If Your Dreams Don’t Scare You

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“If your dreams don’t scare you, they are too small”
– Richard Branson

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (1950 – present) is an English entrepreneur, inventor, and founder of the Virgin Group. His current net worth is over five billion dollars, making him one of Britain’s highest profile billionaires.

Although he struggled in school, partly due to dyslexia, and dropped out at age 16, Branson has always been business-minded and fuelled with determination and enthusiasm to try new things. He started a youth-culture magazine in 1966 called “Student,” which was run by students. Confident as a young man, he found advertisers for the magazine that enabled him to disseminate the first run of 50,000 copies for free.

His business kept expanding as he never ran out of ideas, crazy they may be. He started his record business in the late 1960’s under the name “Virgin,” as suggested by one of his employees because of their being young and inexperienced in business. In 1972, he launched the record label “Virgin Records” and signed controversial bands which other companies have rejected. However, in 1992, he decided to sell the Virgin label to EMI to finance for his airline company. Bidding adieu to the label that started his Virgin Empire was one hard decision.

His business career is marked with pitfalls and controversies, but being the fearless and resilient entrepreneur that he is, he continues on treading the unknown and expanding his empire. In 2004, he boldly founded the spaceflight company “Virgin Galactic,” which develops commercial spacecraft and aims to open the space to the world.