So, I was trying to get my head around this new venture I’m thinking about. You know, that phase where you’re looking everywhere for a bit of inspiration, maybe a sign, or just some good old advice. I started looking up folks who built things from pretty much nothing. It’s always good to see how others did it, right? Gets the gears turning.
Anyway, one name that popped up during this whole process was Tom Golisano. The Paychex guy. I sort of remembered him. He kicked off that company with barely anything, just $3,000 back in 1971. Can you imagine? He built it up, first with franchises and partnerships, then pulled it all together into one big private company in ’79. That’s some serious hustle. He’s from Rochester, New York, originally, but I read he moved down to Naples a while back, in 2009 or so.
So, I’m digging into his story a bit, trying to see what made him tick, and then I see a name linked with his that made me do a double-take: Monica Seles. Yeah, the Monica Seles, the tennis superstar! I was like, wait a minute, are they together? And sure enough, they are. Married, in fact. That was a bit of a surprise, I gotta say. You just don’t expect some pairings, you know?
It got me curious, so I looked a little more. Turns out Golisano is a good bit older, something like 32 years her senior. But hey, age is just a number for some folks, right? And he’s got a big family – two kids, six grandkids, and even four great-grandkids. That’s a whole legacy right there. Monica, well, everyone knows her. Professional tennis player, in the International Tennis Hall of Fame. A legend.
And Golisano, ever the businessman, he even penned a couple of books. Sharing his secrets for turning that initial small sum into a fortune, I guess. It’s funny how you start looking for one thing – in my case, some business pointers – and you end up learning about completely different aspects of people’s lives. It just shows, everyone’s got a story, and often it’s not what you expect.
So, my quest for startup wisdom took a little detour into celebrity news and business history. Still haven’t quite figured out my own big idea, but it was an interesting rabbit hole for sure. Just another day of poking around and seeing what you find, I suppose.
