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Inspirational Entrepreneurs

Finding lists of famous people on the internet is quite easy. Add the qualifier that they have to be entrepreneurs and inspirational, and the task gets more complicated.

Pollsters put lists of famous entrepreneurs in front of about a thousand 16-to-25-year-olds and asked them to rank them in terms of their capacity to inspire or influence. Sir Richard Branston, who likes to call most things "Virgin," made the top of the list. Bill Gates was pretty high up there too. Yet, no one said why these folks inspired or influenced them. Likely, most voted for names they recognized.

Some sites like to list quotes by famous people, obviously believing that no one would question the wisdom of the uber-successful, no matter how empty or trite their little nuggets of wisdom might be. Which begs the question, what does "successful" mean anyway? Rich. Very, very rich.

Outside the Box
Certainly, some famous wealthy people have made headlines because they've become philanthropists of a magnitude never before seen in history. Others are rags-to-riches stories. Who hasn't heard about Sam Walton's old truck or Dave Thomas naming his hamburger empire after his daughter Wendy? Did you know that Dave got his inspiration from the great Colonel Sanders?

Take time to look around for true inspiration other than appearing in TV commercials or making mounds of money. How about making a difference in how we live and how we use the internet? You may even want to start with those internet sites we use almost every day and can't live without.

The following is a list of four inspirational entrepreneurs who took the internet by storm, and not only because it made them rich (in some cases, in spite of the fact that it made them rich). These folks think so far outside the box, they're not even in the warehouse.

Inspirational Entrepreneur #1
First prize goes to Craig Newmark of Craigslist fame. Craigslist, if you've been marooned on a desert island for the past few years, is essentially a free classified ad web site for residents in some 300 major cities around the world. On Craigslist, a user can do anything from buying a used refrigerator to looking for a freelance web design job.

One of the most interesting aspects of this site is the fact that you won't find a single ad on the site. Nada. The only income is generated by job ads in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. Newmark has so far resisted buyout offers and has walked away from revenue-generating schemes that could have landed him hundreds of millions of dollars. Craigslist serves over 4 billion page views a month.

Why is Craig Newmark inspirational? He sticks to his standards.

Inspirational Entrepreneur #2
Pierre and Pam Omidyar are the Bill and Melinda Gates of tomorrow. Pierre Omidyar launched eBay, the famous and highly successful auction site. While eBay initially attracted collectors with its auction model, it now serves an impressive population of visitors who want to buy or sell just about anything, including cars.

Undaunted by challenges in areas like consumer satisfaction and credit card security, Omidyar and his team forged ahead and created a complex community of participants who do business based on trust. What a concept!

Omidyar's philanthropy is as creative as his eBay megasite. His giving network (instead of a traditional hands-off foundation) opens the door to self-reliance for entrepreneurs worldwide and involves givers at all income levels.

Why is Pierre Omidyar is inspirational? He's creative, even down how he gives away his money.

Inspirational Entrepreneur #3
Which site gets more hits than Google, has 100 million members and made only $25 million last year? If you guessed MySpace.com, you're correct. Tom Anderson conceived the idea behind MySpace and continues to be a highly visible presence on the popular but highly controversial teen "social networking" site.

MySpace is purported to be the fourth most popular English language web site in the world and the seventh most popular overall. Anderson's idea wasn't the first of its kind. LiveJournal.com predated MySpace. Yet, the journal crowd migrated over to MySpace when they found out how easy it was to download music, video and audio clips. In fact, MySpace is the undisputed home of independent musicians, comedians and artists who want worldwide exposure on a limited budget. Newscorp now owns MySpace.

Why is Tom Anderson inspirational? He figured out that violent video games aren't all that teens are interested in. Not bad for a 20-something guy.

Inspirational Entrepreneur #4
Howard G. "Ward" Cunningham is the creator of WikiWikiWeb, the first wiki. A wiki is a web site that allows almost anyone to update, change, edit or even remove content. This capability is the basis for collaborative authoring. The best known wiki application is the online reference, Wikipedia.com. "Wiki wiki" means "hurry quick" in Hawaiian.

Cunningham also came up with many of the ideas behind extreme programming, another teamwork application.

Why is Ward Cunningham is inspirational? He came up with a simple, unique and brilliant idea.

Honorable Mention
We all have web sites we'd really miss if they suddenly disappeared. Many are so successful that they've been copied and imitated, thereby giving us choices and favorites. Here are some sites that empower us and influence our day-to-day actions:

• Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline and Orbitz that help us explore the world
• Mapquest, Google and Yahoo that help us navigate, find maps, and get door-to-door directions
• Amazon or Barnes and Noble that allow us to buy books
• Overstock.com or Bizrate.com that allow us to do comparison shopping
• howstuffworks.com. that, as the name implies, helps us find out how stuff works.

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