Thread by @volodarik

There are many multibillion dollar companies that started out as tools for internal use only.

Here are 10 that will surprise you:

1/ @SlackHQ

In 2011, @stewart (& his team) built it to communicate with each other while working on a game.

The game failed, but he launched the internal messaging app as a team communication tool.

Today, it makes $1B/yr in ARR, & recently Salesforce acquired it for $27.7B.

2/ @basecamp

@37signals, a design consultancy, developed it as an internal tool to manage projects and communication.

Later, clients continuously asked the founder, @jasonfried, about his project management tool—so he launched it.

Today, it has 75K+ companies as customers.

3/ @segment - customer data platform.

It started as a classroom lecture tool allowing students to flag any confusion to the professor, but it failed.

Then, it pivoted to a web analytics tool. It, too, failed due to competition.

Now, the company only had $100K in the bank.

@segment Finally, the founders launched the internal programming tool they had created to build their previous products.

It blew up on GitHub and became the company’s main product.

In 2020, Twilio acquired it for $3.2B. Here is announcement from (maybe my cousin) @ivolo

https://twitter.com/ivolo/status/1315751163262693376

4/ @asana

In 2008, two engineers at FB, Dustin Moskovitz and @rosenstein, developed a project management tool to improve internal team collaboration.

But the tool became so popular on the FB team, they quit FB to work full-time on it.

Today, it makes $378M/yr in revenue.

5/ @hootsuite

Invoke Media, a digital marketing agency, originally developed Hootsuite to manage its customer's social media accounts.

The founders later launched it as a separate product.

Today, it has 25M+ users and makes $250M+/yr in revenue.

6/ @intercom

The founders first developed it to communicate with the users of their existing app, Exceptional.

Eventually, Exceptional shut down, but they doubled down on Intercom—developing tools for support and sales platform.

Today, it makes $300M/yr in revenue.

7/ @freshbooks

@MikeMcDerment built it to help him manage the invoicing and billing for his design firm.

He later launched the same tool for others and found they loved the product—so he went all in.

Today, it generates $50M+/yr in revenue.

@freshbooks @MikeMcDerment 8/ @awscloud

Amazon originally built AWS to manage its infrastructure & services.

Later, the company launched it as a separate product for outside customers.

Today, it generates $80B/yr in revenue.

Here's an excellent deep dive on AWS:

https://twitter.com/businessbarista/status/1413859359348740102

9/ @Mailchimp

The founders first developed it to help their design agency clients send emails.

But in 2007, due to growing demand for the service, they shut down the agency & went all-in on it.

Today, it does $700M+/yr in revenue, & recently Intuit acquired it for $12B.

10/ @MiroHQ

The founders originally built the visual collaboration tool to communicate with their design agency team & clients.

Over time, after realizing the demand for it, they decided to build a company around it.

Today, it has 45M+ users & generates $400M/yr in revenue.

That's the wrap.

If you are building something and hiring engineers, DM me. I run a marketplace of engineers in Europe and LATAM and will gladly give you a discount.

We test and interview every engineer, and you get only qualified candidates.

If not:

1. Follow me @volodarik. I share everything on the way to growing to $100m/y. People say it's fun to watch.

2. RT the tweet below to share this thread with your audience.

https://twitter.com/volodarik/status/1610275857561538561

Another example is WeTransfer

https://twitter.com/patrick/status/1610359266359091202