The first decade of Ryan Blair's life was spent comfortably, growing up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Southern California. This came to an abrupt halt when his abusive father became hooked on drugs and abandoned him and his mother. Blair went from a life filled with swimming pools and presents under the tree every year to living in a dangerous neighborhood where crime and violence were king. Destitute, Blair joined a gang just to survive and found himself in and out of juvenile detention. Today, Blair is a self-made multimillionaire and serial entrepreneur, starting and selling three companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars...the first of which happened at the age of 21. So what was the turning point for a criminal kid who was on the fast track to prison? Everything changed when his mother met a new man, a successful entrepreneur who took Blair under his wing and taught him how to succeed in business. Through a series of life-changing events, he was finally able to get off the path to nowhere.

Now, in NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN: How I Went From Gang Member to Multimillionaire Entrepreneur (Portfolio; August 4, 2011) Blair shares his experience and wisdom with those willing to do what it takes -hard work, long hours, sweat equity-to take their vision from paper to pavement to profits. Thanks to his survival instincts, tenacity, and above all, a "nothing to lose" mindset, Blair brings to us a much needed inspirational guide for those trying to start their own business. Just some of his insightful tips from the front line include:

In Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain, Blair outlines what he learned from mentors, experience, and a lot of trial and error, giving readers a road map for successful entrepreneurship.

Ryan Blair is a self-made multimillionaire and serial entrepreneur, who established his first company, 24-7 Tech when he was twenty-one years old, and has since created and actively invested in multiple startups. Currently, as the CEO of ViSalus Sciences, in the year of the 2008 recession, Blair turned the company around and took their revenue from near failure to more than $10 million a month in only 15 months. He has appeared on CNBC, MSNBC, and Fox Business, amongst others, and has been featured in Time, BusinessWeek, Sports Illustrated, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes, amongst other major media. Blair lives in Hollywood, California with his son Reagan.