In no particular order, here are a few of the most successful people who started from
the bottom!
Wait until you hear how much credit card debt the founder of Under Armour took on to start
the company!
9 - Do Wong “Don” Chan The founding father of Forever 21 wasn’t
always rich.
In 1981, Don and his wife, Jin Sook, emigrated from South Korea to Los Angeles to pursue
the American dream.
When they got to the US, they were pretty much broke.
Don worked as a janitor, pumped gas, AND worked in a coffee show to make ends meet.
One day he realized that ALL the wealthy people he encountered worked in fashion.
So, he decided that he would get into fashion too!
In 1984, he and Jin Sook opened up a 900 square-foot store in LA named Fashion 21.
They had over $700,000 dollars in sales in the first year.
They decided to reinvest the money and opened a new store in different locations every six
months!
Today, Forever 21 remains a family business.
The stores bring in roughly $4.4 billion in sales and the Changs have an estimated net
worth of $6.1 billion dollars!
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8 - Kevin Plank Kevin Plank is the founder and CEO of Under
Armour.
However, it wasn't all that long ago that he was the average college football player
who didn't go pro.
After college, he was worried about what his next move was going to be.
While he was in college he had made $20,000 dollars by selling t-shirts at concerts.
However, he had bigger plans in mind.
He wanted to solve the problem of heavy, sweat soaked shirts athletes had to deal with.
So in the summer of 1997, Plank started Under Armour in a DC row house.
Taking a leap of faith, Plank decided to take on over $40,000 dollars in credit card debt!
Plank’s risk paid off when he made his first sale to Georgia Tech for about $17,000 dollars.
After that first sale, two dozen NFL teams wanted his shirts too.
At the end of his second year, he had sold $100,000 worth of products, and the rest is
history!
Today, with a net worth of over $2 billion dollars, Plank is one of the living proofs
of a self-made billionaire.
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7 - Jim Carrey Jim Carrey has always been very open about
his struggle with dyslexia and depression.
And that’s just the tip of what he had to deal with growing up!
His family lived out of a yellow camper when he was around 14 because his dad lost his
job.
He dropped out of high school as an early teenager because everyone in his family had
to get jobs.
Carrey worked as a janitor for two years, but it was kind of a blessing in disguise.
There wasn’t much for Carrey to do after work, except work on his comedy act.
And it was in a time like this that his creativity was born.
However, despite opening for comedian Rodney Dangerfield in the early 80s, Carrey didn’t
hit it big until the mid 90s.
Interestingly enough, in 1992 he wrote himself a check for 10 million dollars and dated it
3 years in advance, for “services rendered”.
This served him as a reminder to work hard.
After over a decade of working in comedy clubs and being on Television sporadically, Carrey
finally hit it big.
He landed his first box office hit with Ace Ventura Pet Detective back in 1994.
And he finally got his first 10 million dollar check for his role in his 3rd big hit, Dumb
and Dumber!
And the year?
3 years after he wrote himself the check, in 1995!
6 - Jay Z Shawn Carter, or Jay-Z as we all know him
by, recently became the first BILLIONAIRE rapper.
For a guy like him who was born and raised in the Marcy projects, this is nothing short
of amazing.
His father left the family when he was 12 years old.
This lead to 11 years of peddling let’s just call it, illegal things.
That’s until he decided that he was meant for so much more, and that he wanted out of
that game.
He went to the same high school as Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes.
Busta has said that the reason he raps so fast was because of losing a battle between
him and Jay in high school!
Just like a lot of other rappers, Jay spent a lot of his early career selling his own
CD’s out of the trunk of his car.
Jay, Damon Dash, and Kareem Burke created Roc a fella Records.
They also created the clothing line, Rocawear, which they sold for 204 million dollars.
Jay’s also gone on to have numerous other successful business ventures, such as Roc
Nation Sports and the 40/40 club.
And oh yeah, did we mention Jay has gone on to sell over 36 MILLION records?
5 - J.K Rowling
J.K Rowling created a whole new world for an entire generation!
All at the same time while her own reality wasn’t the best.
If she could have simply Avada-Kedavraed her troubles away, we probably wouldn’t have
the Harry Potter series today!
She left behind a difficult marriage in Argentina, and made Scotland her home.
But she had two of the most important things with her.
Her infant daughter and the first three chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone!
Still, this was a point in her life where Rowlings considered herself a failure.
She described her economic status as being poor as possible without actually being homeless.
Despite her situation, she managed to complete the first ever manuscript for Harry Potter
in 1995.
However, that didn’t mean success came quickly.
Twelve different publishers rejected her book!
But finally, in 1997 it happened.
Bloomsbury, a publishing house in London, gave Harry Potter the green light.
That one chance is all it took for her to move on from a life of poverty to being worth
nearly $1 billion today.
The only reason she’s not a billionaire?
She lost her billionaire status by giving away millions of dollars to charity!
4 - Kevin Hart
Kevin Hart came from humble beginnings.
He grew up poor and was raised in a single parent household.
He recalls how he slept in a bunk bed in the hallway growing up.
His dad missed a lot of his childhood.
He was in and out of jail, and caused a lot of trouble within the family.
Kevin first tried the conventional college route.
But he eventually dropped out and got regular jobs at sneaker stores to help his mom with
bills.
However, his instincts told him to follow his dream.
So he decided to go after stand-up comedy.
When he first started as a comic, he was constantly booed off the stage.
His mom had agreed to pay his rent for a year as he worked to get noticed.
But things didn’t pick up quickly for him.
From cancelled pilots to cancelled comedy slots, he was used to rejection.
He almost decided to give it all up.
But Hart never gave up.
It took years of doing comedy clubs and appearing in many small movie roles until his career
started blowing up.
Kevin Hart became a huge success despite all the setbacks!
He was finally able to beat the odds to make it to where he is today.
Now he easily commands over 10 million dollar a movie.
To this day still works as hard as he did back before he made his millions!
3 - Guy Laliberte
If you love Cirque du Soleil, then you have Guy Laliberte to thank!
This space-travelling-circus CEO started out as a street performer.
He became inspired to become a performer after his parents took him to watch the Ringling
Brothers.
So at the age of 18, he left Canada to hitchhike and perform across Europe.
He earned money playing his accordion and met street performers who taught him the arts
of fire-eating and stilt walking!
And that’s how he met his future business partners who shared his aspirations to create
Cirque du Soleil.
It took a few years, but eventually, the circus was a moderate success in Europe.
In 1985 Cirque began touring North America.
The success of the company grew rapidly, and by the early 90s, Cirque du Soleil was a hit
in Asia as well!
The company was offered a permanent residence at Treasure Island in Las Vegas in 1993.
That first show was Mystere, a show that’s still running to this day.
And the reason why Laliberte is so rich today?
They negotiated to retain all creative control and ownership of all the performances!
Today, he still owns 80% of the company and is easily worth over a billion dollars.
How many street performers go from earning a few dollars a day to becoming a billionaire?
2 - Ed Sheeran Ed Sheeran wasn’t always the confident performer
we know him to be today.
Way before you heard his songs on the radio, he struggled!
As a musician AND as an adolescent!
Ed was bullied in school after a botched surgery that left him with a lazy eye.
The color of his hair wasn’t any help either.
Neither was his stutter, or oversized glasses!
However, it all changed one day.
He had discovered Eminem and was fascinated at how fast Eminem could rap.
With enough practice rapping to ‘The Marshall Mathers LP, he soon was able to rap as fast
as Eminem!
And his stutter also went away!
He started performing wherever he could.
He played on the streets and anywhere he was paid in meals.
He talked about how he often had to sleep in many different places.
Usually it was a friend’s couch, but he’d even sleep in a park after playing a show!
Some nights, he was without money or food.
However, contrary to popular belief, he was never homeless!
Today his net worth is estimated at over 100 million and he’s one of the most famous
musicians in the world!
1 - John Paul Dejoria You’ve heard of Patron tequila right?
Or what about Paul Mitchell products?
Those products are the brainchild of John Paul Dejoria!
He’s a billionaire and philanthropist who was raised in a single-parent household.
His first gig was selling Christmas cards door to door, along with a paper route.
And this was at the age of 9!
Because his family was poor, college wasn’t an option.
So he joined the Navy instead.
And that wasn’t the best option for him either.
Over the next few years, he worked numerous odd jobs, none of which lasted long enough.
However, things began to change for him in 1980.
Even though he was living out of his car, he managed to get a loan of $700 to start
John Paul Mitchell Systems.
With co-founder Paul Mitchell, they began a company that generates over a billion dollars
in revenue per year today!
In 1989, he also co-founded another mega business hit, Patron Tequila.
Fast forward to 2018, and his company sold off Patron to Bacardi for 5.1 billion dollars!
Today, his net worth is well over 3 billion dollars and growing!
Watch this next video to find out how millionaire playboys blow their money!