Yvon Chouinard grew up poor and was not sure what to do with his life.
He tried various things and accidentally discovered his passion–surfing and mountain climbing. He saw problems with the pitons during his climbing and decided to make them and sell them from the back of his car.
Even though he was a high-school dropout and did not know anything about business,
Patagonia his business, grew phenomenally and Yvon became a billionaire.
What you could learn from this episode:
- His poor living conditions and what he did to pursue his passion.
- How he discovered his passion.
- How he got his first business idea from his own problem.
- Selling his gear by traveling alone.
- How he took a big risk to abandon his old product and go with the new.
- How he found his lady love of his life.
- His inspiration for a product when he visited another country.
- His experiments with different materials for one niche category.
- How he decided to go environment friendly for his products.
- His biggest lesson learnt when the recession hit his business.
- What did he do to raise money when his company was close to getting shutdown.
- How his work environment was built around play.
