How successful founder Michael started Dell 33 yrs ago & made it a $Billion success
“Real entrepreneurs have what I call the 3Ps (and, trust me, one of them is not ‘permission’). Real entrepreneurs have a ‘passion’ for what they’re doing, a ‘problem’ that needs to be solved, and a ‘purpose’ that drives them forward.” – Michael Dell
Topics: Starting early, be Unique, Ideas aren’t everything, Execution is more important, become Expert, Quotes.
Humble Beginnings. Michael Dell (a highly successful founder) started his company 33 years ago, in his dorm room as a freshman at the University of Texas, Austin. He had $1,000 to buy PC parts, and took orders over the phone.
Fast Track. After that, it ballooned like crazy — making Dell Computer one of the fastest-growing companies ever. The stock price went on dizzying highs throughout the 1990s, roughly doubling most years throughout the decade. It also made Michael Dell a multi-billionaire & a highly successful founder.
Tuff Transition. Since then, the path hasn’t been easy. The era of rapid growth in personal computers & corporate servers – Dell’s bread & butter – is over. Now, attention has turned to SmartPhones & Cloud computing.
The Hostile Attack. Sensing weakness, legendary investor Carl Icahn tried to buy out the company nearly four years ago, which probably would have resulted in breaking it into pieces. Dell fought him and won, taking his name-sake company private, and then making it bigger than ever. Yeah !!!
CNBC went to talk to Michael Dell, just days before his Dell EMC World conference in Las Vegas. We talked about the product news for CNBC viewers, but also about his long journey. Dell almost lost a company he’s spent nearly 2/3 of his life building. But he developed the skills he needed to become a legendary founder-CEO and survive. Here are just a few highlights:
Be Unique with your Product or Service. Dell recalled that he had a love for numbers growing up – and that led him to pursue different activities than a lot of his peers in Texas in the late 1970s. “I was in seventh grade math class, and we had this thing called Number Sense. So, I wasn’t on the track team. Wasn’t on the football team. Wasn’t on the basketball team. I was in the Number Sense Club,” Dell said.
Number Sense Club. “So this math teacher got a Teletype terminal. So I’d write a program, Send it off to the big computer in the sky, and the answer would come back. I was pretty fascinated by that,” he added. At a time when society is encouraging kids to tackle all sorts of activities to pad their college applications, it’s instructive: Almost always it pays to be different, and focus on the talents & skills that are unique to you. Go deep. Go for that TD !!!
Ideas aren’t everything, Execution is more important.
CNBC asked Dell what he thought tomorrow’s Michael Dell is creating within his or her dorm room right now. I mean, he’s probably not building PCs. In 1984, personal computers were cutting edge; in the mid-1990s it was Websites & Web portals. Is the future Artificial Intelligence? Virtual reality? His response: It’s not the what so much as the why. “You have to do stuff that you’re actually incredibly passionate & excited about, and you know something about,” successful founder Dell said. “The ‘oppor-tuneurs’ don’t do as well as the entrepreneurs,” he quipped. In other words, he believes his success was less about him building PCs in 1984, and more about him following his technology obsession. Don’t pursue a business venture just because it sounds like a sure-fire money maker. Pursue it if it really offers a “value” to customers – that will improve their lives. “Better, Faster, Cheaper !!!
Learn all you can about your Industry, so you become Expert
No matter how successful you feel you are in the beginning, you’ve got to keep learning. Five years into his Dell Computer adventure, in 1989, Michael Dell flew to California to take business classes at Stanford. While he was there, he decided to put together his own advanced curriculum. “I called up a bunch of the CEOs of Silicon Valley companies, and said ‘Hey, can I come and see you? And I’d like to learn about what you’re doing. “Most of them said yes,” Dell said.
“VC, Irwin Federman, Jimmy Treybig (founder of Tandem Computers), Andy Grove (founder of Intel) and others. .You go see these guys, and you know, ‘How do you manage a big company?’ and they would talk to me, Dell said, speaking about some of Silicon Valley’s early Titans.
“That was great. I was doing everything I could to learn and get help,” Dell added.
Lesson: “No matter how high you get, you can always learn something – if you have the right sources”
Comments: What impresses you the most about highly success founder Michael Dell?
from CNBC 07 May 17 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4.biz
For more Info, click on Founder, Successful Founder.
Quotes by Michael Dell
“Whether you’ve found your calling, or if you’re still searching, passion should be the fire that drives your life’s work.”
“Ignore the people who tell you it won’t work, and hire people who embrace your vision.”
“You don’t have to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a dream, team & means.”
“By questioning all the aspects of our business, we continuously inject improvement & innovation into our culture. Anything that can be measured can be improved.”
“Each day that you’re moving toward your dreams without compromising who you are, you’re winning !!!