CEO SUCCESS

STORY10th Meeting

Mic

hael D

ell

Founder,

Form

er

CEO

of

Dell

Com

pute

r C

orp

.

"It's through curiosity and looking at opportunities in

new ways that we've always mapped our path at

Dell. There's always

an opportunity to make a difference."   – Michael Dell

Michael is 8:  Michael

makes a serious attempt to earn his high school diploma more quickly by passing a test and invites a person from a

testing company.

 Michael is 12:  Michael

embarks upon his very first

business venture. Fascinated

with stamps and commercial

opportunities they offer,

Michael creates his own stamps

auction. He wants to bypass

traditional auctioneers, learn

more about stamps, and collect

a commission in the process.

Michael gets a bunch of people

in the neighborhood to consign

their stamps to him; advertises

"Dell's Stamps" in Linn's Stamp

Journal; types, with one finger,

a twelve-page catalogue and

mails it out. He earns $2,000

and learns an early, powerful

lesson about rewards of

eliminating the middleman. He

also learns that if you've got a

good idea, it pays to do

something about it.

 Michael is 16:  Michael gets a

summer job selling newspaper

subscriptions to The Houston

Post and learns the power of market

segmentation. The newspaper gave

Michael a list of new phone numbers

issued by the telephone company

and tells him to cold call them.

Michael soon notices the pattern,

however, based on the feedback he

is getting from potential customers

during these conversations. There

are two kinds of people who almost

always buy subscriptions to the Post:

people who have just married and

people who have just moved into

new houses or apartments. Michael

hires a couple of his high school

buddies to search for such people.

He creates a personalized letter for

high-potential customers. Michael

earned $18,000 that year, more than

his school teacher did.

 Michael is 18:  Michael, a freshman

student at the University

of Texas in Austin, applies for a vendor's

license and starts selling

high-performance computers upgraded by

him. He declares he ultimately wants to compete with IBM and

registers the company

"PC's Limited"

Michael is 19:  Michael incorporates "Dell Computer Corporation" with

initial start-up investment of $1,000.

He finishes his freshman year and leaves the University

to devote himself to the venture, full-time.

 Michael is 26:  Michael becomes

the youngest CEO of a

company ever to earn

a ranking on the Fortune 500.

What qualities to posess in order to be revolutionary success?

Work in group to define a significant successful person, telling why you consider him/her a rolling figure (the revolution for future era) and what you can

learn from his/her journey?