Just some of the world-changing businesses that started from the comfort of their own homes.
With a lot of the working world moving rapidly from the office to the home, it may leave some people wondering exactly what that means for their future. “Will it bring my professional progression to a halt?” “What can be learnt from being at home?” And “How can I keep myself motivated from the lowly bedroom desk?”
Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, it can be exactly the opposite! The home, throughout recent history, has acted as a wellspring to innovation across all kinds of business sectors. So instead of feeling down-and-out by the idea of home-working, let’s use these incredible examples of once-humble companies who used home-working to become beasts of the business world to get us all motivated to do more from home!
Here are six global giants who started their business from home:
In the words of Google themselves, they’ve gone from “the garage to the Googleplex”. (https://about.google/our-story/), which just about sums it up. But here’s just a bit more information anyway.
Google’s story starts back in 1995 from the minds of two Stanford students. The students in question, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, met when Sergey was assigned to show Larry around the grounds at Stanford. Though they didn’t quite hit it off from the get go, the pair did manage to form a working partnership that led to them creating a search engine from the confines of their dorm rooms. Eventually, after the pair established a new, slightly more permanent headquarters from a rented garage, that search engine was developed into Google. The rest, as they say, is – wait – what is it that they say? One second, I got to Google something quick…
Disney
Disney might be the place “Where Dreams Come True,” but not everyone knows where exactly those dreams were first dreamt up…
It all starts in the summer of 1923 in a small one-car garage that belonged to founder Walt Disney’s uncle, Robert Disney. This original location, interestingly, is located just 45 minutes away from the current Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California. From this tiny space, the pair managed to create the Alice Comedies, which would later help to inspire the Disney adaption of Alice in Wonderland.
Though of course, the imagination of Walt Disney was always going to be too big to be contained in a one-car garage, and so the team soon moved to a bigger lot down the street, where Disney ultimately signed a deal with Universal Studios to distribute their early animated works.
Well, when you wish upon a star, etc. etc.
Amazon
It’s fair to say that Amazon’s origins aren’t quite as humble as some of the others on this list. After all, founder Jeff Bezos had already become the youngest vice president of a successful Wall Street investment firm a whole four years before beginning his Amazon adventure. But he showed no less of the cutthroat courage it takes to start a business. In the 1990s Jeff Bezos recognised that there was an untapped online retailing opportunity in the book industry, and so he up and quit his high-flying job in the Big Apple and moved across the country to Seattle to get a foot in early. With that he set up in his garage and began developing the software.
By July 1995 Bezos was able to launch Amazon.com selling his first book from his garage office. The company is now the world’s biggest online retailer.
Harley Davidson
Go back all the way to 1901. Here you’ll find William S. Harley. This is the year Harley drew his first blueprint for an engine that could fit inside a bicycle. Fast forward two years. William and his friend Arthur Davidson build the first ever Harley Davidson motorcycle. Where did they achieve this historic feat? From a 10-by-15 foot wooden shed.
Now Harley Davidson is valued at just over $5 billion with 1569 global dealerships. Not one of those dealerships is in a shed.
Microsoft
Billionaire Bill Gates may be the first name that now comes to mind when people think of the modern businessman/global tech entrepreneur, but even he had to start somewhere small. Gates originally started Microsoft (then known as Micro-Soft) in 1975.
Gates worked out of a garage in Albuquerque before moving onto the Sundowner Motor Hotel, which became the company’s early basecamp due to its close proximity to a personal computer company.
Though he may have started running things from hotels and garages, today, Microsoft is valued at around $1.8 trillion. Funny what you can build out of a basement.
Gates himself has even commented about the value of his humble origins, saying, “There’s no better symbol for the entrepreneur than the humble garage.”
Apple
If you’ve seen the movie Jobs, you may have noticed a couple of things.
One: Ashton Kutcher really does resemble a young Steve Jobs (good casting! On looks at least…)
Two: Apple’s first computers were built and developed from a small garage in California.
It was 1976 that computer wiz and trailblazer Steve Wozniac first created a prototype for the Apple computer. He would soon develop this prototype with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne. With the team assembled, Apple Computer Co. was launched from the garage of Jobs’ adopted parents house. Wayne would soon abandon the business (ouch!), but Jobs and Wozniak continued to expand, improve and innovate the company on creative and technological fronts.
Start Your Business From Home
Pretty inspiring right?
Are you thinking of starting your own home business? Or do you simply want to use remote working to optimise your work and progress up the professional ladder while expanding your leisure time? Literally thousands of people right now in Wales are working remotely in order to free up their time and money to do what they love whilst optimising their work and finding new avenues for success personally and professionally.
Maybe you’re thinking, “That sounds like everything I’ve wanted, but it’s great for those in Cardiff and Swansea, I live (or maybe you really want to live) in remote Wales where my daily commute is made even longer by the shuttling of sluggish sheeps! I could never get an internet connection strong enough to work remotely in my dream Welsh home…”
Well, it’s 100% true you’ll need a reliable home internet connection to work from home. It’s impossible without it. And for years, remote communities in Wales had no access to reliable internet. But this has changed.
For the last 30 years the team at Positive have been developing technology to connect every home and business in Wales to intensely good internet with minimum speeds of 50Mbps. That means no matter where you are, whether you’re up in a goat-herding hut in the mountains, or a sea-battered fisherman’s shack by the shore, you can now get the fastest, most reliable internet possible.
For a no obligation quote and an extraordinarily time-limited offer, register here for free. Don’t hesitate though, this deal could end at any moment.
