Your Tech Story

inspiration

The Inspiring Success Story of Steve Case

The Inspiring Success Story of Steve Case

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By

Steve Case began his path to success in business with a foundation in education and law. In 1958, he was born,  in Honolulu, Hawaii. Steve was motivated to excel from a young age, having been educated by elementary school teacher Carol Case as well as lawyer Daniel Case, who founded a legal practice. Following graduation from Williams College of Massachusetts in 1980 with a degree in political science, Steve Case started to advance significantly in the marketing industry, working for companies that include Procter & Gamble,  Pizza Hut, as well as Control Video Corporation.

AOL and the Internet's Transformation

The Inspiring Success Story of Steve Case

Image Source: marketrealist.com

Co-founding Quantum Computer Services in 1985, Steve Case went on to develop AOL. As CEO in 1991, Case concentrated on transforming communication with tools like chat rooms and instant messaging. Because of his vision, AOL was able to establish itself as a major player in the early Internet era and reach a peak customer base of 26.7 million by 2002. Under Case’s leadership, AOL along with Time Warner combined to establish one of the largest media and communications conglomerates in 2001 when they paid 164 billion dollars for the company. However once the merger came under fire and encountered financial difficulties, Case was forced to step down as chairman in 2003.

Investing Success Using Revolution

In 2005, Steve Case started Revolution, an investment management company, following his departure from AOL. Revolution invested in more than 50 businesses and rose to prominence in the venture capital industry. Among its initial investments were Exclusive Resorts, LivingSocial, and Zipcar. With the $450 million Revolution Growth and Revolution Ventures launches in 2011 and 2013, respectively, he increased the size of his holdings by investing in businesses such as DraftKings, Sweetgreen, and Bigcommerce.

SPAC Wave Riding and Public Commentary

Forbes estimates that Steve Case’s net worth will be $1.5 billion in 2020, making him one of the Billionaires. He stayed influential in the corporate world by riding the SPAC wave and getting ready to reverse and combine with Revolution Acceleration Acquisition Corp. in 2021 to purchase warehouse robotics startup Berkshire Grey Public. Additionally, Case has offered his thoughts on the direction that startups will go, the impact that tech-related areas such as Chattanooga will have, and how social media sites like Twitter will change over time.

Also Read: Mark Mateschitz: The Man Behind the Red Bull Success Story

Individual Life and Charity

Steve Case has been married two times in his life,  first to Joanne Barker in 1985, to whom he raised three daughters, and then to Jean Villanueva, a former AOL executive, in 1998. The death of his brother Dan from brain cancer in 2002 had a deep impact on him. Furthermore, Case has engaged in charitable endeavours. He helped establish the Startup America Partnership as well as the Case Foundation in 1997 with his wife Jean, and he currently serves as their chairman.

Steve Case is a well-known business leader who has had a significant influence through his ventures into philanthropy, technological advances, as well as investing.

 

From Startup Dreamer to Industry Pioneer: Story of Brian Halligan

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By

In the field of customer relationship management (CRM), HubSpot is the market leader. Since its start in 2006, its sales have grown, reaching a record-breaking 674 million dollars in revenue for 2019. Co-founder and chief executive officer Brian Halligan, who is not just a skilled technical executive but also well-liked by his peers and employees, is the driving force behind the company’s enormous success.  

Brian Halligan
Image Source: bostonglobe.com

Halligan was raised and studied at public educational institutions in Westwood, Massachusetts, where he was born and where he was raised. In 2005, he earned a Master of Business Administration from MIT Sloan School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Vermont University, respectively.

Brian Halligan spent more than ten years working as a marketing and sales representative for the computer software business PTC Inc. previously known as Parametric Technology Corporation. While working for the corporation, he established an associate organization called Pacific Rim, where he developed an 800-million-dollar firm, hired 200 employees, and was named SVP.

Brian Halligan began working at Groove Networks as vice president of sales in 2000. In 2005, Microsoft was to buy the business, changing its name to Microsoft SharePoint Workspace. Halligan had relocated to Longworth Ventures, where he worked as a Venture Partner, before the purchase.

Also Read: From Startup to Success: Inspiring Story of Nathan Blecharczyk

Halligan and Dharmesh Shah founded HubSpot together in 2006 when they were both working at Longworth Ventures. The two had become friends while pursuing their master’s degrees at MIT and discussed the objective of creating an internet advertising platform. The HubSpot developers launched a blog before releasing the app, where they often posted articles about their impending product. In addition to piquing interest, the blog attracted HubSpot’s initial customers.  

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company HubSpot created a solution that takes care of all of your digital advertising and marketing demands. Users can easily create all of their marketing services on a single system with HubSpot CRM, from the generation of leads to web data analysis as well as search engine optimization.

The number of users of the HubSpot marketing service increased along with it. Today, the business serves over 95,000 organizations in more than 120 nations.

Eyal Ofer

From Vision to Victory: The Inspirational Success Story of Eyal Ofer

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By

Israeli real estate & transportation magnate Eyal Ofer resides in Monaco. He now serves as chairman of International Holdings, Ofer Global, as well as Zodiac Maritime Limited. Zodiac Maritime has a network of over 130 boats and is a privately owned maritime firm.

Exclusive OMNI Offshore Terminals along with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines are only two of Eyal’s many maritime ventures. 15 Central Park West, The Altria Group, alongside The Greenwich Village medical facility that is undergoing renovations are all part of his commercial property portfolio, though. He also has stock in the Israeli Mizrahi Tefahot Bank.

Eyal Ofer
Image Source: lloydslist.maritimeintelligence.informa.com

The parents of Eyal were Sammy Ofer and Aviva Ofer. Another shipping tycoon as well as one of the wealthiest men in Israel was his father. After purchasing his first ship in 1950, he rapidly grew his maritime business.

He held stakes in several other firms, such as Israel Chemicals, Oil Refineries Limited, Tower Semiconductor, etc. His mother Aviva Ofer was a homemaker.

In 2014, the Baltic Exchange of London granted him an honorable lifetime permit for his contributions to international shipping and the UK shipping sector.

Also Read: Startup Visionary to Global Success: Journey of Johnny Boufarhat

As per Lloyd’s List, he is considered to be one of the most prominent and influential maritime owners in the sector” and has been included among the top 100 figures since 2013, such as tenth in 2016 and seventh in 2014, 2021, and also in the year 2022.

In 2012, and 2013 as well as in 2015, he delivered a speech at the Milken Institute Global Conference. Ofer also frequently travels for the yearly gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Ofer became part of the Advisory Board of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in 2018 which is a group of industry experts from business, politics, education, and charity all together.

Bloomberg estimated his overall wealth to be 20.7 billion USD in June 2023.

In 1980, Ofer originally relocated to New York City to launch his family’s real estate business. He made investments in Park Avenue South buildings via his holding firm, Global Holdings, which he then rented to legal and public relations businesses.

He built up an empire of real estate over decades thanks to his extensive understanding of ships, which gave him the confidence to handle other physical assets.

Masayoshi Son

Success Story of Softbank Founder Masayoshi Son

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By

Masayoshi Son is a Korean-Japanese technology billionaire, financier, and investor. Masayoshi is the founder, chairman, and CEO of the Japanese holding corporation SoftBank, the Chairman of Arm Holdings, and the CEO of SoftBank Mobile.

Masayoshi Son
Image Source: japantimes.co.jp

Son has the recognition of having suffered the worst financial loss in history (about $70 billion during the dot-com crash of 2000), but as of September 2022, he is ranked 73rd on Forbes’ ranking of The World’s Billionaires 2022.

Early Life

Masayoshi Son was born into a second-generation Zainichi Korean family in Japan.

He was intelligent and inquisitive from an early age and was intrigued by America. He visited the US at the age of 16 years old for a short study abroad program. He subsequently decided to stop going to school in Japan and spend more time in the US. He made the decision to enroll at Holy Names University after high school.

He switched to the University of California after two years and studied computer science and economics there. During this time, he realized that microchips could help him become extremely wealthy and that computer technology will soon alter the business world. He decided to come up with a minimum of one business concept each day to maintain this spirit.

He had over 250 ideas toward the year-end, some of which would later result in enormous riches. In the year 1980, he earned a BA in economics.

Success Story

After earning his degree in 1980, he founded Unison in Oakland, California, which Kyocera eventually acquired. Despite his triumphs, Son left the USA. He established Softbank in Japan in 1981 with two part-time employees and a modest office. During that time, Softbank distributed software packages to Japanese customers.

Within one year, Softbank had already begun to diversify. In 1982, the company launched two monthly magazines concerning software and PCs. By the late 1980s, Softbank had developed an incredibly well-liked system that allowed customers all throughout Japan to select phone operators that offered the most affordable rates for local and long-distance calls.

But it was Softbank’s investment in Yahoo that gave it public attention. Yahoo’s largest shareholder, Softbank, established Yahoo Japan as its Japanese affiliate.

Between 1995-1998, Son staked $374 million on Yahoo, and at its height, his investment had generated a 50-fold profit. Son had made investments in several tech firms by the late 1990s, like Kozmo.com, SportsBrain, and More.com.

The dot-com crash

Son was particularly hard-hit by the dot-com crash in 2000. 99% of the value of Softbank’s shares was lost, according to experts, making it the largest single-person wealth loss in history. Although it was a devastating blow, Son was unflappable. He made an effort to restore his empire by starting a new company that offered broadband services in Japan.

Before being able to acquire Vodafone Japan in 2006 for almost $15 billion, SoftBank tried for years to break into the burgeoning mobile industry. At the time of its takeover, Vodafone Japan was right on the edge of bankruptcy, but Son nevertheless managed to position himself as a strong player in the Japanese phone industry.

Today, his company SoftBank Mobile is the most successful telecom company in Japan. In 2013, he acquired Sprint Nextel, an American telecoms holding company, for $22 billion in 2013. Sprint is currently the fourth-largest provider of wireless networks in the USA.

He also took another action during the 2000 dot-com crash that shaped his career for the following ten years. He invested over $30 million in Alibaba, a relatively unknown Chinese company at that time.

Alibaba has since grown to be among the most valuable businesses worldwide, and Softbank’s ownership has now reached an astounding $130 billion, representing a 2240x profit on his initial investment.

With the profits from Alibaba in hand, Softbank is now stepping up its attempts to invest in companies all around the world. It has started a $100 billion Vision Fund to guide the direction of global technological advancement.

Masayoshi Son is one of the most active investors and, through his company SoftBank, has the largest investments in firms like Yahoo! and Alibaba.

Anupam Mittal

Anupam Mittal – The Indian Entrepreneur Behind The Success Of Shaadi.com And Many Other Endeavors.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By

Anupam Mittal is one of the most powerful people in India, especially in the startup ecosystem. He is known as the founder of Shaadi.com, Makaan.com, Mauj Mobile, and People Pictures (under the People Group). Apart from being a successful entrepreneur, Mittal is also an investor who has invested in more than 200 companies till now. Currently, he is also a part of the reality show called Shark Tank (a show for aspiring entrepreneurs). Mittal was featured in The Week magazine as one of the top 25 people to watch out for.

Early Life

Born in December 1971, Anupam Mittal hailed from an entrepreneurial background as his father, Gopal Krishna Mittal was a businessman. Mittal went to Boston College, Massachusetts and he studied Operations and Strategic Management for three years. After he graduated, he started working for MicroStrategy in 1998 as a product manager. While he was working for the company he visited India and an encounter with an Indian priest (pandit) gave him the idea to build Shaadi.com.

Mittal had an encounter with a pandit because the latter came with a lot of biodata of women for finding a life partner for Mittal. After having a conversation with the pandit, Mittal realized that finding a life partner in that way of collecting and passing biodata physically limits the choice. So, he wanted to harness the power of the internet to help anyone find a life partner by overcoming geographical and spatial limitations. So, he founded Sagaai.com which was rebranded as Shaadi.com later. He was the CEO of the company until 2015 when he stepped down to explore other areas.

Anupam Mittal
Image source: indianexpress.com

Founding Shaadi.com

Shaadi.com was the breakthrough for Mittal and made him a very famous and successful entrepreneur. It is one of the most used matrimonial sites not only among Indians but also among Asians. Shaadi.com’s core market is India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh but it is available across the world from UAE to the US. Since Mittal made Shaadi.com a global enterprise, he clearly understood how the business growth in India was different from that in the west. According to Mittal, the US population adopted the internet very fast but in India internet became available to normal people only after Jio started offering data plans at a reasonable rate. And as more Indian people started getting access to the internet, the number of users of Shaadi.com also increased. Currently, Shaadi.com has more than 35 million users across the world.

Success Stories

After Shaadi.com became a huge success, Anupam Mittal founded Makaan.com in 2007 to bridge the gap between sellers and buyers. Mittal’s entrepreneurial mindset was based on the potential of the internet and how it digitized every aspect of our life. Makaan.com was built so that buyers can search for real estate properties based on their price range and other factors. In 2015, the business was taken over by Proptiger.com, an online real estate advisor.

Mittal founded Mauj, a global online media company in 2006 and it was incorporated in 2007. The company mainly deals with mobile content and applications including games, wallpapers, matrimonials, etc. Apart from Mittal’s entrepreneurial career, Mittal is also an investor who has invested in several start-ups and other companies (through Shark Tank). Currently, his total worth is $25 million.

Investing

As an angel investor, Mittal has heavily invested in several startups because he appreciates the entrepreneurial mind. The Indian startup culture has massively developed in the last two decades and it is mainly fueled by people who are in their 20s. Some of the startup companies in which Mittal invested are Druva, Sapiens Analytics, Cafe Zoe, Fab Hotels, BigBasket, Ketto, and many more. He also started investing in several other companies after joining Shark Tank India. They are Cocofit, Bamboo India, The Yarn Bazaar, Hair Originals, etc. For his entrepreneurial and investing journey, Mittal was awarded the “Hall of Fame” 2020 awards by The Indus Entrepreneurs.

zozotown

Yusaku Maezawa : Self-made Japanese Billionaire who Bought SpaceX’s First Ticket to Moon

Leave a Comment / Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

Though the 9 to 5 jobs are secure and have opportunities for growth, not many resemble the very idea. Despite that, there are only a few who take the step to make their lives different from that. It requires lots of courage to deal with what comes with the risk one takes to get an unusual but better life. One such person who never liked the idea of living the life of a salaryman is the Japanese entrepreneur and founder of Zozotown, Yusaku Maezawa.

Early Life

Yusaku Maezawa was born and brought up in Chiba City near Tokyo in Japan. While growing up, he got the opportunity to study at the Jitsugyo high school; a school affiliated from the prestigious Waseda University. Usually, it took him to reach the school around one and a half hour trough the train. While travelling on the train, Maezawa saw many salaried men around him, and he could never relate to them as well as the idea of 9 to 5 jobs. This was the time when he decided that he would never go for a salaried job but will do something more interesting and maybe something on his own.

While at school, Maezawa got introduced to a punk band named Switch Style, which later, he joined as a guitarist. Soon, he learnt to play other instruments as well and became the main drummer of the band. With the band, he got to travel to different cities and even countries. Once, when he went on a tour to New York with his band, he was quite amused by looking at how the new internet technology was developing there. Maezawa found out that the growth of the internet has also produced many opportunities for the people as well.

Starting Entrepreneurial Journey

Yusaku Maezawa
Image Source: observer.com

When back from the tour, Maezawa realised that even without knowing, he ultimately had caught into a salaried job. But he had no plans to continue. In 1998, to pursue his dream of starting his own business, he alongside his job in the band, started selling music CDs, under the company name Start Today. It was a mail-order business. Influenced by the rise of the internet, in 2000, he took his business online. Soon, Maezawa started stocking up clothes and fashion accessories on the platform. With the rise in demand and to focus entirely on his business, he quit his music career in 2001.

The company was rebranded as Zozotown, which in 2005, became solely a fashion eCommerce website, as Maezawa cut the Music CD selling business free the same year. Within two years, the company grew enough to go public in the Tokyo Mothers Market in 2007.

Interest in Art and Culture

Yusaku Maezawa, apart from being a former musician, has always been interested in art and culture and had dreamt of working in the same regard. So, in 2012, he founded Contemporary Art Foundation; a foundation that entirely focusses on art and promoting young artists through awards and grants. He also had the plans to establish an art museum in Chiba. So for his non-existing museum too, Maezawa was always looking for great art pieces that he now exhibits through his foundation every year.

In 2017, Zozotown integrated an online measurement system, named Zozosuit, and the same year, Zozotown became Zozo.

Maezawa has always had free-thinking and is known for his progressive management style. In fact, he started a 6-hour working day system in June 2012 to make his employees spend more time with their family. His company also offers extra housing allowance to the employees who live far from their homes to work in the company. He is also into charity works.

Accomplishments

In 2017 his estimated worth was 1.5 billion. According to 2018’s Forbe report, Maezawa is the 14th richest person in Japan with a net worth of $2.7 billion. His company has raised to over 2000 employees, and the online platform has got over 3 million registered users. Maezawa holds around 59% of shares in Zozo. Besides art and culture, he is also very interested in travelling, and 60% of his time, he is out of Japan, travelling.

Talking about travelling as his hobby, Maezawa is the first person who will be travelling to the moon with Elon Musk’s BFR rocket in 2023. He will also be inviting a few artists with him to travel. According to him, he has already made a down payment for the ticket for the moon mission to SpaceX.