When you think of the world’s richest people, Nick Woodman is not the first that comes to mind.

Who is Nick Woodman? He is the CEO, chairman, and founder of the Gopro. As a young man, Woodman was intrigued by the visual arts. He graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts.

Fresh out of college, Woodman started up an online gaming promotion site called funBug. This was a total bust for him; after its failure, he went off to surf and take some time out from being a businessman.

While out surfing with his friends, Woodman discovered a major problem: there was no way to capture the waves to share with others. He wanted a camera to make the surfer look like a pro in one shot. When he first started making the camera, he was selling it out of his van to surfers and surf shops alike.

In 2005, Nick Woodman appeared on QVC to promote the first ever Hero camera by GoPro. The new look of a wrist strap waterproof camera only cost about 30 dollars, and only took about 20 photos per film. Little did Woodman know, he designed one of the world’s most versatile cameras.

As the company grew, so did Nick Woodman’s popularity. The company paid for Woodman to take a drive in a race car to promote the camera, but they had to rent out a more expansive camera to do the job of filming in high speeds. When this problem arose, he created the second GoPro, which now shot live footage. This boosted the camera’s fame from being on QVC, to being in stores across the world.

For Nick Woodman, he knows his product has to go through any aspects of life. This meant creating even another version which is now the most popular camera in the world. From the first version he went off to make it better. These cameras literally go anywhere; it goes from making family home videos to unearthing life’s mysteries under water.

As said by Junior Andres Sandoval, “The GoPro truly brings out the creative side in someone. It brings a whole new point of view for things we haven’t seen yet.”

For being thrown off the tracks after trying to make a game promotional site and nearly losing it all, Woodman never would have imagined that he would become this successful. He recently made it to Forbes 400 for being one of the richest individuals in the world. As of now, he is worth about 4.8 billion dollars. That’s a lot for a guy who started selling out of his mom’s van.