How did people go from broke to their first million?

The stories from these street interviews share a few threads. Many of the founders started with very little money, sometimes almost nothing. One Miami entrepreneur said he started the business that made him who he is today with $300, and the takeaway he drew was that you don't need a lot of capital, you need to take action. Sarah Blakeley started Spanx with $5,000 she had saved from selling fax machines door to door for seven years, and she never took outside investors, choosing to bet on herself. Michael Weistrach said he had $15 in his bank account when he started his company at 35, and he framed the key as stopping wishing and deciding to act. The oil entrepreneur from Highland Park went from a childhood heated by a wood stove to his first real deal by maxing out his credit cards for $70,000 to buy distressed loans. Andy Frisella started his business with $12,000, and said that across his first ten years he made only $58,380 in total, so the early climb was slow. The common lesson was to keep reinvesting and staying disciplined with money in the early years, and to treat rejection and early losses as part of the path.