Rob Kalin, founder of Etsy, an online marketplace for handmade goods, took an unconventional path on his way to becoming a successful entrepreneur. The former teenage run-away sites Leo Lionnis 1973 childrens book Shimmy, about the adventures of a small black fish, and Creating a World Without Poverty by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus as two of his most important influences. After first dropping out of five colleges, Kalin eventually graduated with a degree in classics. His desire to make a living by making things led him to found Etsy. He notes that starting a store was an impossibility due to the high start-up costs coupled with the slow speed at which he could build a customer base. He dismisses online competitors as unsuitable for artisans saying, Ebay is a giant flea market while Amazon.com is a department store. Started with $50,000 from an angel investor, Etsy has since raised $30 million in four rounds of funding. Kalins timing was good with young people showing renewed interest in traditional crafts, a trend he had observed while helping to redesign another craft oriented site, Getcrafty. At the same time the prevalence of chain-store culture and global manufacturing created a demand among consumers for something unique. Etsy is now the worlds largest marketplace for handmade goods with more than 650,000 members. The site now also offers artisans workshops at the companys Brooklyn headquarters. Etsy charges a listing fee and commission on each item, but it is not yet profitable. Fast growth has created difficulties from sever capacity to hiring new employees. The sites increasingly high profile has also led to problems with fraudulent sellers.