A lot of entrepreneurs are inspired by Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and other megacompanies. But let’s face it — these are outliers. They are exceptions. They are the rarest of rarest cases.
That’s not to say they aren’t worth paying attention to, dreaming about, and otherwise admiring, but it’s handy to have success stories that are a bit more common scale. A company doesn’t have to earn billions to be a great inspiration for budding entrepreneurs.
So, ignoring the usual suspects for now, which companies inspire you? Which companies do you respect enough to say “I love what they’re up to. We’d like to achieve their level of success.”
Tory
on 23 May 08Hoefler & Frere-Jones
oldmoe
on 23 May 0837Signals YCombinator
Rami Taibah
on 23 May 08I love what Mixx.com are doing. So much innovation into the social media scene…and of course twitter.
Sachin Agarwal
on 23 May 08Etsy! Also skinnyCorp and Craigslist. I want to build a company that does what our users want us to do as our core and then does crazy wild ass stuff in our spare time that our users forgive us for because we pull off the core correctly.
Jim
on 23 May 08Firewheel Design
Nick
on 23 May 08I admire what the folks over at Kiva.org are doing. Connecting real people to real needs through micro-lending, it’s great.
Mike Hessling
on 23 May 08Zappos. That’s customer service.
Ramon Bispo
on 23 May 08I love ma.gnolia.com.
Charlie Wood
on 23 May 08I’m continually inspired by the success of 37signals, Brent Simmons (NetNewsWire), Joh Gruber (Daring Fireball), FreeAgent Central, TripIt, dealnews, and Dipity.
And I must say I’m inspired on a daily basis by the other people at Spanning Sync. Both of them. :-)
Regards, Charlie
Pedro Menezes
on 23 May 0837Signals & boo-box. :)
Chris Moyer
on 23 May 08LessEverything – Allan (and Steve) seem to have too much fun doing everything
Freshbooks – Great product, great customer face. I actually read their newsletters.
Linode – A hosting company with a face. Have a problem, hop on their IRC channel and someone will help you… staff or the community they’ve built.
--Josh
on 23 May 08Honestly, I’m impressed with the way that you guys maximize every possible revenue stream from what you do (which is rivaled only by Amazon, actually).
DC Shoes is a great story.
Gordon Ramsay’s business successes and story are inspiring.
What Nintendo has done the last few years is impressive.
Lotus (cars) is a great story of passion, focus, and survival.
Jim
on 23 May 08Viaserv.
Niche market. No growth. Some of my best friends and best people I ever worked with who decided to just milk what they had and let a company of 10-12 friends make enough money to pay everyone a decent wage and have a decent place to work (fully paid health insurance for employees AND family) for well over a decade now. Wish I were still associated with them in an employment sense. Happy that I am still associated with them in a friendship sense.
Who needs stock options when you have real friends?
Sign me,
Naive
Kevin
on 23 May 08I’m with you Jason, but it ’s just too difficult not to take the big guys as examples when they get so much attention and coverage from… everyone, everywhere. I have to say that I really have a lot of respect for what guys like Threadless have accomplished with a very simple product (T-Shirts), little technical background and a lot of passion… they remind us that you don’t have to be the next nobel price of physics to innovate. Just take whatever has always been successful and improve the system by removing unnecessary layers: putting the designers and the customers face to face was just brilliant! Build what people want, don’t try and make people want what you build.
max
on 23 May 08Lolz LLC
&
SkinnyCorp
Gv Jim Blanchard
on 23 May 08Ghostly International
McSweeney’s
Mutiny Bikes
Prodrive
Monocle
John B
on 23 May 08I read an article recently, (offline, or I would link to it), about Beretta. The company is 500 years old, focuses on quality, treats its employees extremely well, (so there is very little turnover), and is still owned by the family of its founder. Impressive.
Mike Sax
on 23 May 08I obviously don’t admire/agree with all of these but they each have something interesting about them: FON, the Obama campaign, Karl Rove, Church of Scientology, the Dalai Lama’s entourage, Burning Man, Dave Winer, Dave Thomas, MailPlane, Canonical, VirtualPBX, Evernote, Laika, Seesmic, Cafe Yumm, RSSbus, PBSkids.org, hotornot, TopFunky, Yunus, Burt Rutan, Randy Pausch.
Jeff O'Hara
on 23 May 08Well 37signals of course :) Threadless is another company I admire greatly, along with feedburner. Companies doing cool things in Chicago inspire me. The valley isn’t the only place where things happen :)
-Jeff http://edmodo.com
Lon
on 23 May 08Richard Branson (early years), 37Signals, Slicehost and Gordon Ramsay
I agree completely.
My singular goal is to build a sustainable income for my family and friends, while providing useful tools to my customers.
Steven
on 23 May 08Maverick Bicycles Sierra Nevada Brewing Company Patagonia Threadless Oakley Adobe
- Come to think of it, almost all of these companies were started by a guy with an idea and a dedication to making the best stuff he could.
Not some quick sale, four ex-(fill in blank company) we need thi$ to sell at Factor XXX.
My experience with the VC/Private guy people is that it is strictly a number, not building anything. Just ramp it up and let the next owner figure out what the hell to do with it.
Jeremiah Staes
on 23 May 08Hmmm.. great question.
I’d say the TWiT network, e-Prize, 37signals, and GigaOm.
Lyndon
on 23 May 08Threadless, Zappos, Connected Ventures and of course 37Signals.
I think the post about your Workplace Experiments and the fact that you four day workweeks; is what hooked me to this site.
As a buy product though, it sucked the life out of me; every time that I have to go to my dreary job :(
Trevor Turk
on 23 May 08WordPress/Automattic (especially Gravatar)
andrew
on 23 May 08Threadless, wow.
Peter Eschenbrenner
on 23 May 08FogCreek and SourceGear.
Britt
on 23 May 08Bob’s Red Mill, New Season’s Market, Stumptown coffee. I support local businesses (Portland, OR) that support my community.
Nat Budin
on 23 May 08Dreamhost, Telltale Games, Interactivities Ink.
NewWorldOrder
on 23 May 08Trizle
Shivam Guness
on 23 May 08Well my favourites are 37Signals fo course, I really like the products and the ways it all works and fit together, FogCreek also and Telligent
Chris Chowdhury
on 23 May 08LifeChurch.tv
shawn
on 23 May 08Coudal is in the top 3 for me, along with threadless/skinnycorp and etsy. Woot is also pretty high up.
Tyler Kremberg
on 23 May 08I think that a lot of the reason its easy to be envious of these companies is because you can’t read an article about any of them without a dollar amount attached. There are many companies, or rather methods of doing business that I try and emulate with my company, but you can’t help hearing about so and so getting x million dollars of funding or doing y million in sales. I left a startup that was headed down the VC millions route because I wanted to pursue building my own company that might make 50,000 in revenue this year. But there are so many (successful) companies building steady, profitable businesses with only a few hundred customers thats its hard to know them or learn their tricks.
Daniel Yokomizo
on 23 May 08First and foremost the company that made me decide to start my own business: http://www.stlukes.co.uk/. I came across it from the “Creative Company” book by Andy Law, it changed my mind about how businesses can be run (they’re an ad agency that is entirely self-owned by all of their employees in a cooperative fashion). Recently I’ve been inspired by Ycombinator, 37 signals and Fog Creek.
Devan
on 23 May 08For me, it is Xobni – a small bunch of very smart people who have built a really innovative solution that solves the shortcomings of Outlook. Most of all, they have a great sense of humour and dont take themselves too seriously.
Heck, any company who has the self confidence in their own vision to turn down a $20M offer from Microsoft has my vote!
nick mun
on 23 May 08tom szaky’s terracycle.
Dallas Clark
on 23 May 08Faraday Media with Particls, Engagd, and APML.
www.faradaymedia.com
- Dallas Clark
Web Design
Drailskid
on 23 May 0837 Signals and Threadless
Grant Bissett
on 23 May 08freshview
Rafal Piekarski
on 23 May 08My current company ( www.nokaut.pl ) and You guys – 37signals. ;]
Richallum
on 23 May 08Harvest Freshbooks FreeAgent 37S
See that Gordon Ramsey has popped up a few times. Not sure if what you see in the US is the same as we see here in the UK. He is a very amusing entertainer, a talented chef and clearly has leadership skills but I see him in a different light now that one of my children accidentally saw or should I say heard him talking to his team on TV. How anybody using such abusive language to his ‘team’ and anyone else is seen as an inspiration’ is beyond me IMHO!
Alister Scott
on 23 May 08I wrote a post about this yesterday: http://watirmelon.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/five-companies-i-would-love-to-work-for/
Naveen
on 23 May 0837 Signals, Monsoon Company, Current TV, American Apparel
Steve Purcell
on 23 May 08It’s interesting to see this post on the same day that SEOMoz posted an exhaustive analysis of the top 100 domains, and the secrets of their success.
Omar
on 23 May 08I’ll be naming a few companies doing well where I’m from:
Miði.is – a small soon to be big company that started of selling tickets to concerts but has grown into being the standard on line and offline box office in Iceland selling tickets to everything from football matches to cinema. And now that the Icelandic market is “conquered” they’re heading for Denmark.
Dead store (http://dead.is) – one guy that really wanted to make shirts with a design for skulls he had made. Started out doing it and people liked it. Today he has expanded to the US and is doing well.
dohop.com – Another small firm that makes it easy to search for low cost flights. Not the only one in the business but I like the way they think.
CCP (http://ccp.is) – I haven’t played their computer game, Eve Online, so I don’t know how good it is. All I know is that this Icelandic gaming studio was founded by a few guys that really wanted to make a computer game. They almost went bankrupt doing it but today the game is selling well and they’re not finding it difficult finding employees.
Tólf Tónar (http://12tonar.is) – Okay. I only name this because I personally love this store. A very small record store on Skólavörðustígur in Iceland that specialized on classical music when it was founded. Today, when they’re the only proper independent music store in Iceland (the only other one is a brand owned by a media conglomerate) they’re also have their own label and did expand briefly to Denmark. Just a great example of a couple of guys that wanted to do something they really liked.
I think it’s important to know that it’s also great to do well in your local market. You don’t always have to conquer the world.
Cheers, Ómar
Mark Holton
on 23 May 08Craigslist, EngineYard, Digg, Joyent, AdaptivePath, 37Signals, Pragmatic Programmers
Rob
on 23 May 08The Hundreds for their online presence and putting their customers as #1.
Maarten ter Braak
on 23 May 08Some odd names for the most of you but Qi ideas (www.qi-ideas.com) and Lost Boys (www.lostboys.nl) come to mind here.
anil
on 23 May 08Allan Oddgaard (Textmate), Brent Simmons (Ranchero Software), Jesse Grosjean (Hogbay Software), Kit Clayton (Cycling74)
Berserk
on 23 May 08@Steve Purcell:
While interesting in itself, the most interesting part was the incredibly misleading use of pie charts.. 15 is 100% of 25. 43 is 100% of 100. There is a maximum allowed amount of monthly visits to websites owned by the twelve biggest internet companies. And so on.
I’m inspired by Stelvio...
James Hollingworth
on 23 May 08Unfuddle – Excellent source control with an amazing web ui (ror). They keep adding features (most recently added git support) and such good value for money. they also have awsome customer support, I made a suggestion and had a reply within 12h on a sunday morning, wouldnt get anything like that from google or facebook! I’m a big fan of this sort of company (and 37signals), write a decent app which companies want to use, no one will care how much they have to pay if the app is good!
Yannic
on 23 May 0837s, Virb Inc, Connected Ventures (Vimeo, Collegehumor), Firewheel
Jed Christiansen
on 23 May 08Based on my estimates of your revenue and profitability, 37signals ranks high on my list!
I’d also add a lot of the Y combinator companies.
Fundamentally, are you: a) passionate about the business, b) making money/profitable, c) doing something interesting?
If you can answer yes to those three questions, who cares about the scale? It just so happens that Google/Apple/etc. were the right company with the right technology at the right time and took advantage of the marketplace.
Ideally there should be thousands of companies out there that entrepreneurs can look to as an example of success.
Rafael Lima
on 23 May 08BielSystems and Improve-It
Switch Stories
on 23 May 08I am big fan of http://www.ilovetypography.com.
Dan Ivovich
on 23 May 08I think this is a great question. I truly feel the the future of the internet will rest on smaller companies providing niche solutions to the end user. And as we work to integrate many services together, the user will have the power to easily roll the solution that works best for them.
I’m a huge fan of:
37Signals, Jott.com, TWiT.tv, RememberTheMilk, Twitter, SpringSource, Disqus, Dipity
I must applaud Jott and RTM for their great interfaces and use of API’s. I can call up Jott and access so many different services, and all with the power of my voice. And it is because of the willingness of so many small companies to provide API’s that we can have such great options.
On that note, how about a Jott.com/37Signals interface?
Benjamin Carlson
on 23 May 08I’m constantly inspired by several of my close friends and relatives that run small, local businesses. My Uncle has a one-man excavating company that has morphed over the last 20 years from a portable welding business to a “guy playing with toys in the dirt” as he likes to say. He has fun, makes a good living for him, his wife and kids, and is well respected in the community, involved at church, etc.
A friend has a local hardware store that has been family owned for about forty years. It is prospering in spite of the big-box stores closing in because they aren’t trying to grow like crazy, rather just cater to the townspeople, and local contractors, carrying a broad assortment of “you’ll never guess what’s down this isle”! It’s another inspiring business, and just the right size. A few employees that have worked there for five/ten/twenty years, and a healthy (but not obnoxious) living.
Nikita
on 23 May 08Saw this in News.YC – my first thought was “37signals, of course!” :). Also, some YC companies and one Russian design studio – artlebedev.com.
Maurus
on 23 May 08I don’t think you have to hide yourself just because you aren’t that big. I think it’s even a benefit. I prefer small companies over big ones. As a customer, you have the opportunity to know the people in the company. There is not a big hierarchy and you aren’t talking with a huge anonymous monster. So I like to believe that people working in a small company are friendlier and much closer to the customer.
Ok, here is my list. (no particular order)
You guys: I really love your approach and point of view on design. That’s what makes your products better than others. At least for me.
8020 publishing from lovely San Francisco. They publish JPG and Everywhere. An awesome photo / travel magazine who is made by their online communities.
Vitra makes simple furniture. They have some really nice products.
EllisLab The developer of ExpressionEngine. I love it. The best CMS I’ve ever seen.
Lineto Cool fonts from Switzerland.
Panic I just love Transmit.
Nudie Great jeans from Sweden.
Ricky Irvine
on 23 May 08The Wine Rack down the road from our house. Quills Coffee and Sunergos Coffee here in Louisville. Monkey Drive Screenprinting also here in town. We may have lost Hawley-Cooke to Border’s, but we still have Carmichael’s.
I love local businesses!
Snowflake Seven
on 23 May 08Zeldman, Storey, Cederholm, Shea, Santa Maria, Coudal, Khoi, Davidson.
Anyone of them minus the fame.
Matt
on 23 May 08emusic – great selection & they’ve made some great improvements to their site over the past 6 months.
Matt Oakes
on 23 May 08I love what Last.FM Is doing at the minute. Really move forward and asre willing to change everything to make a better product.
Charles Stephens
on 23 May 08Zappos. Potbelly.
Chris Jones
on 23 May 0837 Signals, Threadless, mozilla
john
on 23 May 08wikipedia! can’t believe nobody else mentioned them.
mike o'sulivan
on 23 May 08Tom’s Shoes
this was the clincher for me… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ8c5QWsCRQ
Josh
on 23 May 08Mint.com | Start-up with fantastic personal finance management software.
Dyson | I really like Dyson’s brand. They made me happy to hand over more than $200 for a vacuum.
oneup
on 23 May 08mediaMolecule, Threadless, The Behemoth, Neversoft (because they have a Skate Halfpipe in their Backyard _)
DerekSunshine
on 23 May 08As a music fan, I’ve been digging PaperThinWalls.com.
http://www.paperthinwalls.com
It seems like a real community of music fans (both the primary content writers and members) who are there to help folks find new music. It has a clean design, solid features, good content and doesn’t take itself too seriously.
It IS a subsidiary of Getty Images, but seems to be holding its own.
guynameddave
on 23 May 08I’ll go with all the Etsy.com fans. Also, makezine.com and craftzine.com are great.
Panic.com
Cannot resist throwing in creativecommons.org
Andres
on 23 May 08tomsshoes.com
Jason
on 23 May 08Neiko!
Really gorgeous handmade unisex bags.Love their work!
Mike Holley
on 23 May 08have a mint, panic, macrabbit, automattic, iconfactory
Matthew Scott
on 23 May 0837 Signals, The Trunk Club-an invitation only dudes wanting a style re-design club. I also think Slide Share could be on to something if they built a community like 37 Signals vs. a place to upload and share presentations.
Rob
on 23 May 08Springloops
Mollie
on 23 May 08I love “All-Star Sandwich Bar”, a sandwich place in Somerville, MA’s Inman Square (http://www.allstarsandwichbar.com/). They’re staff are happy, engaged and committed to a great product and experience for their customers. Their product is phenomenal, they’re hip, involved in the community…all-around great place from which I have a lot to learn.
James Young
on 23 May 08Slicehost, Macromates, Threadless, College Humor
Jeff
on 23 May 08Ravelry
Adam
on 23 May 0837signals, Campaign Monitor, SimpleBits, del.icio.us, RevolutionHealth
Rene Baldini
on 23 May 08Well well well well well well well!!! that’s a hard question.
How can I forget about Apple, Google, etc? (Microsoft? bah!).
But, if I have to name a couple I would say:
Threadless.com for sure
37signals.com
Panic.com (best apps ever)
EmaStudios.com (I just love their style)
Vimeo.com the best way of sharing videos! much more easier than youtube!
Dreamhost.com best hosting EVER.
I would say Nintendo too, but they are already big!
Daniel Aborg
on 23 May 08WuFoo.com, for a great idea that is brilliantly executed.
Shane Conder
on 23 May 08Honestly, companies like this one and smugmug. Small, successful, private, and personal.
Michael
on 23 May 08Firewheel Design
Jacob
on 23 May 08Slicehost. And 37Signals.
Andrew Cornett
on 23 May 08nclud
panic (yeah. best apps ever)
vimeo (for being awesome)
live for fame (had to plug my new project!)
Joshua Go
on 23 May 08HP, IBM, and GE. These companies didn’t find success overnight but built it over decades. They’ve also managed to effectively address the question of, “So now we’re big. Now what?” They’re also big on R&D while doing what it takes to make money. They may not make simple/beautiful interfaces and neat-o web tools, but I’m glad that someone’s taking care of making memristors happen, scaling out large enterprise deployments (while corporate decision makers are still reluctant to use Rails, anyway), and building desalination plants. I love the Getting Real philosophy, but sometimes, you need size and really deep technical expertise.
Dave C.
on 24 May 08VANS – No other shoemaker embraces their history as much as VANS, not even Converse. They innovate just enough to stay relevent, but their classic designs withstand the test of time. If they went out of business tomorrow, I’d be screwed.
Staying on the shoe tip, Zappos definitely gets a vote. I have yet to buy a pair of shoes from them, but my wife bought a pair of shoes after 8pm one night and the shoes were on the doorstep the next day with no extra charge for rush shipping. If she hadn’t liked the shoes, she can ship them back free of charge. How many companies offer that kind of service anymore? It just doesn’t exist.
Adam
on 24 May 08Sharpcast.
Giles Bowkett
on 24 May 08Pirate’s Dilemma – wicked excellent book
Edmund Fladung
on 24 May 08Patagonia.
Ugur Gundogmus
on 24 May 08www.craigslist.org
daniel lopes
on 24 May 0837 Signals
Josh A.
on 24 May 08Great advice, and I know you guys discourage having huge companies, and encourage small teams, but think about this: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook all started in a single room; Microsoft, Google, and Facebook at university dorms; Apple and Amazon started in their founders’ garages.
The fact is all companies start small, and it’s up to them whether or not they scale.
Don’t think that just because you’re small you’ll always be, or that you don’t have the potential to change the world.
Christian
on 25 May 08Fishing for compliments, are we ? Well, 37signals deserves that.
Anonymous Coward
on 25 May 08Everything else but 37signals
Jack
on 25 May 08Other than you guys, I think Patagonia is one heck of a beacon. I’m also intrigued by the way the gang at 8020 Publishing has straddled old and new media and I think they’re on to something.
And I want to see where Sun Microsystems is in ten years. I think they’re exploring the idea of whether a corporation can ever really change, and if they succeed I think it will enlighten and surprise us all.
Brett
on 25 May 08Don’t know how they run their business, etc, but they fit the bill for: small start, single-minded dedication to quality, focused business model, brand loyalty, identifying and maximising opportunity, international success, but still controlled by the original owners. Nando’s. Peri-peri chicken restaurant/ fast-food chain. Started with a single take-out in Johannesburg, South Africa, now they have stores throughout the world. And it tastes fantastic!
Daniel Gibbons
on 26 May 08A local (Vancouver-based) company: 1-800-GOT-JUNK. In the most mundane of industries (junk removal) they’ve created a culture of service and accountability, and empowered all of their employees to do what’s right for the customer. They’ve also been smart at using technology as a key differentiator in a commodtized industry. The founder, Brian Scudamore, started the company with no outside capital (he bought one $700 truck) and the company did over $150 million in sales last year.
Ric
on 26 May 08brightbox.co.uk – great rails hosting, with a friendly face and real expertise.
JF
on 26 May 08A local (Vancouver-based) company: 1-800-GOT-JUNK.
Great one. They’re a really interesting company. I’ve used their services and was very impressed with the entire experience.
Nate Burgos
on 26 May 08I don’t have to look far to remain impressed by people persisting at achieving and sustaining entrepreneurial success. I admire my friends and colleagues such as manufacturing consultancy Aptium Global and strategic consultancy Azul Partners. These are mostly collectives of one. Tiny groups making tremendous strides, because size doesn’t matter when it comes to accomplishment. Most of all, these folks are representative of people everywhere demonstrating the passion and power of one, if not only a few, no matter the discipline and industry. Simply enjoying what he/she/they do and just doing it.
erichapman
on 26 May 08moosejaw is a fantastic company! their goal is to have the world’s best customer service. and so far, they’re right on track to achieve that goal.
not to mention, they just sell cool stuff.
Jaxa
on 27 May 08I’ve always kept my eye on woot.com. The way that they’re humorous and innovative and always can add an element of surprise is fascinating and inspiring.
Tom Ross
on 27 May 08Honestly, 37Signals are my biggest inspiration right now, your mentality is just so applicable to almost any kind of business!
JF
on 27 May 08Jaxa: I totally agree re: Woot. Awesome idea, great execution.
Nigel Heap
on 29 May 08These guys 2Large2Email are just starting this company off there concept isn’t that new but … there use interface seams like a cool concept and the promise of fast upload seams well thought out … there still in beta testing stage i thing… hoping for a release soon
techmine
on 29 May 08Camino (http://caminobrowser.org). This is not an idea or great financial prospect but I so much respect what people are doing. And for what?
This discussion is closed.