Inc Mag's How I Did It: William Wang, CEO, Vizio

Here's a excerpt from inc magazine 's How I Did It column, on William Wang.Remember this guy because he is changing the electronics game, by dropping the cost on flat panel TV's and moving them is mass numbers out of warehouse stores like Costco, and Sam's club. Now you can go cop that 60" plasma for the Low($2499.99).

When the founder of TV-maker Vizio--soon to be a $2 billion company--says it’s not about the money, believe him. Surviving a fiery plane crash gives a man some perspective.

William Wang knows about keeping things in perspective. As one of 96 survivors aboard a Singapore Airlines 747 that took off on the wrong runway in Taiwan, struck a construction site, and broke in two, Wang instantly realized that the difficulties of his various technology businesses weren’t such a big deal—not when 83 passengers and crew members were killed that day in 2000. Wang shut down all his businesses after the crash, and in 2003 got into the flat-screen TV business by launching Vizio. His idea was to combine low prices (now around $1,499 at retail for a 50-inch plasma) with high quality and exceptional customer support, and to make this approach profitable through extremely lean operations. Wang, 43, started the company with $600,000, and this year Vizio will generate more than $2 billion in sales. Yet it still employs just 80 people, most of them handling tech support out of the company’s Irvine, California, headquarters.

To read more of his story-click here

Inc'd Out Sunday #1

The Good Folks at Inc. Mag always get it right when it comes to showing the attainability of success in business.Each month they do a section called How I Did It , which interviews successful entrepreneurs on their life.... If you are any kind of Go Getter, Hustla, Visionary, Entrepreneur, etc. You should click here and read All of the stories... , but we'll sample a couple...here's the intro to the one on Vicky Stringer, Owner of the street-lit empire, Triple Crown Publishing.

Redemption doesn't come easy.

"Triple Crown Publications is the first name in "hip-hop lit," a booming genre of raw, gritty urban fiction, sold everywhere from street corners to small African American bookstores to Barnes & Noble. Vickie Stringer started Triple Crown with exactly one asset: the fictionalized story of her life, which she wrote in the federal penitentiary while serving five years for selling a kilo of cocaine to a police informant in Columbus, Ohio. That book, Let That Be the Reason, and the follow-up, Imagine This, each spent more than a year on the Essence paperback bestseller list. As her reputation grew, Stringer started publishing other unknown authors, and then representing them when the big publishing houses came calling. How Stringer went from drug queen to federal prisoner 63752-061 to owner of a $1.8 million company with 36 titles by 25 authors is an amazing story, one that's worthy of Triple Crown Publications."

Now go read the Rest!!!

Inc'd Out Sunday #2: Percy Sutton

The second Inc. "How I did It" story, we want to highlight, is on the legendary Percy Sutton who owns a bizillion companies including, the New York radio station, WBLS (Home of The Wendy Williams Experience). If you've never heard of him you should definitely click here to read the entire piece. Here's the intro...

"At the height of the civil rights movement, Percy Sutton was a bona fide prince of Harlem: lawyer for Malcolm X, president of the Borough of Manhattan, a prominent and compelling presence. That's the Sutton most New Yorkers are familiar with. Less visibly (because nearly anything is less visible than Sutton's political life), he was and is a try-anything entrepreneur. Raised in Texas by parents who were educators, business owners, and community leaders, Sutton is the youngest of 15 children, all of whom went to college. As he built his New York law practice, he also built other businesses, including Inner City Broadcasting, which now owns 19 radio stations. In 1980, he bought the legendary Apollo Theater, on Harlem's 125th Street, spurring the revitalization so evident in Harlem today. More recently he co-founded the IT company Synematics, where he holds the title of chairman and, at age 86, remains involved in day-to-day operations."

Now go read the rest of this one too!!