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5 Inspiring Tech Company Stories that Started in the Garage

January 28, 2022

The grandest ideas are often born in the most unexpected places. In case you didn’t know, some of the biggest tech companies in Silicon Valley spent their early days in a garage. These companies are known for these stories and have inspired a lot because of their quote, unquote humble beginnings. Some even called these stories already part of Silicon Valley’s legendary folklore. It has become a part of the image that the tech industry carries and many startup companies look up to. We listed down some inspiring stories of tech companies that started in their garage spaces.
1. It has been told time and again that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple in the garage of the house where Jobs grew up
Located in Los Altos, California, the house has been named as a historic site by the Los Altos Historical Commission in 2013. There have been news reports of Wozniak saying that the garage story is not entirely true. Yes, it’s true that Jobs and Wozniak discussed a lot of their ideas in the garage and spent a lot of time there. But the designs, prototyping, and planning of products were not done in the garage. There was no manufacturing that happened in the home of Steve Jobs as many people might have been led to believe. Apple started on April 1, 1976.
2. Google was also started by Larry Page and Sergey Brin at a garage in California.
It’s a famous story that search engine Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Menlo Park, California. They rented it out from Susan Wojcicki (current head of YouTube) who owned the house where the garage is a part of. Her charge for the present billionaires back then was $1,700 per month. Now, Google owns the building. To celebrate their early beginnings, Google recreated the garage on its 20th anniversary held last 2018. It hosted a fun interactive game with followers by letting them look for the building on Google Maps.
3. Another garage story in California was when Bill Hewlett and David Packard founded HP in the garage of Packard's Palo Alto home.
In 1987, the house was designated as a historic site. HP just bought the house in 2000 and it was already worth $1.7 million. They developed the audio oscillator in that garage which eventually led to their big break. Afterward, they sold it to Disney that used it for their film, Fantasia. People refer to this historic garage as the "birthplace of Silicon Valley."
4. During the early days of Microsoft, Bill Gates, and Paul Allen were bouncing off ideas and working on them in a garage at Albuquerque.
The Sundowner Motel was their home base for the meantime. This place saw the first version of the BASIC programming language that jumpstarted it all for Microsoft. Now that motel has become an affordable housing development.
5. It is also no secret that one of the richest men in the world, Jeff Bezos, started Amazon in his home in Bellevue, Washington.
It was in 1995 and during that time, his former wife MacKenzie Bezos and himself rented the place out for $890 per month. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Jeff Bezos himself confessed that there was a part of him that chose the house because it has a garage where he could have a Hewlett-Packard-like origin garage story. Who knew Amazon would be as big as it is now? In 2019, for over $1.5 million, the house was sold. It was remodeled in 2001 so it doesn’t look exactly like the house that the Bezoses lived in. The garage most probably does not look the same as well. For consolation, the mailbox that Bezos used to receive book catalogs for Amazon is still standing there.
Inspiring Startups All Over the World
Do you also want an inspiring garage story? Well, you could do anything as long as you set your mind and heart to it. Once you have that million-dollar idea you want to pursue, don’t hesitate and work on fulfilling your dream. Life is too short to simply dwell on possibilities without doing anything to make them a reality. The next step to do is to start decluttering your garage. Make sure to take out all of the items and pile them properly in a different secured area apart from your garage. Decide which ones you are going to keep, sell, donate, and discard. Work on getting the discarded items removed from your possession. Afterward, thoroughly clean your garage from the ceiling to the floor. Decide then what smart storage solutions are you going to install to maximize the space of your garage. Here are FlexiMounts items you could use to organize your items stored in the garage.
CLASSIC 4′ X 8′ OVERHEAD GARAGE STORAGE RACK GR48-H
This overhead garage storage rack is 4’x8’ in size. It’s made of cold-roll steel and uses thick screws, both guaranteeing the product to be sturdy and safe to hold up to 600 pounds. This also stands out in the market because of the integrated grid design that enables it to be assembled easily. It all comes in one box with the hardware and instructions included in the package. Most people will encounter problems during installation but this one’s easy to install by following the package’s step-by-step installment instruction and template. What we love about this storage rack is it’s waterproof. You can avoid damaging your seasonal items from water or if water leaks in your ceiling when the rain falls hard in your town. Moreover, this garage storage rack is height adjustable. Each tier can be adjusted from 22” to 40” that can be entirely customizable to you.
CLASSIC 2-PACK WALL SHELVING WR SERIES
This wall mount shelving solution has a weight capacity of 200 to 400 pounds in total. It’s made of powder-coated steel that is guaranteed to be of top material that has gone through strict tests. It has a buckle design that prevents falling and can be mounted on studs or a concrete wall. Three storage spaces are available for this wall shelf: 2’ x 4’, 1 x 6, and 1’ X 4.’ It comes in black or white.