he was and what he was doing she then contacted him again and got a job with his company. No problem there. Could have been a boot-straps up opportunity for her. But she then pushed her way on Burt, who was really a mild mannered guy who really just wanted to sell his bee product stuff, and wound up alienating all who actually had made the company and then she took-over the company and sued Burt. He settled out of court for a pittance and went back to living in a trailer. True story.
She is a POS.
How do I know this? I worked in the natural products industry in the early - mid '90s as a national wholesale manager for a major distributor in the industry. I saw Burt in the beginning, picked-up his products and distro’d them, met her and watched her weasel her way into taking over his company. She is the antithesis of what Burts vision for his products and company were.
Pardon the rant. I knew Burt and along with a heck of a lot of other people in the industry know the real story about Roxy.
The products are but a shadow of what they were under Burts guidance. Caveat Emptor.

Nobody’s mentioned Dave Thomas?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Thoma … usinessman

[quote=“Edgar Allen”]Trying to think of people who started from nothing and made it very big. Obvious examples include Alan Sugar (electronics out of the back of a van) and Richard Branson (college music mag, records at college, or drugs depending on who you believe).

Can you think of any others, and how they did it?[/quote]

Richard Branson is a good example and he is a hard worker and risk taker (if his autobiography is to be believed) but it must be remembered his cousin was the one who signed up all the top acts for Virgin Records which made it a success, or that it was an American lawyer who proposed the idea of Vigrin Airlines and the transatlantic route focus, behind these famous guys there are often other people who contributed majorly to the success.

When it comes to Richard Branson, then I think that in all fairness, the employees and idea makers would not have pulled if off on their own. Neither did he, however he was the missing ingredient, or so to speak.

The lawyer who came up with Virgin Atlantic wanted a businessman’s airline, and did his best to mismanage the startup. (got fired rather fast too.)

His cousin did his part well, and that’s good, as you do not become big if you can’t lead and motivate talents 100%. That might be a key component of his success. Whether he merely went with the flow, or got his ideas from someone else, or got them himself doesn’t really matter, what matters is that he led the