Michael Dell

* The son of an orthodontist and a stockbroker, Dell attended Herod Elementary School in Houston, Texas. In a bid to enter business early, he applied to take a high school equivalency exam at age eight. In his early teens, he invested his earnings from part-time jobs in stocks and precious metals.
* Dell purchased his first calculator at age seven and encountered his first teletype machine in junior high, which he programmed after school. At age 15, after playing with computers at Radio Shack, he got his first computer, an Apple II, which he promptly disassembled to see how it worked
* Dell attended Memorial High School in Houston, selling subscriptions to the Houston Post in the summer. While making cold calls, Dell observed that newlyweds and people moving into new homes were most likely to buy a subscription. He targeted this demographic group by collecting names from marriage and mortgage applications. Dell earned $18,000 that year, exceeding the annual income of his history and economics teacher
* While a pre-med student at the University of Texas at Austin, Dell started an informal business upgrading computers in room 2713 of the Dobie Center residential building. He then applied for a vendor license to bid on contracts for the State of Texas, winning bids by not having the overhead of a computer store
* In January 1984, Dell banked on his conviction that the potential cost savings of a manufacturer selling PCs directly had enormous advantages over the conventional indirect retail channel. In January 1984, Dell registered his company as "PC's Limited". Operating out of a condominium, the business sold between $50,000 and $80,000 in upgraded PCs, kits, and add-on components. In May, Dell incorporated the company as "Dell Computer Corporation" and relocated it to a business center in North Austin. The company employed a few order takers, a few more people to fulfill them, and, as Dell recalled, a manufacturing staff "consisting of three guys with screwdrivers sitting at six-foot tables." The venture's capitalization cost was $1,000
* "The reason why I have more business and personal growth in 30 days than most people have all year is I TAKE 3x the ACTION and MAKE 4x the AMOUNT OF MISTAKES."
* Michael Dell’s office has chairs only for visitors. Dell works standing, appropriately enough for the CEO of a manufacturing company that has slashed inventory turnover to an astonishing seven days, compared with 80 days or more for much of his competition. (In the computer industry, inventory loses 1 percent of its value every week that it sits on the shelf; Dell’s world-beating inventory management is thus critical to the company’s bottom line.)
* When he talks about his beginnings as a University of Texas computer wonk, you realize that it all started with the basic entrepreneurial act of spotting a market niche. “At the root of it, I was probably just opportunistic,” Dell says. “I had and still have a great interest in computers. There was a business opportunity [with] this product that I really liked, and it all kind of lined up together. “I saw that you’d buy a PC for about $3,000, and inside that PC was about $600 worth of parts,” he continues. “IBM would buy most of these parts from other companies, assemble them, and sell the computer to a dealer for $2,000. Then the dealer, who knew very little about selling or supporting computers, would sell it for $3,000, which was even more outrageous.”
* When asked whether he understood at 19 how he was revolutionizing the marketplace, Dell responds, “Well, we started the company by building to the customer’s order. And, interestingly enough, we didn’t do it because we saw some massive paradigm in the future. Basically, we just didn’t have any capital (to mass produce).” So Dell caught a lucky break in the beginning, but he hardly abandoned his business model once he got a few nickels together. Instead, he expanded it on a mass scale, using information technology to customize millions of computers individually.
* One hundred years ago, Thomas Alva Edison told SUCCESS magazine that the first requisite of success was the ability to concentrate on a single problem. “If you get up at 7 and go to bed at 11, you have put in 16 good hours, and it is certain with most men that they have been doing something all the time,” Edison said. “The only trouble is that they do it about a great many things, and I do it about one.” Dell and Edison are kindred spirits in this regard. For the past 14 years, Michael Dell has concentrated on building better computers and selling them at a lower price.

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Highlights

* Dell purchased his first calculator at age seven and encountered his first teletype machine in junior high, which he programmed after school. At age 15 he got his first computer, an Apple II, which he promptly disassembled to see how it worked
* Dell started selling subscriptions to the Houston Post in the summer while in school. While making cold calls, Dell observed that newlyweds and people moving into new homes were most likely to buy a subscription. He targeted this demographic group by collecting names from marriage and mortgage applications. Dell earned $18,000 that year, exceeding the annual income of his history and economics teacher
* In January 1984, Dell banked on his conviction that the potential cost savings of a manufacturer selling PCs directly had enormous advantages over the conventional indirect retail channel.
* "The reason why I have more business and personal growth in 30 days than most people have all year is I TAKE 3x the ACTION and MAKE 4x the AMOUNT OF MISTAKES."
* Michael Dell’s office has chairs only for visitors. Dell works standing, appropriately enough for the CEO of a manufacturing company that has slashed inventory turnover to an astonishing seven days
* When he talks about his beginnings as a University of Texas computer wonk, you realize that it all started with the basic entrepreneurial act of spotting a market niche.
* One hundred years ago, Thomas Alva Edison told SUCCESS magazine that the first requisite of success was the ability to concentrate on a single problem. “If you get up at 7 and go to bed at 11, you have put in 16 good hours, and it is certain with most men that they have been doing something all the time,” Edison said. “The only trouble is that they do it about a great many things, and I do it about one.”

==GETTING ACQUAINTED TO A TECH OR A PRODUCT VERY EARLY IN LIFE==
==OBSERVING TRENDS AND BEHAVIOURS==
==TAKING MORE ACTIONS EVEN IF IT MEANS MAKING MORE MISTAKES==
==SPOTTING A MARKET OPPORTUNITY EITHER IN TERMS OF PRODUCT OR PRICE OR WHATEVER==
==FOCUSSING ON ONE SINGLE THING 24 HOURS A DAY AND DOING IT REALLY, REALLY WELL==