15 Top INTERNET Co's started, simple beginnings

Stop just Dreaming and Start Achieving !!!

Internet Co’s: Apple, BizChair. Digg, eBay, Facebook, FastHost, Google, LinkedIN, Plenty-o-Fish, PopCap games, RunEscape, ThreadLess, YouTube, Voltage, WhatEverLife.

Today I decided to show everyone where 14 of top Internet businesses were started. It shows you that you don’t have to start with an office, etc. A good number started from dorm rooms or their bedrooms with just a laptop.

Where 15 Famous INTERNET Companies Got Started

#1 Apple

Founders: college dropouts Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak started working out of Job’s Garage in Los Altos in 1976. They beat IBM by 1 year to have the first Personal Computer. Later, it was the first with GUI (Graphic User Interface) where you could use Icons, built in Screen & Mouse. After the MacIntoshes, it got into the PowerBook laptop – which was extremely popular. Next evolved the Imac & Ipod + Itunes music service, then came the iPhone smart phone. Apple is now worth over $1 Trillion from very simple beginnings.

#2 BizChair

Founder: Sean Belnick started the business from his Bedroom with $500, and an initial inventory of 50 products. Now the company has 75 employees and sells more than 25,000 products online. He sells everything from office furniture, home furniture, school furniture to medical equipment in this – Online. Microsoft, Google & American Idol are among some of his notable Clients.

#3 Digg Can you dig this ? Do you have a Shovel ?

Founder: Kevin Rose started the business in his Apartment. Originally, he was going to call it “Diggnation”, but he wanted a simpler name. He chose “Digg”, because users are able to “dig” stories, out of those submitted, up to the front page. The site was called “Digg” instead of “Dig” because the domain name “dig.com” had been previously registered by the Walt Disney Internet Group. They beat him to it. Darn. I don’t dig that !!!

#4 eBay

Founder: Pierre Omidyar (originally from Paris, France) started in his Living Room in 1995. It started as a marketplace for the sales of goods & services for individuals- which it still is today. Its hottest products have been Pez, Beanie Babies, Sesame St characters and even Cars. It also has a University & Foundation to help worthy causes. It sells over $7 million per year now.

#5 Facebook

Founder: Mark Zuckerberg started the business in his Harvard University Dorm Room. He got into limelight when he refused $1 billion offer from Yahoo. Later on he sold a 1.6% stake in Facebook to Microsoft for $240 million, raising the valuation to $15 billion.

#6 FastHost
Founder: Andrew Michael [England] started from his Bedroom to create a website Hosting service as an A-level IT project at the age of 17 – when he couldn’t find a suitable cost-effective & reliable Host. Five years later he added the highest performance Servers and was in top 50 of UK companies. He became a £47 millionaire after selling this business. Now he’s working on Cloud services.

#7 Google

Founders, Larry Page & Sergey Brin started in a Garage. They started on a name BackRub, but then decided that the BackRub search engine needs a better name. After some brainstorming, they went with Google — a play on the word “googol,” a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. The use of the term reflects their mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.

#8 LinkedIn

Founder: Reid Hoffman started in his living room. in 2003. The site was launched on May 5th (affectionately referred to by employees as “Cinco de LinkedIn”) when the five associate Founders invited about 350 of their most important contacts to join. At the end of the first month in operation, LinkedIn had a total of 4,500 members in its Social Network for Professionals. It now has over 575 million members. [ I have over 500 connections – Peter Cikalo/CXO of Wiz4.biz ] If you have common interests, let’s connect !!!

#9 Plenty-o-Fish “to get a Date, it’s Gr8”

Founder: Markus Frind started the business in his Office in 2001 – shortly after his birthday – when someone in the office introduced him to online Dating sites. He went back to his desk and checked out uDate.com, Kiss.com & LavaLife, but wasn’t impressed personals. He wanted to chat with people and was really annoyed when he found out you had to pay for everything. He ended up telling the girl who introduced him to the sites that he could do better and make them for free, so he went and created PlentyOfFish.com.

#10 PopCap Games

Founders: John Vechey, Brien Fiete & Jason Kapalka. They initially worked with internet Gaming sites like Flipside & Pogo. They started creating games in John’s home office and their first game was Bejeweled – which became a big hit, and received numerous awards. Later the created, then launched PopCap games in 2000.

#11 RunEscape

Founder, Andrew Gower started the business in a Bedroom in his parents’ house in Nottingham, England. He has been involved in coding for Games – right after he learned to spell. He had a penchant for Dungeon gaming. He initially started RunEscape as a hobby, and later monetized his Website and turned out to be a successful business venture.

#12 Threadless (Just so & sew)

Founders: Jack Nickell & Jacob Dehart started from their S apartment. They were both college dropouts), started Threadless when they were still working on their regular jobs. It started as a Hobby, then both partners put in a modest $500 as their initial Investment. Now the company has annual revenue to the extent of $50 million.

#13 YouTube

Founders: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen & Jaws Karim started the business in Chad’s Home Office. After a fantastic dinner party, they thought: “Why cant there be a simpler way to share the Videos of the party”. The next day they went to work at the office creating the answer. In two months they had our first public preview. In 7 months they officially launched YouTube. By that time they were serving over three million Videos a day. Now it’s over 5 billion per day.

#14 Voltage [ Hi (hello) or High ? ]

Founders: Rishi Kacker & Matt Pauker started the business in a Basement office in the Engineering office building. They worked on the technology as a summer Research project while attending Stanford. They entered a Business Plan competition and they won the contest. With the help of some seasoned execs, the two have created a thriving Security-SW business with more than 130 big-business customers & 75 employees.

#15 WhatEverLife

Founder: Ashley Qualls started her Business at her Kitchen office in 2004 with an $8 Domain name and an old IBM computer at the age of just 14. She didn’t know she was starting a business at the time. She only thought she was just creating an easy way to share her cool MySpace background designs + music, videos, etc, with her friends – other teen girls. It has evolved into over 100,000 Visitors a day and she earns $70,000 per month.

Comments: I hope the list has inspired you and has made it clear you can start anywhere, anytime !!! Then when they ask: “Where did you start you first business? “In my Home during the Virus Crisis of 2020”. So get started developing your idea. Ask a few friends to test it, then when it’s ready, you can tell the world you started from a simple beginning !!!

fm Insider Commentary 4-20 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4.biz

For more Info, click on Successful, Startups.