It's not uncommon to hear stories about entrepreneurs who have used the wealth they've accumulated from a previous endeavor to launch a successful new venture or about seasoned business owners who have taken over a decades-old franchise and transformed it into something completely different from what it was before.

It's difficult to picture even the most successful and well-known entrepreneurs ever having to struggle. As a result, we've compiled a list of entrepreneurs who began with little or no recognition or riches yet worked their way up the corporate ladder from the bottom up.

A few entrepreneurs have achieved success only after switching jobs. Following their effective mastery of a particular field of work and their development as great entrepreneurs, they moved on to establish their own businesses. Who, on the other hand, is a successful entrepreneur? As we go through this list, we will look at some of the most successful entrepreneurs who have gone from almost nothing to being insanely wealthy while also receiving global recognition along the way.

John Paul DeJoria

Entrepreneur John DeJoria is a self-made man who has achieved great success. Most people are familiar with Paul Mitchell since he was the brainchild behind the Paul Mitchell hair care product brand. Nonetheless, his early years were not marked by riches: he began his professional life as a truck driver, cleaner, and even a door-to-door salesperson for Christmas cards.

He was sacked from his first employment in the hair care industry, which he had while employed by Redken Laboratories. Then, in 1980, with the help of stylist Paul Mitchell, he founded John Paul Mitchell Systems with a loan of just $700. His net worth has increased to $3.1 billion!

Howard Schultz

Starbucks creator Howard Schultz's name may be associated with economic success, but his life wasn't always that sunny for the billionaire. Having grown up on a housing estate since his family didn't have much money, he learned to be resourceful. In order to finance his education, he took out government loans and earned money from part-time employment.

In addition, he was the first member of his family to enroll in college. Schultz initially came into touch with the Starbucks brand while working for a coffee brand in the early 1980s. In Seattle, he paid a visit to a branch of the new corporation. He began working for the firm as a marketing director not long after. Schultz quit Starbucks in 1985 and opted to create his own coffee shop in the same location. He was able to raise the $500,000 he needed to build his first shop and get his company up and running.

A little over two years later, the original Starbucks management chose to sell its retail operation to Schultz, and the company that we know and love today was established. Schultz has amassed a net worth of more than $2.9 billion, which is not bad for a business empire that he conceived over an afternoon cup of coffee!

Jan Koum

When Facebook announced its acquisition of the famous mobile messaging app WhatsApp for a whopping $19 billion in February 2014, many people raised their heads. Even more so when the background of the applications' creator, Jan Koum, became public.

A little hamlet outside of Kyiv, Ukraine, where Koum was born to a laborer father and a housewife mother, Koum grew up in the shadow of the capital city of Kyiv. Their house was reportedly often without hot water since they were struggling to make ends meet. With his mother, Koum came to California when he was 16 years old, where he supported the family by sweeping the floors of a grocery store and collecting food stamps.

Koum spent his leisure time exploring computers, and by the time he was 18 years old, he had developed into a highly adept computer hacker.

As an infrastructure engineer at Yahoo, he began working there in 1997. He is claimed to have acquired an iPhone in January 2009 and to have seen the potential immediately for a wealthy app economy that the device might create. WhatsApp Inc. was founded in California on the 24th of February, 2009, on the occasion of his birthday. Everything else is, as they say, history.

Roman Abramovich

Roman Abramovich is a mysterious oil and football billionaire who has been the subject of several contradicting allegations about his early economic ventures. Abramovich's upbringing, according to all of these claims, did not prepare him for a life of wealth.

At the age of four, both of Abramovich's parents died, and he was raised by his uncle and grandmother until the age of eight. His entrepreneurial career, according to legend, began when he got an extravagant wedding present from his in-laws, which he then sold to raise money for his new venture.

During his time studying in Moscow, he allegedly tried his hand at a variety of economic ventures, including selling toys, fashionable clothing, and even rubber ducks. He amassed most of his wealth via a series of contentious oil export transactions in the 1990s, and he is currently estimated to be worth around $9.5 billion.

J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling is one of those entrepreneurs who started with basically nothing and has gone on to become one of the world's most successful entrepreneurs today. Because of the popular Harry Potter book series, she has established herself as a household name. However, she was not always successful in her endeavors. Before she began writing about this wizarding universe, J.K. Rowling had run out of ideas about what to write.

Prior to this, Rowling was a single mother who was reliant on benefits and struggled to make ends meet on her own. J.K. Rowling's net worth has now risen to more than $1 billion.

Bottom Line

Anyone has the capacity to be a successful entrepreneur. All that is required is hard effort, devotion, and the insights of those who have gone before you and shown that it is possible.