Inspiring Stories of Garage Start-Ups!

When a business starts off in a low-budget garage, it's commonly known as a 'garage start-up,' and while many of these are usually doomed to fail, there are a handful of lucky ones that go on to become multinational companies of epic proportions. These stories prove that success is less to do with the amount of money invested, and more to do with ideas, courage, and dedication.

Here are 7 hugely successful businesses that started off in a garage:

1. Amazon

Way back in 1994, Jeff Bezos founded one of the first online bookstores ever. At that time, its 'headquarters' was located in his garage, with an old door serving as his desk. As of today, Amazon is by far the planet's biggest online retailer, and Bezos even has his own aerospace, called Blue Origin, which manufactures and services spacecrafts.

2. Apple

The very first Apple computers were assembled by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in Jobs' family's garage. This year, Apple is planning to finish building its new company headquarters, which will accommodate around 13,000 employees. This futuristic structure will take up a 2.8 million-square-foot area, and will be four stories high.

3. Google

The internet's most dominant search engine was originally two Stanford graduates' research project. Today, apart from doing what it does best, Google is also involved in various technological and scientific advancements, such as augmented reality, unmanned vehicles, and early disease detection.

4. Microsoft

Back in the good old days, the Microsoft team only consisted of three employees, including co-founders Paul Allen and Bill Gates. Today, Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world, and Microsoft employs more than 120,000 people from all over the world.

Arthur Davidson and his childhood friend William S. Harley used to enjoy spending time in a wooden shack, experimenting on their bicycles together when they were children. They once succeeded in attaching a tiny engine to a regular bicycle, thus giving birth to their very first motorcycle. Little did they know that this would be the prototype for the world's most iconic bike ever!

5. Harley Davidson

Arthur Davidson and his childhood friend William S. Harley used to enjoy spending time in a wooden shack, experimenting on their bicycles together when they were children. They once succeeded in attaching a tiny engine to a regular bicycle, thus giving birth to their very first motorcycle. Little did they know that this would be the prototype for the world's most iconic bike ever!

6. Patagonia

Yvon Chouinard has been a climbing enthusiast since the age of 14. However, his family was too poor to buy the equipment he needed, so he resorted to turning his parents' garage into a blacksmithing workshop. There, he began to forge his own equipment, and 40 years on, his company, called Patagonia, still manufactures durable climbing equipment for clients from all across the globe.

7. Yankee Candle

When he was only 14 years old, Michael Kittredge used melted crayons to make a scented candle as a present for his parents. His neighbors d the smell and took an interest, and soon Kittredge was selling his candles all over the neighborhood. Today, the Yankee Candle Company sells a wide range of scented candles and souvenirs in over 50 countries around the world, and the first ever Yankee Candle Shop has now been turned into a local museum.

Sumber : Milis Bizinov2010-Community 

Agar Tak Menjadi Buih (Sebuah Instropeksi Diri)

Oleh : Zulkaida Akbar.
Alumni SMAN 1 Purwokerto, Eks Ketua BEM ITB yg sekarang Dosen di ITB dan Mahasiswa Doktoral di US


Namanya Kathrina, seorang Jerman yang sempat singgah di Florida selama satu bulan untuk riset dibawah bimbingan Prof. Saya (yang juga seorang Jerman.)

Kathrina selalu datang jam 8 pagi, lantas menghidupkan komputernya dan mulai bekerja. Yang istimewa adalah detik mulai Ia bekerja, kepalanya seakan terpatri kuat pada layar monitor, jarang sekali terlihat menengok ke kanan dan ke kiri. Seluruh perhatiannya tersedot untuk pekerjaannya.

Kawan2 di kantor pun jadi segan untuk menyapanya.

Kathrina memang berbeda dengan kawan2 sekantor saya atau kolega satu group. Brad sering kedapatan membuka Channel olahraga saat bekerja. Chris si Veteran Iraq menyelingi pekerjaanya dengan me"Like" berita2 republikan, atau berdebat tentang Israel-Palestina dengan Hussein. Sementara Hiram si Puertoriqan selalu terlihat tidur di sudut kantor.

Bagaimana dengan Si Indonesian?Mudah diterka, karena Bisa dipastikan tab Facebook dan Youtube nya selalu terbuka. Terkadang ia juga menyempatkan untuk bergosip dengan kawan2nya di group WA.

Jam 12 teng Kathrina beranjak menuju Microwave, kemudian menghangatkan makan siang nya. Selepas santap siang, dia akan bekerja hingga jam 5 teng, lalu pulang.

Beberapa saat kemudian, ketika kami sama2 menghadiri suatu pesta, baru saya sadari bahwa Kathrina ternyata manusia "normal" juga. Bagi dia, jamnya kerja ya harus kerja. Jamnya pesta ya pesta. Merupakan sebuah aib bagi dia jika Ia melakukan hal Non-kerja saat jamnya bekerja atau sebaliknya ; bekerja ketika jamnya untuk berpesta.
..............

Sebut saja namanya H, si Tukang mabok tapi papernya bejibun ini mendapat gelar masternya di Stratsbourg (perbatasan Jerman-Prancis). Dia berangkat kerja di waktu normal, pulang juga di waktu normal.

Namun yang menarik adalah meskipun H perokok berat, tapi H tidak pernah membawa rokoknya ke Kantor, melainkan menggantinya dengan permen Nikotin. Alasannya sederhana, H tidak ingin membuang waktu kerjanya sekedar untuk keluar ruangan dan merokok. Sama seperti Kathrina, bagi H jam kerja ya harus dilalui dengan Full bekerja.

Bagaimana dengan Si Indonesian? Dia sering bekerja siang dan malam, belasan jam perhari. Weekday juga weekend. Ketika si Indonesian bertemu dengan H, dengan penuh kekaguman H berkata :"If I can work as hard as you, I will rock the world." Si Indonesian kemudian menjawab :"If I can work as efficient as you, I will also rock the world."

Mengapa Si Indonesian menjawab demikian? Karena si Indonesian ini sadar, bahwa diantara belasan jam yang ia "klaim", terdapat sekian jam untuk FaceBookan, Youtubean dan an an yang lainnya.

Apakah efek akhirnya sama dengan si Jerman?

Nyatanya tidak. Karena si Indonesian ini meski sudah 3 tahun ngaji kepada Prof. Jerman, tetap belum bisa memenuhi standar beliau : paling lambat satu minggu sebelum conference, slide sudah siap (juga sudah berlatih). Hampir 1 tahun sebelum menyelenggarakan konferensi, web sudah dibikin, lantas kami dminta untuk mengirim email dan abstrak hanya untuk memastikan bahwa sistem web berjalan. Juga printilan2 lain seperti Tas, map dll. Semuanya betul2 dipersiapkan sejak dini.

Saya yang terbiasa dengan kepanitiaan raksasa saat dikampus (OSKM=2000 panitia) terkejut bahwa satu gawe konferensi internasional yg diselenggarakan FSU nyatanya bisa dimanage dengan baik hanya oleh seuprit orang.

Kata2 Favorit Prof. Saya : Check List, prioritas, Be Carefull with your promise! Give me reasonable time estimation!

Diantara Negara2 dgn GDP terbesar seperti US, China; Orang Jerman paling sedikit jam kerjanya. Namun mereka sangat efisien dan terukur. Semua serba well organized. Weekend bagi Prof. Saya adalah family time, saat email tidak disentuh dan saat berlatih irish trap dance bersama istri dan anaknya.

.............

Bagaimana dengan Amerika?

Sekarang sedang demam Pokemon-Go, Game yang diprediksi kelak akan sepowerful Facebook, Sampai ada tulisan "Macroeconomic analysis of Pokemon Go". Nyatanya, meski si pokemon didapat dari Nintendo (jepang) namun basis google earth dan augmented reality nya dari Amerika.

Dan semua trend semisal data science, uber, big data, crowdfunding, AirBnB, Tesla sampai flying car juga berasal dari Amerika.

Kekuatan Amerika terletak pada keberaniannya untuk mencipta apa yang belum ada. Meski kesenjangan disini sangat tinggi, Amerika punya orang2 dengan kreatifitas dan keberanian luar biasa untuk mencipta sesuatu yang sama sekali baru.

Tengoklah keberanian leslie dewan, pemudi lulusan MIT yang mendirikan perusahaan pembangkit Nuklir yang menjanjikan terobosan2 teknologi dalam usia yang belum genap 30 tahun (transatomic energy). Tentu tengok pula keberanian venture capital yang mendanainya.
.............

Bagaimana dengan China?

Dua nama yang saling bertegur sapa dengan Si Indonesia, dini hari di Nuclear Research Building adalah Wei Cha dan Jun Ji.

Memang tidak ada yang meragukan etos dan jam kerja sang Naga.
.............

Mantra?

Almarhum Prof. Iskandar Alisjahbana, rektor ITB yang legendaris tersebut terkenal dengan jargon dan visinya untuk "MenYahudikan Pribumi".

Tapi si Indonesia punya mantra yang lain : Jam Kerja China, Efisiensi Jerman, Kreatifitas dan Keberanian Amerika.
............

Epilog? Berbagai padahal.

Apa kaitannya dengan judul postingan : Agar tak menjadi buih?

Merupakan nubuwat Kanjeng Nabi bahwa Umat Islam ini jumlahnya banyak, tapi ibarat buih; tak berkualitas.

Padahal..
Dalam surat Al Ashr Allah bersumpah demi sang waktu.

Padahal..
Orang Sholeh dulu jika siang ibarat singa dan jika malam ibarat Rahib (pembagian waktu yang clear, distinct).

Padahal..
Bagian dari iman adalah menjauhi hal yang sia sia (selalu produktif).

Padahal..
Kanjeng Nabi sudah memperingatkan kalau nikmat yang sering terlupakan adalah waktu luang, kesempatan (Nasihat untuk deadliner seperti saya).

Padahal..
Allah sudah mempersilahkan/menantang hamba-Nya untuk menembus langit, dan tidaklah kita dapat menembusnya "illa Bi Shulthon" , kecuali dengan kekuatan/ilmu pengetahuan (Keberanian untuk mencoba, termasuk hal2 yg sebelumnya belum pernah ada).

Padahal..
Dalam surat Al Inshirah Allah berfirman : "Maka apabila kamu telah selesai (dari suatu urusan), kerjakanlah dengan sungguh2 (Urusan yang lain)." (Perintah untuk tidak menunda2).
...........

Maka si Indonesia yang beragama Islam ini pun kemudian berpikir bahwa tidaklah perlu menjadi Jerman, China, atau american.

Cukup menjadi Islam saja.

Si Indonesia ini juga tersadar, bahwa mengubah peradaban mustahil tanpa mengubah diri sendiri.

Gagasan memang Memiliki kuatan, namun Keteladanan jauh lebih kuat dibanding gagasan.

Dan Allah mencintai Hamba-Nya yang produktif (self reminder).

Semoga tangan ini dapat merengkuh dunia, namun tidak satu biji zarah pun masuk ke hati.

Zulkaida Akbar

How - in building your business - are you building your value?

#muhasabah #nusantara #startup #kewirausahaansosial  

How - in building your business - are you building your value?,
Ketika membaca "value", yg teringat adalah salah satu hadits #Rasulullah Shallallahu’alaihi Wasallam ...

"’Orang beriman itu bersikap ramah dan tidak ada kebaikan bagi seorang yang tidak bersikap ramah. Dan sebaik-baik manusia adalah orang yang paling bermanfaat bagi manusia.” (HR. Thabrani dan Daruquthni) 

Semoga Kita semua selalu dipermudah dalam melaksanakan niat baik kita ..., dan bisa menjadi insan-insan yg membawa banyak manfaat bagi orang lain ...

Oleh : Roger James Hamilton

How do you sell a company you started 3 months earlier for $680 million? That’s what Anthony Levandowski just did. He started his company, Otto, in May, and sold it this week to Uber.

Here’s 3 steps that Anthony took in one of the fastest startup-to-sale stories in history:

> RIDE A WAVE

At 16 years old, in 1997, Anthony started his first business building websites. But then thought "there was no barrier to entry there, so I'd better think of something more specialized.”

So he decided to take his passion for lego and build robots instead. The journey paid off when he won the first Lego MindStorms Challenge in San Francisco in 2001. His winning robot? He called it “BillSortBot” and its one function was sorting monopoly money.

Even at that early stage, Anthony saw the power of robots to connect with humans, saying “Adding the purple antennas and large eyes gave it a little bit of character.” The judges didn’t just love what the robot did. They loved the robot.

Anthony jumped on the robot revolution wave, and started his company, Anthony’s Robots.

His big break? It came from his mother. Anthony recalls: “My mom called me up and said, there’s this robot race it would be interesting for you to find out about.”

The race was the DARPA Grand Challenge for self-driving cars, and Anthony got to work on “Ghostrider”, a robot motorbike that entered, but failed to win, the race.

Even so, Anthony had caught the bug for self-driving cars: “It struck a chord deep in my DNA. It was almost like discovering electronics. I didn’t know where it was going to be used or how it would work out, but I knew that this was going to change things significantly.”

> GET A JOB

While many entrepreneurs believe going it alone with your own company is the key to success, the most successful entrepreneurs invested time working with mentors and companies who have already achieved greater success.

That’s what Anthony did. Along with DARPA Challenge winner, Sebastian Thrun, Anthony was offered a job with Google to work on their mapping technology. He took the job, and that led to the Google X self-driving car project, which Anthony became the project leader for.

For the next 10 years, Anthony worked quietly in the background as Google’s self-driving cars and the entire self-driving car wave grew - until he was ready to step out on his own 3 months ago.

> PICK A NICHE

With every major car manufacturer announcing their own self-driving car projects this year, Anthony wondered how he could choose a niche that most of them weren’t focused at. His solution? Trucks.

In May, Anthony left Google with some of his team and created a new startup, Otto, named after German engineer Nikolaus Otto, who developed the internal combustion engine.

Otto would focus at self-driving trucks, and Anthony gave his reason for picking this niche:

“While trucks drive just 5.6 percent of all U.S. miles, they’re at fault for nearly 9.5 percent of all driving fatalities: in recent years, on average, eight people die on the road due to truck accidents every day.”

With self-driving trucks, he would increase productivity and cut fatalities - or at least that was the plan...

This week - just 3 months after Otto launched and before they have sold a single product, Uber has bought the company for $680 million in stock in a deal that gives Anthony and his co-founders 20% of all future trucking profits that Uber makes.

Anthony now also gets a new job. As Uber Founder, Travis Kalanick wrote in a blog this week, “Anthony Levandowski, Otto’s co-founder, will now lead our combined self-driving efforts reporting directly to me. If that sounds like a big deal - well, it is. ”

“Otto plus Uber is a dream team. Anthony is one of the world’s leading autonomous engineers: his first invention, a self-driving motorcycle called Ghostrider, is now in the Smithsonian. Just as important, Anthony is a prolific entrepreneur with a real sense of urgency.”

The price Travis paid for Otto was not the value of Otto. It was the value of Anthony.

How - in building your business - are you building your value?

On the same day Uber announced it was buying Otto, it also announced it will have 100 self-driving Volvos making free rides in Pittsburgh by the end of this month. With the pace of change continuing to accelerate, the future continues to arrive faster than we expect.

And with the next chapter of Anthony’s life now ahead of him, what does he say about the future? “Robots here we come!”

Top 10 Startup Mistakes

Oleh : Roger James Hamilton

Four things make up 79% of all business failures:

#1 - Building something nobody wants (36%)
#2 - Hiring poorly (18%)
#3 - Lack of focus (13%)
#4 - Failing to market & sell (12%)

How to best avoid these failures:

#1 - Always start with the customer, not the product. Get your beta group / user group of customers and work with them to deliver what they love. People will pay you to do what they love, not to just do what you love.

#2 - Outsource to experts who manage themselves, not workers who need to be managed. Hire people who let you do more of what you do best, not people who take you away from your talents because they need to be managed.

#3 - Once opportunities begin to grow, don't get defocused. Anything that doesn't add to your customer's experience isn't worth doing.

#4 - Don't fail by having a great product that no one knows about. Don't rely on someone else to sell your product until you have more sales than you can handle. Don't make sales by closing customers. Create buyers by opening relationships.

#5 - More than all of the above, maximise failures that steer you (testing and measuring) and avoid failures that sink you (when you run out of money and time). Fail passionately and fail often, earning and learning with each failure, so it's you that keeps failing (and learning) and not your company!

"The biggest risk is not taking any risk.. In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks."
~ Mark Zuckerberg

And...

"Never, never, never give up."
~ Winston Churchill

What is your mission?

Oleh : Roger James Hamilton

What is your mission? All the most successful and fastest growing companies are not centred around a product, but a mission. Because missions create movements.

Here are 16 billion dollar mission statements that grew into 16 billion dollar companies:

FACEBOOK: “To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”

GOOGLE: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

UBER: “Transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere for everyone.”

VIRGIN ATLANTIC: “To embrace the human spirit and let it fly.”

NIKE: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete. If you have a body, you are an athlete.”

WEWORK: “To create a world where people work to make a life, not just a living.”

AMAZON: “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”

EBAY: “Provide a global trading platform where practically anyone can trade practically anything.”

ALIBABA: “To make it easy to do business anywhere.”

STARBUCKS: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit - one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”

LINKEDIN: “To connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”

TWITTER: “To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”

PINTEREST: “Help people discover the things they love and inspire them to go do those things in real life.”

TUMBLR: “To empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve.”

KICKSTARTER: “To help bring creative projects to life.”

AIRBNB: “Belong anywhere.”

Why is your mission so important? Because when people get stuck in the ‘WHAT’, it’s your job to get them focused back on the ‘WHY’.

Over the last month, Elon Musk has been faced with criticism of his planned merger between his companies, Tesla and Solar City. He faced negative press following the first death in a Tesla on Auto-pilot. His response? To come out with the 2nd part of his Master Plan (Master Plan Part Deux), with an upgraded mission.

In the master plan, he began by upgrading the Tesla mission from the original mission of Tesla Motors, to a new mission for Tesla (dropping the ‘Motors’ in the name): From

TESLA MOTORS: “To accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible.”

to:

TELSA: “To accelerate the advent of sustainable energy.”

He halved the words, and doubled the power. All the key steps in his upgraded master plan then fit in to how Tesla would achieve this upgraded vision. Since he wrote it, the media has stopped focusing at today's problems, and instead are focused at tomorrow's promise. (You can read it here):

https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux

How could you halve the words and double the power of your mission?

Not sure what your mission is? Take the Purpose Test and find out which of the UN Global Goals fits with your No.1 Purpose: http://purpose.geniusu.com/

"When you're surrounded by people who share a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible." ~ Howard Schultz

It takes 20 years to make an overnight success

Kita harus bisa mengambil hikmah dari kisah John Hanke dengan Pokemon Go nya, terutama dalam usaha kita "membumikan" Al-Quran.

Oleh : Roger James Hamilton

How long does it take to create an overnight success? For John Hanke it’s taken him 20 years to create Pokémon Go.

This week, the Pokémon Go app has broken all records, with 10 million+ downloads in the first week, exceeding Twitter in daily active users, and with higher average user time than Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram & WhatsApp.

How did John Hanke create such a massive overnight craze? Here’s the 10 times he levelled up in his lifetime to reach Pokémon Go:

1st Level up: In 1996, while still a student, John co-created the very first MMO (massively multiplayer online game) called ‘Meridian 59’. He sold the game to 3DO to move on to a bigger passion: mapping the world.

2nd Level up: In 2000, John launched ‘Keyhole’ to come up with a way to link maps with aerial photography, and create the first online, GPS-linked 3D aerial map of the world.

3rd Level up: In 2004, Google bought Keyhole and with John’s help, turned Keyhole into what is now ‘Google Earth’. That’s when John decided to focus at creating GPS-based games.

4th Level up: John ran the Google Geo team from 2004 to 2010, creating Google Maps and Google Street View. During this time, he collected the team that would later create Pokémon Go.

5th Level up: In 2010, John launched Niantic Labs as a start-up funded by Google to create a game layer on maps. John explains why he called it Niantic:

“The Niantic is the name of a whaling ship that came up during the gold rush and through a variety of circumstances got dragged on shore. This happened with other ships, too. Over the years, San Francisco was basically just built over these ships. You could stand on top of them now, and you wouldn't know it. So it's this idea that there's stuff about the world that's really cool but even though it's on the Internet, it's hard to know when you're actually there.”

6th Level up: In 2012, John then created Niantic’s first geo-based MMO, “ingress”:

John explains: “In the case of Ingress the activity is layered on top of the real world and on your phone. The inspiration was that it was something that I always used to daydream about while I was commuting back and forth from home to Google."

"I always thought you could make an awesome game using all the Geo data that we have. I watched phones become more and more powerful and I thought the time would come that you could do a really awesome real-world adventure-based game.”

7th Level up: In 2014, Google and the Pokémon Company teamed up for an April Fools’ Day joke, which allowed viewers to find Pokémon creatures on Google maps. It was a viral hit, and got John thinking the idea could be turned into a real game.

8th Level up: John decided to build Pokémon Go on the user-generated meeting points created by players of Ingress, and the most popular became the Pokéstops and gyms in Pokémon Go:

As John says, ”The Pokéstops are submitted by users, so obviously they're based on places people go. We had essentially two and a half years of people going to all the places where they thought they should be able to play Ingress, so it's some pretty remote places. There are portals in Antartica and the North Pole, and most points in between.”

9th Level up: John raised $25 million from Google, Nintendo, the Pokémon Company and other investors from Dec 2015 to Feb 2016 to grow a team of 40+ to launch Pokémon Go this year.

10th Level: John and his team launched Pokémon Go on July 6th in USA, Australia and New Zealand. Since its launch, Nintendo’s share price has risen $7.5 billion, and the app is already generating over $2 million daily in in-app purchases, making it an overnight phenomenon.

The overnight success of Pokémon Go has taken John Hanke 20 years to create. Throughout these 20 years, while he had a big vision of a game layer over the world, he didn’t know what form it would take. At every step, he just focused at his next level up.

At each new level, he had new powers, new team members, and new items in his inventory…

Are you, like John, treating your own entrepreneurial journey like one big MMO?

Keep the end in mind, but focus today on simply levelling up.

At every level, grow your powers, your team, and your luck.

And know it takes many levels to win the game.

“It takes 20 years to make an overnight success.” ~ Eddie Cantor

‪#‎PokémonGo‬ Pokémon Go

Sumber : https://www.facebook.com/rogerjameshamilton/posts/10157015683385411