YouTube: Google buys a video site for $1.65 billion after 20 months
Google paid $1.65 billion in stock for YouTube in 2006, when the site was 20 months old and served 100 million views a day,…
WhatsApp: Facebook pays $19bn for a messaging team of about 50 people
In February 2014 Facebook agreed to pay $19 billion for WhatsApp, a no-ads messaging app with about 50 staff and 450 million users, which…
Duolingo: how game mechanics built a daily habit for 50 million users
Duolingo used streaks, points and short lessons to reach over 50 million daily users in 2025, then chose to put user growth ahead of…
Canva: how a design tool for non-designers grew to $4bn in recurring revenue
Canva turned a free tool for beginners into a business with $4 billion in annual recurring revenue by 2025, then cut its growth forecast…
Shopify: how software built for a snowboard shop became a commerce platform
Shopify grew from a 2004 snowboard shop's software into a platform that handled $378.44 billion of sales in 2025, after adding payments and then…
Zoom: how it handled thirty times the usage in a few months of 2020
Zoom's daily meeting participants rose from 10 million to 300 million within months in 2020, and the company froze new features for 90 days…
Spotify: how a free, ad-funded tier fed a paying audience
Spotify let anyone listen for free with ads, and by 2017 that tier had supplied more than 60 per cent of its new paying…
Tesla: how the 2006 master plan reached the Model S
Tesla's 2006 plan said a sports car would fund a cheaper one; the Model S arrived in June 2012 after a $465 million government…
Dollar Shave Club: a $4,500 video and a $1bn sale
Dollar Shave Club made a razor-subscription start-up from a $4,500 launch video, took share from Gillette, and was bought by Unilever in 2016 for…
Airbnb: how a cereal stunt and better photographs kept a start-up alive
In summer 2008 Airbnb earned a couple of hundred dollars a week, then a $30,000 cereal stunt and a rented camera in New York…
