© Getty Images
1 / 31 Fotos
Apple
- In 1976, Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak developed their first product, the Apple I, while also working full-time jobs at Atari and HP (respectively).
© Getty Images
2 / 31 Fotos
Apple
- Despite the refusal of Jobs' boss to invest in the Apple I, the company nonetheless grew quickly. Today it is one of the world's most valuable companies.
© Getty Images
3 / 31 Fotos
Facebook
- In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and his friends were inspired to create TheFacebook, a social networking site that was accessible only to Harvard students.
© Getty Images
4 / 31 Fotos
Facebook
- Soon the site had expanded to other colleges and today Facebook is considered one of the world's main social media platforms. In June 2020, it registered 2.7 billion active users.
© Getty Images
5 / 31 Fotos
Instagram
- Before he launched Instagram with co-founder Mike Krieger, Kevin Systrom was working as a Product Manager for Nextstop.com by day and building mobile check-in app Burbn by night.
© Getty Images
6 / 31 Fotos
Instagram
- Having decided that the primary focus of Burbn should be photo-sharing, Systrom and Krieger launched Instagram in 2010. In 2012, Facebook bought the company for US$1 billion.
© Getty Images
7 / 31 Fotos
Twitter
- It was in 2005 while he was working at podcast platform Odeo that Jack Dorsey created twittr, a site where people could update their status in real time.
© Getty Images
8 / 31 Fotos
Twitter
- Twittr remained a side hustle until it was renamed 'Twitter' and officially launched in July 2006. To this day, Twitter remains one of the most popular social media platforms.
© Getty Images
9 / 31 Fotos
Craigslist
- The classified ads website Craigslist started in 1995 as an email that founder Craig Newmark sent to his friends. It highlighted events happening around San Francisco.
© Getty Images
10 / 31 Fotos
Craigslist
- In 1999, Newmark quit his job to turn Craigslist into a company. It expanded quickly and now covers 70 countries, although the website retains its original, minimalist aesthetic.
© Getty Images
11 / 31 Fotos
Groupon
- Before it became Groupon, Andrew Mason's business venture was a web tool called The Point. Founded in 2006, the tool's aim was to bring people together to achieve a common goal.
© Getty Images
12 / 31 Fotos
Groupon
- In November 2008, The Point became Groupon, a site dedicated to offering group discounts. By October 2010, Groupon was available in 250 cities and had 35 million registered users.
© Getty Images
13 / 31 Fotos
Imgur
- Imgur creator Alan Schaaf was studying at Ohio University when he decided to develop an image uploader to compete with PhotoBucket. Imgur took him a mere two weeks to build.
© Getty Images
14 / 31 Fotos
Imgur
- In its first year, Imgur had half a million page views each month, and by 2011 Schaaf had moved the business to San Francisco to officially become a company.
© Getty Images
15 / 31 Fotos
Spanx
- It was while Sara Blakely was getting ready for a night out in the late 1990s that she decided to cut the feet out of her pantyhose and the idea for Spanx was born.
© Getty Images
16 / 31 Fotos
Spanx
- Once she had a manufacturer on board, work on the prototype began. Spanx the company was founded in 2000, and in 2012 Blakely became the youngest female self-made billionaire.
© Getty Images
17 / 31 Fotos
Under Armour
- The idea for the product that would eventually be sold under the brand Under Armour first came to founder Kevin Plank when he was a college football player fed up with his sweaty shirts.
© Getty Images
18 / 31 Fotos
Under Armour
- He developed a shirt that would not absorb sweat and sent it to NFL players. Nowadays, Under Armour is a market leader and in 2019 it had a revenue of US$5.3 billion.
© Getty Images
19 / 31 Fotos
Yankee Candle
- As a teenager in 1969, Yankee Candle founder Mike Kittredge made a candle for his mom. The product was so popular with the neighbors that he began to sell the candles from his garage.
© Shutterstock
20 / 31 Fotos
Yankee Candle
- Four years later, Yankee Candle moved into a paper mill in Massachusetts and in 1998 the company was sold for a whopping US$500 million. Today it has over 500 stores worldwide.
© Shutterstock
21 / 31 Fotos
WeWork
- WeWork founder Adam Neumann was heading up baby clothing company Krawlers, when he and architect Miguel McKelvey noticed that their office building had several vacant spaces.
© Getty Images
22 / 31 Fotos
WeWork
- Initially the duo launched Green Desk, which rented out the spaces in that building. WeWork was then born in 2011. In 2019, it had a revenue of US$3.5 billion.
© Getty Images
23 / 31 Fotos
TheSkimm
- Media company TheSkimm is the result of Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg's shared passion for disseminating news. The idea started as a curated news list to send to people's email inboxes.
© Getty Images
24 / 31 Fotos
TheSkimm
- With no investment and just US$4,000 between them, the credit card debt soon racked up. But with their first email everything changed, and TheSkimm now has over seven million subscribers.
© Getty Images
25 / 31 Fotos
Nasty Gal
- In 2006, Sophia Amoruso launched the San Francisco-based eBay site Nasty Gal. With a name inspired by Betty Davis, the site sold vintage fashion items.
© Getty Images
26 / 31 Fotos
Nasty Gal
- Having spent its early days as an online operation, Nasty Gal occupied its first warehouse space in 2009. By 2012, it was named "Fastest Growing Retailer" by INC Magazine.
© Getty Images
27 / 31 Fotos
The Khan Academy
- The Khan Academy founder Sal Khan had a day job at a hedge fund when he first started tutoring his cousin online in 2004. Quickly more family members came to demand his services.
© Getty Images
28 / 31 Fotos
The Khan Academy
- In 2009, he quit his job to focus on the project full time. The Khan Academy has since received a US$1.5 million donation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
© Getty Images
29 / 31 Fotos
OculusVR
- OculusVR's co-founder Palmer Luckey built the virtual reality glasses from his garage. He was studying journalism and working as an engineer at the time.
© Getty Images
30 / 31 Fotos
OculusVR
- Eventually Luckey dropped out of college to focus on his side project full time. OculusVR raised US$2.4 million on Kickstarter and was bought for $2 billion in 2014. (Business Insider) (The Balance SMB) See also: How much do tech companies really know about your children?
© Getty Images
31 / 31 Fotos
Million and billion-dollar businesses that started as side hustles
Global businesses that had the humblest of beginnings
© Getty Images
There are lots of reasons one may decide to pursue a side hustle. Making a bit of extra cash, for example, or feeling the satisfaction of creating something, are often cited by people as reasons for deciding to have a side project.
Becoming a millionaire, or even billionaire, however, is not often on the list of reasons. Yet some of the world's biggest and best-known companies began as side hustles.
From being built out of a garage to occupying the sidelines while their creators pursued full-time jobs, each of the businesses in this gallery began as a side project. Click on to find out more.
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU




































MOST READ
- Last Hour
- Last Day
- Last Week
-
1
CELEBRITY Relationships
-
2
TRAVEL Far east
-
3
LIFESTYLE Pets
-
4
LIFESTYLE Astrology
The Chinese New Year starts this Friday. See its predictions for 2021
-
5
CELEBRITY Young
-
6
CELEBRITY Beauty
-
7
LIFESTYLE Gangster
-
8
LIFESTYLE Fitness
-
9
MOVIES Cartoon
-
10
TRAVEL Mediterranean
COMMENTS