10 Billionaire Entrepreneurs Who Started with Nothing
Whether it is making clothes every day to sell or landing on the moon, we all are motivated to do things that make us relevant in society and leave us with a sense of joy and fulfillment. No denying, though, happiness does mean different things to different people, thus based on individual perception. But even with that, a majority do agree that wealth accumulation is a major factor for happiness, and for that reason, comes with a strong desire for everybody.
In this article, you will find the brilliant stories of people who made it to Wealth’s Hall of Fame. Sit all tight because you're about to discover the untold stories and exciting journeys of 10 billionaires who started with nothing, yet defied the odds and rose from humble beginnings into stupendous wealth.
According to Investopedia, one would only be considered a billionaire when such a person has a billion units of their native currency. However, in this post, we will be using the dollar as the base currency. As for starting with nothing, we will discuss people who had no family inheritance, huge cash benefits, or crowdfunding to start their journey to wealth creation. Let’s get started!
10 Billionaire Entrepreneurs Who Started with Nothing
Here is a list of 10 Billionaire Entrepreneurs who started with nothing.
1. Oprah Winfrey
Born in January 1954, Orpah was an only child to a poor single mother. As a teenager herself, Oprah’s mother was unable to give her child what one would regard as modest best parental care. For this reason, young Oprah faced the same fate as her mother, and after a series of childhood molestations, she became pregnant at age 14.
As though things couldn’t get worse, her child (male) died almost immediately after his birth since he was born prematurely. The years that followed marked a remarkable turn of events for Oprah. She immediately moved to Nashville after losing her baby and was sent to meet the man she would later call her father, Vernon Winfrey.
Vernon was a barber and also didn't have much to give to her. As such she had to get a job at a local radio station. It was here, she would develop the skills and personality to make her the first female African-American Billionaire in the history of billionaires.
Oprah made it into our list of 10 billionaire entrepreneurs who started with nothing because despite being born into a family with no money, she rose to wealth and fame by doing what other people her age undermined. She started her career with a job at a radio station to earn a few bucks. She would later become a co-anchor for the news airing in her locality.
Oprah is also considered an early achiever seeing that she got her first million dollars at the age of 32. By the time she was 41, she was already worth $340 million. Currently worth $2.5 billion, Oprah has participated in many humanitarian aids and operates her charity organization.
2. Ralph Lauren
Ralph Lauren has a reputation for being a great collector of automobiles. Interestingly, his obsession with this expensive collection hasn't changed his fortune as his net worth as of February 2024 stands at $8.9 billion. This figure coming from a billionaire entrepreneur who started with nothing, is reckoned to be a significant achievement.
Lauren has a robust career history. He served in his national military from 1962 to 1964 and later went to take on a salesman position for the Brooks Brothers after his discharge.
Naturally, you would assume a man with such flair for automobiles would be an engineer or an inventor but Lauren happens to be the executive chairman of Ralph Lauren. Here, he has been in charge of the design and production of luxury fashion wear. It is noteworthy to say that Lauren started as a part-time stock boy in a small shop and started his business in 1967.
Today, after stepping down as CEO for his son in 2015, the Jewish Immigrant still holds about 80% of the voting rights to the business. Besides being the executive chairman and chief creative officer of his company, Lauren has also played a significant role in the fight against cancer. His fight against cancer can be seen in his donations to cancer-related research and in the founding and operation of the Nina Hyde Center for Breast Cancer Research.
3. Leonardo Del Vecchio
Shortly before his death in 2022, the late Leonardo Del Vecchio made it to the list of the 60 richest people in the world. At that time, he was worth approximately $24 billion. Del Vecchio's journey to wealth is owned by his inspiration to transfer his skills in metalworking to create sunglasses and spectacles. An obsession that would later make him an employer of 77,734 people managing more than 7,900 stores.
His sunglass production and retail company, Luxottica, gave him a fair share of the grass-to-grace journey. Since he was raised in an orphanage home after the death of his poor father, young Del Vecchio had nothing to fall back on, so he had to look for a way to fend for himself. His tough upbringing made him passionate about leaving behind the life of a vegetable street vendor that his father lived.
4. Jan Koum
This billionaire has had a life filled with different emotions. First, his father lived far away from him and died when he was 16, meaning he had to rely on his mother. Koum’s widowed mother had to work multiple jobs as a babysitter. Since the money his mother earned was not enough to meet their needs, he also started working as a cleaner. Quite glaring, growing up had every bit of challenges, but he found his grit and fought through the ranks of business to become well renowned.
With philanthropic donations to bodies such as The FreeBSD Foundation, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCFA), and a host of others amounting to well over $700 million, the onetime CEO and co-founder of WhatsApp is currently worth $15.9 billion. If you look at it, the story of his ascent from obscurity to wealth looks like a multiple arrangement of lucky events.
However, an in-depth look into his career shows how resilient he was, the multiple jobs he had to work, and how quick he was to implement his ideas. From all considerations, Koum suits well into our list of billionaires who started with nothing.
5. Strive Masiyiwa
Here is the story of an African who also became a billionaire and the 1575th billionaire from 2023. Strive Masiyiwa is from Zimbabwe in Africa and had to face the challenge of not being able to meet up with European education after his parent relocated to Zambia. He had to move from periods of working jobs and attending school on different occasions.
Interestingly, he worked for a short time in the computer industry in Cambridge, England. In 1984, he returned to his home country and in 1998 he launched Econet Wireless Zimbabwe against opposition from his government.
He remains a huge investor in fintech companies, power distribution firms, and Netflix. Though his parents could hardly have enough to afford him a basic education, he has a current net worth of $1.9 billion.
6. John Paul DeJoria
According to Forbes, John Paul DeJoria is a Self-Made billionaire entrepreneur whose source of income is Hair products, and tequila. DeJoria has transitioned from having no place to sleep in 1980 while building John Paul Mitchell Systems with his partner to having a net worth of $3 billion by 2023.
Today, he can only tell us about the lessons he learned while living in an East Los Angeles foster home after his mother was found unable to care for him following her divorce from his father.
At this time, young DeJoria was barely old enough to speak. Well, the now billionaire defied all his helplessness and destitution at various stages with determination and the drive to live his dreams. In his journey from bottom to top, he also co-founded the Patrón Spirits Company, which further expanded his influence and earned him more money. DeJoria’s story from homelessness to owning a good share of more than twenty companies is nothing short of a miracle.
7. Roman Abramovich
With an all-time high net worth of $14.5 billion in 2021, Roman Abramovich is not someone who can easily be believed when he tells his story of having to depend on extended family members for daily sustenance. Roman lost both parents before the age of 4 and had to live with his grandparents, who were immigrants that later got deported during the Nazi German invasion of the USSR.
Since his grandparents were deported to different camps, his grandfather, amongst other immigrants, died in one of the camps, leaving him in the hands of his grandmother and a few relatives.
Roman's first leap at entrepreneurship was as a street trader. He did this at the time of his service in the army. He then worked as a mechanic in a factory before going into the trading of commodities for the Swiss trading firm Runicom. Although he faced some financial setbacks in 2022, things are looking good for the former Chelsea owner again, as his current net worth is $9 billion.
Which is a massive bounce from the $6.9 billion he was worth in 2022. Roman Abramovich is a true survivor who has thrived despite all odds and enigmatic occurrences he faced growing up and managing his businesses.
8. Do Won Chang
In 2017, Do Won Chang and his wife Sook Chang experienced a taste of what would later be their fate. With a net worth of $2.8 billion, the South Korean couple was seeing a glimpse of the American dream they had worked tirelessly for years fall apart. They later filed for bankruptcy in 2019 and were delisted from the Forbes list of billionaires. However, they have made it to our list of 10 billionaire entrepreneurs who started with nothing because they really started with nothing.
In 1984, the Changs used a mere $11,000 in savings from their normal jobs (Especially Do Won who worked in coffee shops) to start their fashion retail store called 21 Forever. As a reward for their leap of faith, they shockingly made $700,000 in revenue the first year and adopted a strategy to open new stores at 6 months intervals.
By 2015, they had amassed an all-time high net worth of almost $6 billion. In the face of fierce competition in the market, the company experienced the bad side of the retail apocalypse in 2018. Although they started folding up in different countries before eventually filing for bankruptcy in 2019, they have lived the American dream and went from an immigrant couple with just a high school education to billionaires in their lifetime.
9. Kenny Troutt
As early as 1988, Kenny Troutt founded Excel Communications, a long telephone company that he sold at $3.5 billion in 1998 (approximately $6.34 billion in today’s dollars). This was a massive achievement for a man who had to pay through college while doing menial jobs. Now a father of 3, Kenny can give his children the childhood he never enjoyed.
Kenny and his mother, a single bartender, lived in public housing in Illinois. After the sales of his company, he invested in stocks, bonds, and horses. He still has a 2,400-acre horse farm called WinStar Farm and currently has a net worth of $1.5 billion. Kenny is known as a telecom trailblazer who overcame the constraints of his little beginning and found his place amongst the billionaires.
10. Richard Desmond
A 2021 ranking by the Sunday Rich List places Richard Desmond among the first 120 richest people in the United Kingdom. Ranked 2259th in the world by Forbes, the London-born Jew was determined to make a name and fortune for himself. He started working multiple jobs at the age of 15 and already managed ownership of two record shops by the time he was 21 years old.
Being passionate about music and having discovered the potential of proper marketing, he co-founded International Musician and Recording World with Ray Hammond. Their monthly magazine soon reached musicians across different countries. For a child whose parents divorced after a financial mistake by his father, he has come a long way from the garage apartment he grew up in with his mother.
His $1.2 billion net worth comfortably places him among the top 2260 richest men in the world and a typical example of a billionaire entrepreneur who started with nothing.
Final Note
As of 2023, there are a total of 3,311 billionaires out of about 8 billion people on the earth, one would think that the 0.000414% of the world who make it to be among the less than 1% of billionaires, must come from the wealthy backgrounds. However, our list of 10 billionaire entrepreneurs who started with nothing shows how real people have been able to go against all odds and achieve the life of their dreams. Like they say, your background should not be the reason for your back to be on the ground. Would you rise to the demands of achieving your dream or allow your having nothing to start with to make you end up with nothing? Our advice is to stay motivated and keep up your grind; you too can make it.
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