As Malone told us last year<\/a>, iiNet launched in his mother\u2019s garage, only moving due to the extraordinary amount of phone lines he needed installed to the premises.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love to say it was a plan but in reality, we had 300 phone lines coming to my mum\u2019s house by then. Telstra were very accommodating but they ran out of capacity,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir recommendation was the CBD because it was the only place they felt they could cope with our growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
iiNet now has more than 500,000 customers in Australia. But the businesses rise isn\u2019t a one-off \u2013 indeed, some of the world\u2019s leading brands have grown from garage beginnings.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Here are the top 10 garage start-ups. You\u2019ll never view your garage the same way again.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1. Apple<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n
In 1976, two technology enthusiasts, Steve Wozniack and Steve Jobs, decided they wanted to embark upon building a personal computer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They talked a local electronics retailer into stocking 50 units, which the penniless duo had to fund on credit, based on their first purchase order.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Steves\u2019 hand-built the 50 computers in 30 days from Wozniack\u2019s garage in Cupertino, California. Thus, the world\u2019s most valuable technology company was born.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
2. Google<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n
Twenty-two years on from Apple\u2019s genesis, another Californian garage was spawning a brand that is now world-famous.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Larry Page and Sergey Brin rented the garage from Susan Wojcicki, who needed help paying her mortgage. For the next five months, the duo worked on creating the search engine, in-between raiding Wojcicki\u2019s fridge and relaxing in her hot tub.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Within a year they had to move to what is known as the Googleplex. In 2006, Google bought the house where it was conceived, while Wojcicki went on to work for the business as vice president of product management.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
3. Amazon<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n
In 1994, Jeff Bezos decided he wanted to exploit the fledgling online retail space by launching his own book selling portal.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
From his garage in Bellvue, Washington, Bezos launched Amazon, which went on to sell its first book \u2013 Douglas Hofstadter’s Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought \u2013 in 1995.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By 1999, Bezos was Time<\/i> magazine\u2019s Person of the Year, while Amazon is now the world\u2019s largest online retailer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
4. Disney<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n
Another Californian garage start-up, Disney came about when young animator Walt Disney set up shop in his uncle Robert\u2019s premises after winning a contract to produce a series of cartoons based on Alice in Wonderland.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Within a few months, Disney had shifted to a small office in downtown Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
5. Hewlett Packard<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard graduated from Stanford University in 1935 and decided to launch a business together.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Four years later, the duo created HP in Packard\u2019s garage with a start-up investment of $538. Although Packard won a coin toss to decide the business\u2019 title, Hewlett\u2019s name eventually ended up being first.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
HP\u2019s first product was an audio oscillator sold, co-incidentally, to Walt Disney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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