Most of us have heard legends of famous people who started in their garage — for example, stalwart computer pioneers like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, with little more than a few tools, a large workspace and their imagination ended up develop world-changing companies. For them, and people like them, the garage can be the most important room in your house.
It makes sense to use a garage as an office if you’re starting a business from your house. There’s lots of space and you have privacy from the prying eyes of the outside world. Perhaps this is why startup companies in garages are so common.
Not everyone who starts a business in a garage will go on to greatness, of course, but there are dozens of ultra-successful companies that started in a garage.
Amazon
A garage is the perfect place to start a small online bookstore. That’s exactly what Jeff Bezos thought in 1994 when he started Amazon in his garage in Bellevue, Washington. He sold his first book out of that garage in 1995 on Amazon.com. Twenty years later, Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world, and Bezos is worth billions.
Apple
The classic garage startup story — in 1976, 21-year-old innovator Steve Jobs joined forces with computer whiz Steve Wozniak to launch their own computer company. Their first product was a computer they built in a Los Altos, California garage. They managed to sell 50 of those new “Apple Computers”, which they manufactured in another garage in Cupertino, CA, for $500 each. Not bad for a couple of kids in a garage!
Even better was the company they built, which has become so dominant in the computer space that they practically own the lowercase letter “i,” along with a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Disney
Few people realize it, but the entertainment megalith now known as Disney had very humble beginnings. Before all the movies, cartoons and theme parks, Walt Disney had the idea to start a movie studio in a one-car garage that his uncle owned. Walt and his brother Roy set up their first Disney Studio in that Los Angeles garage, and the rest is history.
Hewlett-Packard
One of the most famous garages in Silicon Valley belonged to one of the most famous garage startups of all time. The garage at 367 Addison Avenue is where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard joined forces in 1939 to form Hewlett-Packard, a company that defined computers and business machines for decades.
The company that may have been responsible for your ability to find this article might never have existed if it hadn’t been for a garage. Larry Page and Sergey Brin started the world’s premier search engine in a little garage at 232 Santa Margarita Avenue in Menlo Park, California.
Harley Davidson
Of all the garage start-ups, this one makes the most sense. William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson built their first motorcycle in 1903 in a garage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Today, you can find Harley-Davidson motorcycles in garages all over the world.
For more information about garages, or to order a new garage door in the southwest suburbs of Chicago worthy of a legendary garage startup, contact A-All Style Garage Door today.