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Since its inception, Disney has always been an innovative and imaginative brand. From his animations to his theme parks, Disney was always looking to the future; he was in constant search for creative ways to improve his products and thrust his business forward. It was the company behind everything from the first ‘talking’ cartoons in 1928 to the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), both of which pushed the limits of existing ideas and technology.

“Think beyond your lifetime, if you want to do something truly great,” Disney said. When the doors to Disneyland first opened in 1955, it was an amusement park like no other the world had ever seen before. Up until then, customers had been accustomed to simple rides and carnival games, with little overall direction or theme. It was Disney’s imaginative vision that transformed the amusement park into a new kind of experience, creating a fantasy land. The park introduced the world’s first steel roller coaster and after Disney’s death, it became the first theme park to use NASA technology in its ride, Mission: SPACE. More generally, Disney created the unique architecture, memorable characters and fun attractions that could be joined together to tell a new kind of story.

Disney’s contribution to the animation industry is equally significant, creating a name for himself through a series of technological innovations. His use of the multi-plane camera and his ability to use both colour and music effectively in his films made him an important force to be reckoned with in American cinema. Disney also emphasized the importance of looking to the future to his staff, who were encouraged to improve their skills by taking classes and studying the works of other great artists. He was also one of the first to latch onto the possibilities of television. His technological creativity and the superior skills of his artists gave Disney an edge over his competitors.

One of Disney’s most imaginative legacies came with the creation of the utopian city EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). A test bed for city planning, Disney outlined his vision as follows: “It will be a community of tomorrow that willl never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and systems.” Much like EPCOT, Disney made sure his company was always testing new ideas and concepts, using the combined imagination of all of his employers to ensure it maintained its competitive edge and innovative reputation.

The Disney brand continues to carry on the founder’s sense of imagination even today, more than four decades after his death. Disney horticulturalists have created a world famous tree farm, while the Walt Disney Resort uses a unique system to encourage recycling. It is this desire to innovate and lead the way into the future that has kept Disney at the top of its game for over half a century.

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Laugh-O-Gram Films, Inc. was devoted to creating short cartoons based on children’s fairy tales. Disney’s films found success in Kansas, but little elsewhere and proved too expensive a venture to sustain. Alice’s Wonderland would be the last short created before the company went bankrupt in 1923. Still determined, Disney sold his camera and bought a one-way train ticket to Los Angeles, California. He applied all over the city for work as a film director, but was turned down everywhere he went. He then decided to return to animation.

He sent a copy of Alice’s Wonderland to a New York distributor, who immediately wanted a distribution deal with Disney. After convincing his brother Roy to help him with his finances and Iwwerks to move to California, the Disney Brothers’ Studio was officially founded. He also hired a painter by the name of Lillian Bounds, who would later become his wife.

After four years of modest success, The Alice Comedies series ended. Universal Pictures then commissioned Disney for a new animated series called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. It was an instant success and it allowed the Disney studio to expand. But, after a dispute with the distributor, Disney lost the rights to Oswald as well as most of his staff.

In 1928, Disney would rebound with the most famous creation of his career: Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse appeared for the first time in Steamboat Willie, the world’s first synchronized sound cartoon. Disney continued to add to his portfolio with Silly Symphonies, a series of musical shorts. Unhappy with his share of the profits, Disney signed a new distribution deal with Columbia Pictures. Iwwerks left Disney to create his own studio and Disney was forced to replace him with numerous other cartoonists. Disney’s success with Mickey Mouse was rewarded with an Academy Award in 1932.

The Disney roster of cartoon characters continued to grow with the addition of Donald Duck, Goofy and others in a spinoff series, which proved equally successful. But, Disney wanted to keep expanding. In 1934, against the advice of his family and colleagues, he decided to create a full-length animated film based on Snow White. After three years and large loans from the Bank of America, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered to a standing ovation. It became the most successful motion picture of 1938, grossing today’s equivalent of $98 million.

The Disney studio continued to expand, producing such animated classics as Pinocchio, Bambi, and Dumbo. During WWII, it was also commissioned to created instructional films for the military. It wasn’t until the late-1940s that the studio would again branch out in a major way. It began creating live action films such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Parent Trap, which proved to be major successes.

But, perhaps the biggest change for the company came after visiting a children’s theme park in Oakland, California, when Disney began to sketch his own plans for an amusement park to be called Disneyland. Five years in the making, Disney formed WED Enterprises to create the park in Anaheim and it opened on July 18, 1955. In 1964, Disney decided to create Disney World, a similar, but larger and more elaborate version of Disneyland in Florida. Both ventures would prove to be extremely successful, becoming two of the largest theme park resorts in the world. The Disney theme park has since also become an international phenomena, with ones in Tokyo, France and Hong Kong. The theme parks have since also become successful resorts and an associated cruise line has been launched.

Disney died of lung cancer in 1966 but not before creating one of the most successful billion dollar companies and entertaining millions of children and adults alike around the world.

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Satoshi Tajiri

As a young boy, Satoshi Tajiri was dubbed “Dr. Bug” thanks to his fascination with insects. But when Tajiri discovered a way to combine his interest in insects with his passion for videogames, he had an electronic revolution on his hands. Today, children the world over remain enthralled with Tajiri’s creation of Pokemon, which has made it the most popular video game franchise in the world, second only to Super Mario.

According to some reports, Tajiri has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a disease that shows itself in the form of social awkwardness and public clumsiness, among other things. Despite this, he has managed to become one of the most beloved and successful video game designers in history. How did he do it?

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“It’s the way I work. I sleep 12 hours and then work 24 hours. I’ve worked those irregular hours for the past three years. It’s better to stay up day and night to come up with ideas. I usually get inspiration for game designing by working this schedule.”

Pierre Omidyar

“I started eBay as an experiment, as a side hobby basically, while I had my day job,” recalls Pierre Omidyar. An unexpected success, that side hobby has today become the world’s largest personal online trading community. The website hosts millions of auctions every day, with more new items being added for sale every day. Omidyar’s personal net worth is estimated to be roughly $7.7 billion.

“When you look at the accomplishments of accomplished people and you say, ‘Boy, that must have been really hard,’…that was probably hard,” says Omidyar. “And conversely, when you look at something that looks easy, that was probably hard. And so you’re never going to know which is which until you actually go out and do it.” Whether Omidyar’s accomplishments look easy or not, they are undoubtedly significant, having not only revolutionized the way people do business, but making a multi-billion dollar fortune along the way. How did he do it?

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“You’ll fail at some things – that’s a learning experience that you need so that you can take that on to the next experience. What you learn from those challenges and those failures are what will get you past the next ones…I was the pretty consistent bull and the cheerleader on eBay actually.”

Henry J. Heinz

He started grinding spices for his mother in the basement of their Pittsburgh home when he was just six years old. Later, when Henry Heinz founded his company, it was little more than a one-man operation of peddling horseradish sauce door-to-door. But today, the HJ Heinz Company has over $10 billion in revenue and is one of the leading brands in the food industry.

Heinz was called everything from the “Pickle King” to “tomato-obsessed,” but perhaps it was precisely this passion for produce that allowed Heinz to create one of the most successful US-based food companies in the world. How did this young boy who was destined to be a brick layer turn the tides around and become one of the most well-known names in corporate America?

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“To do a common thing uncommonly well brings success.”

He has been called the Warren Buffett of Latin America. With an estimated net worth of $35 billion, Helu is one of the richest people in the world. He is known for never cracking a smile, but Helu’s current monopoly over the telecommunications industry in Mexico must surely make him one happy businessman. With his hands now in all of the retail, banking and insurance, technology, and auto parts manufacturing industries, Helu shows no signs of slowing down.

There is no one in the world quite like Carlos Slim Helu. Until his recent jump into the Forbes’ list of the world’s wealthiest, he was something of a mystery to the business world. He worked in relative isolation, with no computers in the basement of his drab two-storey office building. But, his seclusion should not be mistaken for a weakness. Indeed, his power is so great, that when he did suffer a weakness in the form of heart surgery a few years back, his companies’ shares actually began to tremble. So, just how did this son of Lebanese immigrants become one of the wealthiest people in the world, and a household name across an entire continent?

Advice For Entrepreneurs:

“When there is a crisis, that’s when some are interested in getting out and that’s when we are interested in getting in.”

“The era we are living in today is a dream of coming true,” Walt Disney once said. Indeed, Disney’s life was of the stuff dreams are made.

The man who had one of the most fertile imaginations in history, who managed to turn his musings into a billion dollar company and whose legacy would continue to live on for decades after his death, was born Walter Elias Disney on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois. The family quickly moved from the increasingly dangerous city of Chicago to Marceline, Missouri, where they purchased a farm. Because he was too young to work, Disney spent most of his time on the farm playing with his four siblings and the animals. He would later reflect on this period as the best years of his life.

It was on the farm where Disney first discovered his passion for drawing when a retired doctor who lived next door to the family paid Disney to draw pictures of his horse. But, his idyllic farm days would not last long. In 1909, his father developed typhoid fever and, unable to work, was forced to sell the farm. The family moved to Kansas City, much to the dismay of Disney, where his father made him wake up at 3am to work on a local newspaper route delivering the Kansas City Star.

In school, Disney was an average student, with a penchant for doodling rather than listening to his teachers. When he was 15, he got a summer job working for the Santa Fe Railroad, selling items to passengers as trains rolled in. But, Disney found himself more fascinated with the trains than sales and did not last long on the job. During high school, he also occupied his time drawing patriotic cartoons for the school newspaper. And, when he could find enough time, he would attend night classes at the Chicago Art Institute.

At 16, Disney finally dropped out of school to join the Army, only to be rejected for being too young. He then decided to forge his birth certificate and join the American Red Cross Ambulance Corps, but by the time he finished his training, the war had ended. Disney decided to stay in France and worked as an ambulance driver, all the while continuing to spend his spare time drawing, completely covering his ambulance with his own cartoon creations. After two years, Disney grew lonely in Europe and returned to America, where he decided to finally pursue his passion seriously.

Upon returning, Disney immediately went to see his family; he wanted to share with them his newfound dreams of becoming an artist. But, his father did not support his career choice and so Disney returned to Kansas City on his own. With the help of his older brother, Roy, Disney found work making print ads at the Pesemen-Rubin Art Studio and continued experimenting with animation. He soon found himself fascinated with the possibilities of animation and knew he had finally found his niche.

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