6 Incredible Companies That Started in a Garage

Every company has an origin story, and many of those stories started from humble beginnings. From small, rented garages to multibillion-dollar companies, these companies prove great ideas are still great ideas, no matter where they started.  Explore the fascinating origin stories of companies that began as ideas in a garage.  

Apple

For decades, Apple’s products have been winning over the hearts of consumers. The iPhone, which was introduced in 2007, is still one of the world’s most successful products. By 2018, the popularity and ubiquity of the iPhone helped Apple become a trillion dollar company, and today, Apple Inc. is a multinational company.

But at one time, the company was called Apple Computer, Inc. and focused solely on computers. It was founded on April 1, 1976 by two college dropouts. They wanted to design computers small enough for consumers to have them in their homes and offices. As the legend goes, the first Apple computers were made in their family's garage in Los Altos, California.

One of their first big orders was from a local retailer who ordered 50 computers at $500 each. Although they had already abandoned the business, they successfully reached their goal in just 30 days.

In 1980, sales jumped to $117 million and Apple went public. That garage is now listed as one of the city's historic properties. 

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard Co. is one of the world’s most successful companies that started in a garage. In 1939, two electrical-engineering graduates of Stanford, started their company in a one-car, 12-by-18-foot garage in the back of a house they were renting. 

The company’s first product was an audio oscillator, and its first customer was Walt Disney Productions, which bought eight audio oscillators to use for certifying the surround sound systems installed in theaters for its first full-length film, Fantasia (1940).

The garage was used as a research lab, development workshop, and manufacturing facility for nearly a year before the partners outgrew it and expanded to a bigger space. The company was incorporated in 1947 and 10 years later became a public company.

Today, that humble garage is a California Historical Landmark and has been restored to what it was like in 1939. 

Amazon

In 1994, just four years after being named the youngest vice president of a successful New York hedge fund, this successful professional quit his job and drove to Bellevue, Washington. He rented a house and began developing software for what he believed was an untapped online retailing opportunity in the book industry. He spent a year programming the site, Amazon.com, which went live in July 1995.

Amazon started in a garage, and because its leader couldn’t have meetings in a garage, he would meet people at a nearby bookstore, where most of Amazon's first contracts were negotiated. Two years after the company started, Amazon went public. Today, the company sells a lot more than just books; it's the world's largest online retailer.

Google

In the mid-1990s, two up and coming professionals met at Stanford and decided to start a company. In 1998, they rented a 2,000-foot Menlo Park garage. The founders established their company’s headquarters in that space, and Google became another business that started in a garage. 

Within a year, Google outgrew the garage and moved to an office in Palo Alto with its eight employees. 

In early 2020, Alphabet, which owns Google, became the third American tech company – joining Apple and Microsoft .

The Walt Disney Co.

Did Disney start in a garage? Technically, the Cartoon Studio did in 1923. A few years prior, they  formed Laugh-O-Gram Studio, making live-action animation. After a bad business deal, Disney had to file for bankruptcy in 1921.

In the summer of 1923, the founder of Disney was living in a one-car garage that belonged to his uncle. He set up Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, and the company filmed the Alice Comedies, which would later inspire Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland.

A few months later, they moved to a bigger lot down the street from their uncle's house, which is where they signed a deal with Universal Studios to distribute the Alice Comedies.

The garage was located about 45 minutes from today's Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California. Disneyland opened in 1955, and Walt Disney World opened near Orlando, Florida, in 1971. 

Mattel

Before Mattel became synonymous with the Barbie doll, the company’s founders were making picture frames in a Southern California garage in 1945.

From the scraps of the picture frames, which were made of Lucite and flocked wood, they started making dollhouse furniture. One of the owners, who worked at Paramount Pictures, is said to have landed her husband's first order by bringing a suitcase full of the dollhouse furniture to a store on Wilshire Boulevard. The success of the dollhouse furniture pushed them to focus solely on manufacturing toys. 

In 1959, the Barbie doll was invented. In the over 60 years since, the company has reinvented Barbie time and again; she has been a flight attendant, an astronaut, a president, a surgeon, and more. 

The Takeaway

The world was a very different place when Mattel and many of the other companies above started from garages. But one thing is constant: where you make something happen isn’t as important as making it happen. Whether it’s a food business or another home-based venture, you can turn nothing but an idea into something limitless.

A version of this article was originally published on June 2, 2014. 

Photo: Getty Images