How to turn your mom's savings into $1 billion? Ask this guy

After Steven Yang left his coveted job at Google, he asked his mother whether he should take venture-capital money to fund his business idea. If his online consumer-electronics enterprise was a risky bet, she told him, go with the venture capitalists. But if building the business into something great was his destiny, he instead should use her money from a pharmaceutical career in China. So Yang combined his Google money with his mom's, and with less than $1 million in seed capital he moved from California to Shenzhen, a hub in southern China for technology companies. Seven years later, Anker Innovations Technology Co. sells products ranging from smartphone chargers to portable power banks on Amazon.com.