7 BIG Businesses That Started with Very Little Money

“Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you.” — Tony Hsieh

Wantrepreneurs either never get started or lose hope too early because they think they lack the finances to begin. But sometimes, resourcefulness > seed money.

Here are seven bootstrapped startups that went on to become multi-billion-dollar businesses.

1. Mailchimp

Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius ran a web design agency called the Rocket Science Group. Their clients kept asking them to design email newsletters for them. And so they ended up building Mailchimp.

Mailchimp never took up any outside investors. This year, Mailchimp was acquired by Intuit for $12 billion. Ben and Dan owned 100% of the company.

2. Shutterstock

Jon Oringer started Shutterstock with his $800 camera and 100,000 of his own photos.

Shutterstock is now a publicly-listed company on the New York Stock Exchange and a global provider of stock images, videos, music and editing tools.

3. Spanx

At 27, Sara Blakely invested her entire life savings of $5000 to create Spanx prototypes. She even had to use a credit card to trademark ‘Spanx’ for $150.

Back in October this year, she sold a majority stake of the company to Blackstone, valuing the company at $1.2 billion.

Sarah celebrated the deal by giving all her employees the sweetest corporate gift, ever!

4. GoPro

Nick Woodman and his wife raised the initial $30,000 to start GoPro by selling shell jewellery and belts out of a van in California.

GoPro is now a publicly-traded company and the product, a household name.

5. Subway

The sandwich giant was started by a 17-year-old Fred Deluca with a $1000 loan from a friend. He called the shop ‘Pete’s Subway’.

Subway today has more outlets than McDonald’s.

6. Dell

19-year-old Michael Dell started building computers in his college dorm room with his savings of $1000 as a freshman at the University of Texas. By the second half of that year, he had sold $80,000 worth of computers.

He quit college by the end of that year to meet the growing demand for his computers. In 2021, Dell’s revenue was $94 billion.

7. Shopify

In 2004, Tobias Lütke started an online snowboard store, Snowdevil. He got quickly frustrated with the e-commerce platform he was using.

So, he decided to build one and called it Shopify, one of the biggest names in e-commerce today. Tobias is now worth $13.4 billion.

Seed money doesn’t guarantee success and not all successful businesses require seed money.

As an entrepreneur, your drive, determination and commitment are much more important resources currently available to you.

Go chase your dreams.