Startup success stories create motivation, determination, and hope in the dreams of entrepreneurs who start from scratch. These inspirational business success stories provide meaningful insight into the lengths a founder should and can go to to make their products or services known.
It’s not uncommon to find startups failing due to various reasons. But those who strive to focus on their goals tend to surprise others. On average, successful startups create an impressive amount of growth in a few years. At best? They change the entire way the world works.
Doubting your capabilities in business from time to time is normal when faced with the challenges of building your startup. However, these success stories can help you regain your footing and return to face the problems ahead.
The road is uncharted for many startups, but those who manage to reach the end with rewards exist. Inspire yourself and read up on these success stories!
Top 8 Startup Success Stories
“My small business story can one day become a multinational empire.” This is the vision any founder should have when starting a business. Listed below are eight examples of this vision coming true in extraordinary ways.
Asana
Service: Digital Work Management Tool
History
Asana was founded by Dustin Moskovits and Justine Rosenstein after finding an everyday problem concerning the average worker. After noticing the consistent delays in information gathering, email responses, and meetings for assigning tasks, the pair realised there was a simpler way to do all things at once simultaneously.
The solution? Creating a management tool that assists teams in their collaborative tasks. They named it Asana, and their mission is to solve all setbacks and increase productivity between teams in any kind of business!
Impact
As remote working became more popular, management had to become flexible and adjust to the requirements needed to create a productive environment with their employees successfully. Tools like Asana that were once optional became a necessity over time. Once businesses noticed the success of companies that used Asana, the rest followed shortly. This made them one of the well-known leads in project management tools.
Achievement
Startup success stories like Asana’s highlight their overwhelming success over the years. Not only are they a well-known brand in the management industry, but their software adjusts ahead to accommodate future norms.
It’s part of the company’s nature to adjust to changes and adapt accordingly. Just recently Asana began their beta testing with their AI assistants in their program. They also partnered with similar necessary tools for remote working like Google Drive, Dropbox, and more.
Canva
Service: Visual Presentation Tool
History
Canva is one of the most impressive and successful startup stories. Their website details the journey of their founder from visual presentations to graphic designing, and to other formats that help create effective and professional visuals for any brand.
In 2012 one of the three founders, Melanie, noticed a need for a smoother and convenient form of design software compared to other free tools for her presentations and slides. She was teaching design in a school where she realised the setbacks of an average person (student or employee) in creating a more visually pleasing presentation.
As a result, Canva was born to fix the problem at hand. Because of the team’s mission to create a more accessible and user-friendly platform for visual designing, Canva has become a lead source in graphic design. From its simple interface and easy navigation to its wide array of GIFs, images, and elements, Canva became a necessary tool for design.
Impact
Startup success stories don’t just affect their customers and their business. They changed the way the entire world looks at graphic design. What was once daunting and difficult to master became easy with Canva’s software and interface.
Not only is it easy to use, but it’s also using the freemium model wherein there is a free version that paying customers can utilise before committing to the program itself.
Achievement
Thanks to their determination and business models, Canva has now grown with over 170 million users worldwide. It’s become a major giant in its industry which utilised the freemium business model while expanding to social media posts, planners, and more.
Airbnb
Service: Homestay Service
History
Success stories like Airbnb create inspiration for many business owners and are often a topic in startup podcast stories. This is because of its humble beginnings and boost into International fame. Airbnb was founded by two men named Chesky and Gebbia in San Francisco.
In the beginning, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were just regular employees struggling with their rent in the city. An innovative idea came to their minds to rent out air mattresses to tourists coming in for a design conference to gain enough money for the rent. The goal was simple at first: create a website and call it Airbed & Breakfast.
Things changed over time. After meeting with Nathan Blecharczyk, the trio formed Airbnb, which began as an online platform where people could rent out their homes to customers. Eventually, the startup became a booking giant and now has renting services worldwide.
Impact
Before Airbnb, it was unheard of to just rent an entire home from strangers. People would either come to a well-known bed & breakfast, hotel, or resort. Now it has given a rise in authenticity, uniqueness, and privacy by letting tourists experience the authenticity of the location while living in a convenient location that’s cheaper compared to high-end hotels.
Achievement
As of 2024, Airbnb is largely available in almost all parts of the world, with each region having many options that customers can choose from. The price ranges are adaptable and even offer unique homes to stay in.
Scrub Daddy
Service: Cleaning Tool
History
Crazy startup stories like Scrub Daddy create a lasting impression on business owners, entrepreneurs, investors, and even ordinary workers. The story starts with a man named Aaron Krause, who created a buffing pad company that unfortunately did not gain much success.
Krause’s target market, auto shops, and car enthusiasts felt it was an unneeded and overpriced product. As a result, he eventually sold his products to conglomerate 3M in 2008. The only thing left of his buffing pad company were scrubbers.
These scrubbers eventually became the Scrub Daddy we all know and love. With the right marketing and appearing on television, specifically Shark Tank, the company reached impressive and overwhelming heights. Today, it retains its title as the most successful Shark Tank business.
Impact
Having startup success stories that show the ups and downs of creating a product adds relatability to many founders of businesses in the world. No other tool like Scrub Daddy has more say in the repeated challenges its founder faced.
However, its impact on the world has returned these challenges and changed them into profits. Scrub Daddy has since expanded its products, opened factories, and sold their brand worldwide since its birth.
Achievement
For its origin country, the United States of America, Scrub Daddy has become an essential tool at home, purchased regularly and used for various cleaning methods. Expansion is now its next move, with Scrub Daddy going worldwide and servicing not just local regions but international homes as well.
Uber
Service: Transport and Delivery
History
Just like most startup success stories, Uber began with two like-minded friends. In this case, it was Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp who were in Paris for a tech conference during the Winter of 2008. It was night time and the pair were having trouble finding a cab to hire.
It was during this frustrating instance that they discussed the possibility of simply requesting a ride from their phones. By March of the next year, the app was starting its development journey.
Since then, the company has expanded its services from cabs to private cars, carpooling, and food delivery.
Impact
Some people never experienced life without using Uber to hire a ride across cities. It sounds unbelievable to them to think about it, and that’s the impact that Uber has had on the world.
Being able to expand worldwide, offering jobs to countless people, accessible income to those with disabilities, and even expanding services of food delivery to local restaurants made Uber an indispensable part of civilization.
Not only did Kalanick and Camp create an opportunity to change the world, but it was also an app that was born out of the difficulties of an everyday person. Hiring a cab was difficult, regardless of the location you were in before Uber. Now, things are different, and it paved the way for transportation and delivery apps to have their mark in the world.
Achievement
Two decades since it began as a simple startup company, Uber’s net worth is now a whopping 148 billion USD as of July 2024. Its market only increases over time, with a 71% increase within a year. Additionally, Uber’s revenue has increased 14% since 2023 and won’t stop growing.
Spotify
Service: Music Streaming Platform
History
Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon’s Spotify is one of the many startup success stories from humble beginnings. The platform was developed in 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden when the pair discussed a solution against piracy for the music industry.
The goal was to offer a way for customers to be supplied with their music for free with periodical advertising. Eventually, it became the giant streaming platform that it is today.
Fighting against LimeWire, The Pirate Bay, and Napster, Spotify offered a different opportunity to listen to their favourite songs without illegally downloading them from pirating websites. Ek and Lorentzon’s goal was to deliver music to everyone for everyone.
Impact
Just like many interesting business stories, Spotify changed the way streaming works in terms of music and podcasts for the world. Its tagline, “Music for Everyone” delivered multiple artists to a singular app that helped average listeners easily access the new songs of their favourite genre.
It also gave way to the rise of podcasts. While initially only accessible through websites and YouTube, podcasts could now be easily downloaded and saved through their application and listened to during different times.
Achievement
The effects of Spotify made it a giant in the streaming industry that continues to battle its position with the business giant Apple and its streaming service, Apple Music. As of 2023, its revenue has piled up from over 13.2 billion euros compared to its previous year.
Coffee Meets Bagel
Service: Online Dating Platform
History
Coffee Meets Bagel is one of the many inspiring startups that motivate not only founders but also women entrepreneurs. Its founders are three sisters: Dawoon, Arum, and Soo Kang. The trio created this online dating platform on the premise of curating matches for each individual.
The setting, coffee, gives out relaxed and non-pressuring matches while the bagel offers daily matches. The goal is to have women match with men who match their interests and are seriously looking for long-term relationships.
Coffee Meets Bagel gained fame midway into its business growth. The sisters appeared in Shark Tank where they proposed their ideas. While the other sharks had different opinions regarding the potential profits of the company, Billionaire Mark Cuban went out of his way to suddenly propose to buy the company for 30 million USD.
The sisters declined the idea, but the offer and the company went viral.
Impact
Coffee Meets Bagel is considered one of the many startup success stories that were previewed in Shark Tank. Unlike other dating apps that provided endless matching and overwhelming pressure to chat with different people at a limited time, Coffee Meets Bagel had a woman’s perspective.
The sisters gained fame and customers for their business’ understanding of the average working person and their daily lives. Many customers only have a specific allotted time of rest before returning to work, and the pressure of a time limit and an unending number of matches by mere photos alone have low chances of matching with a like-minded partner.
Achievement
As a startup worth millions, Coffee Meets Bagel started with an offer of 30 million USD. Turning down the offer may have seemed foolish to others at the time, but time proved the sisters to be correct in rejecting it.
2023 shows Coffee Meets Bagel has accumulated a net worth of 150 million USD and an annual revenue of 16 million USD. By understanding and believing in the potential of their product, the women created an impressive profit for their business. Even more than what Shark Tank offered!
Transferwise
Service: International Money Transfer
History
Startup success stories like Transferwise, or Wise for short, create a warm feeling for not only bringing success to their business but also to pride in their homeland. Wise was created by two Estonian men: Kristo Kaarman and Taavet Hinrikus.
The two men worked in London. Taavet Hinrikus, a Skype employee, got paid in euros but needed pounds to pay bills. Meanwhile, Kristo Kaarman was paid in pounds but was paying a mortgage in euros in Estonia.
Both friends were frustrated in the transfer process with their banks. Exchange rates were awful, and the fees for the exchange were too high. Hinrikus and Kaarman devised a solution: create a business that can work around these problems.
Impact
Short, inspiring startup stories like Wise’s should never be undermined. While the history behind the company’s success began in the kitchen of an apartment, it eventually grew with over 10 billion customers that moved an estimated 25 billion pounds, saving billions compared to banks and their setbacks.
Wise created an opportunity for remote workers as well. To be paid in the currency they require for their needs in an efficient way that does not strike them down with unneeded fees and unfair exchanges.
Achievement
Wise is just one of the many small business success stories. But what makes them exceedingly special is the title the two men received after creating their startup. Kaarman and Hinrikus became the First Billionaires of Estonia, making history with their dreams coming true.
Recently, Wise also began expanding its services into debit cards, multi-currency accounts, and business accounts for international use. The debit cards that Wise has issued are over a million since its release.
Conclusion
Those are just eight startup success stories known worldwide in 2024. However, many more small business stories show the indomitable spirit of a founder and their belief in the product or services they’re selling.
Do you have a startup and want to learn more about it? Don’t worry. Let’s begin your “my startup business story” at Flexilabs! We are here to give you the rundown and teach you all you need about startup businesses!
Contact Flexilabs now for more details!