Work Hard and Dream Big: 5 Inspiring Entrepreneurs You Should Follow on Twitter Here are some of the business owners we love to follow on Twitter. We bet you'll find them inspiring, too.
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What if you could tap into the minds of today's top business brainiacs, to find out what they're thinking about right now? Why are they so successful? What are they doing that maybe you should do, too?
You can, of course, on Twitter. Think of the social platform as your perpetual spoonful of wisdom -- direct from some of the biggest, most influential power players in business.
Just about 5 million 140-character tweets gush from the real-time sounding board every day, according to Twitter's Securities and Exchange Commission IPO filing. With such a massive soup of tweets constantly boiling over, it can be a chore for busy entrepreneurs to know which users to follow. We've narrowed them down for you.
Here are five brilliant entrepreneurs and influencers to follow in 2014:
1. @BarbaraCorcoran
Followers: 112,211
You probably know celebrity real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran from ABC's Shark Tank. The New Jersey native, who says she scored straight Ds in high school and college, and had 20 jobs by the time she was 23, used a modest $1,000 business loan to launch The Corcoran Group. It's now a multi-million dollar company.
Corcoran tweets sage business advice daily, sharing tips on how to pitch and grow a business like a pro, how to out-brand your competition and more.
Sample tweet:
Take some time to sit down & figure out how your big rival is promoting their brand & plan something smarter & more creative for yours.
-- Barbara Corcoran (@BarbaraCorcoran) December 5, 2013Related: How Transparency Can Help You Succeed on Twitter
2. @davidcohen
Followers: 60,042
David Cohen is the founder and chief executive of TechStars, a Boulder, Colo.-based seed stage investment program for internet startups. In addition to sharing his keen, sometimes pointed insights about startups, apps and software, Cohen tweets motivating quotes, investment tips and pics from his business trips and speaking engagements. The self-proclaimed "geeky ex-hacker" shares inspirational tweets from others, too.
Sample tweet:
If you are an angel investor please review your last 5 emails to each company. If all 5 are asking for financials please cut it out already.
-- David Cohen (@davidcohen) July 26, 20133. @jack
Followers: 2,515,661
Jack Dorsey is one of the three original brains behind Twitter. He's also the chief executive of Square, Inc., the maker of a little gadget that makes it easy for individuals and small businesses to accept debit and credit payments from their tablets and smartphones.
The billionaire tweets about what fuels his business endeavors, charitable causes, tech innovators and, of course, all things Square. He often sprinkles in behind-the-scenes photos and his own personal Vine videos.
Sample tweet:
Observe organizations, observe people, observe yourself...and then make something of it.
-- Jack Dorsey (@jack) November 26, 2013Related: How to Attract the Right Kind of Twitter Audience
4. @tferriss
Followers: 461,357
Tim Ferriss, author of best-selling The 4-Hour Work Week (Harmony, 2009), is a New York-based entrepreneur and startup angel investor. The Princeton graduate tweets almost compulsively, sometimes dozens of times in a single day.
Expect several investment tips, sale-closing tactics, encouraging quotes from billionaire business barons and funny observational gems. Ferriss also often asks people to tweet their questions to him, which he personally answers. Shoot him a Q and see what he says.
Sample tweet:
.@Marcus_Bowyer 1) Learn to write well (and therefore think clearly), 2) You are the average of the 5 ppl you associate with most.
-- Tim Ferriss (@tferriss) December 9, 20135. @tonyhsieh
Followers: 2,827,755
Tony Hsieh is the chief executive of Zappos.com, the popular online shoe and clothing store. The Harvard grad and author of Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose (Business Plus, 2013) tweets uplifting quotes, links to emails he has sent to Zappos employees and links to articles about how to make the office a more fun, collaborative place to work. Oh, and who could forget his tongue-in-cheek response to Kanye West's claim that Zappos sells "sh-t products"?
Sample tweet:
Vision + Values + Velocity of Adaptation is a great formula for business and for life.
-- Zappos.com CEO -Tony (@tonyhsieh) March 25, 2011
Related: Social Media Year in Review: 13 Must-Know Statistics from 2013 (Infographic)
