Who is the Immigrant Self-made Billionaire?  Robert Herjavec? or Romesh Wadhwani?


Robert Herjavec is immigrant from Croatia to Canada and is a famous TV persoanlity with millions of fans.

Romesh Wadhwani is the founder of Symphony Software and 20 other companies.  99% of Americans don't know who he is.

The answer is:  Romesh Wadhwani is the correct answer.   He has a net worth of $2.8B  vs Robert Herjavec $100M. 

Congratulation to both.  You both are idols for us immigrants who started as dishwashers.

My eBook #11 "Zero to Billions:  Anyone Can: 57 Immigrant Self-made Billionaires" will appear in Amazon Kindle on 5/1/2016.  I am an immigrant to US and I have been very honor to write on this topic.

This is eBook #8 48 Hedge Fund Self-made Billionaires.  It has been the most popular so far

I am now writing eBook #11  "Immigrant Self-made Billionaire".   I am in the 50% and one big surprise.

Immigrants have 30% higher chance to becoming Self-made Billionaires than someone born in the United States.


So much for Mr. Donal Trump, who is into bashing immigrants, the Pope, women etc. 





To be fair to him, he is is good businessman. And I can learn 1001 things on self-promotion and business-promotion from him.

 But he is not self-made.   In my definition, he did not start from ZERO.  Instead he started life inherited a couple million dollars from his father. Mind you, that was 40 years ago. Factored into inflation, it means he probably inherited about $100M in today's term.

Just a brief look between Mr Elon Musk and Mr Donal Trump.  IMHO,  Musk works a lot harder, is a better businessperson and Mr Musk has better ideas to make our world a better place.   And Mr Musk was born in South Africa.

The only thing common between Donald Trump and Elon Musk.  They both went to U Penn Wharton School.

 
"When everyone is going right, look left.”
Sam Zell , Real Estate Self-made Billionaire

 Why I am not writing on self-made millionaires?   Question from a friend.

Because there are 10,000 people writing or podcasting or youtubing how to be millionaires

I don't want to be #10,001 -- it is a crowded field.  
It is difficult to come up with something original.  The study of self-made billionaires is like the swimming in the blue ocean.  There are infinite possibility.  I can write 20 books on self-made billionaires.  I have already written and ePublished 10 of them, all on Amazon Kindle.  

On second thought, this is a brilliant question.  For most people, becoming a millionaire is more relevant to most people.   And every self-made billionaire was once a self-made millionaire.  It is an inevitable step, an important step  and a great step for everyone.

So my eBook #12  will be "From Millionaires to Billionaires, from  top 3% to top 0.001%".  Scheduled to be completed by end of June, 2016.   I am writing eBook #11 "Immigrant Self-made Billionaires."   

Here are the most important stats: 
over 80% of millionaires are self-made (from book Millionaires Next Door by Stanley &Danko),
average age 56,  about 3% of US population are millionaires.
They are plentiful and not difficult to find one to talk to.   This self-made millionaire could be your neighbor or co-worker.  You probably talk to a couple of self-made millionaires a day if you live in San Francisco,  New York or Washington DC area.

About 67% of billionaires are self-made (Forbes)
average age is 66, about 0.001%,   1.2 per million population
these are very rare and very difficult to find

These are the black swans , one in a million.  I am infatuated by them.  They made great stories. They are the rebels, the disruptors, the creators, the builders ...  They are the 0.001%.  They think differently from 99% of the population.  

Do you think differently from 99% of the population?    

This is my #10 eBook on Self-made Billionaires. My biggest challenge is the sheer number of real estate Self-made Billionaires (SMB). There are well over 100 of them in the world. If I include all of them, the book will be too huge and too boring for most readers. So I resort to 4 cut-off criteria to trim the number of well over 100 to a manageable 65. The 4 cut-off criteria are (1) for Hong Kong the cut-off net worth is $4B , (2) for US, the cut-off net wrothis $3B, (3) for China, the cut-off net wroth is $2.8B and (4) I also exclude all those who made their fortune primarily as casinos operators. Now I have an eBook of global appeal, with all countries and continents in the world well represented. I do not want to write an eBook for just for Americans or Chinese.
My second challenge is the complexity of the biographies and data. I stared at the facts for over 1 months, unable to make sense of information in front of me. The youngest real estate SMB is Adam Neumann from Israel at age 36. The oldest is Stanley Perron from Australia at age 93. Neuman is a college dropout. Perron has zero high school education. While it took Stanley Perron 79 years to amass his fortune, Adam Neumann took only 7 years. 79 years vs 7 years to build an empire? This is a difference of more than half a century. Perron did it in the hot desert port of Perth, Neumann did it in cool downtown Manhattan. Perron is 57 years older than Neumann. Perron could easily have been Neumann’s great grandfather.
My third challenge to writing this eBook is my bias. To keep it minimum, I resort to an 80/20 approach: that is 80% facts and data, 20% analysis. This way, I respect my readers and they are free to form their own conclusions. 80% of this book are taken up by business biographies.
Here are my top 5 surprises in this pioneering study (1) 43% of the real estate self-made billionaires never went to college. 8 of them never went to high school. So if a high school education is all you got, you definitely have a chance. (2) More than 50% of them did not start with real estate. They started with car dealership, office furniture, rice trade, ceiling fan, as tourist guide, as lawyers, medical clinics, bee collectives and just about anything bizzare and irrelevant. In other words, most of them made their first fortune in another business, then plunged into real estate when they see an opportunity, or as a place to park their cash reserve. (3) They are concentrated in a few countries. US, China, HK, Israel, Brazil and Australia contribute more than 3 real estate SMBs, while there is only 1 from Japan; zero real estate SMB from Germany and France. If we rolled back the clock 30 years Japan would have the largest number of real estate tycoons (4) In terms of gender and ethnicity, I was very surprised to find good representation from 4 women and 4 Muslims. Good news, everyone has a chance. (5) There is a bifurcation going on in the real estate industry now. I call one group the sharing economy and the other one the traditional group. In terms of age, those from sharing economy have an average age of 30, while those from traditional real estate have an average age of 67. It took the sharing economy real estate SMB an average 7 years to achieve billionaire status. It took the traditional real estate an average of 30 years to reach billionaire status. Looking ahead,
For conclusion, I have 2 chapters (1) 16 lessons and (2) 9 future trends. As in all my other ebooks, I see a WORLD OF ACCELERATED CHANGE. The future of real estate in the world will be fast and violent. For aspiring real estate tycoons, the way to thrive is avoid the status quo like a plague. In other words, to create and not to copy.  The lifestyle and preference of the millennials will dictate the future real estate, just as the automobiles and the baby boomers have redefined real estate in the past 60 years. Are you part of this change?

eBook #9  "Zero to Billions: Anyone Can, 60 Fashion Self-made Billioniares: 24 Lessons on How to Build a Global Fashion Empire" had just bee ePublished on Amazon yesterday.   I am very happy, happy, happy.   Now I am working on my eBook #10  "Real Estate Self-made Billionaires."

To shop is human. To save money divine.  I learned from Leslie Wexner (owner of Victoria Secret, The Limited, The Express etc) that most people have enough clothes to last them 100 years.  Certainly in America this is true. 

SHOP TILL YOU DROP :
"Shop-Till-You-Drop", like "All-You-Can-Ea"t, are some of American inventions, just like hot dog and baseball.  My claim to knowing the Fashion industry comes from applying Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule, I have clocked more than 10,000 hour in shopping malls and outlet malls by following first my mother and my sisters, then girlfriend(s) and then my wife on their weekly shopping sprees. I always wonder who are behind the signs GAP, Old Navy, Columbia, Nike, Ralph Lauren, Forever 21, Zara, New Balance etc.



MY 4 SURPRISES
Like all my other SMB eBooks, when I finally collected all the information, I would stare at the data in total shock. The data do not make sense. Here are my 4 big surprises.   First, it was a shock for me to discover that Fashion is the world’s second biggest sector in wealth creation after finance (rank #1).  Fashion ranks ahead of #3 Real Estate and #4 Technology.  I work in the technology fields.  It was a shock to find Fashion is a bigger sector.  Then I discovered about 100 entrepreneurs in the world have become self-made billionaires through Fashion.  100 is a big number, so I left out Jewelry, watches, eyewear and perfumes to keep the number down to a manageable 60 SMBs.  Second, the fashion industry is very democratic.  68% of the Fashion SMB (Self-made Billionaires) in this book do not have a college degree. 10% are women, 3 are Muslims, 3 are Canadians, 2 are Brazilians.  I immediately fall in love with Fashion because it supports my conviction that “Anyone Can be Billionaire”.  My third surprise is most of the Fashion SMB started small. And I mean real small.  Kevin Plank of Under Armor started with a single T-Shirt in his grandma’s basement,  Ralph Lauren started with one product, the tie.  The 4 Benetton Brothers and Sister started with just a few colorful sweaters they peddled around to sell on bicycles.  Bensadoun Aldo starte ALDO with a single shoe stand in Montreal.  Unable to afford rent, payroll, models, design etc. in their early days, these fashion entrepreneurs excelled at bootstrapping.   What they built a global fashion empire from such humble beginning is very similar to what Apple Computer  and Dell Computer,  who also started in parent’s basement.   These are indeed wonderful stories of passion and perseverance.  My fourth surprise is how skewed the data is.   Four major groups: (1) Americans (2) Chinese (3) Italians and (4) Jews contributed 80% of the world’s fashion self-made billionaires.  I was most surprised to see the Germans and even the Canadians have greater representation than France.  These data defy logic and common perception.





THE 6 W Approach (why, what, when, how, where, who)
My goal is to write an eBook that is fast-pace, educational and entertaining.  So I follow the Six W Approach (a) why we study Fashion SMBs (b) who are they (c) where are they from (d) what are their educational background (e)  where did they learn their trade (f) what are fashion type (g) how did they start and (h) how did they grow global.  Also, I use an 80% 20% rule.  80% of this eBook consists of statistics, biographies and quotes of the Fashion SMB, 20% Is the author’s analysis and explanation.  So, as readers, you should form your own opinions or make your own conclusions.  Simply look at this eBook as 80% facts, 20% comments.

FASHION REVERSE LOOKUP TABLE
I anticipate my readers to belong to 2 major camps: (1) the shoppers and (2) the aspiring fashion entrepreneurs. For the shopper I have included a chapter of reverse-lookup table.  So, you can look up the founders given only the brand name.  E.g. under “Under Armor”, you can lookup the founder is Kevin Plank, under Columbia you can lookup the founder is Timothy Boyle.  

24 LESSONS ON HOW TO BUILD A GLOBAL FASHION EMPIRE
As for the aspiring fashion entrepreneurs, I have outlined 24 lessons from the 60 Fashion SMBs in this eBook.  I wish one day you will build the next global fashion house bearing your name.  Just remember ANYONE CAN.


Always look ahead. 

May the Fashion Be With You!

Happy 2016!  We are only a few hours away.  Here in Maryland, we are having a Green Christmas, with temperature hovering around the 60s, the Cherry Blossom bloomed already.

I am a most happy dude, cause I just published eBook #8 "Zero to Billions: Anyone Can,  48 Hedge Fund Self-made Billionaires: 22 Lessons for Everyone.", ePublished in Amazon Kindle.  I just made it in 2015 with a few hours spare.  What a feeling!  Now this energize me for 2016.  And I expect another very adventurous and productive year. 

The book tuirned out to be quite intensive, even though I have been reading and learning about the top traders in the world since 1998.  The fun part is there is so much to learn, and our world is changing very fast, faster than ever before.  So, excuse my bias here, you are probably ahead of the curve or you are behind the curve. 

Now, I am working on my next project:  eBook #9 "Fashion Self-made Billionaire".  I am not much of a fashion person, but my wife is.  And I follow her around from shopping mall to shopping mall, doing the favorite American activities: "Shop Till You Drop".

It is amazing to me that booksstores have been closing for the past 10 years.  Now Barnes and Nobles is the only on-the-street bookstore around.  I love books and it is sad to see them disappearing.  Here no shortage of shoe storees.  For every bookstore, there are 100 shoe stores. 

Now, it would be fun  to learn about NIKE, New Balance, Columbia, GAP,  Forever 21, Diesel Jean etc.  I only own Columbia clothing.  

I think last week, the founder of North Face died in a kayak accident somewhere in Chile.  He also created Esprit.  Can;'t remember his name now. 

Wishing everyone a Most Happy and Successful 2016.!