What the world’s most famous companies looked like in their early days

What do Google, Apple, Amazon, Harley-Davidson and Disney have in common? All these companies started as tiny establishments, often in garages – the most emblematic case is Apple. Most iconic companies currently valued in the billions of dollars had very modest beginnings.

In this post, the awesome.club will talk about the early days of the biggest companies on the planet. Read and get inspired. Who knows, you might be the genius to launch a company that will be very successful 20 or 30 years from now!

The American chain that offers fast food inspired by Mexican food, earns 2 billion dollars annually (almost 8 billion reais) and has more than 7,000 stores (some in Brazil), started quite simply. Glen Bell daily watched the lines of customers outside the Mexican restaurant across the street, where he had a hot dog stand. Inspired by this example, he opened an improved version of the Mexican restaurant, albeit with a little help from the “competing” store owners, who allowed him to see how the tacos were made.

Between 1951 and 1952, Bell opened a new taco shop, before opening a restaurant called Taco Bell in 1964. By 1967, the company had expanded rapidly and launched its 100th restaurant.

In 1965, Fred DeLuca, aged 17, borrowed the equivalent of R$3,700 from his friend, Peter Buck, to set up his own fast-food company to raise money. His goal was to study medicine. Initially, the establishment was named Pete’s Submarines (Peter’s Submarines), but in the end, the name changed to Pete’s Subway.

The name was shortened to Subway in 1968. Over time and after some problems, the business finally took off, and in 1978, Subway’s 100th unit opened. In 1987, Subway reached the milestone of 1,000 stores. Today, there are more than 44,000 restaurants spread across 100 countries, including Brazil.

The legendary American brand of motorcycles began in 1901 with a tiny workshop in the city of Milwaukee, in the United States, with William Harley and brothers Arthur, Walter and William Davidson as partners. The first prototype was assembled in a shed in the Davidson family’s backyard.

In 1906, Harley and the Davidson brothers founded their first factory. That year, they produced about 50 motorcycles. The business was so successful that it ended up being one of only two American motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depression.

Today, the brand is an icon of road style and freedom on the road, with an annual turnover of more than 6 billion dollars.

The world’s largest commercial aircraft manufacturer emerged in 1916, when American woodsman and German descendant William E. Boeing teamed up with US Navy engineer George Conrad Westervelt to found Pacific Aero Products Co in the US city of Seattle. The first model produced by the company was the Boeing Model 1 seaplane.

In 1917, the company’s name changed to the Boeing Airplane Company and a contract was signed with the US Navy for the production of 50 aircraft. After the end of the First World War, Boeing assumed its vocation for the production of commercial aircraft, having launched iconic models such as the 737 (the best-selling commercial jet in history) and the 777. The company’s annual revenue is more than 90 billion of dollars.

In 1945, businessman Sam Walton opened a store selling goods at low prices. The strategy was simple: more scale, lower prices and high profits, even with a lower profit margin. Walton took the issue seriously and made it his lifelong goal (he died in 1992) to sell cheaper. This was, for him, a mission and a crusade.

However, before becoming the power it is today (the group is the largest retail chain in the world), the company faced several setbacks, especially due to a period of high costs with leasing spaces for supermarkets.

But the problems were not able to deter Walton, who, at that stage, bet on a new store, called Walton’s Five and Dime, in Bentonville, in the interior of the USA — where the group’s headquarters are still located today.

In 1962, Walton opened the first Walmart Discount City Store (the format adopted to this day) and, in five years, the group already had 24 stores and the equivalent of 47 million reais in sales. Today, Walmart is, as we mentioned, the largest retail chain in the world and employs 2.2 million employees.

After visiting the original restaurant of the McDonald’s brothers, Keith J. Kramer, along with his wife’s uncle Matthew Burns, opened their first restaurant in 1953 and called it the Insta-Burger King.

When the business was facing financial difficulties, in 1954, and already had two franchises in Miami, USA, it was sold to David Edgerton and James McLamore and was renamed just Burger King. Today, Burger King has more than 17,500 outlets in 100 countries. One of the main controllers of the fast food chain is the Brazilian group 3G Capitalalso owner of AMBEV and Lojas Americanas, among others.

American pharmacist John Stith Pemberton invented the drink in the late 19th century as a kind of over-the-counter medicine. However, shortly before his death in 1888, Pemberton sold the rights to the drink to American businessman and pharmacist Asa Griggs Candler for approximately 6,500 reais (dollar values).

The amount might have seemed great at the time, as John was almost broke and in poor health. But he certainly didn’t imagine that the company would one day become a global power and be worth more than 180 billion dollars.

The American ice cream chain, which has more than 6,000 units around the world (4,000 in the US alone) and earns more than 6 billion dollars a year, was created in 1938 by John Fremont McCullough and his son Alex. They believed in the product and managed to convince a friend and loyal customer, Sherb Noble, to sell it at his ice cream parlor in Kankakee, Illinois (USA). In just one day, Noble sold over 1,600 servings of the new dessert.

Seeing the success of this newly launched product, they decided to become business partners and opened the first Dairy Queen store in 1940 in Joliet, also in the State of Illinois.

The Levi Strauss Co., the group that owns the Levi’s brand, started a wholesale business importing and selling goods in New York, which included clothing, bedding, combs, wallets and scarves. Later, he started making tents and then jeans. The group was founded by German immigrant Levi Strauss.

Jacob Davis, an immigrant from Latvia, was a tailor who used to buy Strauss products and invented the modern version of denim. He wanted to patent it, but he had no money, so he entered Strauss’ business to produce jeans, which were finally patented in 1873. And that’s how the jeans models that everyone knows today emerged.

Born in 1863, the legendary entrepreneur Henry Ford (whose production system even became an expression, Fordism) left home at a very young age and worked as an apprentice in some car manufacturers. He was soon promoted to chief engineer of the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit (USA) in 1893.

At that time, the automobile industry was still in its infancy and automobiles were considered toys for very rich people, but the then young engineer believed that it was possible to mass produce cars and make them accessible to everyone. To fulfill his dream, he founded the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899, which was renamed the Henry Ford Company in 1901.

As is often the case with great entrepreneurs, Ford faced numerous problems at the beginning, but he did not lose heart and his industry continues to this day, with annual revenues of 160 billion dollars and more than 6 million vehicles produced annually.

The famous American department store also started as a modest business. In 1898, James Cash Penney started working for a small chain of stores called Golden Rule Stores. Impressed with his work ethic and sales, the store owners offered a third of the business to a new store they had opened. Soon two more opened.

In 1907, when the other two partners dissolved the partnership, James bought out his shares in the company. From 1929, the business expanded and the number of stores today reaches more than 800, with 95,000 employees.

Another famous fast food chain in the US that started from scratch. In the mid-1950s, the founder of the famous KFC fried chicken restaurant chain, Colonel Harland Sanders, went to Fort Wayne, USA, to meet with restaurateurs and try to sell them the KFC franchise. The restaurant where Dave Thomas worked as head chef went into business with Colonel Sanders. Thomas was an innovator, and his suggestions helped make KFC outlets more profitable.

However, in 1968, Thomas increased sales of his four KFC franchises so much that he sold his share to Sanders for the equivalent of more than 5.6 million reais. Using that money, the following year he founded Wendy’s, named after his daughter, Melinda Lou “Wendy” Thomas, then eight.

William Rosenberg realized that donuts and coffee were the two most popular items sold in factories and on construction sites across the United States in the 1940s. To harness the potential of this business, he opened the Open Kettle in 1948, a restaurant sold donuts and coffee in Massachusetts (USA).

However, in 1950, after a controversy with company executives, the name was changed to Dunkin’ Donuts. The restaurant was successful, and in 1955 Rosenberg began offering franchises. In 1963 it already had 100 stores. Today, the chain has more than 10,000 establishments around the world and revenues of more than 1 billion dollars a year.

In 1893, the American pharmacist Caleb Bradham invented, in his pharmacy, a drink that helped digestion. He called it “Brad’s drink”. Five years later, however, it changed the name to Pepsi-Cola, in reference to the digestive enzyme pepsin and kola nuts used in the recipe. In 1904, sales of this drink reached 72 thousand liters per year. Today, Pepsi is distributed worldwide, employs more than 260,000 people and earns $65 billion annually.

In 1994, the founder…