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This guy made leather jackets in his garage and turned it into a $1.5 billion empire! In 1988, Richard Stark is a leather dealer who makes his own biker jackets in his Hollywood garage by night. Then a producer friend calls, needing costumes for a movie, and Richard takes the job. One of the actresses is dating Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones. Jones tries on the jacket, loves it, and starts wearing it on stage. Then Mötley Crüe. Then Guns N’ Roses. Suddenly Richard is riding his Harley around LA, dropping gear off at recording studios and rock shows. He walks into Cher’s studio to sell her a $5,000 guitar strap, and she turns him down, but calls him back when she needs a leather jacket for her next music video. ✓ Hires his wife, Laurie Lynn, in 1994 to take over everything he hates, from the stores to the marketing to the sunglasses line ✓ Makes one rule: Chrome Hearts only sells in their own stores ✓ Keeps it out of every other retailer entirely ✓ Grows it into 36 boutiques across the world Biker jackets in a garage → a movie costume gig → rockstars wear it on stage → Cher becomes a customer → wife takes over the business → sells nowhere but their own stores → a $1.5 billion empire. Sometimes the power is in refusing to sell your product anywhere but your own doors. #Business #ChromeHearts #Fashion #Success #Entrepreneur
1.29M
57.7K
405
1mo ago
theventure
This guy made leather jackets in his garage and turned it into a $1.5 billion empire! In 1988, Richard Stark is a leather dealer who makes his own biker jackets in his Hollywood garage by night. Then a producer friend calls, needing costumes for a movie, and Richard takes the job. One of the actresses is dating Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones. Jones tries on the jacket, loves it, and starts wearing it on stage. Then Mötley Crüe. Then Guns N’ Roses. Suddenly Richard is riding his Harley around LA, dropping gear off at recording studios and rock shows. He walks into Cher’s studio to sell her a $5,000 guitar strap, and she turns him down, but calls him back when she needs a leather jacket for her next music video. ✓ Hires his wife, Laurie Lynn, in 1994 to take over everything he hates, from the stores to the marketing to the sunglasses line ✓ Makes one rule: Chrome Hearts only sells in their own stores ✓ Keeps it out of every other retailer entirely ✓ Grows it into 36 boutiques across the world Biker jackets in a garage → a movie costume gig → rockstars wear it on stage → Cher becomes a customer → wife takes over the business → sells nowhere but their own stores → a $1.5 billion empire. Sometimes the power is in refusing to sell your product anywhere but your own doors. #Business #ChromeHearts #Fashion #Success #Entrepreneur
This guy went from selling fake clothes to his classmates to building his own $50 million empire! In 2001, Rhuigi Villaseñor’s family moves from Manila to the San Fernando Valley. He’s nine and speaks no English, so he learns the language watching Kobe Bryant interviews on repeat. He can’t afford the clothes he wants, so he steals them and resells them at school. Growing up in the Valley, surrounded by LA’s bandana culture, he realizes nobody has built a brand around it. So he designs a T-shirt with a blown-out bandana print and puts it online. He doesn’t get a single sale for three months. Then Kendrick Lamar wears it at the BET Awards. Rhuigi opens his PayPal in a beat-up Ford Runner with his sister, sees $150,000, and starts crying. But he blows it all on cars and jewelry, the second collection flops, and he’s back to zero, sleeping on a mattress and almost moving back in with his parents. ✓ Flies to Paris instead and walks into a Barneys buying meeting with the clothes on his back, landing an order ✓ Gets Jay-Z wearing it offstage ✓ Has LeBron James show up in a Rhude T-shirt courtside ✓ Collaborates with McLaren and Lamborghini in 2021 Reselling stolen clothes at school → spots bandana culture nobody’s branded → three months of no sales → Kendrick wears it → $150K overnight → blows it all → nearly quits → flies to Paris on his last shot → $50 million a year. Sometimes rock bottom is exactly where you find the nerve to bet on yourself one more time. #Business #Rhude #Fashion #Success #Entrepreneur
1.13M
33.9K
275
1mo ago
theventure
This guy went from selling fake clothes to his classmates to building his own $50 million empire! In 2001, Rhuigi Villaseñor’s family moves from Manila to the San Fernando Valley. He’s nine and speaks no English, so he learns the language watching Kobe Bryant interviews on repeat. He can’t afford the clothes he wants, so he steals them and resells them at school. Growing up in the Valley, surrounded by LA’s bandana culture, he realizes nobody has built a brand around it. So he designs a T-shirt with a blown-out bandana print and puts it online. He doesn’t get a single sale for three months. Then Kendrick Lamar wears it at the BET Awards. Rhuigi opens his PayPal in a beat-up Ford Runner with his sister, sees $150,000, and starts crying. But he blows it all on cars and jewelry, the second collection flops, and he’s back to zero, sleeping on a mattress and almost moving back in with his parents. ✓ Flies to Paris instead and walks into a Barneys buying meeting with the clothes on his back, landing an order ✓ Gets Jay-Z wearing it offstage ✓ Has LeBron James show up in a Rhude T-shirt courtside ✓ Collaborates with McLaren and Lamborghini in 2021 Reselling stolen clothes at school → spots bandana culture nobody’s branded → three months of no sales → Kendrick wears it → $150K overnight → blows it all → nearly quits → flies to Paris on his last shot → $50 million a year. Sometimes rock bottom is exactly where you find the nerve to bet on yourself one more time. #Business #Rhude #Fashion #Success #Entrepreneur
This guy turned his dad’s car into a $250 million empire! In 1977, Bodo Buschmann is 22 and working at his father’s Mercedes dealership in Germany. Bodo loves Porsches, but his father hates them, so he has to drive a Benz to keep his job. So he starts taking it apart, swapping the engine and reworking the suspension until his S-Class is faster than any Porsche on the lot. A customer spots it and wants one built exactly the same. So Bodo registers the company, names it BRABUS, and starts taking orders. By 1984 rental giant Sixt orders 200 BRABUS-tuned cars in a single deal, and he builds a factory straight off the autobahn. Then in 1999 Mercedes buys AMG, and every independent tuner in Germany loses their edge. ✓ Sees what everyone misses while AMG sticks to a few specs picked by management ✓ Becomes the only shop on earth where customers build a truly custom Mercedes with zero limits ✓ Hits 330 km/h that same year with their E V12 ✓ Enters the Guinness Book of Records as the fastest production sedan on the planet Forced to drive a Benz → tears it apart to beat Porsches → a customer wants one → 200-car Sixt order → AMG kills off the tuners → he goes fully custom instead → 100 countries and $250 million a year. Sometimes you win by offering the one thing the giant refuses to: no limits. #Business #BRABUS #Automotive #Success #Entrepreneur
1.12M
43.4K
119
2w ago
theventure
This guy turned his dad’s car into a $250 million empire! In 1977, Bodo Buschmann is 22 and working at his father’s Mercedes dealership in Germany. Bodo loves Porsches, but his father hates them, so he has to drive a Benz to keep his job. So he starts taking it apart, swapping the engine and reworking the suspension until his S-Class is faster than any Porsche on the lot. A customer spots it and wants one built exactly the same. So Bodo registers the company, names it BRABUS, and starts taking orders. By 1984 rental giant Sixt orders 200 BRABUS-tuned cars in a single deal, and he builds a factory straight off the autobahn. Then in 1999 Mercedes buys AMG, and every independent tuner in Germany loses their edge. ✓ Sees what everyone misses while AMG sticks to a few specs picked by management ✓ Becomes the only shop on earth where customers build a truly custom Mercedes with zero limits ✓ Hits 330 km/h that same year with their E V12 ✓ Enters the Guinness Book of Records as the fastest production sedan on the planet Forced to drive a Benz → tears it apart to beat Porsches → a customer wants one → 200-car Sixt order → AMG kills off the tuners → he goes fully custom instead → 100 countries and $250 million a year. Sometimes you win by offering the one thing the giant refuses to: no limits. #Business #BRABUS #Automotive #Success #Entrepreneur
Buffett bought Nebraska Furniture Mart after asking one question. Do you owe any money? Her answer is the whole business. Blumkin sold at $3.98 where the big Omaha stores charged $6.98, and they sued her four times for it. She won every case, and the price was never really the point. A shop carrying debt has to cover its interest out of margin, so it needs prices to stay high, which is why the big stores fought so hard to keep them there. Blumkin owed nobody anything, so she could trade at a margin that would have killed her competitors and keep doing it forever. The second thing Buffett learned cost him more. At 95 she fell out with the grandsons running the shop and quit, opened a rival store across the street, and her customers walked over with her. He had bought the building and she had kept the business, so he bought her out a second time and made a 99 year old sign a non-compete. She went back to work until she was 103. She had arrived from Russia with $500 and never learned to write, so she signed that $60 million contract with a scrawl. Nebraska Furniture Mart now sells more than a billion dollars a year. Follow @theventure for the greatest founder stories ever told.
880K
27.5K
165
1w ago
theventure
Buffett bought Nebraska Furniture Mart after asking one question. Do you owe any money? Her answer is the whole business. Blumkin sold at $3.98 where the big Omaha stores charged $6.98, and they sued her four times for it. She won every case, and the price was never really the point. A shop carrying debt has to cover its interest out of margin, so it needs prices to stay high, which is why the big stores fought so hard to keep them there. Blumkin owed nobody anything, so she could trade at a margin that would have killed her competitors and keep doing it forever. The second thing Buffett learned cost him more. At 95 she fell out with the grandsons running the shop and quit, opened a rival store across the street, and her customers walked over with her. He had bought the building and she had kept the business, so he bought her out a second time and made a 99 year old sign a non-compete. She went back to work until she was 103. She had arrived from Russia with $500 and never learned to write, so she signed that $60 million contract with a scrawl. Nebraska Furniture Mart now sells more than a billion dollars a year. Follow @theventure for the greatest founder stories ever told.
Meet the real-life cowboy behind Yellowstone - Taylor Sheridan. In 2015, after two decades as a struggling actor living in his car, he switched to screenwriting at age 40 and created a neo-Western TV empire. After watching traditional Westerns disappear from screens, Sheridan convinced Paramount to take a chance on "Yellowstone," a series about a powerful rancher fighting to protect his land from developers, politicians, and a neighboring Native American reservation. When the show exploded to 15 million viewers, he leveraged his success by creating spinoffs like "1883" and "1923," bringing Hollywood legends like Harrison Ford into his world. The breakthrough came when Sheridan purchased the historic 6666 Ranch for $320 million with investors. He now films his own shows on his own property, charging Paramount $50,000 weekly for location use, plus fees for his cattle and "cowboy camp" training. Today, the Yellowstone franchise is worth $500 million, with spinoffs continuing to expand his empire. What transformed a struggling actor into a half-billion dollar showrunner? Authentic Storytelling: By drawing from his real ranching experience, Sheridan created a world that resonated with audiences overlooked by Hollywood. Complete Creative Control: Unlike most showrunners, Sheridan writes every episode himself, maintaining a singular vision that connects with viewers. Business Integration: Rather than separating his creative and business ventures, Sheridan built a vertically integrated empire where his shows promote his ranches and vice versa. Sheridan's story demonstrates that sometimes the biggest opportunities come from personal experience. By turning his childhood ranch background into television's most successful franchise, he created an empire that transformed the modern Western genre. #taylorSheridan #yellowstone #paramount #KevinCostner #1883
702K
46.4K
526
6mo ago
theventure
Meet the real-life cowboy behind Yellowstone - Taylor Sheridan. In 2015, after two decades as a struggling actor living in his car, he switched to screenwriting at age 40 and created a neo-Western TV empire. After watching traditional Westerns disappear from screens, Sheridan convinced Paramount to take a chance on "Yellowstone," a series about a powerful rancher fighting to protect his land from developers, politicians, and a neighboring Native American reservation. When the show exploded to 15 million viewers, he leveraged his success by creating spinoffs like "1883" and "1923," bringing Hollywood legends like Harrison Ford into his world. The breakthrough came when Sheridan purchased the historic 6666 Ranch for $320 million with investors. He now films his own shows on his own property, charging Paramount $50,000 weekly for location use, plus fees for his cattle and "cowboy camp" training. Today, the Yellowstone franchise is worth $500 million, with spinoffs continuing to expand his empire. What transformed a struggling actor into a half-billion dollar showrunner? Authentic Storytelling: By drawing from his real ranching experience, Sheridan created a world that resonated with audiences overlooked by Hollywood. Complete Creative Control: Unlike most showrunners, Sheridan writes every episode himself, maintaining a singular vision that connects with viewers. Business Integration: Rather than separating his creative and business ventures, Sheridan built a vertically integrated empire where his shows promote his ranches and vice versa. Sheridan's story demonstrates that sometimes the biggest opportunities come from personal experience. By turning his childhood ranch background into television's most successful franchise, he created an empire that transformed the modern Western genre. #taylorSheridan #yellowstone #paramount #KevinCostner #1883
Check them out: @thegride This guy beat cancer, built a $300 million business, and now he’s doing it again! In 2016, Georgios Frangulis is living in Los Angeles, broke, no credit score, with a wild idea: sell açaí bowls to Americans. But nobody will rent a shop to a guy with no money selling a fruit they’ve never heard of. So Georgios flips the script, flies home to Brazil, and bets his last money on one tiny store in São Paulo. Then life hits harder when doctors find a tumor in his neck. He beats the cancer, and an unexpected insurance payout lands right when the business needs cash. He pours every cent into açaí, and the bet works. ✓ Explodes Oakberry to more than 1,000 stores in over 50 countries ✓ Grows it to around $300 million a year ✓ Keeps hearing one question flood his DMs every time he posts: where did you get that? ✓ Realizes people don’t just want his açaí, they want his clothes Broke in LA with a fruit nobody knows → bets his last money on one Brazil store → beats cancer mid-launch → an insurance payout saves it → 1,000 stores and $300 million → his own outfits become the next demand. So he’s doing it again with The Gride, “Greek” plus “Pride,” made in Portugal and printed with the exact tattoos inked on his body. Just launched. #Business #Oakberry #TheGride #Success #Entrepreneur
627K
12.8K
114
2w ago
theventure
Check them out: @thegride This guy beat cancer, built a $300 million business, and now he’s doing it again! In 2016, Georgios Frangulis is living in Los Angeles, broke, no credit score, with a wild idea: sell açaí bowls to Americans. But nobody will rent a shop to a guy with no money selling a fruit they’ve never heard of. So Georgios flips the script, flies home to Brazil, and bets his last money on one tiny store in São Paulo. Then life hits harder when doctors find a tumor in his neck. He beats the cancer, and an unexpected insurance payout lands right when the business needs cash. He pours every cent into açaí, and the bet works. ✓ Explodes Oakberry to more than 1,000 stores in over 50 countries ✓ Grows it to around $300 million a year ✓ Keeps hearing one question flood his DMs every time he posts: where did you get that? ✓ Realizes people don’t just want his açaí, they want his clothes Broke in LA with a fruit nobody knows → bets his last money on one Brazil store → beats cancer mid-launch → an insurance payout saves it → 1,000 stores and $300 million → his own outfits become the next demand. So he’s doing it again with The Gride, “Greek” plus “Pride,” made in Portugal and printed with the exact tattoos inked on his body. Just launched. #Business #Oakberry #TheGride #Success #Entrepreneur
This guy turned a $1 zipper into a $6 billion global empire! In 1934, Tadao Yoshida starts a zipper company in Tokyo with leftover inventory from a store that just went bankrupt. His crew makes every zipper by hand, twelve women at a table pressing each metal tooth into fabric one at a time. Then in 1950 an American buyer walks in and pulls out a US-made zipper: machine-produced, half the price, and far better quality. Yoshida realizes his whole business is already obsolete. So he goes to the Ministry of International Trade alone and gets permission to import an American chain machine, which earns YKK their first patent in 1953. Then he starts building his own machines from scratch. ✓ Owns the best zipper machine on earth by 1964, guarding the design like a state secret ✓ Makes everything that goes into the product: the brass, the thread, the tape ✓ Builds the machines that produce all of it, while every competitor outsources parts ✓ Overtakes Talon, the American company that invented the modern zipper, by the 1970s Hand-pressing zippers at a table → an American zipper makes him obsolete → imports one machine → builds his own instead → owns the entire chain end to end → 10 billion zippers a year and $6 billion. Sometimes owning every piece of how it’s made is the edge no competitor can copy. #Business #YKK #Manufacturing #Success #Entrepreneur
468K
10.8K
59
2w ago
theventure
This guy turned a $1 zipper into a $6 billion global empire! In 1934, Tadao Yoshida starts a zipper company in Tokyo with leftover inventory from a store that just went bankrupt. His crew makes every zipper by hand, twelve women at a table pressing each metal tooth into fabric one at a time. Then in 1950 an American buyer walks in and pulls out a US-made zipper: machine-produced, half the price, and far better quality. Yoshida realizes his whole business is already obsolete. So he goes to the Ministry of International Trade alone and gets permission to import an American chain machine, which earns YKK their first patent in 1953. Then he starts building his own machines from scratch. ✓ Owns the best zipper machine on earth by 1964, guarding the design like a state secret ✓ Makes everything that goes into the product: the brass, the thread, the tape ✓ Builds the machines that produce all of it, while every competitor outsources parts ✓ Overtakes Talon, the American company that invented the modern zipper, by the 1970s Hand-pressing zippers at a table → an American zipper makes him obsolete → imports one machine → builds his own instead → owns the entire chain end to end → 10 billion zippers a year and $6 billion. Sometimes owning every piece of how it’s made is the edge no competitor can copy. #Business #YKK #Manufacturing #Success #Entrepreneur
This immigrant borrowed money from his dad and built a $6 billion empire! Rohan Oza grows up in an Indian family in Zambia and moves to England to study engineering. He lands a job at an M&M’s factory but doesn’t want to be on the floor, so he asks for a transfer to marketing, gets shut down, and leaves. He joins Coca-Cola in Atlanta, takes over Powerade, a brand shrinking for years, and flips it in his first year. Then in 2002 he walks away from his corporate salary to join a tiny water startup in Queens called Glacéau, makers of Vitaminwater, so broke he borrows from his own father just to buy shares. Then he gets 50 Cent on the phone and, instead of a check, tells him flat out he doesn’t have the money to pay him. ✓ Gets 50 Cent to take equity instead, and promote Vitaminwater everywhere ✓ Watches Coca-Cola buy the company in 2007 for $4.1 billion, with 50’s stake reportedly worth $100 million ✓ Bets $400,000 on a soda called Poppi on Shark Tank in 2025 ✓ Sees Poppi close with PepsiCo for $1.95 billion Turned down for marketing → flips Powerade in a year → borrows from his dad to buy into Vitaminwater → offers 50 Cent equity, not cash → a $4.1 billion sale → then Poppi for $1.95 billion → Hollywood calls him the Brandfather. Sometimes offering a piece instead of a paycheck is what makes everyone rich. #Business #Vitaminwater #Branding #Success #Entrepreneur
466K
8.11K
60
2w ago
theventure
This immigrant borrowed money from his dad and built a $6 billion empire! Rohan Oza grows up in an Indian family in Zambia and moves to England to study engineering. He lands a job at an M&M’s factory but doesn’t want to be on the floor, so he asks for a transfer to marketing, gets shut down, and leaves. He joins Coca-Cola in Atlanta, takes over Powerade, a brand shrinking for years, and flips it in his first year. Then in 2002 he walks away from his corporate salary to join a tiny water startup in Queens called Glacéau, makers of Vitaminwater, so broke he borrows from his own father just to buy shares. Then he gets 50 Cent on the phone and, instead of a check, tells him flat out he doesn’t have the money to pay him. ✓ Gets 50 Cent to take equity instead, and promote Vitaminwater everywhere ✓ Watches Coca-Cola buy the company in 2007 for $4.1 billion, with 50’s stake reportedly worth $100 million ✓ Bets $400,000 on a soda called Poppi on Shark Tank in 2025 ✓ Sees Poppi close with PepsiCo for $1.95 billion Turned down for marketing → flips Powerade in a year → borrows from his dad to buy into Vitaminwater → offers 50 Cent equity, not cash → a $4.1 billion sale → then Poppi for $1.95 billion → Hollywood calls him the Brandfather. Sometimes offering a piece instead of a paycheck is what makes everyone rich. #Business #Vitaminwater #Branding #Success #Entrepreneur
This guy turns a gas station into a $2B road-trip empire! ⛽🐻 Arch Aplin III grows up in Texas, the son of a construction worker. In 1980, he sees what everyone else ignores: every gas station is dirty and forgettable. So he takes out a loan and opens the first Buc-ee’s in Lake Jackson, naming it after his childhood nickname, Beaver. ✓ He does the opposite—spotless bathrooms, high pay, Texas BBQ, fudge, and fun merch ✓ Opens a mega-store in Luling: 66 pumps, 5,000 sq ft, $28M in year one ✓ Refuses to franchise—keeps full control, handpicks every location ✓ Builds Buc-ee’s into a cult road-trip destination, not just a gas stop One store → 54 locations in 9 states → world’s largest convenience store → $2B+ family-owned empire. Sometimes, the best way to win is to obsess over the details everyone else ignores. What boring business would you turn into a cult by doing the opposite? 🤔 #Business #Retail #Texas #Success #Entrepreneur
411K
15.1K
285
7mo ago
theventure
This guy turns a gas station into a $2B road-trip empire! ⛽🐻 Arch Aplin III grows up in Texas, the son of a construction worker. In 1980, he sees what everyone else ignores: every gas station is dirty and forgettable. So he takes out a loan and opens the first Buc-ee’s in Lake Jackson, naming it after his childhood nickname, Beaver. ✓ He does the opposite—spotless bathrooms, high pay, Texas BBQ, fudge, and fun merch ✓ Opens a mega-store in Luling: 66 pumps, 5,000 sq ft, $28M in year one ✓ Refuses to franchise—keeps full control, handpicks every location ✓ Builds Buc-ee’s into a cult road-trip destination, not just a gas stop One store → 54 locations in 9 states → world’s largest convenience store → $2B+ family-owned empire. Sometimes, the best way to win is to obsess over the details everyone else ignores. What boring business would you turn into a cult by doing the opposite? 🤔 #Business #Retail #Texas #Success #Entrepreneur
Southwest sold a quarter of its fleet to make payroll, and that is how it found the thing that made money for the next 47 years. Being poor forced a question nobody else had to ask. Every other airline owned enough aircraft, so an hour parked between flights was normal and nobody examined it. Southwest had three planes and a four plane schedule, so they had to work out how fast a jet could be emptied, refilled and sent back up. The answer was ten minutes. A plane only earns money in the air, and Southwest was getting close to a third more flying out of every aircraft it owned. Several big airlines tried to copy it and none of them managed. A ten minute turn only works if everything else bends around it: one type of aircraft, no assigned seats, no meals, no bags handed to other airlines, and no hub to feed. Copying Southwest meant dismantling the system they had built their entire business on. Southwest made money for 47 straight years and never laid off an employee. Herb also once settled a trademark dispute by arm wrestling the other chairman with a cigarette in his teeth. He lost, and the man handed over the slogan anyway. Follow @theventure for the greatest founder stories ever told.
299K
9.43K
63
5d ago
theventure
Southwest sold a quarter of its fleet to make payroll, and that is how it found the thing that made money for the next 47 years. Being poor forced a question nobody else had to ask. Every other airline owned enough aircraft, so an hour parked between flights was normal and nobody examined it. Southwest had three planes and a four plane schedule, so they had to work out how fast a jet could be emptied, refilled and sent back up. The answer was ten minutes. A plane only earns money in the air, and Southwest was getting close to a third more flying out of every aircraft it owned. Several big airlines tried to copy it and none of them managed. A ten minute turn only works if everything else bends around it: one type of aircraft, no assigned seats, no meals, no bags handed to other airlines, and no hub to feed. Copying Southwest meant dismantling the system they had built their entire business on. Southwest made money for 47 straight years and never laid off an employee. Herb also once settled a trademark dispute by arm wrestling the other chairman with a cigarette in his teeth. He lost, and the man handed over the slogan anyway. Follow @theventure for the greatest founder stories ever told.
David Tran never trademarked the word Sriracha, and it made him more money than owning it would have. Because the name was free, Heinz and Tabasco could put Sriracha on their own bottles. They also had to spend real money teaching Americans to want the stuff. Tran had never bought a single advertisement and he did not need to start, because most of the people those campaigns created went looking for the sauce they had already seen on restaurant tables. That bottle had a rooster on it, and the rooster was the part nobody could copy. Holding the price down was the other half of it. A restaurant only leaves a bottle on every table if the sauce is cheap enough to treat as a condiment. Raise the price and it moves behind the counter, and the free advertising stops. Tran held his price for decades, so the bottles stayed out where everyone could see them. Huy Fong now sells tens of millions of bottles a year and has still never run an advertisement. In 2023 Forbes named him the world’s first hot sauce billionaire, from a company he named after the freighter that carried him out of Vietnam. Follow @theventure for the greatest founder stories ever told.
259K
7.98K
201
5d ago
theventure
David Tran never trademarked the word Sriracha, and it made him more money than owning it would have. Because the name was free, Heinz and Tabasco could put Sriracha on their own bottles. They also had to spend real money teaching Americans to want the stuff. Tran had never bought a single advertisement and he did not need to start, because most of the people those campaigns created went looking for the sauce they had already seen on restaurant tables. That bottle had a rooster on it, and the rooster was the part nobody could copy. Holding the price down was the other half of it. A restaurant only leaves a bottle on every table if the sauce is cheap enough to treat as a condiment. Raise the price and it moves behind the counter, and the free advertising stops. Tran held his price for decades, so the bottles stayed out where everyone could see them. Huy Fong now sells tens of millions of bottles a year and has still never run an advertisement. In 2023 Forbes named him the world’s first hot sauce billionaire, from a company he named after the freighter that carried him out of Vietnam. Follow @theventure for the greatest founder stories ever told.
This guy turned a sandwich shop into a $500 million restaurant nobody can get into 🍝💰 In 2008, Mario Carbone is second in command at the fanciest Italian restaurant in New York, but he wants to build something of his own. He convinces his roommate Rich Torrisi to pool their families’ savings and rent a tiny sandwich shop in Little Italy, with six tables and a chalkboard menu. New York Magazine writes them a glowing review, and people start lining up outside. Jeff Zalaznick, a regular, becomes their third partner. In 2013 they take over a 90-year-old restaurant and decide to build something completely different. While every chef in New York does 20-course tasting menus and decides what the guest will eat, Mario goes the opposite way. ✓ Prints a menu the size of a flat-screen TV and lets guests order anything they want ✓ Makes it for them even if it’s not on the menu ✓ Sets out to make every guest feel like Henry Hill walking into the Copa ✓ Earns three stars from the New York Times, with Drake name-dropping it and Obama visiting in office Second-in-command wants his own → a six-table sandwich shop → one review draws a line out the door → takes over an old restaurant → hands guests control while everyone else takes it away → Drake and Obama → 40 locations and $500M a year. Sometimes you stand out by handing people control that everyone else is busy taking away. What would you let your customers control that your whole industry insists on deciding for them? 🤔 #Business #Carbone #Restaurants #Success #Entrepreneur
246K
5.63K
73
1mo ago
theventure
This guy turned a sandwich shop into a $500 million restaurant nobody can get into 🍝💰 In 2008, Mario Carbone is second in command at the fanciest Italian restaurant in New York, but he wants to build something of his own. He convinces his roommate Rich Torrisi to pool their families’ savings and rent a tiny sandwich shop in Little Italy, with six tables and a chalkboard menu. New York Magazine writes them a glowing review, and people start lining up outside. Jeff Zalaznick, a regular, becomes their third partner. In 2013 they take over a 90-year-old restaurant and decide to build something completely different. While every chef in New York does 20-course tasting menus and decides what the guest will eat, Mario goes the opposite way. ✓ Prints a menu the size of a flat-screen TV and lets guests order anything they want ✓ Makes it for them even if it’s not on the menu ✓ Sets out to make every guest feel like Henry Hill walking into the Copa ✓ Earns three stars from the New York Times, with Drake name-dropping it and Obama visiting in office Second-in-command wants his own → a six-table sandwich shop → one review draws a line out the door → takes over an old restaurant → hands guests control while everyone else takes it away → Drake and Obama → 40 locations and $500M a year. Sometimes you stand out by handing people control that everyone else is busy taking away. What would you let your customers control that your whole industry insists on deciding for them? 🤔 #Business #Carbone #Restaurants #Success #Entrepreneur
This guy invented Ethernet and built a $2.7 billion company! In 1973, Bob Metcalfe is a young researcher at Xerox with a problem: the office is filling up with personal computers, but there’s no way to connect them to a single printer. So Bob writes a solution in a memo, a system that lets machines share one line, all talking over what he calls “the ether.” He names it Ethernet and gets it working within months. But Xerox owns it, and they just sit on it, going nowhere. Bob realizes his invention is trapped. So instead of letting one company hoard it, he quits, then convinces tech companies to release Ethernet as a free, open standard anyone can use. ✓ Starts his own company, 3Com ✓ Sells the one thing everyone now needs: the cards that plug computers into Ethernet ✓ Gives away the invention and sells the shovels ✓ Takes the business public as it explodes Computers with no way to connect → invents Ethernet in months → Xerox sits on it → gives it away as an open standard → sells the cards everyone now needs → 3Com sells to HP for $2.7 billion. Sometimes you make more giving the invention away and selling what everyone needs to use it. #Business #3Com #Tech #Success #Entrepreneur
246K
3.73K
31
2w ago
theventure
This guy invented Ethernet and built a $2.7 billion company! In 1973, Bob Metcalfe is a young researcher at Xerox with a problem: the office is filling up with personal computers, but there’s no way to connect them to a single printer. So Bob writes a solution in a memo, a system that lets machines share one line, all talking over what he calls “the ether.” He names it Ethernet and gets it working within months. But Xerox owns it, and they just sit on it, going nowhere. Bob realizes his invention is trapped. So instead of letting one company hoard it, he quits, then convinces tech companies to release Ethernet as a free, open standard anyone can use. ✓ Starts his own company, 3Com ✓ Sells the one thing everyone now needs: the cards that plug computers into Ethernet ✓ Gives away the invention and sells the shovels ✓ Takes the business public as it explodes Computers with no way to connect → invents Ethernet in months → Xerox sits on it → gives it away as an open standard → sells the cards everyone now needs → 3Com sells to HP for $2.7 billion. Sometimes you make more giving the invention away and selling what everyone needs to use it. #Business #3Com #Tech #Success #Entrepreneur
This guy got fired from a $6M-a-year job after a fight with a billionaire, then built a rival company that went public for $500M 🇸🇪💰 Fredrik Karlsson was CEO of Lifco for 20 years, turning it into a $10B Swedish giant. In 2019, he was fired after a pay dispute with billionaire owner Carl Bennet. Most would retire. Fredrik built a rival. ✓ Founded Röko in 2019 with ex-Nordstjernan CEO - positioned as "perpetual owner" that never sells ✓ Acquired 33+ companies in 6 years - only buys businesses with 15%+ EBITA margins ✓ Gave managers freedom but brutal targets - hit numbers or you're out ✓ Used cash flow from stable businesses to fund high-growth acquisitions - compounding machine Fired 2019 → Founded Röko → 33 acquisitions → 30% annual earnings growth → $500M IPO March 2025. Fredrik didn't need the billionaire who fired him. He took the same playbook, built a rival, and proved it worked without Lifco. Sometimes the best revenge is building something better. What company could you build after getting fired from the one you made successful? 🤔 #Business #Acquisitions #Sweden #Success #SerialAcquirer
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7mo ago
theventure
This guy got fired from a $6M-a-year job after a fight with a billionaire, then built a rival company that went public for $500M 🇸🇪💰 Fredrik Karlsson was CEO of Lifco for 20 years, turning it into a $10B Swedish giant. In 2019, he was fired after a pay dispute with billionaire owner Carl Bennet. Most would retire. Fredrik built a rival. ✓ Founded Röko in 2019 with ex-Nordstjernan CEO - positioned as "perpetual owner" that never sells ✓ Acquired 33+ companies in 6 years - only buys businesses with 15%+ EBITA margins ✓ Gave managers freedom but brutal targets - hit numbers or you're out ✓ Used cash flow from stable businesses to fund high-growth acquisitions - compounding machine Fired 2019 → Founded Röko → 33 acquisitions → 30% annual earnings growth → $500M IPO March 2025. Fredrik didn't need the billionaire who fired him. He took the same playbook, built a rival, and proved it worked without Lifco. Sometimes the best revenge is building something better. What company could you build after getting fired from the one you made successful? 🤔 #Business #Acquisitions #Sweden #Success #SerialAcquirer
This guy sold everything for a one-way plane ticket, then built a $60 million empire! In 2016, James Smith lands in Sydney as a personal trainer nobody’s heard of. So at 5am every day, he goes live on Facebook in an empty food court, answering fitness questions for free for a year straight. That builds a million followers and a bestselling book. To write it, he leans on Modafinil, a narcolepsy drug, just to hit 10,000 words a day. He knows that isn’t sustainable, and when his partner says productivity could be the next fitness, the idea clicks: instead of fighting for the energy drink aisle, he builds a category of his own. ✓ Launches Neutonic, the world’s first productivity drink ✓ Builds it for the hours before demanding work, sharp with no coffee or Red Bull crash ✓ Brings in Modern Wisdom host Chris Williamson to help build it ✓ Lands in ten thousand stores after launching in 2023 One-way ticket to Sydney → 5am lives for a year → a million followers and a book → burns out on Modafinil → invents the productivity drink → 10,000 stores and $60 million. Sometimes you win by inventing the aisle instead of fighting for space in a crowded one. #Business #Neutonic #Supplements #Success #Entrepreneur
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4w ago
theventure
This guy sold everything for a one-way plane ticket, then built a $60 million empire! In 2016, James Smith lands in Sydney as a personal trainer nobody’s heard of. So at 5am every day, he goes live on Facebook in an empty food court, answering fitness questions for free for a year straight. That builds a million followers and a bestselling book. To write it, he leans on Modafinil, a narcolepsy drug, just to hit 10,000 words a day. He knows that isn’t sustainable, and when his partner says productivity could be the next fitness, the idea clicks: instead of fighting for the energy drink aisle, he builds a category of his own. ✓ Launches Neutonic, the world’s first productivity drink ✓ Builds it for the hours before demanding work, sharp with no coffee or Red Bull crash ✓ Brings in Modern Wisdom host Chris Williamson to help build it ✓ Lands in ten thousand stores after launching in 2023 One-way ticket to Sydney → 5am lives for a year → a million followers and a book → burns out on Modafinil → invents the productivity drink → 10,000 stores and $60 million. Sometimes you win by inventing the aisle instead of fighting for space in a crowded one. #Business #Neutonic #Supplements #Success #Entrepreneur
This guy bought a hotel nobody wanted and turned it into a $13 billion empire! Barry Sternlicht grows up in Connecticut, the son of a Polish Holocaust survivor who built a flashlight business from nothing then lost it all overnight. Barry earns a Harvard MBA, becomes a star dealmaker at a top Chicago real estate firm, and then gets cut when the savings-and-loan crisis hits. So he raises $20 million, drives to government auctions in open fields, and buys the distressed properties everyone else is walking away from, tripling his investors’ money in 18 months. Then he quietly buys stock in a near-bankrupt hotel company, along with over half its debt. While every chain races to look the same, beige walls and a mint on the pillow, Barry does the opposite. ✓ Takes a rundown Doral Inn on Lexington Avenue and turns the lobby into something closer to a nightclub ✓ Puts staff in black T-shirts and velvet ropes at the entrance ✓ Fills the place with loud music you’d actually want to hear, and calls it W Hotels ✓ Scales it to 60 locations in under a decade Dad loses everything → star dealmaker gets cut → buys distressed property in open fields → bets on a bankrupt hotel chain → builds a hotel that feels like a nightclub → Marriott pays $13.6 billion → manages $130 billion today. Sometimes you win by making yours the one place that refuses to look like everyone else’s. #Business #WHotels #Hospitality #Success #Entrepreneur
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2w ago
theventure
This guy bought a hotel nobody wanted and turned it into a $13 billion empire! Barry Sternlicht grows up in Connecticut, the son of a Polish Holocaust survivor who built a flashlight business from nothing then lost it all overnight. Barry earns a Harvard MBA, becomes a star dealmaker at a top Chicago real estate firm, and then gets cut when the savings-and-loan crisis hits. So he raises $20 million, drives to government auctions in open fields, and buys the distressed properties everyone else is walking away from, tripling his investors’ money in 18 months. Then he quietly buys stock in a near-bankrupt hotel company, along with over half its debt. While every chain races to look the same, beige walls and a mint on the pillow, Barry does the opposite. ✓ Takes a rundown Doral Inn on Lexington Avenue and turns the lobby into something closer to a nightclub ✓ Puts staff in black T-shirts and velvet ropes at the entrance ✓ Fills the place with loud music you’d actually want to hear, and calls it W Hotels ✓ Scales it to 60 locations in under a decade Dad loses everything → star dealmaker gets cut → buys distressed property in open fields → bets on a bankrupt hotel chain → builds a hotel that feels like a nightclub → Marriott pays $13.6 billion → manages $130 billion today. Sometimes you win by making yours the one place that refuses to look like everyone else’s. #Business #WHotels #Hospitality #Success #Entrepreneur
This guy went from digging through trash to building a $4.8 billion empire! John Schnatter grows up in Indiana, washing dishes at a local pizza joint at 15. He sketches his own business plan with a name, logo, and recipes, then graduates and buries the whole thing in a cardboard box in his closet. When his dad’s bar nearly goes bankrupt, John sells his 1971 Camaro for $2,800 to save it, and spends months turning the place around. One night, closing up, he stares at the broom closet and something clicks. He tears down the walls, installs an oven, and starts selling pizzas out the back of the bar. Then he goes hunting for customers. Every night at 1am, John drives to the local Domino’s and digs through their dumpster for delivery slips. ✓ Collects every pizza customer’s name and address in town from the trash ✓ Mails each one a handwritten letter: better pizza, half off your first order ✓ Rattles Domino’s so badly they start soaking their receipts in water to stop him ✓ Opens the first Papa John’s in 1985 and outsells Domino’s the very next month Camaro sold to save his dad’s bar → an oven in the broom closet → digs through Domino’s dumpster at 1am → mails their own customers → beats them in a month → over 6,000 restaurants and $4.8 billion a year. Sometimes your first customer list is sitting in your competitor’s trash. #Business #PapaJohns #Food #Success #Entrepreneur
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2w ago
theventure
This guy went from digging through trash to building a $4.8 billion empire! John Schnatter grows up in Indiana, washing dishes at a local pizza joint at 15. He sketches his own business plan with a name, logo, and recipes, then graduates and buries the whole thing in a cardboard box in his closet. When his dad’s bar nearly goes bankrupt, John sells his 1971 Camaro for $2,800 to save it, and spends months turning the place around. One night, closing up, he stares at the broom closet and something clicks. He tears down the walls, installs an oven, and starts selling pizzas out the back of the bar. Then he goes hunting for customers. Every night at 1am, John drives to the local Domino’s and digs through their dumpster for delivery slips. ✓ Collects every pizza customer’s name and address in town from the trash ✓ Mails each one a handwritten letter: better pizza, half off your first order ✓ Rattles Domino’s so badly they start soaking their receipts in water to stop him ✓ Opens the first Papa John’s in 1985 and outsells Domino’s the very next month Camaro sold to save his dad’s bar → an oven in the broom closet → digs through Domino’s dumpster at 1am → mails their own customers → beats them in a month → over 6,000 restaurants and $4.8 billion a year. Sometimes your first customer list is sitting in your competitor’s trash. #Business #PapaJohns #Food #Success #Entrepreneur
This girl turned an Instagram mood board into a $40 million fashion empire 👟💰 At 20, Emily Oberg is working at Complex when she pins two pictures to her desk: Michael Jordan and a Celine campaign. She starts an Instagram account collecting images like these, with no plan to sell anything yet. In 2018 she moves to LA and meets David, a Parisian designer who tells her to make it real. They have no money, so they launch with pre-orders: sell the items first, find the factory after. The first drop makes $40,000 in three weeks. Then lockdown hits, and the whole world starts shopping online. ✓ Makes six hundred thousand dollars in a single day on one drop ✓ Watches the factory buckle, with half the orders lost in the mail and the operation nearly collapsing ✓ Rebuilds the supply chain from the ground up and starts wholesaling ✓ Opens flagships across the world with zero investors Two pins on a desk → an Instagram mood board → sells the clothes before finding a factory → $40K first drop → $600K in a day → nearly buried by its own orders → rebuilds → New York, LA, and Shanghai. Sometimes the brand exists long before the product does; the audience just has to come first. What would you build an audience around before you ever had something to sell? 🤔 #Business #SportyAndRich #Fashion #Success #Entrepreneur
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1mo ago
theventure
This girl turned an Instagram mood board into a $40 million fashion empire 👟💰 At 20, Emily Oberg is working at Complex when she pins two pictures to her desk: Michael Jordan and a Celine campaign. She starts an Instagram account collecting images like these, with no plan to sell anything yet. In 2018 she moves to LA and meets David, a Parisian designer who tells her to make it real. They have no money, so they launch with pre-orders: sell the items first, find the factory after. The first drop makes $40,000 in three weeks. Then lockdown hits, and the whole world starts shopping online. ✓ Makes six hundred thousand dollars in a single day on one drop ✓ Watches the factory buckle, with half the orders lost in the mail and the operation nearly collapsing ✓ Rebuilds the supply chain from the ground up and starts wholesaling ✓ Opens flagships across the world with zero investors Two pins on a desk → an Instagram mood board → sells the clothes before finding a factory → $40K first drop → $600K in a day → nearly buried by its own orders → rebuilds → New York, LA, and Shanghai. Sometimes the brand exists long before the product does; the audience just has to come first. What would you build an audience around before you ever had something to sell? 🤔 #Business #SportyAndRich #Fashion #Success #Entrepreneur
Tag @grantcardone to see it 👇🏻 This guy went from abusing drugs to building a $5 billion real estate empire! Grant Cardone grows up in Louisiana and loses his dad at 10. By 15 he’s using drugs and stays hooked for a full decade, until his mother cuts him off completely. At 25 he checks into a 30-day treatment center. When he walks out, he takes a sales job he hates and trains on it every single day for five years, getting so good the US Army licenses his system to train their own teams. The consulting money stacks up, and in the early 2000s he buys his first apartment complex in San Diego, making more on one deal than eight years of consulting combined. By 2016 he has a real portfolio, but the best deals are locked up by Blackstone and Vanguard, and regular investors have no way in. So he turns to Instagram. ✓ Lets his own audience fund the deals instead of chasing Wall Street money ✓ Raises $45 million for his first fund in seven months ✓ Buys the properties first, gets them generating rent, then lets investors in ✓ Pays them a monthly cut from the rent, every month, for over 20 years Loses his dad at 10 → a decade on drugs → rebuilds through sales the Army licenses → one apartment deal beats eight years of work → the big funds lock everyone out → opens it up on Instagram → over $5 billion across 20,000 investors. Sometimes the opportunity is letting the people locked out finally get in. #Business #CardoneCapital #RealEstate #Success #Entrepreneur
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2w ago
theventure
Tag @grantcardone to see it 👇🏻 This guy went from abusing drugs to building a $5 billion real estate empire! Grant Cardone grows up in Louisiana and loses his dad at 10. By 15 he’s using drugs and stays hooked for a full decade, until his mother cuts him off completely. At 25 he checks into a 30-day treatment center. When he walks out, he takes a sales job he hates and trains on it every single day for five years, getting so good the US Army licenses his system to train their own teams. The consulting money stacks up, and in the early 2000s he buys his first apartment complex in San Diego, making more on one deal than eight years of consulting combined. By 2016 he has a real portfolio, but the best deals are locked up by Blackstone and Vanguard, and regular investors have no way in. So he turns to Instagram. ✓ Lets his own audience fund the deals instead of chasing Wall Street money ✓ Raises $45 million for his first fund in seven months ✓ Buys the properties first, gets them generating rent, then lets investors in ✓ Pays them a monthly cut from the rent, every month, for over 20 years Loses his dad at 10 → a decade on drugs → rebuilds through sales the Army licenses → one apartment deal beats eight years of work → the big funds lock everyone out → opens it up on Instagram → over $5 billion across 20,000 investors. Sometimes the opportunity is letting the people locked out finally get in. #Business #CardoneCapital #RealEstate #Success #Entrepreneur
These guys turned a free video game into a $2 billion empire 🎮💰 Back in 2005, Marc Merrill is a bank analyst and Brandon Beck is a consultant at Bain. They share an apartment with no furniture and two gaming rigs against the wall. When Marc enters a 29,000-person gaming tournament and kills 180 opponents without dying once, the developers promise to name an item after him. But they never follow through. So in 2006, they quit their jobs and start building their own game. While every publisher sells games for $60, Marc and Brandon want to give theirs away free and charge for costumes instead. Every publisher passes. They burn through their money, scrap two years of work, and in 2008 walk into a meeting with investors knowing the company might be over. ✓ Get one more shot and launch League of Legends in 2009 ✓ Refuse to wait for a perfect game, patching it every two weeks instead ✓ Keep players logging back in to find something better than last time, so they stay ✓ Turn those players into a machine that tells all their friends Two gaming rigs and no furniture → a promised reward that never comes → build their own game → give it away free, charge for costumes → publishers all pass → nearly dead in 2008 → patch every two weeks → 100 million viewers and $2 billion a year. Sometimes you win by shipping something imperfect and making it better than anyone can keep up with. What would you launch unfinished if you committed to improving it forever? 🤔 #Business #RiotGames #Gaming #Success #Entrepreneur
143K
2.99K
58
1mo ago
theventure
These guys turned a free video game into a $2 billion empire 🎮💰 Back in 2005, Marc Merrill is a bank analyst and Brandon Beck is a consultant at Bain. They share an apartment with no furniture and two gaming rigs against the wall. When Marc enters a 29,000-person gaming tournament and kills 180 opponents without dying once, the developers promise to name an item after him. But they never follow through. So in 2006, they quit their jobs and start building their own game. While every publisher sells games for $60, Marc and Brandon want to give theirs away free and charge for costumes instead. Every publisher passes. They burn through their money, scrap two years of work, and in 2008 walk into a meeting with investors knowing the company might be over. ✓ Get one more shot and launch League of Legends in 2009 ✓ Refuse to wait for a perfect game, patching it every two weeks instead ✓ Keep players logging back in to find something better than last time, so they stay ✓ Turn those players into a machine that tells all their friends Two gaming rigs and no furniture → a promised reward that never comes → build their own game → give it away free, charge for costumes → publishers all pass → nearly dead in 2008 → patch every two weeks → 100 million viewers and $2 billion a year. Sometimes you win by shipping something imperfect and making it better than anyone can keep up with. What would you launch unfinished if you committed to improving it forever? 🤔 #Business #RiotGames #Gaming #Success #Entrepreneur

The Venture (@theventure) Instagram Stats & Analytics

The Venture (@theventure) has 149K Instagram followers with a 3.08% engagement rate over the past 12 months. Across 203 posts, The Venture received 432K total likes and 14.2M impressions, averaging 2.13K likes per post. This page tracks The Venture's performance metrics, top content, and engagement trends — updated daily.

The Venture (@theventure) Instagram Analytics FAQ

How many Instagram followers does The Venture have?+
The Venture (@theventure) has 149K Instagram followers as of September 2026.
What is The Venture's Instagram engagement rate?+
The Venture's Instagram engagement rate is 3.08% over the last 12 months, based on 203 posts.
How many likes does The Venture get on Instagram?+
The Venture received 432K total likes across 203 posts in the last 12 months, averaging 2.13K likes per post.
How many Instagram impressions does The Venture get?+
The Venture's Instagram content generated 14.2M total impressions over the last 12 months.