Ever thought about what it takes to become a successful business owner? Funny enough, success doesn’t often come out of people trying to make a massive corporation. The biggest companies started out as the smallest seeds of an idea. These companies began as concepts from big thinkers trying to solve a problem –from their very own garages!
- Disney
Maybe you’ve heard of Disney? It’s a monster company with hands in so many industries it’s hard to keep track of them all. But where did it all begin? Well, actually, Disney has it’s roots in a garage.
The year was 1923 and it was in the summer, July, that Walt Disney took his big step into the world of movie making and fame. Hoping to get a job in the film industry, Disney soon realized that he just wasn’t having the luck breaking in that he had hoped for. So he got back to his original passions –drawing cartoons.
This dry spell in Disney’s career was the best thing to ever happen to him. He built his first studio in a garage not far away from where Disneyland would one day come to be .
- Â Apple
This one isn’t a little known fact, thanks to all the movies about Steve Jobs that have been coming out lately. But the billion dollar company that we now know as Apple began in a garage. Wozniak, Jobs’s original partner, spent days tinkering with what would become the Apple 1 in the confines of his garage while Steve spent hour after hour on the phone in an attempt to sell the product.
Through many ups and downs, Apple has established itself as a giant, but it started out in nothing more than a garage!
Google, Apple’s rival for top tech company, also owes its roots to a garage. In 1998, two recent Stanford Grads rented a garage in order to have a space to work on developing their new website.
Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had big ambitions, but the two actually met by chance.  They were assigned to each other during Page’s visit to Stanford. If not for this circumstance, our favorite website browser might be something else!
Their goal was easier said than done: to organize the seemingly infinite amount of information scattered across the web. Their result? A billion dollar company that pretty much rules the world of information (and maybe more).
- Heard of Amazon?
Jeff Bezos was another guy with a simple goal that wasn’t quite so easy to achieve –start an online bookstore that can deliver books to anywhere in the world. He started the business in his garage, investing a pretty sizeable sum into its conception. But it paid off, and he now has more than an online bookstore. Amazon delivers not only books but goods of all kinds to all four corners of the world. Like we needed to tell you that.
Moral of the story?
Big ideas start small –everyone has to begin somewhere. Have an idea? Plant your idea in good roots. Check out Ulrich garages and invest in a quality, custom garage and get going on your groundbreaking ideas!