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Ingvar Kamprad
Net worth: $31 billion

Ingvar Kamprad

World’s richest retailer and founder of furniture store Ikea.

Kamprad began to develop a business as a young boy, selling matches to neighbors from his bicycle. He found that he could buy matches in bulk very cheaply from Stockholm, sell them individually at a low price and still make a good profit. From matches, he expanded to selling fish, Christmas tree decorations, seeds and later ball-point pens and pencils. When Kamprad was 17, his father gave him a reward for succeeding in his studies. He used this money to establish what has grown into IKEA.

The acronym IKEA is made up of the initials of his name (Ingvar Kamprad) plus those of Elmtaryd, the family farm where he was born; and the nearby village Agunnaryd.

Kamprad has admitted that his dyslexia played a large part in the inner workings of the company. For example, the Swedish-sounding names of the furniture sold by IKEA were originally chosen by Kamprad because he had difficulty remembering numeral stock-keeping units.

Reputed to be quite frugal: flies economy class, frequents inexpensive restaurants, furnishes his home with Ikea ware.

Li Ka-shing
Net worth: $26.5 billion

Li Ka-shing

Li fled turbulent China in 1940 and resettled in Hong Kong. Li’s father died in Hong Kong.

Shouldering the responsibility of looking after the livelihood of the family, Li was forced to leave school before the age of 15 and found a job in a plastics trading company where he labored 16 hours a day.

By 1950, his hard work, prudence and his pursuit of excellence had enabled him to start his own company, Cheung Kong Industries. From manufacturing plastics, Li led and developed his company into a leading real estate investment company in Hong Kong that was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1972.

Website: Facebook
Founder: Mark Zuckerberg
Place started the business: At his Harvard Dorm Room

Facebook

The birth of Facebook is related to Zuckerberg’s appetite for hacking.
He got into limelight when he refused $1 billion offer from Yahoo. Later on he settled with $240 million dollar deal, giving Microsoft 1.6% stake in Facebook raising the valuation to $15 billion.

Website: Google
Founder: Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Place started the business: In a garage

Google

Larry and Sergey started on a name BackRub. But Larry and Sergey decide that the BackRub search engine needs a new name. After some brainstorming, they go with Google — a play on the word “googol,” a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. The use of the term reflects their mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.

Website: Runescape
Founder: Andrew Gower
Place started the business: From a bedroom in his parents’ house in Nottingham.

Runescape

He has involved in coding for games since his childhood. He had a penchant for dungeon gaming. He initially started RunEscape as a hobby, and later monetized his website and turned out to be a successful business venture.

Website: PopCap Games
Founders: John Vechey, along with Brien Fiete and Jason Kapalka
Place started the business: In his office

PopCap Games

John Vechey, along with Brien Fiete and Jason Kapalka founded Popcap games in the year 2000. They earlier worked with internet gaming sites like flipside and pogo. Their first gaming product was Bejeweled, which became a big hit, and received numerous awards.

Website: Threadless
Founder: Jack Nickell along with Jacob Dehart
Place started the business: From a studio apartment

Threadless

Jack Nickell along with Jacob Dehart ( both college dropouts ), started threadless when they were still working on their regular job. Both the partners put a modest $500 as their initial investment. Now the company has annual revenue to the extent of $50 million.

Report from moneywatch.com:

ALLYSON AMES
President and co-founder of Wonderland Bakery
http://wonderlandbakery.com

Wonderland Bakery’s president and co-founder, Celebrity Chef Allyson Ames, was named one of the richest kids in America by Mark Victor Hansen, respected authority in the area of human potential and creator of the best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

ALLYSON AMES

Hansen’s new book, The Richest Kids in America, is the result of a three-year research project in which he set out to chronicle the journeys of North America’s most successful young entrepreneurial superstars.

Hansen tells the inspiring story of Ames, 23, who has steadfastly pursued her passion for baking and childhood dream of having her own “wonderland.”

Allyson Ames will begin a media tour sharing her story including NBC’s The Today Show, August 3rd at 10:00am and CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, August 11th at 7:00am.

Ames has created Wonderland Bakery, a unique retail bakery concept specializing in cupcakes, cookies, artistic cakes and whimsical gifts. An enchanting mix of equal parts Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, Alice’s Wonderland and Candyland, Ames and Wonderland Bakery’s celebrity following has earned national media attention.

She has created cookies for President Barack Obama’s inauguration day events, baked the reigning “Best Gingerbread Cookie” according to Whoopi Goldberg and The View, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger honored Wonderland Bakery with the 2008 California Business of the Year Award.

Ames is a culinary prodigy who started cooking and baking at age five, and was named The Best Young Chef in America at age 17. She is the Official Sweet Ambassador for Newport Beach and has been tapped as one of the hottest Hollywood celebrities under the age of 25 by Variety magazine.

She has recently added to her brand a collection of “Bake Memories at Home” desserts, a mesmerizing line of merchandise, a best-selling book, Wonderlicious The Enchanting and Delicious Wonderland Bakery Adventure, a read-a-long book for the animated Allyson Wonderland bear by Gund.

This holiday season, Ames will commence an expansion plan that includes whimsically designed point-of-sale displays that will be placed in retail locations from coast to coast. She is in negotiations to host a children’s cooking show; internationally license the Wonderland Bakery brand of toys, games and products; and will expand with five new Wonderlicious party, cafe and retail stores in major markets, with the first stores in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

“Allyson Ames has an amazing story that will inspire other entrepreneurs to dream big, make it work and build a commanding brand,” said Hansen.

This family turned a childhood game into a multi-million dollar business.

Jera, 34, and Brad Deal, 39

Sticks And Stones, Peoria, Illinois
Projected 2008 sales: $10.5 million
Description: Custom keepsakes made using framed photos

Stick and Stones

Picture perfect: When Jera Deal took her oldest daughter “letter hunting,” it was merely a way for the 15-month-old to learn the alphabet by finding letters in nature and architecture. Four years and two kids later, however, that game had evolved into a full-time business. When they needed a unique and memorable gift for a wedding, Jera and husband Brad framed photos of the letters that spelled the newlyweds’ last name. The keepsake was a hit, and the Deals quickly realized they were on to something.

Show biz: Following the 2005 launch of their website, the Deals got into their first catalog and set out to get their product into as many hands as possible. There was one person, however, who they especially wanted to reach: Oprah Winfrey. After a couple of trips to her show and “a little bit of luck and persistence,” says Brad, they finally managed to reach the icon. “I stood up in front of 300 audience members and [gave] her a keepsake,” he explains. “She opened it and loved it”–so much so that she commissioned one on the spot for Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Says Brad, “We were already self-sustaining at that point, but having [Oprah's approval] helped a lot.”

Word bank: Today, Jera and Brad continue to build their letter inventory, brand, reach and sales. They’re inking deals with a third catalog and are working on relationships with Disney and Hallmark. But staying true to their original vision remains a priority. “We don’t ever want to come across as commercialized,” says Jera. “This is a family business [that started] as a hobby with our daughters. We want to maintain that integrity.”

Follow their lead: Even a successful business can benefit from a high-profile endorsement.

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What is your secret to success?
Brad and Jera: The gut answer is faith. We can’t tell you how many things got answered in our business because we prayed and prayed. But from a business standpoint: building the brand. When you think MP3 player, you think iPod. In our small industry, we are like that. We are the iPod of our specific market.

What advice would you give other entrepreneurs?
Brad and Jera: Seek out people who have done it before or who can help. Don’t be afraid to humble yourself and ask. And don’t be afraid to go straight to the top. Ask for the producer’s name; ask for the editor’s name.

When did you know you’d “made it”?
Brad and Jera: Getting on Oprah’s show as an audience member and giving her a keepsake. When she said, “I have to have [one] for Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes,” the audience collectively gasped because they all knew what that was going to do for business. She’s the most recognizable face in the world. We would have been a nameless catalog company without her.

What was the first toy or reward you bought for yourself when you became successful?
Brad and Jera: Honestly, we have not bought a thing for ourselves. We just donate it. We’re house hunting and we’ll get a new car at some point, but we already have nice cars and live in a beautiful home. We already have a blessed life, so it’s a privilege to give back to the community. In January, we bought new desks for our daughters’ classrooms at their private school. The desks have been around since 1972; they were falling apart.

Another Internet Millionaire Stories!

Thomas Gorny, 30
iPower
Phoenix
Projected 2006 Sales: More than $40 million
Description: Web hosting and services

Across Countries: Thomas Gorny spent the first 14 years of his life in Poland. A move to Germany found him attending a prestigious business college and running his own PC hardware business. Then, two months before graduation, he dropped out and sold his business for very little money to seize an opportunity to immigrate to America. The risk paid off not once, but twice.

iPower.com

First Time Around: Gorny joined one of the very first web hosting companies in 1996 and earned 20 percent ownership. The company was sold in 1998, and when Gorny left in 1999, he was in the money. “I never thought I’d go back to web hosting,” he says. So he jumped into marketing and real estate, but when the bubble burst in 2001, his stocks dropped and his real estate projects suffered. “I just got involved with the wrong people in business,” says Gorny, who lost everything.

Second Time Around: “Being on an investor visa, I couldn’t even go to work for somebody because I didn’t have a work permit,” Gorny says. After re-examining the hosting market, he realized there was room for a company offering web hosting and site building for nontechnical users. Armed with his American Express card, Gorny willed iPower into existence in late 2001. “I said to myself, ‘If we can acquire 10 customers a day, I’m going to be in heaven.’” The company garnered 60,000 customers in its first year. Now with more than 500,000, iPower recently moved its headquarters from Santa Monica, California, to Phoenix.

No Exit: “One thing I said at the beginning is that I do not have an exit strategy, and I’m holding to [that]. That is a powerful thing,” says Gorny. His business is now the world’s fourth-largest website hosting company, thanks in part to Gorny’s vision of offering feature-rich but also easy-to-use hosting packages. Phoenix may be a long way from Poland, but Gorny has definitely found a place to call his own.

Follow His Lead: Turn adversity into opportunity by revisiting your business strengths and taking cues from your past successes.

Another Internet Millionaire Stories!