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The Success Story of Hewlett-Packard (HP)

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HP is not a new name in the IT industry, and the narrative of the company is over 80 years old. The company was founded by two Stanford graduates Bill Hewlett and David Packard, in January 1939.

The two co-founders met each other in a social outing during the time they were studying at Stanford. Both were pursuing a degree in electrical engineering and shared a common interest in starting a business after completing their education. They discussed their idea with their fellowship professor Frederick Terman at Stanford and with his supervision started working on the same.

The two started their company from Packard’s garage in Palo Alto, in 1938, with an initial capital investment of US$538, even without deciding a proper name for it. In 1939, they tossed a coin to decide the name for the company adopting the surname of their names. The toss was among Hewlett-Packard and Packard-Hewlett, in which Hewlett-Packard won.

hewlett-packerd
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The first product from the company was a precision audio oscillator, the Model HP200A. It was cheap and efficient, and became one of the most successful product, commercially. The same product was also used by Walt Disney Productions, for the movie Fantasia, in certifying the Fantasound surround sound systems installed in theatres.

In 1957, the company went public in its initial public offering.

In the 1960s, Hewlett-Packard started producing the semiconductor devices for the instruments and calculators. In 1966, the company entered into a new business of computer manufacturing and rolled out the accumulator-based design HP 2100 / HP 1000 series of minicomputers, followed by the HP 9800 and HP 250 series of desktop and business computers.

In the 70s the company started producing the advanced business computers, i.e. stack-based HP 3000 computers. During the same time, the HP 2640 series smart computers were also introduced that included one of the first bit mapped graphics displays. The same computer was used to develop the first commercial WYSIWYG Presentation Program, BRUNO, by coupling the HP 2100 21MX F-Series micro-coded Scientific Instruction Set.

In the same decade, the company produced the world’s first handheld scientific calculator HP-35, world’s first handheld programmable HP-65, first alphanumeric, programmable, expandable HP-41C and first symbolic, and the graphing calculator HP-28C.

In the 80s, Hewlett-Packard expanded its business to build printers and scanners for desktop computers. With the rise of the internet, the company registered its website domain as HP.com, on 3 March 1986, becoming the ninth Internet .com domain ever. In 1989, HP acquired the Apollo Computer, and in 1995 it acquired the Convex Computers.

By 1998, the company had become one of the leaders in the desktops, laptops, and servers for many different markets. Later, it also started its online service hpshopping.com, to sell its products online, which was rebranded to “HP Home & Home Office Store” in 2005.

In 2005, due to the merger with Compaq, Hewlett-Packard was facing heavy losses in the business. In 2006, the company offered a new range of products in both hardware and software, reducing the costs. In 2007, the company’s revenues skyrocketed, and HP hit the $100 Billion mark for the first time.

In 2011, Hewlett-Packard launched its first tablet named HP TouchPad, followed by the industries’ first wireless mouse. But by the end of the same year, it announced that it won’t be operating in the tablet and smartphone business anymore, and will focus more on the Cloud, solutions and software business.

In the years 2012-13, the Hewlett-Packard faced a great decline in its profits, cutting down 34000 jobs in the same years.

In October 2014, the news of splitting up of Hewlett Packard into two separate companies came into knowledge. The two wings would do their separate business of personal computers and printer manufacturing. Finally, in November 2015, the company separated into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP Inc. retaining the Hewlett-Packard’s stock price history.

Although the company has seen many ups and downs during its long journey, the vast history of HP has introduced the world with many great inventions. The company also gets credits for many patents and will be known for its contribution to the IT industry.

The Story of Hatch Apps : The App To Build Apps

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There are rare cases when your honesty and realization of your fundamental duty would have paid you well. Yes, you might have received appreciation from people, but did it become the biggest business idea for you ever?

This is what happened to the Param Jaggi, who is the co-founder of Hatch App. Param Jaggi is of Indian descent, who dropped out of Vanderbilt University at the age of 19, to work for his own self. He was a brilliant student and even invented EcoTube when he was in school at the age of 16. The EcoTube was built under a science project, that used the algae photosynthesis to reduce carbon emissions from cars. The device worked well and Jaggi patented the device in his name. Jaggi’s father is an engineer and wanted him to become a doctor. But as Jaggi was already working for a better cause, i.e., saving the environment, his family never interfered. Jaggi also sold his innovative bio-fuel preparation method to a Fortune 500 company.

AmeliaParam
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During the same time, he also developed an interest in web development, and later, when he turned 19, he decided to work as a freelancer, as he was already developing web and mobile apps and was earning enough. At that time he was charging $10K to $30 to build simple apps and that too only in a time equal to a weekend. For Jaggi, it had become quite easy to copy paste the similar code in the background of each web app and finish the project within a week. This fact made him think that he was charging way too much for delivering the ‘almost same’ code to every other client. “What’s fundamentally wrong with the software development industry, especially custom development systems, is that they price out products based on your price elasticity”, said Jaggi in an interview.

On the other hand, the other co-founder of Hatch Apps, Amelia Friedman, was also an entrepreneur who started her own business when she was still in college. She was a student of Brown University and was running college-level programs in different languages. At the time she completed her graduate degree, her program had reached to 7 cities, with over 32 different programs.

Founding Hatch Apps

Jaggi was a 19-years old eco-innovator, and Friedman was a self-made entrepreneur. The two got a chance to attend the Halcyon Incubator in Washington, DC, where the two met each other, the very first time. The meeting included the discussion over many things including how Jaggi wanted to bring price stability to the app building industry. And the idea of Hatch Apps was formed.

Jaggi’s plan was clear. He wanted to create a platform, upon which people could build their own apps without paying extra money. In 2015, the two launched Hatch Apps and started working on the basic plan. At the same time, the need for extra funds arisen. So they developed the 2016 Election game in just three days and were able to raise $100,000 for Hatch Apps within a few weeks.

The Hatch Apps is one of its kind, where a user can build apps by just dragging and dropping the elements, without actually knowing the coding behind those elements. During the testing of the app, Jaggi built the first app on Hatch Apps, just in three days even having the deadline of five days.

In March 2017, this software company raised $1.3M in angel funding to launch their product. The company has a team of more than twenty people and charges only $1K a month for app development. For $2K to $5K, customers can implement specific customizations and add-ons.

Jaggi is working as the CEO of Hatch Apps, and Friedman holds the position of the COO of the company. Jaggi has also got his name listed twice in the Forbes “30 Under 30”.

The company is still managing its ways in the market and slowly is getting ahead to earn more consumers. For now, the idea is really innovative and one of its kind, so the future of the company looks quite bright.

Zipcar : The Success Story of One of the Oldest Car-rental Services

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Zipcar has a history even before the car-renting businesses were not even that common. Built by two moms, the idea at the time was unique, and it was their passion that made it successful in just a few months.

Zipcar is an almost 2 decades old company, founded in the year 2000, by Antje Danielson, a Harvard geochemist and Robin Chase, a stay-at-home mom and an MIT business school graduate. The two ladies met each other at their children’s kindergarten, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Both were struggling financially, as Chase had left her job due to the birth of her first child and Danielson was the only working member in her family.

zipcar
Image Source: wright.edu

But as the time was passing both of them wanted to make use of their studies, and as a business graduate, Chase has expressed her desire to start a business with Danielson. Danielson was on the same track and had studied about Switzerland’s Mobility Cooperative, and shared the idea of starting a similar technology based car-rental company, in the US, with Chase. Chase also liked the idea, but it was a big project that included a huge risk. So both talked to their husbands and got the approval for the business.

Finally, in January 2000, both started their car-rental business, Zipcar. Zipcar provided the automobile reservations to its members through charging them a monthly or annual fee. Before incorporating the company, the two had already raised investments for its launch of around $75,000 in startup financing. After they launched the startup, Chase held the position of the president of Zipcar and Danielson became the vice president of the company.

The first rental car from Zipcar went onto the roads in May 2000, and in just three-four months it registered over 600 customers for the service. The company was doing well, but the two co-founders were not going along too well. In 2001, Robin Chase fired Danielson, after Chase petitioned Zipcar’s board for the ability to make hiring and firing decisions without consulting them.

The fire of the co-founder did not impact the company much, and it kept on expanding in New York City and Washington DC. Even the company was expanding, it was unable to secure more funding, and as a result, the board of the company replaced Chase as the CEO of the company with Scott Griffith. Within two years the company was able to raise $10 million in funding led by Benchmark Capital. In the same year, a new office was opened in San Francisco, following by another office in Toronto in the next year. The establishment of Toronto led to the fastest growing market in Toronto for Zipcar.

In late 2006, the company reached London, and in 2007, Zipcar opened an office in Vancouver. In the same year, in the month of October, the company had a merger with Flexcar. After the merger, the company earned over 225,000 members, double the number of the member it had in the previous year.

In June 2009, the company launched its iPhone app, with the features like honking the horn and unlocking some Zipcars. In April 2010, Zipcar acquired the London-based car-sharing club Streetcar.

In 2013, Avis Budget Group acquired Zipcar. In 2014, the company opened its offices in Houston, Dallas TX regions, Greater Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario. In the same year, the company also extended to Paris, France and Madrid, Spain. Zipcar also launched its floating car-sharing service in Brussels, Belgium, in 2016.

Zipcar offers the car rental service for over fifty different car models, even including the luxury car models like Audi and BMW. The company headquarters still remains in Boston, Massachusetts and it has raised to over 500 employees.

The reason behind the success has been that it started through word-of-mouth promotion and had invested well in the technology. The business idea was simple and was based on customer feedback. So in the past two decades, it has grown in a phenomenal way. Even it has been more than a decade for the two co-founders left the company, Zipcar had its own success story. And, the success story of Zipcar shows us that keeping things simple and targeting customer satisfaction is the key to success.

BlaBlaCar : A Successful Startup that Simplified the Long-distance Journeys

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Travelling, for some people is not just moving from one place to the other, but is something which includes emotions. Whether it be homecoming or a trip to one’s dream place, it brings emotion with itself. But the thing is, when it comes to travelling, the fare and the comfort don’t come on the same page. If you need affordable rates, then comfort is something that you need to compromise with, and that goes the other way round when you need high comfort.

But, according to the famous saying, where there’s a will, there’s a way, people have found their way to comfort and affordable travelling through BlaBlaCar. Carpooling, certainly, is a way that gives you the comfort and the affordable rates at the same time. When it comes to carpools, BlaBlaCar is a name that arises from within.

BlaBlaCar is a platform for long distance carpooling. Its app and website connect drivers to passengers who are willing to travel long distances. The benefits of the carpooling service are that the cost of the journey comes into sharing that means you get to experience comfort at an affordable price. Also, the drivers with empty seats get filled in. As of now, BlaBlaCar reaches more than 10 million rides per quarter year. The success story of BlaBlaCar is certainly is the one that inspires depicting that a small picture can be changed into a bigger one.

The idea of the startup came up to the current CEO and the co-founder of the BlaBlaCar, Fredric Mazzella, who in the winter of 2003, decided to visit his home on Christmas. But eventually, he found himself left with no options to travel, as all the trains in France were booked due to the holiday season. He didn’t have a car either, so he was stuck. Luckily, his sister offered him a ride home and during that particular trip, he noticed that most of the cars that were around them, had empty seats. That’s when the idea clicked. He thought, “If I put all those cars with empty seats, in a search engine, such that people can search the available seats in those cars, just like they do while booking a train.” The idea in his mind was something that was unique, and soon after realizing it, he started to work on the same, with his friends Francis Nappez and Nicolas Brusson.

blablacar-founders
Image Source: indexventures.com

However, the journey to build this platform did not start smoothly. The problem that arose was in the implementation of the idea. Precisely, the implementation of a business model was the issue that the co-founders were facing.

In 2006, when the service was launched, it was the ‘Premium Model’ of the platform, that was released first. This model was free to use, but users could pay a monthly or annual fee to get their service higher on the search engine. But the model was discarded, as soon as the company realized that money won’t benefit in the long run and also, that the model could be unfair to many of the users.

Then, BlaBlaCar jumped to ‘Monthly Fee’ plan, but it too was eliminated. Then, they picked up an advertising model, but keeping users’ privacy at stake was unacceptable.

Then the company induced ‘Phone Bridge Model’ into their system. In this model, users could choose to hide their contact numbers while remaining reachable via a pay telephone bridge. But the catch here was that if the company wanted to go global, then the telephone operators all over the world were different. So, this effort also went in vain.

Once during this phase, Fredric asked his M.B.A. professor at INSEAD that whether it’s possible to run a business, without a business model, to which, he replied, “You need a business model or you’ll die!” Those words gave Fredric so much motivation that he ended up on the idea to take risks and learn. As a result, it took 5 years for the company to restructure itself.

Soon, the company saw that there were other companies, like Carrefour, IKEA, that wanted to give services of BlaBlaCar to their employees. After that, there was no stopping, as 200 more companies bought the BlaBlaCar service for their employees. But in 2012, this business model was again put to an end, as each company’s each employee had different requirements which made it difficult to give a collective solution.

But with today’s business model that BlaBlaCar has put into effect has helped them reduce their cancellation from 35% to around 2.5%.

The company has a motto of FAIL. LEARN. SUCCEED. As a result of its past experiences, the company is open to failures and openly says about them. But they ensure that once a mistake is committed, it won’t be repeated. BlaBlaCar has grown all over Europe, and Asia too. For now, the company serves in more than 22 countries, including India, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany etc. BlaBlaCar, currently, is also in talks with France’s National Railway company SNCF for its bus division, so that the platform can provide bus services, too.

The startup that started as a minor one has gained more than $1.5 as funding. The company itself generates revenue of around $91 million. It’s worth, too, is $1.5 billion, which makes it the mater on its own.

The success story shows that personal needs can also be turned into a million-euro idea. It gives us the glimpse that how much innovative ideas our surroundings hold for us. Who knew that the startup which was such a unicorn sized, would grow up to such an extent that it will serve more than 22 countries. The success story of BlaBlaCar is certainly a one filled with eternal inspiration.

Paul Forster : The Man On The Job To Provide You Jobs

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In this era, jobs are hard to find. Also, job hunting stands as a headache for a lot of working professionals, who want to change or start something new for the better. But every problem has its own solution, and when it comes to job hunting or searching, Indeed is there to find the ‘perfect job’ you seek.

Indeed is American employment search engine that works at a global level. In simpler words, you can refer to it as the ‘Google’ of job searching. Indeed was founded by Paul Forster and Rony Kahan, in November 2004, and Paul shares an interesting story about how he came forth with the idea of making the biggest job searching site of all time.

Paul Forster
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Paul was born in Buckinghamshire, England. He did his M.Sc. from Oxford University, followed by an M.A. from Cambridge University, and an MBA from INSEAD. After completing his education, he started looking for a job and ended up working at many. It was his dream to start his own business and was not short of ideas, but wanted to work on something that troubled him the most. In 1988, he worked for International France Corporation, Washington, in the Human resources department. That’s when he realized that there was no job site that focused on providing jobs for the finance professionals.

He discussed this idea with his friend Rony Kahan. They both co-founded Jobsinthemoney.com. It did not take long when the site became a great hit because it, specifically, looked upon the ‘finance department’ of the industry. Jobsinthemoney was bought by eFinancialCareers which is a British Job site.

The next thing that Paul wanted to do was to start a new business. Soon after, with all the creative ideas and knowledge in his head, in November 2004, he launched ‘Indeed’, the first job search engine. In 2005, Indeed launched a beta version of pay-per-click job advertisement network which was similar to that of Google’s idea in 2004. Its working is also very much similar to Google’s. The site drew investments of only $5 million from Union Square Venture, The New York Times and Allen & Company. Indeed is headquartered in Austin (Texas) and Stamford (Connecticut).

Once again, Paul’s idea became a hit as the company became profitable in 2007. Indeed was selected by ‘Time Magazine’ as one of the top 10 websites in 2007 and one of the best 50 websites by ‘PC World’. It also won Weddle’s Users’ Choice Award in 2008 and was named the best job hunting site by Job-hunt.org.

The website’s working is done by aggregating job listings from thousands of websites, job boards, staffing firms, associations and company career pages. The site indexes your content for free but if an employer would want to come up on the searches on the site, Indeed takes a specific amount of payment. It also attracts more traffic to the company site which stands fruitful for both Indeed and the employer company.

Paul, when asked in an interview about “what tool Indeed is”, replied, “We want job seekers to find exactly the right jobs that fit their skills and interests. Our proprietary search algorithm is very effective at doing this with just a few keywords and the location of the job seeker. Users may refine their searches by job title, company name, location and other criteria; and more sophisticated users may conduct advanced queries. Job seekers can easily save their searches by email alert or RSS feed to receive new jobs matching their criteria. They can also set up a ‘My Indeed Account’ to track their job searches. This allows them to save jobs, add notes to jobs and manage their job alerts. These are great ways for both active and passive candidates to track and apply for jobs they are interested in.”

In 2012, the company who ran on just a $5 million funding was sold to Japan’s Recruit Co. Ltd., by the cost of nearly between $750 million to $1 billion, which came as a surprise. The company contributes more than 94% in GDP. The yearly revenues vary between $2 to $5 billion.

The site surpassed Monster.com in traffic job website. As of now, Indeed is the number 1 job site, with more than 250 million visits per month. The site is working in 60 countries and runs in 28 languages. There is a total of 120 million resumes and more than 100 million ratings in and about the site. An approximate of 10 jobs are added per second globally. Indeed has more than 7400 worldwide employees. The site holds the account for more than 500 million salaries which are the greatest number for any industry.

Paul stepped down from the position of CEO of the company in 2012, and at present, is a senior advisor in the company itself. He keeps on investing in technology products and startups that match the meet of the future.

The story of Indeed and Paul Forster is something that tells us that sometimes, the problem itself has the solution which can be easily found if one thinks with a calm and composed mind. Paul Forster, Founder of Indeed, indeed created a site that helps you in the biggest aspects of your life, i.e. job hunting, making it easier with the simplicity and transparency it holds.

Adam Neumann : The CEO & Co-founder of WeWork

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Startups have become a trend these days. Every day we hear about several new innovative ideas, which are brought up in the market, with a pure desire to succeed. The masterminds see the industry as an empty canvas, on which, they want to paint with their own colours. They don’t want to work under some other person’s rules, but they aspire to make their own set of rules.

If you are also a startup genius, there are always 3 questions roaming around in your head. First, ‘Where to get the funding from?’, second, ‘Where to get the workforce from?’ and third, ‘If I get the workforce, from where to start working?’ Alongside, you also need the information and the contacts to get in the community of independent business. Well, the first question depends on your hard work, but when it comes to the second and the third questions, WeWork will get the job done, because Adam Neumann, the co-founder of the company, does everything to provide you with the best of everything.

Adam neumann
Image Source: Forbes

Adam Neumann, the CEO and co-founder of WeWork, was born in Israel, in 1979. He was seven when his parents’ relationship came to an end, and they got divorced. His mother specialised in medical science and moved to the U.S., in 1986. Adam and his sister Adi also moved with her to the United States. After 4 years, the family shifted back to Israel and settled in Kibbutz Nir Am. Adam joined the Israel Navy and served as an officer, for 5 years. As his sister was pursuing a career in modelling, in New York City, she became the reason for him to move to the city after his service in the Israel Navy.

He then graduated from Brauch College, New York. He met Miguel Mckelvy through a mutual friend, and that’s when things took a turn. They both had many similar thoughts about connecting companies to each other and to build a community.

In 2008, they both co-founded Greendesk, in Brooklyn. Greendesk still continues to operate and provides eco-friendly office spaces for any business need, no matter if you are a team or an individual. After Greendesk, Adam switched and started to run a business, which made baby overalls. In 2010, both Adam and Miguel came up with another idea, ‘WeWork’.

When asked about the basic need and the idea of WeWork, Adam said “The truth behind WeWork is that we never saw co-working spaces. I owned a baby clothing business, and there was an empty building. I talked to Miguel. We talked about different things we could do to make that building better. And when we actually got to talking about it, I said that this is my third business, it’s a very difficult thing to start a new business, and if we could create an environment, where entrepreneurs and small businesses can come in, have a space, share services, and help each other to be more successful, then it would be a great product.”

First network lab that WeWork set up was SoHo, New York, in 2011. Soon, the company grew. As of now, it has more than 10 million sq. ft of real estate! It has drawn some big money investments from ‘Goldman Sachs’ and ‘Softbank’. WeWork has more than 5000 employees. Working at WeWork means that you’ll get to play an arcade room and enjoy the free beer!

The company has established its offices in more than 77 cities, in 23 countries, like India, Germany, France, Spain, UK. It has helped more than 20,000 companies, including big names, like Microsoft, Spotify, Facebook, Starbucks, Pinterest etc. It has also given a push-start to startups like Meetup, Consumer, Hack Hands etc.

In January 2019, WeWork was rebranded as The We Company. The corporation is giving a tough competition to real-time Real Estate. It is the biggest property holder in Manhattan (5.3 million sq. ft). Neumann himself has a worth of $4.1 billion (Reported by Forbes) with his company valued at more than $20 billion.

Adam Neumann and his company exhibit the value, a community can hold. It gives a vivid message that a team is better than you standing alone. When problems are tackled by teams, it brings a sense of unity and a better understanding. By being in the community, you are surrounded by geniuses and masterminds, very much available to lend you help whenever you need. Adam, clearly brought a more than needed product into the market to make your offices a better place and ‘you’ a part of the community in easy ways.