Side hustles are fast becoming a regular thing. Some side hustles had crazy successes and blew up bigger than anticipated. In this article, we’ll be highlighting some big companies that started as home projects.
We hope that these businesses will inspire you to know that your little side hustle can grow to become a big business tomorrow. If you want to grow your side hustle to a stable, viable business, you might need a small business loan to help you scale up fast. Click here to see small business loan options available.
Facebook started as a basic website for Harvard University students to interact with one another. It grew to include other universities, and from there, expanded to include a lot of people. This business started from a dorm room in Harvard University, and it is now a global company worth over $900 billion.
Instagram was co-founded by Kevin Systrom, who taught himself to code while at night and on weekends. He eventually quit his day job, met his co-founder, and raised about $500,000, far more than most small business loans. They later sold Instagram to Facebook for about $1 billion. Today, Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms globally and generates tons from adverts.
Apple
Apple was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in their spare time. They started the company in a garage by building a computer while Steve Jobs was working at Atari and Steve Jobs was working at HP. Apple is now the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization of over $2 trillion.
Spanx
Spanx was founded by Sara Blakely, who got the inspiration for the business after cutting off the legs of a pantyhose to find something to wear for a party. In her spare time, Blakely would start her research and developed her first outfits. Today, Spanx is one of the largest shapewear companies in the world, and Sara Blakely is a billionaire.
Craigslist
Craig Newman founded Craigslist as a simple email to less than 13 people. The email newsletter grew by mouth, and it grew rapidly to become a website. The founder then quit his day job to focus on the business and Craigslist to be the largest classified ads company in the world.
theSkimm
theSkimm was founded by Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin as a simple newsletter to simplify the news for audiences while they were associate producers at NBC. What started as a simple project became a full-time thing, and they both quit their jobs to focus on it. Today, theSkimm has over 7 million subscribers.
Imgur
Imgur was founded by Alan Schaaf when he was a student at Ohio University. He started the project as a personal challenge to build an image uploader that was better than PhotoBucket. The project took him two weeks to make before he uploaded the platform to Reddit. Within a year, the website has over 500,000 monthly views. Today, the business has over 250 million monthly users.
Slack
Slack was developed as a side hustle by Stewart Butterfield as a communications platform for an MMORPG. But today, Slack is now the top communication platform of choice for companies worldwide. Today Slack is worth over $1 billion.
Conclusion
All these businesses started as side hustles and became very successful. So, you should start that side hustle of yours now. And if you have created one, keep at it. You never can tell what the side hustle may become a few years from now.
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