Beyond Their Years These entrepreneurs have it all: Brains, business savvy and millions of dollars. Find out what you can learn from the best and the brightest America has to offer.
By Entrepreneur Staff •
Zappos.com Inc.
Company description: Online shoe retailer
Founders: Tony Hsieh, 29, and Nick Swinmurn, 30
Year started: 1999
Location: San Francisco
2003 sales projections: $65 million
Getting a Nordstrom buyer to be your senior vice president of merchandising when you haven't even started your company seems tricky. Getting an entrepreneur who just sold his company to Microsoft to invest seems impossible. But MacGyver's got nothin' on Nick Swinmurn. "[I did this] at a time when anything seemed possible," says Swinmurn, who got the idea for his shoe dotcom after a frustrating quest for shoes at the mall. "It was an idea that made sense."
Posing as a recruiter for a small brand looking for a merchandising guru, Swinmurn persuaded Nordstrom buyer Fred Mossler to meet with him. "Then I spilled the beans on the plan," he says. "He thought it was a good idea and ended up coming on board."
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