How to Become a Billionaire

In the world today, there are currently 2,604 billionaires and a good number of them are from the U.S. compared to 1916 when there was only one global billionaire—John D. Rockefeller. 

Becoming a millionaire is one thing, becoming a BILLIONAIRE is another thing with the high value of the U.S. dollars. Other non-American billionaires from other countries are probably worth trillions in their local currencies. A lot of global billionaires have amassed their wealth through various means both legitimate and ‘shady’. One can become a billionaire either through business, inheritance or divorce.

 It may be easy for one to consider heir billionaires as people who simply just inherited “daddy’s wealth”, but, it is not always so. The inheritance part is true but there is always the part of maintaining and growing the wealth to keep the legacy. The focus of this article is on becoming a billionaire through business. How did they do it? What strategies did they use? What were the challenges that surfaced? 

Who is a Billionaire?

A billionaire is regarded as one who has a net worth of at least $1 billion. This excludes debts, assets, and other expenses or responsibilities.  So, you may have assets worth billions but until the asset is converted into cash you will still not be regarded as a billionaire. 

What does it take to become a billionaire?

Asides hard work and dedication there are several patterns that have been seen amongst the top shot billionaires some of which include making long-time profitable investments and plans. It seems there is a secret that most billionaires have come to understand about making money that the average person is still yet to understand. Life is all about choices and risks, and some people are more daring than others to risk everything at whatever cost with the hope of getting better results. 

Many people build wealth for many reasons—to afford a luxury life, achieve success in business, achieve fulfilment in life, for charity. Billionaires like Bernard Arnault, the owner of the LVMH conglomerate, and Francois Pinault, founder of Kering are clearly luxury lovers, and this is revealed in the percentage of what they spend their money on. Then there’s the ‘give back’ category, billionaires like Zuckerberg, Gates, and Warren who have built their wealth only to donate half of it to charity.

Whatever you decide to do with your wealth is completely up to you, the focus, however, is building wealth enough to become a billionaire. What are the strategies? What are the risks? What are the things to take note of? How did the billionaires do it?

I have researched and written about at least 30 of the top global billionaires, and certain habits or traits seemed to reflect in their profiles. Many of them are of course self-made billionaires, some became billionaires through inheritance, and others simply by divorce. How ever they got there is of importance but not as much importance as to how they maintain their wealth and devise new ways to multiply what they have in their hands. Similar patterns are revealed below.

• Education: In today’s world, education may not be a necessity to make money, but it sure gives you a head start to venture into any business. No form of education is ever wasted. Some present-day billionaires like Dell, Zuckerberg, and Ambani who were all school-dropouts at different levels—high school and college. Leaving school doesn’t rule out the fact that education wasn’t important, as a matter of fact, they all had levels of education already in place. Leaving school just meant that there was a better opportunity that presented itself at the moment, and school was going to be in the way. For someone like Dell, he knew the risk was worth taking and even if it didn’t turn out well, the school would always be there to return to. For some other billionaires like Larry Page, their choice of study in college was a result of their childhood interest which was also a result of their parents’ careers. So, the bottom line is getting the proper and required education.

• An early start: Quite a number of the self-made billionaires today started out early. Early in the sense that they were only pursuing their ambitions not necessarily to become billionaires, but to see their ambitions and businesses grow. Starting early didn’t necessarily bring in the big guns yet, but it helped establish a solid foundation for their companies and businesses by creating substantial awareness. In as much as there are a number of factors that can delay many from chasing their billionaire dream early, you can still focus on building that business, or company, or innovation up to the level of societal worthiness.

• Trend-consciousness: It is quite not wise to keep doing a particular thing the same way and expect different results. Times are changing and will forever remain to change. Most billionaires that do business have understood the secret of keeping to the trends. The society is always in need of something new or upgraded. A 3.0 is simply not enough. It may be good for this year or season but even better is a 3.2. Billionaires into innovations, fashion and retails, and their likes take good advantage of keeping to trends. An example is seen in the Inditex business strategy—under its Zara collections, there is always a new wear that is specially designed to fit a new trend.

• Innovations: Following closely after keeping up with changing trends is the aspect of innovations. Most tech, manufacturing, and energy companies have continually sought out new ways their products could better human life, and fetch more income for them. With innovations come new strategies and new ways of doing things. Consider the technology industry, the industry has grown past the era of using analog computers to having almost every aspect of human life computerized. Today, we live in a world of Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Robo-assistance and what may, all in a bid to make life easier and more conducive for humans.

• Investors: Having a startup usually requires capital, and capital can be generated from different sources—personal savings, friends, and family, or professional investors. There are investors who are given to investing in companies at their startup level, especially companies that hold great potentials. These kinds of investors are private investors. Their contributions may be enough to make you a millionaire or your company a multi-million company, but not yet enough to hit the 1 billion mark. The kind of operations your company runs and revenue your company is able to generate over time would determine your billionaire status. For companies considering going public, there are better chances of hitting the 1 billion mark with the amount your company generates from its public offering. (See IPO)

• Investments: From seeking investors to becoming an investor yourself. Making investments is one of the business strategies of successful billionaires like Warren Buffet who have dedicated their time and resources to make investments. Some billionaires simply prefer seeking out bankrupt companies with high potentials and pumping huge funds into them as investments. While others would rather buy stocks of profitable companies and reaping the returns over a period of time or trading the stocks when their value increases. (See how to invest stocks)

• Timing: This is a very important ingredient to becoming a billionaire. Time is of great essence! Becoming a billionaire doesn’t simply happen by chance unless you are their heir to a billionaire or spouse to a billionaire, otherwise, the process of becoming a billionaire requires building. Which in turn requires time, patience, commitment, discipline, determination, and all of that—very important. 

How can I become a Billionaire?

Now that we have discussed what it entails to become a billionaire, let’s consider the ‘how’. I wish I could tell you there was one ‘how’ that could work the trick, and shazam! you’re a billionaire overnight. There are no global rules to becoming a billionaire, but there are general patterns to imbibe as guidelines that can make you a billionaire, preferably if you are already a millionaire or at least you already have a couple of thousand bucks saved up.

Investing: Investing works in two ways. You can either become an investor by investing in stocks of multi-million companies, bonds, or other assets. Or you can have a terrific business idea, company, or innovation that you would like other investors to fund. However, you choose to go about it, investments are a great way to build wealth. Whether stocks, bonds, ETFs or real estate every investment comes with its risks, therefore, to invest means to be prepared for any type of risk that may come up.

Inventing: This may be one of the most difficult ways to becoming a billionaire but can be as well highly productive if done right. In the world today, it almost seems like everything imaginable has already been invented. This may not be true, but inventing a new product or design requires that you brainstorm outside of the box and create something of high marketable value that is consumer-friendly. Inventing a new product or design may take time but totally worth it in the end, so long as the market loves it.

Innovation: Closely following inventing is innovation. This is another strategy for building wealth. It involves seeking out new ways to make a particular product or service more efficient. Not just efficient or better, but products that perform better than competitors. Innovation is a business strategy that can give your company an advantage in the market. Sometimes, innovations are not necessarily high-tech gadgets or products they could simply be improved versions of already existing simple daily products.

Entrepreneurship: This is a broad term that covers a lot of industries. The basic idea behind entrepreneurship is to build a venture and generate revenue. Entrepreneurship requires building your company from scratch either as an individual or as a team. Becoming an entrepreneur is a big responsibility for those who have ventured into it. Compared to working with an already established firm—a multi-million company that guarantees you a paycheck at the end of every month, it is quite different working as an entrepreneur. And most entrepreneurs who have been long in the business have also come to understand that success doesn’t simply come overnight. You may have terrific business ideas but time, patience, commitment, consistency, hard work, determination, and capital are also required to nurse that idea until it is established enough to get the big billions rolling in. The bottom line is not to ever get discouraged, especially if you believe in your dream.

Tip: A positive and winning mindset is also an important requirement to build wealth. Such a mindset always pushes you to think beyond failures and disappointments. The Ailbaba Group business mogul, Jack Ma was practically a failure for a better part of his young life, but one thing he never did was let the disappointments, failures, and rejections determine his future. Many self-made billionaires can relate to this as well, not in the sense of failing or getting rejected at everything but taking advantage of little failures and making something better out of them. We don’t always make the best decisions, but we can decide how we choose to make use of the results of our decisions. The process of wealth building is a long one, therefore, learn to make every moment count.

More Tips

• Positive/winning mindset

• Manage your time well

• Create feasible short-term and long-term goals

• Master the strategy of networking and use it to your advantage

• Always remember that there are no shortcuts in life. 

• Put efforts into building your brand

• Always get the  necessary education

• Never give up regardless of the failures or circumstances that come up along the way

What Industries Are Best?

Several industries have the tendencies to make one a billionaire though some higher than the others. For example, the finance and investment sectors have higher tendencies of making one a billionaire compared to the fashion or music industries. Another thing that determines the success of an industry is the environment in which it thrives. There are places where certain industries can barely produce a millionaire, not because they are not profitable enough, but because the environment is not healthy enough to sustain the industry-life.