FEATURED LESSON

New book features iconic MN entrepreneurs

He’s been in the venture capital business for decades, but University of Minnesotabusiness lecturer Dileep Rao now says people don’t need venture capital to grow a business, and he’s drawn on the stories of some of the Twin Cities’ most successful entrepreneurs to prove his point.

Rao has compiled those stories into a book called Bootstraps to Billions: Proven Rules from Entrepreneurs Who Built Great Companies from Scratch. The 28 profiles in the book are a who’s who of Minnesota success stories. They include Horst Rechelbacher, who started Blaine-based Aveda Corp.; Richard Schulze, chairman and founder of Richfield-based Best Buy Co. Inc.; and Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor, who built North Mankato-based Taylor Corp. into what is now a roughly $2 billion business.

Rao, a senior lecturer at the university’s Carlson School of Management and a columnist for Forbes.com, spent two years interviewing the subjects of the book and writing the profiles.

This article originally appeared in the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal.

FEATURED PROFILE

Jill Blashack Strahan: Tastefully Simple

Jill Blashack Strahan dropped out of college because she wanted to “connect the dots” of what she was learning. She worked at a department store and a gift store, and then co-owned and managed her father’s restaurant before starting her own gift basket business. Though these efforts were not huge financial successes, they were very rewarding in providing some of life’s greatest lessons.

When her son, Zach, was born, Blashack Strahan realized that the scarcest ingredient in life is time. To make every hour count, she closed her gift basket business, which required long hours but resulted in earnings less than $6,000 per year. (more…)

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