This part of MEAPA's Empowerment Wiki provides readers with a list of products and services are started due to an entrepreneur. Below is a brief description of each business as well as a link to additional information. To help keep this wiki organized, we have divided the entrepreneurs up into categories.

Food and Beverages

• Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream - started in 1948 when Irvine Robbins and his brother-in-law Burton Baskin combined their ice cream stores in the Los Angeles area.
• Domino's Pizza - started in 1960 when Tom Monaghan and his brother James purchased "Dominick's Pizza" in Ypsilanti, Michigan. During the following year Tom traded his car for his brother's half of the business and renamed the pizzeria Domino's.
• Kentucky Fried Chicken - started in the 1950s by Harland David Sanders. In 1930, in the midst of the depression, Sanders opened his first restaurant in the small front room of a gas station in Corbin, Kentucky. Sanders serves as station operator, chief cook and cashier and names the dining area "Sanders Court & Café." During the 1950s, Sanders, then in his 60s and almost broke, spent several years selling his Secret Recipe to restaurants.
• Cheesecake Factory - started in 1949 when Evelyn Overton of Detroit baked one of her New York-style cheesecakes for the employer of her husband, Oscar. The employer requests additional cakes to give as gifts. She rolls the idea into a small-scale bakery operated first from a shop and then from the finished basement of the family's Detroit home. She continued to run the enterprise there for more than 20 years.
• Starbucks - The first Starbucks opened in 1971 in Seattle. Howard Schultz joined Starbucks in 1982 and after a visit to Italy's espresso bars had the idea of creating them in the U.S..
• Pepsi - created by 1898 in North Carolina by Caleb Bradham a pharmacist and drug store owner.

• Cold Stone Creamery - started in 1988 when Donald and Susan Sutherland open the first Cold Stone Creamery ice cream store in Tempe, Arizona.
• Mister Softee Ice Cream - Mister Softee Inc. was founded by two brothers, William and James Conway, in 1956. On St. Patricks day of that year, Bill and Jim took their first truck and gave out green colored ice cream in the neighborhoods of West Philadelphia. By 1958 the company had outgrown the building in Philadelphia and moved to the current location in Runnemede, NJ.
• Chick-fil-A - Cathy began the chain in the Atlanta suburb of Hapeville, Georgia in 1946 with a restaurant called the Dwarf Grill or the Dwarf House, named for its small size. It was there that he, along with his brother and partner, Ben, created the sandwich that later became the signature menu item for Chick-fil-A. The

Services

• Xerox - started in 1938 when Chester Carlson made his first electrophotography (later known as xerography). Took him 10 years before Haloid Company in New York (later renamed Xerox) became the only company to express interest in the machine and two years later the firm sold the first Haloid Xerox coper.
• Kinko's - started in 1970 when Paul Orfalea opened a 8' x 12' copy store near the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara. The name Kinko comes from a nickname he had been given as a child for his kinky hair.
• Build-A-Bear - started in 1997 by Maxine Clark who launched its first Build-A-Bear workshop in St. Louis and in 2007 had 300 shops across the world.
• Barnes and Noble - Barnes & Noble's beginnings can be traced to 1873, when Charles M. Barnes started a book business from his home in Wheaton, IL. In 1917, his son, William, went to New York to join G. Clifford Noble in establishing Barnes & Noble. During the height of the Great Depression, what later became the Barnes & Noble flagship store was opened on Fifth Avenue at 18th Street in New York City, where it still resides today.

Clothing & Department Stores

• Macy's - started in 1958 by Rowland H. Macy in after four previous business failures. Macy opened his retail store in Manhattan.
• Life Is Good - started in 1994 by brothers Bert and John Jacobs after spending five years hawking shirts from their car.
• Urban Outfitters - started in 1970 as The Free People's store by Robert Hayne. In 1975 renamed to Urban Outfitters.
• Sears - started in 1868 by Richard Sears as the R. W. Sears Watch Company.

Various Other Consumer Products

• Post-It Notes - created in the 1970s by 3M and Art Fry.

COLOR GUIDE - throughout this wiki we use a variety of colors to help the user better understand and navigate.

• Text underlined and italicized in bold blue = link to a another page on this wiki or some external source
• Text in bold red = section header
• Text in bold orange = refers to an attached pdf at the bottom on that specific wiki page.