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Part 3: Every Entrepreneur Has A Story… What’s Yours?

My Dream Team

The following are the ten entrepreneurs whose stories I would love to hear. If I were a brand new entrepreneur, this is the dream team I would put together to collaborate with, to learn from and to get ideas about starting a business.

1. Paul Allen, WorldVitalRecords.com– since he’s one of the entrepreneurs that got me started in the first place! Paul thinks big, and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. I’m grateful for that article about Provo Labs that motivated me to quit working at a lame job and find great entrepreneurial people to work with.

2. Paul Graham, YCombinator– because he writes some of the smartest, most applicable essays on the realities of being a tech entrepreneur, being a young entrepreneur, and the joys and curses of the Silicon Valley phenomenon. Paul has a very interesting incubator for young geeks, YCombinator, with a best-kept-secret forum with fantastic content for those in that field.

3. Josh Coates, Mozy– because he is one of our local superstars in the Utah entrepreneur scene. He has a very technical background, he’s known by all who’ve interacted with him to be a riot and a mover & shaker, and because frankly, his Mozy product has saved my bacon so many times.

4. Brock Blake, Funding Universe– because he’s one of the few people I know younger than me who has more entrepreneurial fire than I do. And I just love his company, Funding Universe, because they provide such a necessary service for entrepreneurs who don’t know what to do in order to prepare for funding.

5. Patricia Norins, Specialty Retail Report– even though she’s one of our entrepreneurs featured in The Entrepreneur Story, Patricia is one of my entrepreneurial heroes and I know there’s more to her story than what I’ve read so far. She is a rockstar woman entrepreneur whose attitude, motivation, and kindness I really appreciate.

6. Oprah– yeah, kind of a stretch, I know. I’m sure Oprah has a lot better things to do than write blog posts, but if she’s not the epitome of the American dream as facilitated through personal ambition, opportunity, hard work, and entrepreneurship, I don’t know who is.

Does she think of herself as an entrepreneur? Do other women entrepreneurs look up to Oprah as an example of taking the bull by the horns and not only making a living for themselves, but also taking an idea and making a serious impact? Oprah– what’s your entrepreneur story?

7. Hugh MacLeod (otherwise known as Gaping Void). To the best of my knowledge, Hugh has two main business pursuits: he draws “cartoons on the back of business cards”, and he sells Stormhoek wine. The essence of being an entrepreneur is to do something that you love, and I admire that Hugh has fairly simple concepts that keep him happy.

8. Linda Wells, Stanford Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. I visited Stanford’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies back in June and met Linda’s wonderful staff, Nancy Gross. I was very impressed with the warm, friendly, practical environment Linda’s established at the Center to help student entrepreneurs.

And I was even more impressed when I met Linda at a Stanford MBA event in Salt Lake City this past September. She lives in Park City, Utah, and runs the Center in Palo Alto, California. To me, that is the entrepreneurial lifestyle, and that she can accomplish that, motivates me to find a work-lifestyle balance that suits me specifically.

9. Marina Martin, efficiency consultant, is an absolute rockstar. She’s younger than I am, a full-time self-established consultant, very ambitious, highly admired in the tech community, independent as all get-out, and just the nicest girl I know. I want to know how she has accomplished twice as much as I have, with several less years to do it. Marina? What’s your story!

10. Heather Armstrong Heather writes a blog called Dooce.com. She is probably the Perez Hilton of mombloggers in conservative Utah. She used to work a day job and blog about her adventures there, albeit anonymously, until she was called on the carpet for it and fired.

So Heather thumbed her nose and turned to blogging full-time, and supports her family through her sardonic, naughty blogging on parenting, Utah, and all things IKEA-esque. She has impeccable taste and I love her story.

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So– will you guys share your entrepreneur story with us?

You can blog it, email it, or call me personally (801) 319-4715 and tell me directly. And, you can send it in to The Entrepreneur Story for our next version of the book, if we do one.

In fact, anyone reading this– please feel to write an “Every Entrepreneur Has A Story… What’s Yours?” blogpost, where you write your story and tag a few others. I think we’ll learn a lot.

And, if you send it to www.theentrepreneurstory.com/yourstory, we’ll post some of them here as well. You know my story– now I’m really looking forward to reading YOUR story!

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