Oprah named Spanx one of her favourite products of 2000 and sent a TV crew round to the company’s headquarters at the time – Sara’s apartment.
Zipcar
Zipcar is now the world's largest car sharing service, with over 650,000 members using more than 9,000 cars.
eBay
In Forbes's 2010 list of the world's billionaires, Pierre Omidyar was listed at number 148 with personal wealth of around $5.2 billion.
Etsy
Etsy initially launched as a free e-commerce site for crafters simply because the billing system wasn't built yet.
Groupon
Groupon's IPO was priced at $20 a share, above its planned $16–18 range, raising $700 million in the highest-valuation IPO since Google in 2004.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn became one of the few companies that thrived in the recession that hit during the late 2000s, benefiting from the increased number of people on the hunt for jobs.
Twitter
Giving himself the handle @jack, founder Jack Dorsey created the first post on March 21, 2006: "just setting up my twttr."
Trip Advisor
When Trip Advisor first started out, they never intended to appeal to the end user but instead planned on selling their content to travel companies.
Gatorade
Gatorade is now a PepsiCo "mega brand" generating $7 billion in annual sales for the drinks giant.
Dropbox
Dropbox's early growth strategy was simple: go where your first followers hang out and make yourself visible.
Google
Google's homepage has retained its design simplicity, despite the fact that it could potentially be a source of considerable extra income. As a result, it loads quickly, improving the customer experience.
The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2011. It now owns more than 500 brands and sells 1.7 billion beverage servings each day.
IBM
Today, over 100 years since the founding of the business, IBM has grown to become the world's largest computer manufacturer, operating in over 200 countries with more than 425,000 employees.
KFC
Some might say that Harland Sanders was a late bloomer: it wasn't until 1940, when he was 50 years old, that he created the recipe for which the business is so famous today.
Microsoft
Microsoft's spectacular performance in the stock market made an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires out of Microsoft employees alone.
Match.com
Electric Classifieds shut down after selling off Match.com in 2001. However in 2004, original founder, Gary Kremen, bought the debts for $300,000 and then sold off some patents he had filed while at the company for a couple of million dollars.
Blackberry
RIM was the first wireless data technology developer in North America.
Jamba Juice
The investor group for Jamba Juice needed patience – the company did not go public until 2006, a 16-year wait for the early investors.
Pinkberry
As Pinkberry's first store had no parking, devoted customers would park illegally. It became known as the $60 yogurt – it was $5 for the yogurt and $50 for the ticket.
Whole Foods Market
Unlike many other successful entrepreneurs, John Mackey still sits at the helm of Whole Foods, retaining an active role in the company's affairs as its CEO.
The Walt Disney Company
While we might naturally associate the company's origins with Mickey Mouse, the real story involves a rabbit, and several years of hard work, creditor disagreements and mutiny.
Electronic Arts
Trip based EA on a music-industry business model as he wanted to treat his software developers as "artists".
Pixar
Pixar's Toy Story 3 became the highest grossing animated film by any studio to that date, earning over $1 billion.
Zynga
The name for Zynga originates from Mark Pincus's beloved pet American bulldog, Zinga. The domain name Zinga.com was already taken, so with a spelling change, the name became Zynga in February 2008.
Chipotle
Riding on Chipotle's success, Steve Ells has launched a second fast-casual concept, ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen offers Thai, Vietnamese and Malaysian cuisine.
No one is born a CEO, but no one tells you that. 
Drew Houston, Dropbox
