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The Founder of upWork – Odysseas Tsatalos

Founder, start-up, Tech Story / By
Odysseas Tsatalos
Image source: business.financialpost.com

World’s most successful business ideas are born out of personal passion, belief, and, sometimes, pain. When the spark ignites, it sets a fire in motion. A fire to create something that the world has never seen, but, will be benefited from it, the most. A true entrepreneur is not the one who works for money, but, the one who seeds the idea into the world, whose fruit will benefit the society and of course, the money will follow. Today, when unemployment is at its peak, and talented individuals are wandering in search of good jobs, a man from Greece gave a platform to such individuals to earn their living.

Early Life
Born in Athens, Greece, Odysseas Tsatalos completed a diploma in Electrical Engineering, followed by a degree in Computer Science from the National Technical University, Athens. He later joined the University of Wisconsin, at Madison, to pursue a Master’s degree and a PhD in Computer Science. With such a broad expanse of knowledge, Odysseas became a research member at IBM Almaden Research Center. Odysseas’ parents wanted him to become a doctor, but his mind was inclined towards the computers, since his childhood. His father was a lawyer by profession and had always considered Information Technology as an end of the career before even it began. However, Odysseas’ interest in computers, encouraged him to take computers as his main subject in college and led him to become one of the most successful entrepreneurs.

Birth Of oDesk

Odysseas’ first entrepreneurial venture was born out of nostalgia and pain, from being away from his school friend, ‘Stratis Karamanlakis’. While working at Intacct Corp., in the United States, Tsatalos tried to convince Karamanlakis to come and join him at Intacct Corp., which did not work out. So, he found another way. Both the friends, collaborated on a project through teleconferencing, and soon co-founded a venture they called as ‘oDesk – Online Desk’.

The concept of oDesk was simple yet so powerful that it carried the potential to provide employment to thousands of individuals all over the globe. oDesk let the businesses hire freelancers, anywhere over the globe to work on their projects online. The business seemed like a huge risk at the time, but, the novel concept made it popular among the people. Odesk freelancers are working for companies and organizations, they would have never even heard of otherwise.

Odysseas gave birth to his company with initial self-investment of $50,000, through charging his credit card. Both, Odysseas and Karamanlakis, out-sourced low-cost software developers to save money. Initially, the company faced numerous problems as various large corporations were constantly turning them down and pointed out many loopholes in their platform. One of them was not paying the workers on an hourly basis. But, one day, a computer firm approached oDesk, with the requirement of freelance software developers, who were willing to work for a cheap pay. Odysseas grabbed this opportunity and advertised about the requirement online. Soon, hundreds of freelancers, all over the world, contacted him for the gig, and oDesk took a flight.

The Success Flight

The company soon raised $29 million, and took one step ahead, in becoming the world’s largest online workplace. Odysseas took the role of Chief Technical Officer, the job he is best at, and made Gary Swart the CEO of the company. The company was officially launched in 2005. oDesk got merged with Elance, on 18th December 2013, and was renamed as Elance-oDesk. Two years later, the company got a new name, Upwork Global Inc., also shortly known as Upwork.

Upwork currently has more than 12 million registered freelancers, and 5 million registered clients. More than 3 million jobs are posted each year, which worth $1 billion. According to the expert analysts, this figure is expected to reach $5 Billion, in the next five years. The company is based in Mountain View, California, United States. The co-founder of the company, Karamanlakis, still resides in Athens and handles more than 250 full-time oDesk contractors from Athens.

William Ding Lei

Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

“Life is just like chocolates with liquor and you never know what’s inside”, said a man who dreamt of being an excellent mechanical engineer and is now the richest person in China. Being the most populated country, China also offers numerous opportunities to individuals to invent a product or a service that millions of people can use on the go. William Ding , the founder of NetEase, did just the same. Keeping money as his secondary target Ding aimed for something extraordinary that would evolve China.

Early Life
Born on 1st October, 1971 in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, Ding was interested in electronics from the early age of 13. And at 16 he managed to assemble electronic parts to make six transistor radios. Ding earned a bachelor’s degree from Chengdu College of Electronic Science and Technology. Just after graduation he took a job as an engineer in the local state department. He quit that job soon to join Sybase in Guangzhou. After working there for a while William Ding decided to go on his own and start a company.

The Birth of NetEase
It was 1997 when Ding finally started his own venture with dozen other employees. The company, for first two years, focused on development of Internet applied software, one of its kind in China, a bilingual e-mail system. The e-mail system quickly earned popularity and became buzz of the town. William Ding then conceptualized and brought the company into new light by hosting a search engine platform and microblogging on NetEase. The next thing they knew was NetEase becoming the largest internet portal in China.

NetEase then ventured into their most profitable launch ever – multiplayer gaming. NetEase’s gaming portal has thousands of massively popular games one of which is World of Warcraft. Millions of players from China as well as the whole world visit NetEase to play these multiplayer games. This web portal has made Ding Lei the richest man in China with billions of net worth. Popularly known as the ‘video game billionaire’ in China Ding Lei has made it to the top by creating opportunities for himself. In one of his interviews Ding Lei said, “Smart guys seize opportunities and never let them slip between their fingers. And those who think themselves weak always wait for opportunities.” The engineering genius considered Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison as his heroes. His intellect and love for reading always made him stand out among his classmates. During his college he chose to read as many IT books as possible from the school library rather than to focus on getting high marks. Ding Lei often raised questions which would be so unique that they sounded weird.

His constant reading and practicing what he believed led him to write an entire software code unlike his other classmates. He also quit good paying job to pursue his dream.

Ding Lei’s Goals
Lei considers NetEase as a responsibility towards users, clients, investors, and employees. His aim was to make gaming enjoyable, educational and believes that the next decade will see a massive rise in e-business. William Ding believes in talent and spends both time and money to upgrade skills his employees through training. He prefers to personally recruit people from his own alma mater and other colleges and universities.

Apart from the internet business Ding Lei plans to bring the farmers who have lost their farms for factories back into business. He plans to invest in organic farming to produce quality food. He can, thus, bring some of the country’s capital towards countryside. His another share for the Chinese people is to make them literate. Lei has appointed a team who translated American college lessons into Mandarin with subtitles.

Despite of his busy schedule, Lei has particular time devoted for his study. He likes to read as many books on IT as possible and to increase his knowledge base. In 2004 he was awarded as the ‘Technology Change Agent for Innovative use of Technology’. He lives in Guangzhou with his wife Wang Xunfang.

Liu Chuanzhi Founder of Lenovo

Founder, start-up, Tech Story / By

Hardships are the rigorous tests in a determined person’s life. Hardships come in numerous faces and it is this time when a human being’s ability and patience to deal and overcome the difficult time is tested. Those who come strong out of this deadly storm are the one’s who create history and make a difference in the world. Liu Chuanzhi is one such person who despite of humongous political constraints, managed to build a company which now ranks number two in the production of computers in the whole world.

Born on April 29, 1944 in Shanghai, China, Liu Chuanzhi grew up during the worst of times. Liu’s father was an executive with the Bank of China in Shanghai. However, his connections with the Chinese Communists would create a problem in Liu’s future. Liu’s childhood was encompassed with the years of unstable politics and tension in the government. In 1961, he admitted himself in Xian Military Communication Engineering College. Due to his father’s political connections Liu was not allowed to study sensitive subjects and he completed his graduation in 1966 specializing in Radar Systems. This course, however, exposed him for the first time to the computing world.

Just two years after graduation, Liu’s past yet again haunted him and sent him down for labor work. This time it was due to his anti-revolutionary ideas which led the officials to send him to work on a state-owned rice farm as a laborer and learn by living among the peasants from 1968 to 1970. By this time, the Chinese Academy of Sciences was reopened which was closed due to Chinese Cultural Revolution. Liu returned to his job at Beijing and went on to work as an engineer and an administrator. Liu provided a lion’s share in developing the 757 mainframe computer. He resigned from his job in 1984 to join Chinese Academy of Sciences – the place where the computer producing giant Lenovo would be born.

Early Days

After joining Chinese Academy of Sciences Liu stumbled upon an idea to start a computer company. But, there were multiple barriers standing in front of him and his dream. First, the Chinese government did not encourage start-ups and ran a strictly planned economy. So the funding from government was out of question. Second, for a scientist to jump into business was considered below one’s dignity and, therefore, the company Liu would start won’t have a single market expert who knows how the business should work. Despite of this barriers, Liu received a 200,000 yuan ($24,000 USD) loan from his superior at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Liu’s computer company, initially named Legend, was compared to the early days of Apple. The company’s manufacturing unit began in a small 20 square yards room in Beijing. The company worked on the research of magnetic storage technology in its initial stage. In 1985, Legend did something which no other computer company had ever done, they built a Chinese character set for computers. Since, the Chinese language consisted of huge number of characters it was almost an impossible task to bring all those characters in digital form. But, the development of a character set put Legend multiple steps ahead of any other company. Due to the lack of business knowledge the company often faced opinion problems among the members. But, Liu’s leadership and his study of other big companies like HP and IBM helped him to sketch an influential business and marketing strategy.

Legend started selling computers six years after its foundation, i.e., in 1990. And by 1996, the company climbed on top of the computer manufacturing company’s list surpassing IBM. Liu believed in young people in their energy and talent which could pave a way to keep the company on cutting edge of innovation and technology. Most of the company’s higher staff included young people during the 90s. By developing Pentium II processor Legend once again proved that they are and will always be on the top of the market.

The company saw its massive success in 2004 when they were declared as the largest PC manufacturing company. In 2006, Legend was renamed as Lenovo Group to enter into the UK and Europian market where the name ‘Legend’ was already trademarked. Legend also became the first company to join the sponsorship for Olympic Games held in Turin, Italy in 2006.

In 1995, the Chinese government honored Liu as the Model of National Work Force and Man of Reform in China. In 2005, Liu has also been listed in Time’s one of the 25 most influential global executives.

Daniel Ek – Founder of Spotify

Founder, start-up / By

Life is all about having a sense of purpose. No matter if you are a broke person with no money or a financially independent person doing well in life. Without a sense of purpose life begins to fill empty. Daniel Ek, a lover of music founded world’s top music streaming app to fulfill his own sense of purpose. After achieving great success at very early age and becoming financially independent, Daniel launched Spotify, a music streaming app which became impossibly famous in the whole world.

Born on 21 February, 1983, Daniel Ek grew up in Ragsved, Stockholm, Sweden. His father got out of their lives early on and most of his life, Daniel and his younger brother Felix, were raised by their mother Elisabet and stepfather Hasse. Daniel described their economical condition as “An average Swede. We didn’t have much money”.

Daniel and his Love for Music

Daniel’s love for music grew right from his childhood and the seed was sown from his family itself. His grandmother was an opera singer and grandfather was a Jazz pianist. He learnt to play the Swedish nursery rhyme “Lilla snigel” at the tender age of four. Daniel’s love and involvement for music heightened when in secondary school i.e. IT Gymnasiet in Sundbyberg, he was allowed to combine two of his favorite subjects – music and technology. Taking robust advantage of this opportunity he installed internet in the Oasen youth club and started his first business – building websites.

Daniel initially charged upto $100 for his first client and made his fees double for the next client. The website development business grew so much that he eventually started charging as high as $5000. Later on, due to increasing demand for his skills, Daniel hired the students from his own class. Soon, his team size grew up to 25 and his monthly earnings to a whopping $50000. On the other hand, Daniel’s devotion for music became the sole reason for him to attend the school. His music teacher Tony Kinberg said,

“Music really was Daniel’s thing. If music wasn’t on his timetable, he would come to the music room anyway, or if he had a free period. He’s really good singer and guitar player”.

Music and programming was what made his life worthwhile. Daniel Ek completed his graduation from Sundbyberg in 2002 in IT scoring top grades in eleven subjects. He later went on to join KTH Royal Institute of Technology. After realizing that the first year in his higher studies was all about theoretical mathematics and nothing about programming Daniel left the place by the eighth week.

Early Career

Leaving the KTH institute came as a turning point in Daniel’s life. Money had always been a luxury for Daniel. And a life he was longing for would soon provide him with this luxury. Daniel took a job at TradeDoubler – Europe’s biggest online advertisement company. His performance at the company brought him success and riches at the age of just 23, making him financially independent. The success poured in and soon brought another twist in Daniel’s life.

At the age of 29, Daniel started feeling a sense of emptiness into his life. Even after earning fat paychecks, owning a dream car, a three room apartment in central Stockholm Daniel felt lost in his life. This lead him into depression and soon he sold his apartment and car and moved to a secluded cabin long way from town. The isolation, music, and meditation which Daniel acquired while spending time in his wooden cabin led to the origin of his biggest business idea and he contacted Martin Lorentzon – an IT nerd. The idea was to create an app which allows the user to listen any music in the world at the cost of short advertisements in between.

Before, turning into a billionaire from Spotify, Daniel Ek has worked with several billionaire’s. He initially founded Advertigo which was acquired by TradeDoubler. He also served as a senior at Tradera – a Nordic auction company which was sold to eBay in 2006. Ek also served as a CEO of uTorrent along with its founder Ludvig Strigeus. uTorrent was also acquired by BitTorrent in December 7, 2006, which also ended Ek’s term as a CEO.

The idea of Spotify, originated in the wooden cabin, was in the development mode in 2006. Daniel used his old school trick to hire the young technology graduates from KTH to work on Spotify. The team would work in a small office in Riddargatann in Ostermalm, Stockholm. The company launched it’s official music streaming service ‘Spotify’ in October, 2008.

The service received huge positive response from all over Sweden and company targeted one country at a time. This pace helped them to focus on one particular region completely to provide better quality and huge playlist. Nearly 80% of Spotify’s works around the world to produce the best results for their users. Today, Spotify has more than 140 million users in more than 58 countries and has raised more than $2.5 billion from funding.

Personal Life

Daniel Ek is married to Sofia Levander, a TV actress and three years senior to Ek, in 2016. His net worth is calculated to be around SEK 4.5 billion. Daniel is also actively involved in charity and has donated 1 million Swedish Kronor for Charity Water – an organization dedicated to provide safe and clean water to 800 million people living without it. Daniel Ek lives with his wife and two children.

Rags to Riches Story: Stan Shih, Founder of Acer

Founder, start-up, Story / By

A great man once said, “If you are born poor it’s not your fault. But if you die poor it is your fault”. The one who stands up against all the odds and comes out successfully through the worst of times is bound to achieve the greatest feats of his lifetime. This is the story of Stan Shih, founder of Acer who has achieved the greatest success and is now a billionaire.

Born on 8 December, 1944 in the Republic of China – Taiwan, Stan Shih faced a struggling childhood. The already poor family was in a state of disaster when Stan, at a tender age of four, lost his father. At this small age he joined hands along with his mother in her business of selling eggs. The money they earned from this business helped Stan complete his preliminary education. But, his dream was much more than just completing preliminary. He worked even harder in their business and, with enough money accumulated, he went on to pursue the Bachelor’s and then Master’s program in Electronic Engineering from the National Chiao Tung University. He also successfully completed his honorary PhD in Electronics Engineering in the year 1992.

From an early age, Stan was dedicated towards his interests. He enjoyed every little process about his studies which immensely helped him to launch Acer in 1976. The launch of this company further saw such a tremendous growth that in 2006 it converted Taiwan into a PC-manufacturing powerhouse among the whole world. Today Acer stands as the second largest computer manufacturing company in the world.

Stan started the company along with his wife Carolyn Yeh and five other partners and it was initially named Multitech. Shih, accepted the chairmanship of Multitech in 1987 and it was this year when they decided to rename it to Acer. Beginning his career, in 1971, as a computer engineer at Unitron Industrial Corp. Shih made Taiwan’s first successful desktop calculator. His next major feat was the development of world’s first pen watch which he achieved during his time at Qualitron Industrial Corp., which he helped to establish too.

Stan Shih has shared a major part in establishing three largest PC companies Acer, BenQ and Wistron. He took retirement from the chairmanship of Acer in the year 2004 and has accepted the seat on the Board of Directors at Acer, BenQ and Wistron. Starting Acer with a mere $25,000 back in 1976, the company’s net worth has reached as high as US $22.2 billion. The company ranks at number 4 in terms of total PCs and at number 3 for the total notebooks across the whole world.

Social Responsibility
Shih, in one of his speeches, said, “You have to always look ahead, always be positive. It’s your choice, your destiny. You have to enjoy life but still have a personal social responsibility.” Despite being a billionaire Stan Shih is actively involved with social and public organizations. He was a chairman of the Asia Business Council, he sat on the board of directors of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd, and is also a chairman of the Brand International Promotion Association.

Awards and Honors
The year Acer was founded, i.e. 1976, also earned Shih a place on Taiwan’s “Ten Most Outstanding Young Persons” and just seven years later he was named one of the “Ten Most Outstanding Persons in the World” by International Jacees. Shih has been featured in noteworthy magazines like Asiaweek,  BusinessWeek, Fortune, and was featured in Time magazine’s “60 Years of Asian Heroes” for his achievements. The most precious day in Shih’s life was the day when he was awarded an honorary Doctor of International Law, the highest honor of the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Shih now lives with his lovely wife Carolyn Yeh and three children.

Neil Patel Co-founder of Hello bar, Crazy Egg and Kissmetrics

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Internet is a world of organized chaos. One can reach immeasurable heights if the path through this chaos is figured out. And once figured out it can make you millionaire or a billionaire. One such bright mind to carve a path through this chaotic world is that of Neil Patel. He managed to find a solution on which numerous multi-billion dollar companies would rely in the future. Patel, at an early stage in his career, realized the potential of digital marketing and dedicated his whole time in finding the best way that would increase the traffic on a website.

Born on 24th April, 1985 in London Neil grew up in a family with a strong entrepreneur background. While studying at the John F. Kennedy High School, Neil saw his cousin making money out of selling burned CDs. He too tried to follow his cousin but avoided selling the pirated versions due to legal constraints. However, the burned CDs gave considerably low returns and Neil thought of a new idea to increase his income. Now, he would sell the black boxes and by buying cable black boxes from eBay he would capitalize his money. Again, the legal constraints made him jump to yet another idea of reselling automotive parts. This time he acquired legal permission from the State Board of Equalization to avoid any further disturbances in his business.

Patel, at an early age of 15, landed his first job which involved cleaning restrooms, picking up and emptying trash cans, sweeping the vomit, etc. He would earn comparatively extra cents than other places. His next and better job was in the sales just 3 months later working in Quality Systems selling vacuums worth $1600. But Patel’s aim was not just to earn money but to get rich and the sales job wasn’t going to make him a rich man.

A Step Forward
Neil’s sister introduced him to the boss at Oracle consultant. He studied the business model of Monster.com he started his own venture called Advice Monkey which failed terribly. But every failure brings with it new opportunities and lessons to learn. Neil learnt the magnificent potential of Internet Marketing.

With the knowledge of potential business model and the tool to achieve it already acquired Neil only needed proper education of the same. Therefore, he joined Cypress Community College to learn Digital Marketing. And along with his partner, and her sister’s then boyfriend, setup a venture called Crazy Egg which took the internet marketing field by storm.

The reputation Crazy Egg gained made Neil work harder on his business model and further setup numerous software and internet marketing firms. He has also founded KISSmetrics , Hello Bar, etc. His digital marketing strategies attracted several MNCs like HP, e-commerce giant Amazon, Viacom, GM and NBC. Patel’s model helped to increase the revenue growth of these companies multiple folds.

Patel is the owner of $10 million fortune and is now eyeing to help several non-profit organizations. He is known as the SEO Tycoon in the digital marketing field as his strategies increased the traffic on TechCrunch by a whopping 30% in just two months. Growing in a family full of business men and his mother who owns a home daycare business, Neil grew up to follow the footsteps and has made a name for himself in the entrepreneur world.