Richard Branson - Virgin Enterprises
Richard Branson may be the world's greatest entrepreneur. He started many different companies under the Virgin brand, kept the ones that were profitable and ditched the ones that weren't. He was an idea man who was able to delegate the details to his managers.
Looking at his life, it's clear he has many of the stereotypical personality traits (good or bad) of the classic entrepreneur. He was engaged in entrepreneurial activity as a child, was the first-born, had an unimpressive academic record and never attended college. Unlike Clark, Branson did not lose billions of dollars in investors money. Branson actually made money for shareholders. He had to. Except for a brief period of public trading, shares were limited to Branson and a few select managers.
Every so often, you run into a person who seems to attract money like a magnet attracts iron filings. Just how they do it is always a bit of a mystery. Branson has been described as that kind of a person. It isn't a very satisfying explanation for how he made his wealth. If you look closely, you'll see he had a salesman's ability to make you believe his products were great. His biographist said he took a “street attitude to negotiation.” He knew when to talk and when to shut his mouth.
His enthusiasm also knew no bounds. Although many of his companies didn't succeed, he was willing to accept that and move on…so often, in fact, that his ability to swallow failures seemed bottomless. However, he was also a poor student due in part to Dyslexia. He wasn't particularly articulate, wasn't good with numbers, and had a short attention span for the mundane aspects of business such as finance. For the brief time his company was public, he didn't know common financial metrics such as the earnings per share.
His ability for self-promotion as the fun-loving, adventurous, somewhat eccentric billionaire entrepreneur played an important role – his image was even parodied as Arthur Fortune in an episode of The Simpsons. Branson is most famous for his attempts at circumnavigating the globe in a hot air balloon, but he also set a boat speed record for crossing the Atlantic, wore a wedding dress to promote Virgin Brides, and most recently was seen crossing the English Channel in a 007-like sports car that converts to a speed boat.
As with many billionaire entrepreneurs, a lot of luck came into play. Branson was near bankruptcy on several occasions. The record company generated an early cash flow that allowed his empire to expand. The combination of that plus his self-promotion created the opportunity to start Virgin Atlantic Airlines.
Whether consciously planned or not, his early successes happened because he found opportunities in existing markets where entrenched competitors failed to meet shifting market demands. Branson was able to meet a niche market's need when the niche was growing large enough to provide considerable profits. The profits relied on maintaining ownership, which Branson did for the most part.