Many eager entrepreneurs believe, to build a successful business, they first need to get finance from some venture capitalist or angel investor. This, “backing” is important if they want to make enough amount of investment in product research and marketing.
While there’s no doubt that successful startups out there are being funded by an angel investor, it also needs to understand that some of the successful startups in business (some of them are turned into the monster now) were self-funded when they started.
If you scroll on the Internet for the accounts of major startup events, you are going to come across too many successful projects that have been launched over the time.
In this article, 5 self-funded success stories of tech startups are mentioned, showing how an unconventional approach to problem-solving together with the brilliant application of new technologies can create handy solutions in various industry sectors.
Let’s have a look at some of the successful startups that had respectful beginnings when they first started.
Self-Funded Companies and Their Success Stories
There are many entrepreneurs that started with very little investment and in the end became giants. Here, we will be mention some tech companies and then give a glance.
1. Facebook
Facebook, the biggest social networking platform today, was founded by former Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg in the Harvard. He starts it up as one of his hobby projects with some financial help from Eduardo Saverin.
In the beginning, the membership was only for Harvard students, but later on, Mark expanded it to further colleges in the Boston area. It slowly spread to most of the universities in Canada and the United States.
It got its first investment in June 2004 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.Initially, it called “thefacebook.com,” the site was an instant popular. Now, the site has become one of the biggest web sites in the world, visited by 2 billion people a month.
The controversy surrounding Facebook began quickly. After a week after he launched the site in 2004, Mark was apologized by three Harvard seniors of having stolen the idea of them.
This allegation soon opened out into a full-fledged lawsuit, as a competing company established by the Harvard seniors sued Mark and Facebook for theft and fraud, starting a legal story that continues to this day.
Today, Facebook is the world’s largest social network with having over 2.5 billion monthly active users.
2. Dell
Founded by Michael Dell, Dell Inc, is known as a computing technology company that specializes in developing, selling, repairing and supporting computers and computer-related products and provides services.
While attending the University of Texas as a student, Michael Dell founded Dell, starting named as PCs Limited in 1984. After winning capital worth $1000 from his family, Dell dropped out of school and focus full-time on his fledgling business. The company grossed more than $73 million, in the very first year.
In 1986, Lee Walker a progressive capitalist joined Dell as president and senior operating officer.
The company went global in 1988. Today, Dell is one of the biggest technological corporations in the world.
3. Apple Inc.
Who doesn’t know Apple Inc.? Apple Inc., Headquartered in Cupertino, California, is one of the most famous multinational corporations, creates personal computers, computer software, smartphones and consumer electronics.
Apple Inc. was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne on April 1, 1976, to develop and sell personal computers and other devices for computing purpose. Wayne sold his shares of the company to Jobs and Wozniak for $800 in 1977.
The company got first funding of $250,000 from Mike Markkula, a multimillionaire investor. In the first 5 years, the company enjoys an average growth rate of 700% with revenues getting 2x every four months.
Apple is the first U.S. corporation that has a value asset of over $700 billion.
4. Whatsapp
WhatsApp was founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, these were the former employees of Yahoo!. Leaving Yahoo! in September 2007, they had some time off in South America. At the point, they applied for jobs at Facebook but rejected.
In January 2009, after buying an iPhone and realizing the power of the apps industry on the App Store, Koum and Acton began meeting with Koum’s friend Alex Fishman in West San Jose to plan a new kind of messaging mobile app that would show statuses next to the person’s names of the people. They planed that to boost the idea and would need an iPhone developer. Fishman visited to appoint a developer and found Russian developer Igor Solomennikov and introduced him to Koum.
Koum has given the name to app WhatsApp to sound like “what’s up”. On February 24, 2009, he founded WhatsApp Inc. in California. On February 19, 2014, months after Whatsapp capital financing round at a $1.5 billion valuation, Facebook announced to acquiring WhatsApp for US$19 billion.
Talking of self-funded success stories of tech startups, the Whatapp can never be excluded.
5. Microsoft
Bill Gates and Paul Allen was incorporated Microsoft on April 4, 1975, by in Albuquerque. Allen proposed the name ‘Micro-Soft’, a portmanteau of words microcomputer and software. Bill Gates was a Harvard student, took a leave of absence to fully focus on his project. But he never went back to Harvard again.
In 1980, Microsoft made a partnership with IBM to include Microsoft operating system in IBM computers. IBM paid a royalty to Microsoft, on every sale made.
Microsoft Windows operating system, Microsoft Office suite, Xbox and Bing are the company’s best-selling products.
According to a report as of 2019, Microsoft outlined global annual revenue of around $34 billion.
Get Inspired
A great startup idea is only the start of a long and honoured journey that will have its ups and downs. The most important step is to implement this idea in the right manner.
Take inspiration from these 5 self-funded success stories of tech startups that were started as self-funded and today are making profits in millions.
