Candace Nelson: Sweet Success with Sprinkles Cupcakes

Sometimes success can be found only after changing career directions.

Candace Nelson was a former investment banker who realized, after losing her job in the dot-com bust, that her life's passion is baking. Candace then traded her suits to a baker's uniform and found culinary success with her cupcakes.

Candace came from a long line of cooks. Her great grandmother was renowned in the 1930s for the distinctive desserts she created in her San Francisco restaurant. So she went to a pastry school to further her hone her skills.

After graduation, Candace decided to start a business creating show-stopping custom cakes from her kitchen. However, she realized that three tier cakes are more of event cakes and she wanted her creations to be enjoyed as often as possible. She pared down her creations, and inspired by the cupcake bakeries in New York, decided to create tasty cupcakes.

In 2005, Candace first opened her cupcake bakery that she called Sprinkles in Beverly Hills, California. Her cupcakes, based on her own recipes, were an immediate hit. During their first few days of operation, her bakery sold out its inventory hours before the scheduled closing time. Soon Sprinkles was selling 1,000 cupcakes a day, with lines going around the block.

Her cupcakes have since been featured in shows like Oprah, Good Morning America, Today Show, even in Entourage. She has since opened 7 other Sprinkles bakeries in CA, TX and AZ areas, Plans are afoot to expand and open more stores in areas such as Washington DC, Miami, New York, and even Tokyo.

Check out Candace's fabulous cupcakes in her website Sprinkles.com http://www.sprinkles.com/

Lisa Rudes-Sandel: Success in Niche Jeans Market

Jeans are often associated with youth, vitality, energy -- often women with toned and perfect bodies who can look good in any jean trends from the low waist to skinny jeans.

Unfortunately, many women of certain age -- especially those who have given birth -- have less than perfect bodies that make finding the right jeans a nightmare. Muffin shapes, pouchy tummies and other imperfections make jeans-shopping and wearing such an uncomfortable experience.

Lisa Rudes Sandel knew the experience first hand. Despite trying different types of diets and exercise, she could not flatten her stomach. Hence, she was often pushed to buying jeans three sizes bigger to find one that fit her body.

Instead of complaining, this daughter of the founder of a popular women’s denim and sportswear label (St. Germain) saw a busines opportunity. In 2003 with her sister Leslie, she started a company called Not Your Daughter’s Jeans creating jeans for women over 40 with womanly bodies. A name thought out by her father, Rudes-Sandel jeans line is for the often-ignored baby boomer women, not for the waif-thin young girls and perfect-bodied glamazons.

With more than $50 million in sales, Rudes-Sandel's family operated business (her husband heads the international division), her claim to fame is the patented Tummy Tuck Jeans, designed to flatten the belly, flatter the hips and offer women a comfortable fit. Her jeans are designed not to constrict the stomach, but give it comfort and mobility by adding 4% Lycra to the fabric. Her jeans are sold in top department stores such as Nordstrom and Macy’s, filling a gap in the fashion market.

Tips from Markus Frind: How to Succeed on the Web

Markus Frind is the founder of the highly popular free dating website PlentyofFish.com http://www.plentyoffish.com , which Alexa ranks as #406 in terms of site popularity with more than a billion pageviews a month.

Frind started his dating website about 5 years ago with no money, no plan and with scant knowledge of how to run a Web business. Today, his creation is the largest dating site in the world earning about $10 million a year. Not bad for a two person business --Frind and his girlfriend (though he hired 3 customer service reps last year) -- where Frind works one hour a day.

He shared some lessons on how to succeed on the Web from his posts in the WebmasterWorld.com forum as well as interview with Inc Magazine :

• Pick a market in which the competition charges money for its service, build a lean operation with a "dead simple" free website, and pay for it using Google Adsense
• You have to create sites that will bring in repeat traffic. If you think you will get rich off SEO think again. If you create a Free jobs site you could net 30 million + a year if you got big.
• Have your users create content and lots of it. User reviews of night clubs, Resorts, golf courses etc. Build your site around your users and make them part of your site, don't build your site for consumption.
• Do not enter markets with a lot of competition monitized via adsense. Try and undercut paid content markets by offering a free service, or better yet create your own market.
• Keep your site dead simple, it has to load fast and have no more then 2 ads and 1 or 2 pictures other then your logo. Do not confuse your user, give them what they want and give it to them fast.
• Troll around various forums and if people are not talking about your market, there is a good chance you will make money.
• I focus most of my time on trying to increase my dailly visitor count. If i don't increase my users/pageviews by 10% a month there is something wrong. If you focus all your time on trying to make money, your site tends to not grow.
• Everyone's advice is to have a ton of people and spend a ton of money. But that advice usually gets you nowhere.

Earvin "Magic" Johnson: 32 Ways to Become a Successful Entrepreneur

Magic Johnson was a famous NBA basketball player who has made a highly successful transition from sports to business. Since leaving NBA, he has started several businesses focusing mostly on densely populated yet underserved urban communities. And oh, yes, he's got HIV, yet this disease has not deterred him from pursuing his entrepreneurial dreams.

Today Magic Johnson Enterprises is a multimillion dollar company.

In his book "32 Ways to be a Champion in Business," he shares the lessons he has learned as he stumbled and succeeded in his business journey. Though personally, his most important lesson is:

You will face your own challenges as you chase your entrepreneurial dreams. Know that as long as you build your business around your passion and make solid
business decisions, you can find a way to make it happen. If you believe in what you are doing, others will pick up on it and support you.

Here are some of the lessons he shared in the book:

1. The Mission: Whatever you do -- whether it is running a fast food franchise, a dress shop, or an online enterprise -- should be more than a job for you. It should be a passion and a mission. In the long run, that is what makes it all worthwhile.
2. Guiding Vision: Create a guiding vision of where you want to go and what you want to do with your life.
3. Entrepreneurial Passion: To reap the rewards of business, you have to jump into the game and pursue it passionately.
4. Conquering Fears: Get past fears and insecurities by understanding that the feeling is usually worse that the reality.
5. Focus on Strengths: Build on your strengths and you will overcome your weaknesses.
6. Seizing Opportunities: Always be prepared to jump on business opportunities.
7. Risks and Rewards: Smart entrepreneurs don't avoid risks, they manage them.
8. Creating a Strong Business Plan: A good business plan is money in the bank
9. Mentors and Role Models: Know what you don't know and listen to those with the knowledge you seek
10. Building a Brand: Your brand is your greatest business asset
11. Brand Maintenance: Zealously protect and build your brand
12. Bank Financing: Make your bankers believe.
13. Private Investors: The big money lies with the big players in private funds
14. Partnerships: A good partner can help you build your business faster and further.
15. Finding the Right Employees: The quality of the people you hire determines how successful you become.
16. Handling Lawyers and Accountants: Top of the line role players will put your business on top (hire the best you can afford).

Richard Branson: Keys to Success

Richard Branson, CEO of the Virgin Group of Companies, shared the keys to his entrepreneurial success in a recent magazine interview (Playboy, January 2009, pp. 39-46):

Hiring great people and keeping them happy. If your staff is inspired and enjoying their work, they'll do what it takes to make the company succeed. In a nutshell, that's it.

Branson candidly admits that he knew nothing about the businesses Virgin is now involved in -- he knew nothing about the airline industry (Virgin Atlantic), financial services company (Virgin Money), soft drink industry (Virgin Drinks), etc. -- until he actually started.

I never took a course in management. I've been fortunate to learn by experience, by making mistakes, by trying. I've learned every day by doing things different and new. Having so many different businesses has kept it fascinating. Every one of thm helps me with the previous one, from the record business to the airline business and banking --- learning, learning, learning, learning.

Catherine Patton: Business Ideas Come from Everyday Needs

Catherine Patton, founder of Patton Medical Devices, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2001. As a result, she is now faced with the daily struggle of effectively managing her disease.

Using injection therapy, Ms. Patton quickly grew tired of giving herself an injection each time she needed insulin. The multiple daily injections often left her skin bruised. She then switched to insulin pump therapy where she only had to inject herself every three days. But she found the pump therapy to be inconvenient, uncomfortable and hindered with her active lifestyle.

She then went on to research and experiment on a device that could meet her medical needs, yet have a minimal impact on her life. This led to her invention of i-port®, a medical device for diabetes patients who struggle with daily injections.

Realizing an unmet need existed and that there are others like her faced with the challenges of managing diabetes, Ms. Patton founded Patton Medical Devices in 2004 to manufacture and distribute her invention.

Maxine Clark: How Personal Satisfaction and Passion Leads to Success (Build-a-Bear Workshop)

One of the most admirable women entrepreneur in recent years is Maxine Clark, founder of the highly successful Build-a-Bear Workshop. Her Build-a-Bear Workshop, first launched in St. Louis in 1997, has grown to a $474 million business 10 years later.

Ms. Clark has an extensive experience in retailing, with 19 years experience in various divisions of The May Department Stores. She was the President of Payless ShoeSource, Inc. from November 1992 until January 1996.

In an interview with BusinessWeek, she gave the reason for leaving her job to start her own business:

I left Corporate America on a mission to bring the fun back to retailing and to give back to the industry that had been so good to me. I was 47 years old when I left Payless ShoeSource in 1996. At that time, my financial rewards in retailing were very high, but my psychic income account was nearly empty.

Despite the lucrative position as top honcho of Payless, Ms. Clark realized that money does not necessarily equal personal satisfaction. She was looking to build a unique shopping experience in retailing and reconnect with customers.

I was looking to re-create the excitement and magic I felt as a child when I visited certain stores. Going shopping was an event. You became part of the store, and it was special. The truth is, what it takes to engage and retain retail customers today is really not much different than it was in the past. Build-A-Bear Workshop is about what I call "good old-fashioned, it's-about-the-customer retailing."

The lightbulb went off for her when she went out shopping for Beanie Babies with a 10-year old friend. Unfortunately, the store was out of inventory when they visited. The remark of her young friend, "These are so easy -- we could make them," led to the idea for Build-a-Bear Workshop.

Ten years later, Ms. Clark has sold over 50 million teddy bears in her workshops. The Chief Executive Bear learned that following her passion really pays off.