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Modern entrepreneurs have one thing in common for the most part – they use the Internet to great effect. Many may use it for marketing purposes, some use it to build their business but some actually start Internet business revolutions and experience tremendous success. Elon Musk is one example of that. He is the creator of PayPal and so is responsible for a quick and easy pay system that has revolutionized the way people can conduct the finances of business and pleasure online. However, his entrepreneurial ventures do not end there. As such, his methods provide a great template for other budding entrepreneurs to follow.

Childhood And Technology

Elon Musk was born in South Africa on June 28, 1971. His father was an engineer in South Africa and exhibited an obsession with his work. As such, Musk also picked that obsession up and began tinkering with technology and computers in his spare time. The entrepreneur invested in his first computer at the age of 10 and set about learning the inner workings of it, including the programming. He used the knowledge he gained from it to teach himself how to program. Just two years later, he had created and sold his very first piece of software.

Elon Musk left South Africa in 1988. Although he was still just 17 and leaving without his parents, the entrepreneur knew that he had to head to North America to make a living from his love of technology. He initially attended Queen’s University in Ontario as his mother was Canadian and thus he was able to live there legally. However, he soon obtained a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, or more specifically the Wharton School, to study economics. When he graduated with a degree in economics and also one in physics, Musk knew exactly what he wanted to do in the world of business.

Entrepreneurial Empire

Although the entrepreneur had been accepted by Stanford University to do a graduate degree in high-energy physics, he left after a couple of days to explore the world of business. His first entrepreneurial venture was a product called Zip2, which was an online venture that published content for various news organisations. It was something new and extremely functional, and earned Musk his first millions. It eventually sold in 1999 for over $300 million.

However, it was not to be Zip2 that earned him notoriety. Instead it was to be a company that Musk co-founded in 1999. The company was originally called X.com and was designed to be an online financial services company. However, with the acquisition of Confinity, a payments system designed for Palm Pilots, a new company was born. The company name was changed to PayPal in 2001 and the email payments system took off. It was purchased for $1.5 billion by eBay in 2002, thus making Musk a very wealthy entrepreneur indeed.

The Space Race

Shortly after the sale of PayPal, Elon Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies, which is commonly known as SpaceX. The entrepreneur founded this company to make space exploration vehicles as cheaply as possible, providing that the reliability of each vehicle is high. It is SpaceX that manufactures Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 currently.

Musk also has a vested interest in cars. He owns Tesla Motors and uses the company to help to reduce carbon emissions from cars. All of the vehicles that are manufactured by the company are powered by electric but all have the kudos of being luxury cars as well.

The entrepreneur has literally made a fortune founding companies that were to revolutionize life as we know it. As such, Elon Musk has amassed a $328 million fortune and now has vested interests in helping the environment. He has made a living out of doing what he wants to do and also using his personal interests to create new products. If ever anyone was an inspiration to prove that this was indeed possible then Elon Musk is it.

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