Starting a business can be a daunting experience and can be a venture that is often perceived as costly. 

Some of the biggest global businesses once started out in a garage or garden shed costing next to nothing and are now global phenomenons. 

Look inside the minds of these successful entrepreneurs to see how you can create a successful business of your own.

  1. Amazon

Founder Jeff Bezos, created Amazon.com in 1994 as an online bookstore from his garage in Washington, United States. The company was named Amazon after the largest river in the world. In the first month of launching Amazon, books were sold to people across 50 states, in 45 different countries. It wasn’t until 4 years later in 1998 that Amazon experienced a boom at Christmas. Friends and family were even drafted onboard to help with the demand. In 2004, Amazon launched A9.com which offered a service called Block View, a visual Yellow Pages. Now in 2018, Amazon’s market capitalisation rose to over $1 trillion. 

2. Apple

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, began their business venture in 1975 from Jobs’ parents’ garage. In 1976 the Apple Computer was created. 2 years later the Apple II was presented to the public. In 1985, Steve Jobs left Apple due to having a different vision for the company. As a result, Sculley reorganised the company, while Jobs sold his $6.5m shares in the company for $70m. Jobs returned in 1997 as Interim CEO in which he would go on to remain until August 2011. Apple now sell iPhones, Watches, IPads, iPods and Macs to name a few. Apple is now worth an astonishing $1 trillion dollars in 2018. 

3. Disney

Disney was founded in 1923 from a garage or shed, costing $10 in rent per week. Walt Disney and his brother initially begun their venture producing a series of short live-action/animated films called the Alice Comedies. In 1937, the first full length animated film 

was released, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. There are now at least 139 Disney films and the business is worth $98 billion dollars.


4. Google

Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a dorm room, later moving to a garage. Google was originally named Backrub and was a search engine primarily designed to use links to determine the importance of individual pages on the Web. When Google received their first investment in 1998 they moved from dorms to their first office, a garage owned by Susan Wojcicki, now CEO of YouTube. Today, Google employs more than 60,000 employees across 50 different countries producing hundreds of products used worldwide. In 2018, Google was valued at $739 billion. 

5. Harley Davidson

Harley Davidson was founded out of a small shed in 1903 by William Harley and Arthur and Walter Davidson. The first ever Harley Davidson was produced and sold in the same year. A year later the first Harley Davidson retailer opened for business. There are now 1498 dealerships worldwide; 398 in Europe, 698 in the United States and 276 in Asia. In 2018, the company now has a net worth of $5.65 billion. 

6. HP

Hewlett Packard, also known as HP, was founded in 1938 from a rented garage with an initial capital investment of $538. The pair started by producing a line of electronic test equipment. In 1984, HP introduced inkjet and laser printers, as well as scanners for desktops. From 2007 to 2013, HP was named as the world’s leading PC manufacturer, to be overtaken by Lenovo later in 2013. HP employs over 302.000 employees and is worth an estimated $109.8 billion. 

7. Ikea

Ikea was founded in a garden shed by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943. The business was originally set up as a mail-order sales business; 5 years later they started to sell furniture. During the 1940s to 1950s, the company explored self-assembly, advertising, and the use of catalogues and showrooms. In the 1980s the company began going global, offering products to the US, Italy, France and the UK. 20 years later, the business now operates in even more markets including Japan and Russia. There are a total of 313 IKEA stores across 38 countries with an estimated number of 149,000 employees. The founder of Ikea is worth $58.7 billion as of 2018.