Our Top 5 Most Popular Entrepreneur Stories of the Year

Below are the five most popular Notes stories of the year, out of almost 100. They are inspirational, educational, fun, and unexpected. Thanks so much for taking us along on your entrepreneurial journey, and here is wishing you a successful, healthy, peaceful, and prosperous new year!

#5 — Magic Johnson Made One Choice Before Retiring and It Made Him Stupid Rich
Magic Johnson didn’t wait until retirement to start learning business. While he was still playing, he asked for help from business pros, watched how deals were done, how owners thought, and how money actually moved. After retiring, he opened a sporting goods store - “Magic 32”, confident he understood the game. It failed. Not because of bad luck, but because Magic assumed customers would like what he liked and so that is what he sold. Wrong! That failure became the pivot. Magic stopped going solo, started building teams the way he did on the court, and partnered with people who knew what he didn’t. By treating business like a team and himself like a student, Magic built an empire spanning real estate, franchises, and media. The breakthrough came from teamwork, not star power.

#4 — Spanx Was Going Under Until Sara Blakely Did What
Before Spanx, Sara Blakely was selling fax machines door to door, getting rejected daily and learning how to stay standing after hearing no. The idea for Spanx came from a personal frustration and a simple question: why doesn’t this product exist? But even with no fashion background and no money, she bet on herself, created a prototype, called manufacturers, and scraped together her first run. Her magic moment came when she got a meeting at Neiman Marcus and didn’t pitch. She showed. She took the buyer into the bathroom and demonstrated Spanx herself. That moment turned skepticism into belief. One order led to many, and Spanx grew into a global brand built not on credentials, but conviction.

#3 — How “Yoga with Adriene” Crushed the Algorithm and How You Can Too
For years, Adriene Mishler uploaded yoga videos to YouTube with modest results. Nothing viral. Nothing flashy. Growth was slow and frustrating. Her breakthrough came when her business partner stopped guessing what people wanted and started studying what they were actively searching for. They rebuilt their content strategy around real YouTube search behavior, not trends or intuition. The result was explosive reach, massive subscriber growth, and one of the most trusted fitness brands online. The success did not come from better yoga. It came from better listening.

#2 — They Started With a Pushcart and Zero Experience. Now They Are Starbucks’ Biggest Threat
When the dairy industry in their area collapsed, two young Oregon brothers / farmers were left with no business and no plan. They bought a used coffee pushcart and started serving drinks with one simple rule: make people feel good. They focused obsessively on friendliness, generosity, and human connection, even when it slowed them down. That emotional experience became the brand of Dutch Bros Coffee (and yes, it is “bros” and not “brothers”!) The pivot was choosing culture before scale. Over time, that decision turned a roadside cart into the fastest growing coffee company in the country and one of Starbucks’ most serious competitors.

And the most popular story of the year was . . .

#1 — The Course Failed. His Bank Account Hit Zero. He Maxed Out His Last Credit Card, and So He Bet It All on One Offer
He opened gyms, grew fast, and nearly went broke doing it. When the money ran out, he tried to sell a course explaining what he had learned. No one bought. A couple of other ideas also bombed before his breakthrough. Finally, with no runway left, he changed his offer entirely: If he didn’t bring in actual results, i.e., paying customers, gym owners would owe him nothing. Bingo! One gym became ten. Ten became thirty. His company went from credit card debt to millions in profit, and eventually became a hugely successful, high-earning juggernaut. The key wasn’t a clever course, it was selling results instead of ideas.. That entrepreneur was Alex Hormozi.

The Takeaway

What do these great entrepreneurs have in common, and what do they have in common with you? They stuck with it, listened to their customers and the market, played around with their products and offers, learned from their mistakes, and trusted their genius.

If they did it, why not you?

You got this!

About Steve

Steve Strauss is the best-selling author of The Small Business Bible (and 17 other books), Inc.’s small business columnist, a lawyer (non-practicing), and an entrepreneur. He sold his last venture, TheSelfEmployed.com to Mark Cuban & Zen Business. Ready to take your business to the next level? Contact Steve!