Other ways to start a successful entrepreneur business 2017

5 minute read
1. AirBnB - Start a business by selling grain

AirBnB, a homeowner assistance service for tenants, is currently valued at $ 1.3 billion.


The early days, when not many investors dared to pour capital into this company, the co-founders have devised a unique way to raise capital. They buy cereal in large quantities, canned carton and labeled as "limited quantities". Canned cereal boxes are designed according to political themes with names such as Obama O's, Cap'n McCain with the slogan: Breakfast for Innovation.

That way, in just two months they sold 800 boxes of cereal for $ 40 a box, and earned over $ 30,000.

2. Reddit - Create a series of bogus accounts

Reddit, which operates on user-generated news links, has up to 731 million subscribers by 2013.


But when it was launched in 2005, Reddit had too few visitors, so much so that the founders had to create fake accounts and talk to themselves in real life. The strategy "Fake it 'til you make it" has been successful. As the number of users is constantly increasing, they can delete previously authenticated accounts.

3. Warby Parker - Buy a colorful yellow bus and cross the country

Warby Parker is a cheap eyewear brand, born when one of Dave Gilboa's founders lost $ 700 worth of glasses on a dusty trip and had no money to buy another.

To attract the attention of the media, the founders bought a bus carrying colorful yellow students and traveled to every part of the United States. In this way, they created a mobile store called "The Warby Parker Classroom Trip." Since its inception in 2010, the brand has sold 1 million pairs of eyewear.

4. PayPal - Give money to customers

So far, every day PayPal online payment service transactions amount to $ 315.3 million.

But few know that, when it was set up, the company had to apply a policy of giving $ 10 to customers during the first use, and even more bonuses if they successfully introduced. This service for friends and relatives. The company accepts large losses to be known to customers. But they paid off when the number of PayPal subscribers rose to just over 1 million a year.

5. The Muse - Forbidden to use Gmail for spam

The Muse, which provides counseling and career opportunities, is now closely associated with Facebook and McKinsey & Co., a global management consulting firm.

In the early days of start-ups, when no one knew about the company, founder Kathryn Minshew devised a "word of mouth" strategy. She said, "We did not have a penny to operate the company, so we sent out emails to all potential customers." Minshew made a list of all the people she had contacted via email and started sending them messages until they were reported as too much spam and Google locked her Gmail account.

But this is not the only way Minshew performs. In order to keep The Muse financially secure in its infancy, she held a 150-person party for under $ 10, including a taxi charge for the shipping of three barrels of alcohol. Minshew also aggressively used his bank account to ensure the payment of staff salaries.

6. Instacart - Use a whisk 6 can of beer to attract the attention of potential partners

Instacart is a fruit and vegetable distribution service, currently expanding to 12 US cities. Although notoriously high-speed delivery service (the fastest is under 12 minutes), CEO Apoorva Mehta paid little attention to the deadlines. When Mehta signed up with Y Combinator, the company that provided support services to fledgling companies, was delayed by two months.


In order to attract attention from Garry Tan, one of Y Combinator's founders, Mehta decided to move Tan to a whiskey with his own Instacart delivery service. Just half an hour later, Mehta received a call from Tan, inviting him to the YC headquarters to meet.

Because Instacart, Mehta is not afraid to do stuff. At one point, he and his staff went to buy all sorts of vegetables and fruits from the Joe's store to take pictures and take them to Instacart's delivery system.

7. Pinterest - Personally write to thousands of customers

The social media site Pinterest is quite popular with 70 million users around the world.

Initially, when the Pinterest community was relatively small, co-founder Ben Silberman personally wrote to 7,000 users at the time to find out what they thought of Pinterst.

To this moment, Ben must recognize the success Pinterst has gained by collecting and listening to feedback from users.

8. Salesforce - Get lost with marketing campaigns

Salesforce cloud computing company Forbes is considered a leader in innovation in the United States. Basically, Salesforce is recognized for having the right business strategy.

Co-founder Marc Benioff is known for "crazy" marketing techniques. On one occasion, he hired several people to protest against the most formidable opponent. Another time, he skipped his speech at a meeting to draw the crowd's attention to his own other speech at the restaurant next door.

In addition, Benioff also hosts parties for 90,000 guests, including musicians such as Metallica, MC Hammer, and entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson and Tony Robbins.

9. Watsi - Thanks to bar guard bar movement in the bar vote

Watsi, the world's leading fund-raising organization to pay for hospitalized patients, collected $ 3 million from 20 countries in just 18 months. It's not easy to make money.

For more than a year Grace Garey and his team worked for Watsi as volunteers and they could not continue without additional funds. Grace used to take a challenge at a bar to earn a $ 10,000 prize. She said, "We really need this money to grow our organization and take care of our health."

In the final hour, Watsi is almost on par with the competition. "If I had the opportunity to lose the $ 10,000 prize, I would have had a heart attack," Grace said. She begged the people in the bar to pull out the phone and vote for Watsi, even by bar guard to convince one by one. As a result, they win at points that are slightly higher than their opponents.