Famous (and very successful) companies that started in a garage!

 

Our garages are used from storing tools or cars, through to extra living space or even a home office! Not to mention small business start-ups. One of the world’s most successful companies even started in their garage… Apple computers. Apple are one of the most famous one’s in my mind, but there are a host of others too. Check out the list below.

1. Hewlett Packard (1939). In California, they’ve got a habit of starting new businesses in their garages! Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, both Stanford University engineering graduates, founded Hewlett Packard in Bill’s garage in Palo Alto in 1939. One of their first products was a precision audio oscillator, later followed by semi-conductor instruments and calculators.
2. Lotus Cars (1984). So no British companies mentioned yet, I hear you say. Well a very famous sports car manufacturer, Lotus, was started in 1952 by Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman when he started to build early Lotus racing models in his parents’ North London garage. Undoubtedly one of the more traditional uses of a garage, storing and fixing cars. Lotus went on to become one of the World’s most renowned British manufacturers of sports and racing cars.
3. Apple (1976). Back to California… once the world’s most valuable technology company, valued at $700 billion in 2012, all started in the garage of Steve Jobs’ childhood home in Los Altos California. Apparently, according to an interview with Steve Wozniak alot of the testing of early Apple computer models took place in the garage...
4. Google (1998). Two more Stanford University graduates started a very famous company… Google. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, weren’t billionaires overnight… they had to start in a garage like so many other tech start-ups before them. They setup in Susan Wojcicki's (who later went on to become Google’s first marketing manager) garage in Menlo Park, April 1998.

Lot’s of tech companies started in their garages in California and elsewhere over the last 50 years, not to mention a little known (at their inception) car company, Lotus, based here in the UK. These are obviously the most famous companies… Perhaps you’re thinking of starting your own company here in the UK. Why not use your garage! If you know of other companies, write them in the comments section below.

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