John Paul DeJoria

John Paul, or J.P. as his friends call him, holds the rank of #261 on Forbes list of World's Richest with an estimated $2.5B net worth.

He's the co-founder of John Paul Mitchell Hair Care Systems and Patron Spirits Company however he started with incredibly modest beginnings...

The son of immigrant parents from Italy and Greece learned the value of hard work early in life. John Paul and his brother would get up at three in the morning to fold and deliver newspapers doing their part to help support the family while they were both still in grammar school. At a very young age, he spent time in the company of a street gang in East Los Angeles, then enrolled in the U.S. Naval Reserve while still in high school and after graduation, joined the Navy with aspirations of attending dental school. Although discharged with honors, that turned out to be not an alternative financially.

Soon thereafter, an early but brief marriage left DeJoria a single father with a young son to support. He took on an assortment of odd jobs to make ends meet — everything from pumping gas, repairing bicycles and working as a janitor to honing his sales skills by selling encyclopedias, photocopying machines, dictating equipment and even life insurance.

This was a particularly trying time for DeJoria. While still in his early twenties and too proud to ask for help, he found himself homeless on more than one occasion. Then in 1971, he knew he'd met his calling when he accepted a position at Redken Laboratories, the leading professional hair salon product company in the U.S. at the time, on a starting salary of only $650 a month.

The real turning point came when DeJoria joined forces with his friend, Paul Mitchell, then one of American's most influential hair designers. Together they bankrolled the company on the borrowed sum of $750 to introduce their revolutionary sculpting lotions, hair setting and styling methods. Even today's well-known image of black and white packaging is the result of those early days of not being able to afford colored ink.

According to DeJoria, the company was extremely lucky to make it through that very tough first year when it should have went bankrupt 50 different times. Today, John Paul Mitchell Systems empires surpasses $1B in sales each year.

His charitable philosophy of "Success unshared is failure," has been responsible for donating millions of dollars and being personally involved in numerous philanthropic adventures on the frontlines.