Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at the BusinessMakers.com. And now it's time for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. And for this morning's Flashback we're going to roll back to 3 former guests – who all had interesting and out of the ordinary stories about what specifically motivated them to start their successful companies. We like to refer to them as Idea Triggers...

First up, listen to this cool story about what triggered Bennett Greenspan to start the very successful FamilyTreeDNA.com. Bennett became very interested in geneology at the very young age of 12. In his words he picked up and put down his genealogy many times over the next several decades. The problem was he always ran into a brick wall. He always ended up not being able to get to the end of the road because the paper trail did not exist. Along the way he had run into another one of these roadblocks in trying to prove that a cousin of his was related to some suspected family members down in Argentina. There just was no paper trail. So listen as Bennett shares his challenge from back in August of 1999:

Bennett: And so I was walking, and I was kinda down in my beer. I was thinking about the problem. How do I prove that my cousins in California are related to these folks in Argentina? And I remembered that there had been a study done about a year and a half earlier that used the Y chromosome that showed that Thomas Jefferson or the Jefferson family was in fact related to someone who was in theory the illegitimate male descendent of a Jefferson. But what I needed to do is I needed to learn about DNA testing just to confirm that what I thought was correct was correct and then I needed to find a company that would actually do the testing.

Russ: Right.

Bennett: Couldn't find a company that was doing the testing. I searched and I searched and I searched and so eventually I decided to look at the scientific studies and find an author or a coauthor of one of those scientific studies and call him up and ask him where I could go 'cause all I wanted to do was write a check. I wanted to know where I could send a check and how I could obtain the DNA samples from my cousin in California, from the potential cousin in Argentina. That's all I wanted. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone who was offering this service, so I called this fellow up at the University of Arizona who had been a coauthor on one of these studies, and I asked him if he would do the DNA test for my cousin and the fellow in Argentina.

Russ: Right.

Bennett: And I expected him to say no and he told me no, and I said, "Well, that's fine. Just tell me where I can go to buy a DNA test 'cause that's all I want to do." And he said, "I don't know of anybody that's offering this kinda DNA test anywhere in the world." Well, I had expected the first rejection, but I didn't expect him to tell me that there was no one who was offering the service, and so I had choreographed my call to him like any good salesman would do.

Russ: Right. Absolutely.

Bennett: And so I expected to get an initial rejection, but then he makes what I refer to as his fatal mistake. He said to me, "Bennett, you know, somebody should start a company like this 'cause I get phone calls from crazy genealogists like you all the time." At that point, I couldn't get that man off the phone quick enough. I put down the phone. I went out of the room. I found my wife and I said, "Honey, I'm going back into business. I'm going into the DNA testing business."

Russ: Now Bennett has connected the dots in his family tree, and today he's operating the very successful FamilyTreeDNA.com company. OK, and now, next up, Brian Liu, co-founder and former CEO of LegalZoom.com. Brian had graduated from law school, and was with a big name firm and it was his entrepreneurial observation that sparked the beginning of LegalZoom.com. Check this out

Brian: People spend-Americans, anyway-spend over 100 billion dollars a year on law, but they don't know who to turn to. Uh-something happened when I graduated from law school, and that is all my friends and family-my parents, my relatives-came out of the woodworks and they started asking me, "Brian, Brian. Now that you've finished law school, can you help me-uh-write a will? Can you help me start a business or file a small claims?" So right then, I realized-you know-people have these needs, and they don't know who to turn to, and they certainly did not want to spend the 300 dollars an hour.

Russ: And today, Legal Zoom is hitting on all 8 cylinders. And for our final "cool idea trigger story", we share with you our featured guest from Episode 157 of The BusinessMakers Show, Mr. Farouk Shami founder and Chairman of the Board of Farouk Systems Group, a billion dollar per year company focused on hair care products. Farouk was born and grew up in Palestine. He came to the US after high school to continue his education. While in school here he took on various jobs and was eventually attracted to the profession of hairdressing. Listen as he tells his story.

Farouk: Well, I was born in the Middle East, in particular in Palestine in the suburbs of Jerusalem. I went to school and finished high school there. I went to the American Friends Boys School and after high school I packed my luggage and I came to finish my graduate degree in education and, you know, to be an English teacher and while I'm in school, I needed to work, you know. I washed dishes. I worked as a waiter and then I was attracted to a profession called hairdressing.

Russ: Hairdressing.

Farouk: Yes. I thought I'll do it. That's a better way to pay for my schoolwork and with lovely ladies, you know, American ladies, you know.

Russ: I understand.

Farouk: Do their hair and get paid and pay my school tuition. What really attracted me about the profession is the artistic part of it. I love art. I like to paint and really, you know, I specialize actually in hair color, which is the most artistic part of it, you know, and it's living art on living human being, you know, and really that's what keeps me going. There is physics. There is chemistry in that profession, and I really took it very seriously that I just adopted that and became my love and my life, my style of life, you know, and it's my hobby, too. I could say necessity is the mother of invention. As a hair color artist and – I won the United States championship, the world championship as a hair colorist. I became allergic to ammonia, okay?

Russ: Okay. And ammonia was pretty important in all the hair color products.

Farouk: Yes. All manufacturers told me, "Oh, you have to have ammonia in hair color." And the doctor said, "You cannot work behind the chair anymore."

Russ: Uh-oh.

Farouk: So there was the challenge, give up or zero on, you know, so I really started researching about color, studying color, chemistry of color, you know, physics of color, all aspects of hair color, and I was able in no time to replace ammonia with monoethanolamine, which is an ingredient that comes from corn and wheat and it's natural, no fumes, no nothing of that. It doesn't have a smell. And really I found out that so many hairdresser are suffering from the same. Long exposure to ammonia may cause asthma, emphysema and lots of clients are exposed to that. Hairdresser are exposed to that on daily basis and OSHA actually limits the exposure of ammonia. Of course, the law was put in 1938 to 20 to 25 parts per million per day in 8 hours and if you do one application of hair color that's more than the required. In 1938, you know, women didn't color their hair like they do it now. Now we can do 20, 30, 50 colors a day. It is a very dangerous workplace environment. So that became my concept and my mission. I want to free the hairdressers and their client from harmful chemicals, hazardous chemicals in this alone, so I was able to invent and patent the first ammonia-free hair color in the world.

Russ: And from that point on, Farouk has grown the company significantly --- and only recently moved all of his manufacturing back to the US, where he has created about 2,000 more jobs.....and today, Farouk is considering running for the Governor of Texas. And that wraps up our Idea Triggers for this morning. To hear the complete interviews with Bennett Greenspan, Brian Liu and Farouk Shami, just go to the BusinessMakers.com and use the search function. And that concludes this mornings Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac, as about it at work. Stay tuned in for our Featured Guest, Charlie Paulette, CEO of Dulce Vida. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at The BusinessMakers.com