You may have a business idea, but think it’s just a dream that can’t be realized. Not true!
If every successful business owner had thought it couldn’t be done, we wouldn’t have the services we use every day.
No matter what your idea is, even if it’s something as simple as a babysitting business, you just have to say to yourself, “I can develop this business”, do your homework, and then go for it.
To inspire you, we’ve compiled a list of 13 ideas that became successful businesses.
Apple
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were two college dropouts who started building personal computers in their spare time in Jobs’ parents’ garage in the early 1970s.
They were the ultimate tech geeks, both working at large companies and working on their own projects as side hustles.
In 1976, they founded Apple with the Apple I computer. It was a computer with a typewriter keyboard that could be connected to any T.V. screen.
The Apple I was successful enough to lead to the Apple II, a groundbreaking innovation for its color graphics.
Nearly 6 million Apple II computers were sold, which eventually led to the Macintosh. Apple went public in 1980 and is now worth more than $2 trillion.
And to think it was started as a side hustle by two college dropouts in a garage!
Instacart
Apoorva Mehta had been working in the Amazon fulfillment center and recognized a need for a grocery shopping app. He began developing the app and founded Instacart in 2012.
The app user chooses the store they want to order from, selects the items, and the order is assigned to an Instacart shopper, who shops for the items and delivers them. The company now has over 300 retail partners, including Costco, CVS, Kroger, Albertsons, Loblaw, Publix, Sam's Club, Sprouts, and Wegmans.
The company has raised millions in venture capital and now has a $24 billion valuation. Not bad for a former Amazon fulfillment worker!
Under Armour
In the mid-90s, Kevin Plank was a fullback at the University of Maryland and was frustrated by having to wear t-shirts under his jersey that constantly became sweat-saturated.
He realized, though, that his compression shorts stayed dry, so he had an idea for a t-shirt made with moisture-wicking synthetic material.
After graduating, he created his first prototype and started his business from his grandmother’s basement, aiming to design sweatshirts alongside his t-shirts.
To found the company, he used his savings account funds, which he had earned by selling t-shirts at games, and he ran up some credit card debt – he was broke at this point.
Then, a year after founding the company, he had his first sale to Georgia Tech for $17,000. That's why, as a startup owner, you might consider having a secure online savings account.
After that, he sold to two dozen NFL teams and earned a total of $100,000. His first major break, however, came when he was asked to outfit characters in the films Any Given Sunday and The Replacements.
Sales took off from that point. After 10 years, the company went public, and today it generates over $5 billion in annual sales.
Houzz
Houzz was founded by husband-and-wife team Alon Cohen and Adi Tatarko in 2009.
They were having trouble with a home improvement project, so they launched a website to gather input and find contractors. It was just a side hustle, but a year later, it became a company.
Houzz is now a home improvement hub with design ideas for a home’s interior and exterior, and also contains a directory of home improvement professionals, a user forum, and a shopping portal. Houzz has raised several rounds of venture capital and is valued at about $4 billion.
They have engaged Goldman Sachs for an IPO and plan to go public in 2022. It’s a great story of using an idea that solves your own problem to build a business!
Groupon
In 2007, Andrew Mason helped found The Point, a collective action website dedicated to getting people together to accomplish a goal.
The following year, The Point became Groupon, which aimed to promote local businesses by offering limited-time deals.
They started with small businesses and gradually grew to advertise for larger businesses, and by 2009, they had a presence in 28 U.S. cities.
Shortly thereafter, they went international. Groupon has evolved its services and app over the years to better meet customer needs.
Today, Groupon enables customers to shop local through its online marketplace, and businesses receive marketing campaigns and merchant solutions, including credit card processing and a point-of-sale system.
Groupon went public in 2011, and today it is worth over $600 million.
Etsy
Etsy started in 2005 as a small marketplace for artisans to sell their work, and it grew as the number of people who wanted to both buy and sell handmade items increased.
Developed by Rob Kalin and his partners, Etsy enables sellers to make their own online shop. The site is exclusively for handmade, vintage, and crafting supplies.
The company went public in 2016 and is now valued at over $14 billion. It’s a great example of starting small with a good idea and growing into a household name!
In 2010, Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger created a check-in app, but also incorporated photography from smartphone cameras.
They got the company, then called Burbn, started from a rented desk in a shared office during evenings and weekends when they weren’t at their day jobs.
It was just a side hustle. It didn’t do well at first, but later they changed the name to Instagram and turned the focus to mobile photography, and it began to boom.
In 2012, when the company had only 13 employees, it was purchased by Facebook for $1 billion. Now it has over a billion users.
Udemy
Udemy founders Eren Bali, Oktay Caglar, and Gagan Biyani launched the platform in 2010.
It was small at first, a side hustle because they couldn’t raise any venture capital, and they were starting with very few online courses. Students and instructors, however, saw the value of online education even though investors didn’t. It grew quickly, reaching over 2,000 courses and 10,000 users in just a few months.
That’s when investors took notice, and Udemy took off. Today it has over 185,000 courses and moremore than 49 million students. In 2021, Udemy went public and is now valued at $3.25 billion. In its early days, the Udemy founders were rejected by investors 30 times, making them a great example of perseverance!
PayPal
PayPal was founded in 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery as Confinity, a money transfer service. PayPal now operates as a payment processor for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, charging a fee.
In PayPal's early stages, the founders aimed to drive viral growth, so they credited $10 to each user’s account and paid an additional $10 for each referral.
Then they reached a deal with eBay to help users complete online purchases. After growing to 200 million users, PayPal went public in 2002. A year later, eBay acquired it for $1.5 billion.
The company is now worth more than $120 billion and has nearly 400 million users. POWR offers a POWR PayPal Button app for small businesses.
Slack
Slack is an internal team communication tool used by businesses. The founder, Stewart Butterfield, began developing the app in 2012. In 2013, the company started using its own app for internal communications.
They began reaching out to their contacts to encourage their companies to adopt the app, and as they gained a few users, they made many adjustments to the product to meet the needs of various group sizes.
Once they had a polished version of the app ready, they issued a major press release and soon recorded 15,000 user signups. They grew quickly from there and went public in 2019. In 2020, they were purchased by Salesforce for $27.7 billion.
Amazon
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, founded the company in his garage in 1994 as an online bookstore, but he had a vision for something much larger. In just a month, they recorded sales in all 50 states and 45 countries.
In the early days, Bezos expected employees to work 60 hours a week to realize his vision, but as a result, the company was often short-staffed.
The company struggled throughout the 90s and into the early 2000s, despite going public in 1997, due to fulfillment issues and customer dissatisfaction.
The issues were caused by Bezos trying to grow too fast, but eventually he figured things out, and today the company is worth over $1.5 trillion.
Dyson
James Dyson is a classic example of someone who solved their own problem and turned it into a business. He was constantly having trouble with his vacuum losing suction, so he built his own.
He worked on his designs for over 10 years, starting in the mid-70s, before licensing his design to a Japanese company in 1985. Dyson actually founded his company in 1991.
Since then, the company has expanded to have multiple product lines. The company now generates over $8 billion in annual revenue.
Stitch Fix
Katrina Lake founded Stitch Fix in 2011 while pursuing her MBA at Harvard.
Her plan was to provide customers with curated clothing boxes selected by a team of stylists. They have grown steadily, turning a profit every year since 2015 and reaching a $1 billion in revenue in 2018.
With Stitch Fix, customers complete their styling profiles online, and a Stitch Fix stylist selects five items to send them. Once received, the customer has three days to choose which items to keep and which to return.
A monthly styling fee is charged plus the cost of the kept items. Stitch Fix went public in 2017 and is currently worth more than $1 billion.
In Closing
Every great idea starts small and then can grow into something huge. If you have a business idea, don’t hesitate to act. Do your homework, and just go for it. As you can see from these stories, anything is possible, but it can’t happen if you don’t have a day one.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What makes a business idea successful?
A successful business idea typically solves a real problem, meets an existing demand, or improves on something people already use. As the examples in this article show, many successful ideas started small and evolved through persistence, iteration, and market feedback.
2. Do I need a lot of money to turn an idea into a business?
No. Many of the companies featured—like Apple, Under Armour, and Instagram—started with very limited resources. What matters more is validating your idea, managing costs wisely, and reinvesting revenue as the business grows.
3. Can a side hustle really turn into a full-time business?
Absolutely. Several businesses highlighted in this article began as side projects, including Apple, Houzz, and Instagram. Side hustles allow founders to test ideas with lower risk before committing full-time.
4. How long does it take for a business idea to succeed?
There’s no fixed timeline. Some companies grow quickly, while others take years of trial and error. For example, Dyson spent over a decade refining its product, while Instagram scaled rapidly after finding product-market fit.
5. What can I learn from failed or slow beginnings?
Early challenges are often critical to long-term success. Rejections, financial struggles, and slow traction help founders refine their ideas, improve their products, and build resilience—common traits shared by many of the companies in this article.
