Small Business Success Stories

December 19, 2008

Venture Capital's Favorite Startups

Over the past four quarters—even as the depths of the nation's economic problems became evident—venture capitalists invested more than $7 billion in seed ...

October 31, 2008

Why Small Manufacturers Are Going Green

As a maker of conveyor systems for manufacturers, Shuttleworth always changed with the times. The 100-employee Huntington (Ind.) company's strong business in ...

October 24, 2008

Talking to Mario Batali

As the owner of 14 restaurants, the author of six cookbooks, and a familiar presence on several TV shows, Mario Batali has entered the rarefied ranks of what is known ...

October 17, 2008

Learning from the Great Depression

At 179 years old, Yuengling remains the country's oldest beer maker. Dick Yuengling, the fifth-generation CEO, says the family kept the business afloat by diversifying...

September 30, 2008

The Last Typewriter Repairman?

Every business day, as he has done for the past 49 years, Paul Schweitzer, 69, travels the streets and skyscrapers of Manhattan making "house" calls, carrying his ...

September 5, 2008

Gene Simmons: Rock 'n' Roll Entrepreneur

As the fire-spitting front man for the rock band KISS, Gene Simmons has put on his kabuki make-up and donned his platform dragon boots for the past 35 years. But for ...

July 16, 2008

From Real Estate Developer to Pizza Man

Wearing shorts, t-shirt, and baseball cap, real estate developer Jim McGown is kneading balls of handmade dough, tossing them in the air, catching them, then shaping ...

June 13, 2008

Dad: An Entrepreneur's Secret to Success

Entrepreneurs often get a helping hand from their parents. In honor of Father's Day, we asked successful business owners how their fathers helped them succeed in ...

June 11, 2008

A Health-Care Entrepreneur-Turned-Farmer

Rain is coming, and Stephen Tiwald and his son are in a bind. The $30,000 tractor they got to speed up production on their Midwest minifarm has instead brought work to...

May 14, 2008

Centuries-Old Family Businesses Share Their Secrets

In 2000, a few members of the Lyman family moved out of its capacious ancestral home. Though the house, set on a sprawling farm in Middlefield, Conn., had been ...

May 12, 2008

From Junkie to Software Success

Bob Williamson fled a broken home in Mississippi at age 17 to hitchhike around the country. He landed in Atlanta in 1970 at 24, homeless, broke, and addicted to heroin...

May 8, 2008

Mom: An Entrepreneur's Secret to Success

Richard Branson's parents told him to never criticize anyone. He still tries to apply that rule at Virgin Group. When Bobbi Brown was struggling to decide what to do ...

March 14, 2008

An Entrepreneurial Path to Peace

About five years ago, Stef Wertheimer came across Gamila Hiar, a Druze woman with no formal education who had learned the ancient art of making soap from wild herbs ...

March 14, 2008

Who Is Stef Wertheimer?

Early on, Stef Wertheimer, the founder of Iscar Metalworking, a manufacturer of industrial precision metal-cutting tools, decided that entrepreneurship was an answer ...

January 16, 2008

Israel's Winemaking Revolution

The Golan Heights Winery vineyards climb from the Sea of Galilee to snow-capped Mount Hermon near Israel's border with Lebanon and Syria. A picturesque region of ...

January 14, 2008

Restaurateurs Don't Just Wing It

Jordan Busch and Sara Sawicki are the co-owners of Fire on the Mountain Buffalo Wings, a bustling wing joint in Portland, Ore., which has been embraced as a local ...

October 5, 2007

Business Courses Give Kids a Leg Up

When she was a 17-year-old student at Mt. Carmel High School in Derby, Kan., Abby Lewis developed a business plan for the Scribbler, a nail polish applicator that ...

October 3, 2007

A Passport to Riches

When Bill Gates applied for a visa for a recent trip to Nigeria, his paperwork hit a snag. The Nigerian government required proof that the billionaire chairman of ...

September 21, 2007

The Paul Newman of Punk Rock

Louis Posen's dream of becoming a movie director was coming to an end. The 19-year-old was studying film at California State University at Northridge in 1991 when he ...

September 7, 2007

From Home Kitchen to Whole Foods

How many times have you come up with an idea that causes your friends to say: "Hey, that could be a business!" How many times have you agreed with them? But how many ...

August 27, 2007

New Orleans: A Startup Laboratory

In a fifth-floor penthouse office in the central business district, developers craft an online trading system to let companies sell their accounts receivable at a ...

August 27, 2007

Rebirth of a New Orleans Coffee Tradition

Like nearly every business on the Gulf Coast, PJ's Coffee, a famed New Orleans institution, suffered serious losses following Hurricane Katrina. Founded nearly 30 ...

August 22, 2007

Grom Gelato: Creating a Stir in New York

Would Americans spend $4.75 for a single scoop of premium, handmade Italian gelato? That was the question that Guido Martinetti and his partner, Frederico Grom, asked ...

August 10, 2007

A New Push to Make Farming Profitable

We have seen new business models emerge over the last decade for dozens of industries including travel, advertising, and publishing—all relying heavily on ...

August 8, 2007

The Martha Stewart of Punk Rock?

Sisters Tish and Snooky Bellomo reveled in the New York City punk rock scene in the '70s. The notorious Bronx-born duo sang with numerous groups, including an early ...