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kevin plank

Journey of Kevin Plank from being Broke to Billionaire

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Kevin Plank is a millionaire businessman and philanthropist from the United States. He is the founder of Under Armour, a company that manufactures sportswear, accessories, and footwear. Plank also serves as the company’s executive chairman. In 2021, his net worth was projected to be US$1.8 billion.

kevin plank
Image Source: forbes.com

Early Life

Kevin Plank was born and brought up in Kensington, Maryland. His father was a real estate developer and his mother was the mayor. Plank developed an interest in sports at a very young age while playing football with the Maplewood Maple Leafs. He attended St. John’s College for his high school education before enrolling in the University of Maryland, where he studied business administration and graduated with a BA and an MA.

Kevin Plank was entrepreneurial by nature. Even before starting Under Armour, he started several businesses while still being a university student. He launched many small firms and later utilized the profits to finance his big sportswear endeavor. One of them, Cupid’s Valentine, brought in roughly $17,000 on Valentine’s Day.

Success Story

An unexpected desire of Plank led to the idea for Under Armour. Plank was the most sweaty player on the football field and was searching for an option that’d keep him dry and comfortable as he played—something his sweaty cotton shirts couldn’t. He, therefore, started looking for a suitable material that would allow sweat to escape the body and help the player feel faster and lighter. Plank noticed that compression shorts remained dry during practice.

Hence, he decided to make clothes that vent away moisture using the same material. Before he discovered the ideal match, he evaluated at least seven prototypes. He invited his old teammates to test his method after explaining to them the way his T-shirt would substantially aid and boost their performance on the soccer field.

Additionally, Kevin Plank sent the T-shirts by mail to his pals, asking them to distribute them to the other teammates in the dressing room. As a result, Plank’s T-shirts began to gain popularity. He founded Under Armour in the basement of his grandmother’s home. For about $17,000, he made his first sale to Georgia Tech of his product. Soon thereafter, 20 NFL teams made purchases from him as well.

After his second year, he made sales of $100,000. The product eventually became more well-known, and renowned teams and stores began selling them. Under Armour’s first funding came from Planks’ own savings and debt. While still in college, Plank had earned about $20,000 from selling t-shirts at concerts.

Late in 1999, Plank spent almost all of Under Armour’s funds so that the business could purchase a $25,000 ad in ESPN The Magazine. The company’s staff also agreed to forgo their salary for a few weeks for this purpose.  This proved to be a turning point for the business.

Athletes and teams started buying the product as a result of this advertisement, which generated over $1 million in direct purchases for the subsequent year. In 2010, Plank’s business achieved $1 billion in yearly revenue for the very first time. He attained billionaire status in 2011 when his estimated net worth hit $1.05 billion.

Other Ventures

In 2015, Urban Armour paid over $475 million to acquire two important fitness programs, Endomondo and MyFitnessPall. This was to build a global digital healthcare system to compete with Apple, Fitbit, and Google. In 2014, Plank also donated $25 million to the University of Maryland to promote sports and academics.

Despite the initial setback, Plank managed to build a billion-dollar business. He credits his network of family, friends, and coworkers for this. Plank’s success story gives confidence to business owners who feel trapped after experiencing initial setbacks in their companies.

John Paul DeJoria

John Paul DeJoria Success Story: From Homeless to Millionaire

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John Paul DeJoria, is an American businessman, self-made billionaire, and philanthropist. He is best known for co-founding The Patrón Spirits Company and the Paul Mitchell hair care line. DeJoria is often referred to as a living embodiment of the American Dream. This is because of his achievements in his career and business.

John Paul DeJoria
Image Source: forbes.com

His success has moved him from homelessness to a self-made billionaire and prosperous entrepreneur. He has also been highlighted in numerous publications and documentaries.

Early Life

John Paul Jones DeJoria was born in Los Angeles, California. His father was an Italian immigrant and his mother was a Greek immigrant. He also has an elder brother. Before he turned two, his parents got divorced. When his single mother could not care for both of them, they were placed in a foster home in East Los Angeles.

They remained there remained for a week until John turned nine and reunited with his mother. At the age of nine, John started working alongside his elder brother to sell newspapers and Christmas cards to help support their family. John spent two years in the US Army, but when he got out he couldn’t afford an education. For the next few years, he worked as a caretaker, shampoo salesperson, and insurance salesman among other things.

He learned about hair-care products through his employment in 1971 at Redken Laboratories. He was terminated in 1975 owing to a difference of opinion over business tactics. He trained the management and sales personnel at Fermodyl Hair Care after this, but despite increasing sales, he was once more let go from his position. His subsequent position was with the Institute of Trichology, from where he was laid off because they were unable to pay his wage.

Success Story

Despite everything, John maintained his optimism and drive for success. He decided to launch a company in 1980 with his hairstylist buddy Paul Mitchell. Together they established John Paul Mitchell Systems with a $700 loan. They decided to create products for trained stylists which would help in reducing the amount of time needed to style a client’s hair.

A single-application shampoo and a leave-in conditioner were the company’s initial products. The company achieved over $1 million in gross revenue after two years of struggle, which signaled the start of something spectacular. John Paul Mitchell Systems(JPMS) currently sells more than 100 items in salons in about 87 different countries. JPMS was one of the first businesses to oppose animal cruelty testing.

John Paul DeJoria consistently backed environmental causes and provided funding to Gustin Energy Cos., which would conduct sophisticated oil and gas exploration while keeping the environment in mind. He founded Patreon Spirits Co. with his buddy Martin Cowley after the passing of Paul Mitchell in an attempt to produce smooth tequila. Additionally, his tequila business sells over 2 million cases of tequila annually.

Other Ventures

The Paul Mitchell Schools, which have over 100 locations in the USA, were also founded by John Paul. DeJoria works in both the film and business sectors of the economy. John appeared in several movies, including You Don’t Mess with the Zohan and The Big Tease. He has also appeared as an investor on the reality Television program Shark Tank. In 2021, John DeJoria and Leif Rogers declared their partnership.

Leif Rogers is a prominent plastic surgeon in California. He specializes in facial rejuvenation and microsurgical body restoration. According to John and Leif, they intend to use technology and innovation to improve the world through their business cooperation. They seek to provide answers to the enormous and expanding requirements of the rapidly changing globe.

John Paul DeJoria’s life story gives everyone the belief that everything is possible. His difficulties throughout life and his attitude of never giving up tell us that one shouldn’t quit working or waste valuable time sulking around; the only path forward is to continue ahead and give everything you’ve got.

Falguni Nayar

Falguni Nayar: India’s wealthiest self-made female billionaire

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In the current modern times, women like Falguni Nayar are making noteworthy participation in the entrepreneurial network of India. Our country brags about successful businesswomen all over the world. Women-led startups offer about 35% higher ROI in comparison with the businesses led by men.

Falguni Nayar
Image Source: newsbytesapp.com

Women entrepreneurs play an important role in increasing job opportunities, wealth, and the nation’s development. The rich list has seen a rise in self-made entrepreneurs this year. Many she-preneurs have made it to the list during the current year increasing the number of women bosses from 13 to 55.

“What makes the Indian wealth creation story truly inspirational is that 67 percent of the list is self-made, up from 54 percent five years ago. Also, 79 percent of the new faces this year are self-made as well,” Anas Rahman Junaid, MD, and Chief Researcher, Hurun India stated. “The wealth creation engine of first-generation entrepreneurs and professional managers is on full throttle and is an important driver for India’s GDP to swiftly reach the $5 trillion mark”, He added.

“It is exhilarating to see the entrepreneurial ecosystem of India contribute a significant amount to this list with the rising number of women entrepreneurs and uptick in self-made entrepreneurs,” Co-Founder & Joint CEO, IIFL Wealth, Yatin Shah, stated.

Source: businesstoday.in

The IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2022 has become a little more inclusive in the present year. Founder and chief executive officer of Nykaa, Falguni Nayar, has surpassed ‘biotech queen’ and Biocon founder, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (Net worth Rs. 24,800), to become the richest self-made woman in India and the seventh women billionaire on that list after a mega listing of her beauty and wellness e-commerce platform Nykaa.

Nykaa is India’s first Unicorn startup led by a woman. It was founded by Falguni Nayar in 2012, selling beauty and personal care products via its mobile app and website. Nykaa, which is a Sanskrit word for the actress, became quite popular with young techno-geek Indians, mostly women, who opt for the wide selection of brands in comparison with what was on offer at their local shops.

The 59-year-old Falguni Nayar became the second largest wealth gainer this year with an increase of 345 percent in her wealth after the businessman Ravi Modi of Vedant Fashions.

At the listing ceremony on Wednesday, Nayar said, “I hope the Nykaa journey – an Indian-born, Indian-owned, and Indian-managed dream-come-true – can inspire each of you.”

“The best part about Nykaa is that it lets me access so many global brands that had never been sold in India before,” said 30-year-old loyal customer Sanaeya to the AFP news agency.

Source: hindustantimes.com

Her rank increased by 169 positions to the 33rd spot and Her wealth ranked up by 345 percent, which is about 30,000 Crore INR in the previous year, to report a net worth of Rs. 38,700 Crore. Also, she ranks 5th in the Top 10 biggest gainers list. Nykaa’s wealth has increased by 1,388 percent in five years.

The e-commerce platform has also invested in a few companies this year. It declared the acquisition of an 18 percent stake in clean beauty brand Earth Rhythm for 42 Crore INR and a 60 percent stake in Nudge Wellness for 4 crore INR.

Nykaa’s popularity has increased and so did its brand appeal, with top Bollywood actors such as Katrina Kaif and other renowned social media influencers, and celebrities supporting the e-commerce platform breaking new ground in makeup carts and skincare for tech-savvy Indian women. The brand also developed its in-house brand of products in 2015 and start selling clothes and household products recently. It has a highly increasing street presence with 80 stores in over 40 Indian cities.

National Instruments

National Instruments: The Success Story of a Company Running After Innovation

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Necessity is the key to invention. This is the statement that has been the basis of most of the inventions and innovation that has taken place in the world. There have been many stories of success that are the result of need, need to bring about change, and need to get the best technologies for solving the most complicated problems. NI aka National Instruments Corporation is also one of the success stories whose foundation based on the need to turn things simpler and make work easier for people.

National Instruments Corporation

NI is an American technology company which is based in Austin, Texas. The company is known for its automated test equipment and virtual instrumentation software. The popular software products from NI include LabWindows/CVI, LabVIEW Communication System Design, DIAdem, VerusStand, NI TestStand, NI Switch Executive, NI Multisim, etc. NI builds programs to help people do their programming even faster and better by providing them with easy to use automated programming environment.

National Instruments
Image Source: ni.com

For example, LabVIEW is a graphical development environment, whereas the LabVIEW Communications System Design Suite is built to provide its users with faster deployment of the communication systems. Similarly, NI’s NI DIAdem is used for data management, and NI VeriStand is designed for real-time testing. The company has also introduced many hardware products as well. These products include NI CompactRIO, NI roboRIO, NI CompactDAQ, STS, PXI and PXIe Platforms, etc.

History

NI’s history is as old as forty years.  The company was founded in 1976 by three colleagues, James Truchard, Jeff Kodosky, and Bill Nowlin, working at the University of Texas at Austin Applied Research Laboratories. The three co-founders were part of a team that was researching for the US navy during the 1970s. While working together, the three realized that the technology they were using was quite outdated and took way too much time to complete a task. The three thought of developing a new data analysis product that would be faster and would be easy to use.

For the purpose of developing a new product, like many other technology companies, the three founded their company working in the garage of James Truchard in 1976. After a lot of brainstorming and discussion over names like Longhorn Instruments and Texas Digital, they finalized National Instruments (NI) for their new company.

The three were still working at the university and were handling their company work through the garage only. They took a loan of $10,000 from the Interfirst Bank. For the marketing of their company they used the method of cold calling and bagged their first contract from San Antonio based Kelly Air Force Base. They also hired Kim Harrison-Hosen for all their office work, and by the end of the year, they had successfully connected with three clients.

In 1978, the three moved the company to a real office at Burnet Road in Austin. The co-founders focused on the marketing of their company, and through mails and cold calling, they were able to get orders worth $400,000 in the next two years. In 1980, the profits made the co-founders confident enough to leave their jobs and focus solely on company operations.

NI then started to take up new projects so that to expand the scope of the company. By 1983, the company had changed two offices, and in the same year, it produced its first GPIB board used to connect instruments to IBM PCs. The latest discovery of that time was the Macintosh computer, and NI wanted to take advantage of this opportunity.

NI, in 1986, introduced its first flagship product, i.e., LabVIEW graphical development platform for the Macintosh computer. Later, in 1991, NI got the patent for LabView. This software was easy to use as the programmers did not have to write the code, but they could program graphically by connecting the icons given. After Macintosh, the company released LAbWindows for Microsoft DOS. In 1987, NI opened its first international office in Tokyo, Japan. NI also launched the National Instruments Alliance Partner program to connect with third-party developers and engineers to enhance the capabilities of NI products.

NI had $100 million in annual sales in 1993, and by 1998, the company had hired 1000 employees, such that they had to move to a new office. This new office boasted an employee-friendly environment that included play areas and a gymnasium for its employees.

Though NI had already appeared on the web, at the beginning of 2000, the company started its website with the domain ni.com. With the widespread of the internet, NI started to work on web technologies. It also launched the NI Developer Zone, where users could access the sample codes and sample programs and seek help from the NI engineers. The company launched its first international manufacturing unit in Debrecen, Hungary, and by 2006, it had around 40 sales offices opened globally. In 2013, NI acquired Digilent Inc.

The CEO of the Company

National Instruments CEO
Image Source: ni.com

Eric Starkloff is the current CEO of NI. He is also one of the board members of NI and the President of the company. Starkloff is a graduate in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia. He started his career with NI as an application engineer and has been working at NI for more than twenty years.

NI Today

NI is one of the biggest technology companies in the world. After moving to different size offices, the company now headquarters in Austin, Texas. Michael E. McGrath is the current Chairman of the company, and Eric Starkloff serves as the CEO at NI. The company has got over 7500 employees globally, and the annual revenue of the company, as of 2019, is recorded to be $ 1.353 billion. NI went public in 1995 and is listed on NASDAQ as NATI.

cleverbot

Story of Cleverbot and Rollo Carpenter

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Google Assistant surely helps us by setting reminders, sending texts, playing music and calling people on behalf of us. These are just a few things from the ample of benefits it provides. But, have you ever experienced a friendly conversation with a machine without realizing that you are talking to one.

Almost every smartphone users at least once tried to have a funny conversation with either Google or Siri, but after some point, it becomes evident that we are talking to a human-built program. The replies from the bot are not always friendly and not how humans speak to each other. This is where the true power of AI was unleashed by Rollo Carpenter when he came up with Cleverbot.

Cleverbot, a web application to serve the purpose of a chatbox was created by Rollo Carpenter. The application went public in 1997 and even passed the Turing Test with 59.3% accuracy while the minimum criterion is 30%. The application is developed entirely based on AI algorithm. It was built to serve the humans by chatting where the latter one won’t feel like it is speaking to a bot at all.

Rollo Carpenter

Having played the role of managing director for more than one company, Rollo Carpenter did some excellent works throughout his career. Born in 1965, Carpenter started his career as the co-founder of Bizfinity Inc. Through the years, Carpenter vehemently experimented with AI and ML and came up with the idea of developing a chatbox.

His main motive was to build AI-based software that can learn from the conversations carried out with humans and reply accordingly. When Cleverbot was developed, it initially conversed with Carpenter and his associates and it turned out to be very friendly and entertaining.

In 2005 and 2006, Carpenter acquired the first position in Loebner Prize Contest for his AI-based software. In October 2005, Carpenter joined Icogno Ltd as its Managing Director followed by acquiring the same position in Existor Ltd after three years. Carpenter launched his project, Jabberwacky to create AI-based entertaining chatbox and hence Cleverbot was launched as one of its product.

About Jabberwacky

Carpenter started working on Jabberwacky since 1986. He launched Cleverbot in 1997 as a product of his project, Jabberwacky. Today, Cleverbot is nothing but the updated and modified version of Jabberwacky in the market.

Carpenter started programming for a very young age and became quite impressive in managing databases at an early teen. The idea of programming a chatbot clicked in his mind when he was working with these hardcore programming languages.

The first strategy that came into his mind was building a feedback system for the bot which will help it learn from the humans. His main goal was to make the chatbot learn from humans today and implement on them tomorrow.

When Jabberwacky went online in 1997, the bot received almost 20,000 entries and carried out different conversations with every individual. In 2003, Jabberwacky crossed more than a million interactions which turned up to 150 million in 2019.

The most unique feature of this chatbot is its model is based on AI. When you speak to Google Assistant you might notice that after a certain point of time it keeps repeating a particle sequence. This elaborates the fact that any normal chatbot has a particular pattern easily distinguishable by humans. But, Jabberwacky has proved that its borrowed intelligence makes it different from most of them.

Jabberwacky’s new version, Cleverbot performed so well in convincing humans that they are not talking to a program that it passed the Turing Test with a whopping 59%.

Cleverbot

After the Cleverbot went online and passed the Turing Test a lot of modifications have been done to it. The test was conducted by IIT Guwahati on 3rd September 2011. It was declared a success when it entertained and fooled around 59.3% of participants to be exact. Since Cleverbot saved the responses from previous human interactions it improvised itself every day.

Today, Cleverbot can easily carry out around 7 million interactions at a time efficiently. Since 2014 Cleverbot has started using GPU techniques. The entire team is working on launching a new version of the chatbox implementing machine learning. Carpenter, in an interview, said that the data accumulated is more important for the software since the stored data helps it responds differently.

IoT

Bridging the Gap- Success Story of IoT

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The Internet of Things has brought the world together and finds large-scale application in several fields. Healthcare, agriculture, energy development, transportation and the communication sector have all improved thanks to IoT. But how did this revolutionary technology come to be? Here’s a look at everything you need to know about IoT and how it became such a huge success.

What is the Internet of Things?

British industrialist Kevin Ashton came up with the term Internet of Things in 1999. It essentially refers to a global network of devices, smart sensors, buildings and vehicles which connect via networking and electronics. These devices work together and collect data, transfers it and analyses it to learn from it. Everything from complicated cardiac sensors which monitor heart rates, to automatic lights which turn off when not in use come under this category.

About the Founder

Kevin Ashton was born in Birmingham in 1968. He studied Scandinavian Studies at the University College London and after graduating in 1994, joined Procter & Gamble in 1997. He later founded the Auto-ID Center with Sanjay Sarma, Sunny Siu and David Brock. The centre grew under their leadership and even brought in over 100 sponsors.

Once the research was completed, MIT licensed it to GS1. Ashton then found start-ups like ThingMagic, EnerNOC and Zensi, which was acquired by Belkin International in April 2010. He later worked on the Belkin Wemo system and constantly writes for the Medium and Quartz.

Coining the term Internet of Things

The term Internet of Things or IoT came to be when Kevin was making a PowerPoint presentation in the 1990s. He did so to convince a senior manager at Procter & Gamble, that the company should invest in RFID tags. While people at that time knew that the internet was big, they were unaware of its applications.

Hence, Kevin felt that having the word Internet in his presentation could help interest people. He hastily coined the presentation the Internet of Things as they wanted to monitor objects. Somehow, the gamble worked, and soon enough IoT became a popular phrase within the industry.

Building IoT

Kevin was bored with the term ‘smart packaging,’ by then. He explained to his colleges how this idea would work as a Network of Things. The internet was in many ways a Network of Bits. Put the two together, and voila, you get the Internet of Things or IoT. At the time he presented the name, there were no fireworks or large celebrations.

It wasn’t an instant success, but the name stuck. It was Gillette which decided to fund his research at MIT. Ashton relocated to Massachusetts and co-founded the Auto-ID Center; a research lab that laid the foundation of IoT.

Growth of IoT

Between 1999 and 2005, it wasn’t a popular term as the idea was very new. But in 2008, the phrase sprung to life due to developments in the field. An instance that helped was the exponential growth of Twitter. By 2008, Twitter had grown by about 750% and had reached 5 million users. The acronym IoT became viral, and the #IoT became a popular Twitter hashtag. Today, the Internet of Things is a part of our language and is one of the topmost business growth drivers within the industry.


Since then, concepts like Device to Device (D2D), the Electronic Product Code (EPC) and Enterprise IoT have taken over the world of technology. Studies predict that by 2020, there will be over 50 billion connected devices around the world. While the definition of the Internet of Things has changed along the way, Kevin Ashton’s vision made all this possible. Hence, he was referred to as the Father of IoT.

Are we Using the Term Right?

Kevin notes that the number of people using it, knowing what it truly means is few. People tend to misplace their true meaning and use it to refer to anything that is connected to their phones. In essence, IoT refers to sensors and devices that gather and transfer information about the real world through the internet. An easy example to understand what IoT means is that of your smartphone.

It has over ten sensors built into it, and they all connect to the network or internet in some way. You can do so many different things with your phone, including clicking pictures and navigating. That is the true essence of the Internet of Things.

Twenty years ago, when Kevin Ashton sat in Procter & Gamble’s R&D centre in Surrey, he never knew he was going to change the world. The 30-year-old computer scientist just wanted to get the company to use RFID tags to monitor their products. But since then, the term and the technology has come a long way, and none of it would have been possible if not for Kevin.