Millionaires tell how they did it

By Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine

So you want to be a millionaire -- who doesn't?

If you're looking for a little inspiration on your quest for wealth, get tips from people who already have made their millions. These success stories run the gamut from Grammy-winning songwriter to first-generation entrepreneur to everyday people who simply lived below their means. Their paths to wealth are diverse, but what they have in common is a 24/7 commitment to their goals. Learn from their experience what it takes to become a millionaire.

• "In my gut, I knew I could do this"

• "I tend to say less and do more"

• "I could not ask for more"

• "Trust in the stock market"

'In my gut, I knew I could do this'

When Nina Vaca came to Los Angeles from Quito, Ecuador, at age 2, her parents' goal was to build a family business that all of their children could be involved in.

"My father believed that the key to the American dream was through entrepreneurship," Vaca says. But never in his wildest dreams did Hernan Alfredo Vaca think that at age 35 his daughter would be the owner of Pinnacle Technical Resources, an information-technology business that generated about $60 million in revenue in 2006.

Hernan had a much more modest goal: He opened a travel agency, expanded to a chain of three and hoped eventually to have five agencies, one for Nina and each of her brothers and sisters. When they were kids, the siblings took the bus downtown after school to work in the family business.

But shortly after Nina graduated from high school, her father was killed during a robbery at his travel agency. Devastated, Nina and her sister Jessica ran the business for a year and prepared it for sale.

Nina majored in business at Texas State University, graduated in three and a half years, and headed for New York City to work for a technology company. She returned to Texas to head up its Dallas office. But when the charismatic Vaca discovered she "had a talent for attracting clients," she jumped into business herself (find out how to start your own business). In 1996, at age 25, she and a partner started Pinnacle to recruit IT talent for companies that needed technical personnel to administer their computer systems.

"Because of my upbringing, I always took matters into my own hands," Vaca says. "In my gut, I knew I could do this."

When the tech industry tanked in 2001, her company "was almost down to a liquidation plan." Her partner offered to sell, and "I scratched up as much money as I could to buy the business, paying him a little more than the book value of his share."

She changed Pinnacle's focus to provide IT consultants to businesses that had been laying off their tech staffs, charging a fixed price per project rather than an hourly fee. She landed as clients PepsiCo and Verizon, among others. Revenue soared to $10 million in 2003 and increased about sixfold over the next three years.

Vaca reinvests most of her money in the business, which she hopes to build into a family legacy, as her father would have wished. Pinnacle employs more than 600 people in 23 cities, including three of her siblings and her husband, Jim Humrichouse, who left his job as a management consultant to join the company four years ago. Even Vaca's four children, ages 6 and under, came to work with her for the first few months of their lives.

Besides focusing on family and business, Vaca led a college-scholarship fundraising drive for the Greater Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. She speaks frequently to college students about entrepreneurship and twice was named the National Hispanic Businesswoman of the Year. To juggle all those balls, she logs on to her wireless network from bed at 11:30 p.m., she says, and "I do without lots of things most people take for granted," such as eating breakfast, getting eight hours of sleep or reading a book. Says Vaca, "I get fueled by inspiring other people."

'I tend to say less and do more'

In 1998, when he was 37, Jeong Kim sold his telecommunications company to Lucent Technologies for $1.1 billion. It was a classic rags-to-very-great-riches story for the South Korean immigrant, who lived in subsidized housing after he arrived in Maryland with his family at age 14, barely able to speak English.

By age 16 he was living in his high school math teacher's basement and supporting himself by working several jobs, including a night shift at a 7-Eleven store, while attending school during the day. He graduated from high school a semester early but delayed going to college because he didn't have the money. He saved, applied for financial aid and went to Johns Hopkins University a year later to study engineering.

While at Johns Hopkins, Kim worked full time for a technology startup founded by fellow students and professors. But after graduation he decided to join the Navy. "I wanted to pay back society," Kim says. "Maybe that's idealistic, but it felt right."

Serving for seven years on a nuclear submarine taught Kim about leadership, integrity and teamwork, he says. "When you're surrounded 24/7 by 120 other people, you learn to appreciate other views."

Not incidentally, he also picked up strategies that have become central to his business philosophy. "I tend to say less and do more," says the soft-spoken Kim. "In a nuclear submarine, we call it silent service. A show of force is not our mission. Our job is to be very effective."

When Kim started his business, "I stayed in stealth mode for as long as possible so that when I came out, we were far ahead of our competitors."

Kim's Navy experience also introduced him to a telecommunications-switching problem that eventually became the basis for his business. Kim got a master's in business administration from Johns Hopkins while still in the Navy and a doctorate in engineering from the University of Maryland while working full time for AlliedSignal.

In 1992, he ventured out on his own as a consultant and gave himself three years to change his mind. It took more than a year to land his first contract. When he eventually scored a $75,000 job to perform a nuclear-safety assessment, it gave him the cushion he needed to continue working on his switching technology.

Finally ready to break out of stealth mode, Kim introduced his technology and sold thousands of switches to AT&T, Verizon and other big companies. His own company, Yurie Systems, landed on the cover of BusinessWeek when it went public in 1997.

Even after the business was sold a year later, Kim didn't slow down. He managed Lucent's optical-networking business and doubled its revenue.

Kim, his wife, Cindy, and their two daughters live in Potomac, Md., in a sleek and airy home that's stunning but not showy. He has given millions of dollars to both Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland, where he returned as an engineering professor and where a building bears his name. He's a major supporter of Venture Philanthropy Partners, which helps low-income children in the Washington, D.C., area.

 1 | 2 | next >