They are like survivors of the zombie apocalypse. Looking at Death under the hood, they not only survived, but also managed to achieve devastating success thereafter. One of them worked at a loss for years, in the other one absolutely no one believed, and two more hung in a thread simultaneously, while their general CEO desperately maneuvered in an attempt to save both. Today, some of these start-ups are among the most expensive IT companies in the world, and their CEO's interviews are torn to quotes.
1. Apple
This, perhaps, is the greatest history of the movieback in the IT industry. Apple founder Steve Jobs was fired from his own company in 1985. Over the next 12 years, Apple has reached a loss. In 1997, when bankruptcy loomed on the horizon, the board of directors persuaded Jobs to return.
First of all, Steve agreed with Microsoft on investing in the amount of $ 150 million. A year later the company introduced iMac and for the first time since 1995, went for a profit. By the way, today it is the most expensive IT-company in the world.
2. Tesla and SpaceX
Both companies were badly hit by the 2008 economic crisis. "I could choose either SpaceX or Tesla or divide the remaining money between them," said Ashley Vance, the reporter for Bloomberg, Elon Mask. While SpaceX crawled into the abyss, Tesla burned $ 4 million a month.
The last hope Mask was a SpaceX contract with NASA for $ 1.6 billion, and he eventually helped the company stay afloat. And not only SpaceX, but also Tesla, who needed infusions of at least $ 20 million. Musk took a loan from his own space company, having agreed with NASA, scraped the beetles for about $ 15 million and persuaded investors to close the deal right on the eve of Christmas 2008 year - literally the day before the official recognition of the company bankrupt.
So both his business - space and automobile - were saved.
3. Airbnb
The startup was founded by three young people, who came up with the idea of creating a sector of budget cots for travelers. To the greatest disappointment of co-founder Brian Cheski, investors did not share their enthusiasm and were skeptical of the idea of sharing their abode with strangers.
Chesky received seven refusals from various venture funds and was already going to go to church with an outstretched hand, when at the last moment the startup was invited to Y Combinator. And today the once unconvincing idea grew into a company with an estimate of $ 25.5 billion.
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4. Blogger
When in 2000 Evan Williams founded Blogger, he essentially invented blogging as such. The only thing he did not think about was the business model, and a year later he discovered that the money was running out, and the employees would have to be dismissed.
Without staff costs, Blogger somehow stretched out a little more in Evan's desperate attempts to monetize him. Who knows what would be his fate if in 2002 the company did not buy Google for quite a nice $ 50 million. After 13 years, Blogger is alive and feels good. And Williams is better. After selling Blogger, he did not calm down, and took part in the creation of such world-famous companies Twitter and Medium.
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5. Evernote
In 2008, Phil Libin made a difficult decision - to dissolve the staff and close Evernote. At three o'clock in the morning he checked his mailbox the very last time before going to bed, and found a letter from some Swede. He wrote that he likes the product and he wants to invest in it.
He transferred $ 500,000 to the account of the company, which saved Evernote from closing and helped to reach the breakeven point. Today the company is estimated at $ 1 billion.
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6. Pandora
Founded in 1999 by Tim Westergren, the company was preparing to close the investment round when the "dotcom bubble" suddenly burst. Despite the general despair, the founder has not lost hope that he will manage to raise money. Westergren went around three hundred investors, but all of them were deaf. Then he told his staff that he could not pay anymore.
However, many remained, agreeing to work for free. And this decision paid off - in 2011 Pandora became a public company.
7. Intuit
In 1985, Intuit ran out of money, but the profit did not start. Salaries to employees were frozen, and creditors began to export furniture and equipment from the office. Nevertheless, there were employees who agreed to work for free - they found several large customers, contracts with which saved the company.
8. IBM
In the early 90's, IBM rolled on an incline and planned to split into several small units. Lou Gerstner headed the company on Fools' Day, in 1993, and made one of the greatest IT business revolutions in the history of IT.
He held a wave of massive layoffs, raised capital for the sale of some assets, then abandoned the company's share-sharing plan and merged IBM into one corporation. His reception worked - the company survived.