If you think you need a corporate office to get your business started, think twice. Find out how these multibillion-dollar companies launched in the unlikeliest of places.
When we think of the biggest companies in the world, we think of huge office spaces and employees upon start-up and rich founders. However, what we don't realize is that these companies weren't always so big and the founders weren't always so rich. They too started somewhere. When in reality, a lot of businesses start in or the founder’s bedroom or home garage. Doesn’t that seem so crazy, yet inspiring to think about? The brave story of going from somebody’s garage or room to being worth billions has got to be one of the most compelling tales within entrepreneur and startup folklore. It shows that one potent idea can be so powerful that it eclipses all the other factors.
1. Apple
In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, ages 21 and 26 respectively, started Apple Computers by selling 50 units of Wozniak’s Apple I Computer at $500 a piece to a local retailer. Jobs took the purchase order to a parts distributor and ordered the parts. “The Steves” and their small team hand-built 50 computers in 30 days from a garage in Cupertino, CA. They made it at Jobs' parents' garage in Cupertino, California. Today, Apple is the most valuable technology company in the world.
2. Walt Disney.
The media giant that the Walt Disney Company is today, had a very simple beginning. Walt Disney and his brother Roy started filming Alice Comedies, part of Alice's Wonderland, in their uncle's garage in Los Angeles back in 1923. There they started filming the Alice Comedies which was part of the original Alice’s Wonderland. It’s unbelievable how far they’ve come since then; they’re now the highest-grossing media conglomerate worldwide. Today, Disney is the highest-grossing media conglomerate in the world.
3. Google
Perhaps the most famous of all the companies that started in a garage, Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google in current YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki’s garage in September 1998. It took them five months to create Google, after which they said had begun taking up too much of their time and they actually tried selling the company to Excite for a measly $1 million. Excite rejected the offer and now Google is the most trafficked site in the world. Page and Brin tried to sell the company to Excite for $1 million, which Excite rejected.
4. Microsoft
Every computer user knows the Microsoft brand. It's the remarkable and famous software that was once created in 1975 in a small Albuquerque room by Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen. Both of them gave more importance to programming language and software operations and worked in collaboration with IBM. They got their first operating system licensed for $80,000. They kept working hard and some years later they developed their most impressive and exceptional operating system, called Windows. Today, Windows is the most widely used software on the globe. About 80% of computers worldwide are running this operating system.
5. HP
Just 10 miles from the garage where Apple was started, Stanford graduates Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard launched their own company, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), in 1939 with an investment of just $538. In the garage in back of the house they were renting, Hewlett and Packard built their first product: an audio oscillator. One of their first customers was Walt Disney Productions, which bought eight audio oscillators to use for certifying the surround sound systems installed in theaters for the film Fantasia.
The garage was used as a research lab, development workshop and manufacturing facility for nearly a year before the partners outgrew it and moved to roomier quarters nearby. The company was incorporated in 1947 and, 10 years after that, became a public company. Today, Packard's garage is a private museum and is known as the "birthplace of Silicon Valley." Since its inception, HP has developed into a powerful and active company, developing various computers, laptops, and other computer-centric accessories with advanced technologies.
6. Amazon.
Amazon.com was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and was originally just a small online bookstore. At the time he founded Amazon, he was operating out of his home garage in Bellevue, Washington. Soon after the business began to grow and it has now become the world’s largest online retailer. Bezos went from selling books, to sell whatever he wants. In 2018, Jeff Bezos’ net worth is $135.5 billion, making him the richest person in the world.
7. Harley Davidson.
In 1901, 21-year-old William S. Harley drew up plans to create a small engine to power a bicycle. Arthur Davidson, a friend of Williams, worked with him to build these motorbikes in a small woodshed. Over the next two years, Harley and his childhood friend, Arthur Davidson, built their motor-bicycle out of their friend’s 10 by the 15-foot wooden shed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was the equivalent of a garage because they didn’t have cars. Harley-Davidson was officially founded in 1903, and now every motorbike enthusiast wants their own Harley and today it’s the most well-known motorcycle brand in the world.
8. Mattel.
Mattel, whose most famous product is the Barbie doll, started as a picture-frame company in 1945. Harold Matson and Elliot Handler founded Mattel out of a garage in Southern California as picture frame company in 1945. When their dollhouses began selling more than their picture frames, they decided to become a toy manufacturing company instead. Soon their dollhouses were selling better than their picture frames so they turned their emphasis to toys. Today Mattel, Inc. is the highest-grossing toy company in the world.
9. Nike.
Nike didn't even have a garage, to begin with. If you think a garage is too small a space to start a billion-dollar business, get this, Nike started in the trunk of a car. Yes, that's right. Nike began as Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964 in the car's trunk of its founders, Phil Knight's. While Knight made shoes, his coach at the University of Oregon, Bill Bowerman tested them on runners. For the first 2 years, it couldn't even find any retailers. And today, Nike is the biggest manufacturer of sports apparel and accessories. The company is worth about $90 billion now.
So if you're want to start a business, the absence of office space should not be an excuse.
Entrepreneurs that are a part of this “garage-to-riches” story don't start with $10 million in the bank. They do not typically have proven and accomplished technical teams. They must resort to building their new enterprise with elbow grease and ingenuity. They must make up for a lack of capital with hard work and discipline – but most of all, conviction. Above shows the legendary companies that had humble beginnings with close proximity to the toolbox and the family car. From media conglomerates to the world’s most visited website, here are the multi-billion dollar companies that were started in garages or home. And garages aren't the only usual place companies are born. Nike started out of founder Phil Knight's car's trunk.
This reading here is that the most amazing ideas have no borders. From small, rented garages to multibillion-dollar companies, anyone who's passionate about an idea or a project can start and grow that idea anywhere.
